Vaermina Writes
patreon
Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 79
🕑 Added 2025-04-23 21:06:19 +0000 UTCChapter 79 - Assistance Welcome
In hindsight Eventus probably should have expected Daniel to rush his newly raised suspicion about Author’s Mantle to O’Neill and Landry. After all, from what he remembered Stargate Command didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to dealing with the machinations of Ascended beings.
The following request that he take a look at the device was perfectly logical given the Lantean had been openly using a somewhat similar laptop while trying to fix the body swapped pair two days ago.
He’d said yes of course, as the roundabout suggestion from Ganos Lal that he try to find the High Council’s classified archives was still fresh in his mind. And if anyone knew where that ended up, it was the formerly Ascended High Councilor.
So he and Daniel had left a pair of soldiers to babysit Rayla and Vala before heading over to Samatha Carters nearby lab, where Eventus had spent a good twenty minutes discussing potential optimizations of the bare bones charging pad design he’d provided them before General O’Neill had arrived with a somewhat put upon looking Sergeant Silar carrying the device behind him.
Carter motioned the sergeant towards the testing bench. “Set it there.”
Silar nodded and set the device down on the metal table before showing a remarkable sense of caution and making a hasty retreat from the room.
“Jack?” Daniel inquired of the General in obvious confusion at his presence here.
“Wanted to see what the big hullabaloo was about.” O’Neill returned simply.
There was probably more to it than that, but Eventus wasn’t going to pry given it didn’t really matter to him how many people watched this particular attempt.
Reaching into one of his pockets he pulled out the thin 6 inch long rod inside, squeezing it slightly, he ignored the odd looks the three were giving him as the rod telescoped out to its full 60 inch length.
“That can’t be what it looks like.” Carter muttered skeptically.
“It’s a high strength, low weight, non-conductive alloy rod used for testing various unknowns that might be encountered during maintenance team field work.” Eventus offered helpfully as he maneuvered the rod towards Merlin’s laptop and used the end to gently press down what on a normal model would have been the power button.
“Sam?” O’Neill prodded after a moment passed with absolutely nothing happening.
“A high tech stick to poke things with, sir.” Carter explained, sounding almost like she couldn’t believe she had just said those words out loud.
“You’d be surprised how often it proved useful in my previous profession.” Eventus offered, retracting the rod and letting out a slightly annoyed sigh. “I didn’t think it would work, mind you, but it never hurts to try things like that before moving on to more risky options.”
“Eh, fair enough.” O’Neill said, frowning slightly as he glanced between Eventus and the device. “There a reason you were poking it though? Cause we've had Siler carrying it around, and if he's going to turn into a frog or something it would be nice to know beforehand.”
“If that happens it's probably just an airborne hallucinogen at work.” Eventus returned idly, taking a moment to steel himself before inching towards the device.
“You know.” Daniel put forward awkwardly. “You don't have to help with this, I'm sure Sam can handle it.”
“No, it's fine.” Eventus returned as he cautiously reached forward and tapped the power button with his actual finger.
Nothing happened, and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. “No response at all from the standard power button. So either the power crystals dead, the system is locked up, or he set up some sort of nonstandard power on method.”
“A surprisingly standard set of options.” Carter mused half to herself.
Eventus held back a chuckle. “I don't know about you, but a good ten percent of the problems I had to fix over the centuries involved turning a thing off and then back on again.”
“The standard forced reset command involves holding down the power button, At symbol, and zero key for twelve seconds.” He narrated, using the words as a distraction while he performed the procedure to a complete lack of any viable effect.
“So.” O’Neill drawled after a moment. “Dead battery?”
It wasn't, though if Eventus recalled right the power crystal was in fact nearing the point of depletion since there had been an episode of the show about that.
“Maybe.” He lied, turning to Daniel with a semi-hopeful look on his face. “Would it be too much to hope that you found something which could be Moros's password?”
“Maybe try password?” O’Neill joked.
Daniel shook his head apologetically. “There was nothing like that in the book I found.”
Eventus frowned in thought, because he really didn't want to try his last option. “Did your people's myths about Merlin say whether he had any children? Lovers? Maybe a representative word associated with him?”
After all, Moros had obviously wanted regular people to be able to access the device given he had left it with relatively easy to access treasure, so it wasn't likely to be something impossible for them to guess.
Pursing his lips, Daniel unconsciously began reaching up to adjust a non-existent pair of glasses before catching himself. “Well, assuming the myths about him having to remain a virgin to maintain his powers weren't actually true.”
“I can fully confirm that a lack of virginity has absolutely no effect on psionic abilities.” Eventus interjected, unable to keep the grin off his face.
“In which case he had a number of potential relationships.” Daniel continued without missing a beat. “Nimue, Morgan Le Fay, Sebile, Gwendolen. If you include non-romantic linked relationships there’s the obvious of Arthur, and some stories which suggest he might be Mordred’s uncle due to Morgan Le Fay actually being Merlin’s sister.”
“Morgan Le Fay was just Ganos Lal by another name.” Eventus offered, not seeing any reason to hold that particular bit of information back. “She was the head archivist of Atlantis, and really didn’t get along with Moros too well due to the way his interventionist policies during the early days of the Wraith war directly led to the death of her wife.”
“Her wife?” O’Neill repeated in a tone of mild intrigue, only to give an exaggerated wince when Carter lightly elbowed him in the side.
Eventus bit his lip to keep from laughing as he entered each of the names into the keyboard in turn. “If you want a breakdown of Lantean romance practices I’m sure Doctor Weir would be more than happy to send you some documentation on the subject.”
Letting out a sigh as once more there was no response from the device, he turned to the onlookers before grimacing slightly. “I was really hoping to avoid trying to mentally connect with the device, since if there was anything Moros would set up a security feature to protect against it would be another Lantean attempting that. But it’s the only thing left to try short of recharging the power crystal or attempting to engineer some sort of manual workaround.”
“There’s no need to push yourself if you don’t think it’s safe.” Daniel put forward, giving a somewhat awkward smile that looked very much out of place on Vala’s face. “I’m sure Sam can figure something out given some time to work at it.”
Shaking his head, Eventus tossed the trio a wry grin. “Given everything McKay has said about Samatha Carter’s genius I have very little doubt that she would be able to figure something out given a few days to work on it. I’m just hesitant to let it go without trying because there’s also a very real possibility that Moros left a message behind on it for any survivors who might discover the device. ”
“Mckay talks about me?” Carter asked, her tone making it clear that she didn’t know how to feel about that idea.
“It’s inevitable.” Eventus confