Approaching the room with the empty stasis chambers, I felt a slight sense of déjà vu. Wasn't this the exact same section where the heroes of the show did exactly what I intended to do?
Teyla was looking around with slight confusion; Kiryk was frowning. Kanaan and the second Athosian were on guard by the teleportation cabin. Just in case.
"Are you sure you want to go?" the former runner asked the moment I activated the pod.
The transparent lid rose with a soft hiss. At the same moment, an anatomical bed slid out from the wall. A bit narrow, certainly, and that "headrest" reminded me of an executioner's block where heads are usually chopped off. Or opened with pathological saws.
"No choice," I cut him off. "The Wraith will be here soon. The least I can do is establish contact with the crew."
"This could be dangerous," Teyla worried.
"The pod creates a feedback loop between the virtual reality processor—or the virtual environment they have in there," I pointed to the nearest pod with an Ancient inside, "and the brain. You can get out simply by wishing it. Но leaving without doing anything, abandoning the crew or destroying the ship so it doesn't fall to the Wraith, is not an option. At least not yet."
I would blame myself for the rest of my days if I didn't try to see this through to the end.
The bed in this pod was rather hard, I had to admit. Though, the mattresses on Atlantis clearly weren't stuffed with down either.
"What if everything doesn't go according to plan?" Teyla asked, approaching the pod.
"On the panel," I pointed to a small vertical console located to the right of my pod, "there is a large white button. Yes," Kiryk pointed to the massive key I had used to prepare the pod for immersion, "that's the one. It controls the pod's operation. Pressing it can either pull me out or send me in. If I don't come out in two and a half hours, press it. Or," seeing the disapproving look on Kiryk's face, I had to clarify, "if the Wraith arrive sooner. Or in any other emergency situation. At worst, Alvar will buy us time, cover us so we can get out of here before everything goes to hell."
Though, I wasn't sure the Wraith, upon discovering the Aurora, would destroy it. Its purpose is clearly known to them. In their place, I would do everything to get any known information from the Ancients. Even if the latter are currently something less than frozen vegetables in a refrigerator.
"What if the battleship shuts down again?" Teyla asked.
"It shouldn't this time," I assured her. "Mainly, keep an eye on Koschei. He must stay in the brig until I say otherwise. Remember?"
"Yes," Teyla spoke for both of them.
"I'll watch him," Kiryk promised, looking me in the eye. "Two and a half hours. No more. Then I'm pulling you out."
Hopefully not with a sledgehammer.
Lying down comfortably, I gave the signal. Kiryk pressed the indicated key.
"Well, here we g—" I decided to encourage myself with a famous phrase. But I plunged into darkness.
And then came the light.
***
"—o," I finished, standing inside an exact replica of the room where I had lain down in the stasis pod. I looked around.
"Some kind of déjà vu," I muttered, smoothing my tunic with my hands. I turned out to be dressed in the exact same uniform I had first put on when I appeared in Atlantis. Nostalgia, indeed...
Everything around was exactly as I had seen in reality. Except that in the virtual environment, the pods were absent. In their place were decorative panels. Curious.
The light was annoying—it was white-blue. And the walls of the Aurora, it seemed, were clearly not lit that way by it. The starship is actually painted in light tones on the inside! I hadn't noticed this in reality because it was dark. And I was a bit preoccupied with repairing the teleportation chamber to bother studying the interior.
I didn't have time to think about anything else: the door opened with a soft hiss, and a young man walked in, peering into the screens of an Ancient laptop.
Just like that. No "tutorial," no instructions on how to behave in virtuality. Then again, they don't usually write instructions on how to cut with a knife either... And for the Ancients, apparently, such technologies...
"Ouch!" I involuntarily let out the moment the Ancient kid (no, seriously, he's about twenty years old!) rammed into me at full speed.
Dropping his laptop, he jumped back from me as if scalded.
He grabbed something on his belt very similar to those flashlights with built-in tasers that were popular at one time and jabbed it in my direction:
"Who are you? What are you doing in a restricted section?"
"In which one?" I clarified.
"This is the deck distribution hub, the energy section," he muttered. "Access here is permitted only to technical personnel. That is, me and my subordinates! I do not know you!"
"Ah," I nodded. "Want some advice?"
I just can't treat a person whose skin still shows traces of acne as an adult! And these, damn them, are Lanteans?! Even we, the backward (compared to them) Earthlings, invented Clearasil! It works poorly, granted, but the fact remains!
The guy frowned, clearly bewildered. Well, great, the plan is working... By the way, what was the plan? Ah, yes, get to the Captain as quickly as possible! Well, I'll definitely get to him. Might as well pass the time.
Curiously, when the Earthlings connected to the Aurora's virtual environment in the same way, they were met by this very same lad. Does he have a ten-thousand-year watch here? At this exact door?
"Security to the third distribution hub," the boy kept me at bay with the taser weapon, touching a small brooch under his collar with his fingers. The ornament was an Ancient communication device. But... how to put it simply... You can whisper into it. Но what they say back to you—everyone around will hear. "What advice did you want to give me?"
"Before poking a high-tech dildo in a man's face, you should first introduce yourself," I said as friendly as possible. Yes, I can say that. He won't understand anyway...
"How can you compare a weapon to an item of an intimate nature?" he was taken aback.
...way. And he's looking at the device in his hands with a suspicious new perspective. Daaaamn... Please, just don't think about testing that in practice. Otherwise, it'll be like that joke about the guy who hanged himself on a doorknob with a towel. Universe, don't be harsh with me. I didn't break the Ancient on purpose.
I snapped my fingers to get his attention.
"Don't think about it," I requested. "Better introduce yourself."
"Why should I tell you my name?" he was indignant. "Security will be here soon and..."
"Because, my young friend, you are waiting for help from Atlantis," I reminded him.
"Yes," he frowned. "And..."
"And I have come. My name is Michael."
"Ihaarh," he said, embarrassed, putting the weapon back in its holster. "Senior Engineer of the battleship Aurora. We have waited for you for so long..."
"Igooooor!" the cry of a grandmother named Andrey Rozhkov rang in my head. Complete with the signature cross-dressing and intonations... In short, you have to see and hear it.
I had to shake my head to toss out the ill-timed analogy. He actually has a strange name. I always thought Ancient names had a Latin slant. In this universe, by the way, the Ancient language became its progenitor.
This escaped my new acquaintance because, through the same path he had taken earlier, two guys about thirty years old entered the room with extremely unfriendly looks.
Well then... Here we go...
***
Unlike what I saw in the show's footage, the Aurora's bridge in the virtual environment looks much more... alive, somehow. Although even there it looked more like a place where a drunk prop master came to work drunk. And decided that a mess would be more beneficial to the creative process.
In the virtual environment, the ship's bridge, while differing from the one on the Hippaphoralkus, still bore a significant resemblance to it. In design, for example.
I even stared at how neat and clean everything was... And comfortable, when the bridge isn't manned by just a couple of people who know what at least a few buttons on the consoles in front of them are for. Though, I must admit, in the role of the Aurora's Captain, I would have a hard time—two consoles right in front of my eyes...
But I think the Captain, that sturdy gray-haired man currently occupying the command chair, isn't as miserable as I am. At least because he was currently talking about something with a pleasant middle-aged lady standing nearby in a tight uniform, quite different from those worn by other female Ancients on board the ship.
Talk about a fleet where women in senior officer positions have it easy... The uniform is tailored, the sleeves are open, and hair doesn't have to be tucked away but can be worn in large curls... Smells like fraternization, you know...
"Captain, Senior Officer," oh, Ihaarh, you're here too? I didn't even notice him tailing me and the security thugs. "The detainee has been delivered."
The man sitting in the chair turned to me. Curiosity was reflected on his face, which was covered in a web of age wrinkles. His assistant, however, measured me with a disdainful look, as if I were a courier who was two hours late delivering her favorite pizza. "Bitch," I decided. And it wasn't just because she acted that way in the show—there were reasons for it there.
But in reality, she doesn't seem like a sweetheart either.
"Curious..." the ship's commander said, studying me with interest. "You are wearing our uniform..."
And that's how he started the conversation in the show. Are they scripted here or what?
"And you don't know me," I finished the sentence for him.
"True," he was slightly surprised. Apparently, he really hoped to say it himself.
The Ancients surrounding us looked at me like a curious little animal. Annoying.
"Let's get straight to the point," I suggested.
"Try it," the Captain nodded. "Start from the part where you introduce yourself as a person from Atlantis but did not enter a security code upon immersion into the virtual environment."
Um...
"I don't think modern access codes would be recognized by an outdated computer," I tried to be clever.
"I don't think a rescue team would have overlooked such details," the bitch said unexpectedly pleasantly. "A security code would have helped us avoid awkward situations like this. It would be better if you clarified this situation. Mutual trust is important for all of us in such troubled times."
"Easy," the Captain requested.
Hmm... Now it's clear why the events in the show unfolded exactly that way. Why it was a replacement rather than an entry through any free pod.
"You know, Officer Trebal, you're much nicer when there isn't a Wraith in you," I blurted out. No, seriously, she's quite pretty.
And... I shouldn't have said that. All the pleasantness vanished from her instantly.
"I beg your pardon?" she said in an icy tone.
Well, how to explain that in the show I watched in another universe about this universe, the Wraith, having discovered the Aurora, pulled Trebal, the Captain's assistant, out of her stasis pod, killed her, and replaced her in virtual reality with one of their own, faking the blonde's appearance? At best, I'd get a cell, and one with padded walls at that...
"No, it is I who should apologize," I backed down. "In ten thousand years, humor... has undergone some changes."
A gasp of amazement rippled through the gathered Ancients. And only then did it hit me.
"You didn't know how long you've spent in stasis?" I asked.
"We did not," the Captain said sadly. "The system is programmed so that the sense of time slips away. This allows for the reduction of psychological pressure. Well... that explains a lot."
Seriously? And what does it explain?
"Sir," I addressed the man. But he only raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Sir?" he repeated. "Is that some form of address?"
"In ten thousand years, everything could change," Trebal suggested. "Including rescue protocols. Otherwise, they wouldn't have sent such a young specialist alone."
"Perhaps," the Aurora's commander turned to the console for a moment, his fingers running over the buttons. Curious... nothing new appeared on any of the screens.
I glanced at Ihaarh. The guy looked about five years younger than me. And he's already a Senior Engineer on a combat battleship.
"Young?" I clarified.
"Forgive Officer Trebal," the ship's commander requested, turning back toward me. "Sometimes her humor is... misplaced."
"Then we have something in common," Trebal ignored the smile I gave her. "Captain, may we speak in private?"
"You read my mind," he sighed, getting out of the chair and pointing to the passage through which I had entered the bridge. "Let's take a walk. We have much to discuss, long-awaited compatriot."
The security guards who had escorted me here and stood behind me stepped aside silently, letting us into the corridor. Interestingly, no one followed us. Discipline, indeed.
The commander showed trust in me, and clearly no one intended to dispute his decision. And I like that...
We turned into one of the corridors and entered a small room. Something nondescript, given the absence of control panels and crew members. But transport containers... were present. Several of them. Hmm, couldn't find a better place than to stack everything next to the bridge?
The Captain silently pointed to one of them. He himself sat on a second one so as to look me straight in the eye.
"Start talking," he commanded coldly, despite the friendly expression on his face. "The truth. From the very beginning."
Well... this is going to be a difficult conversation.
***
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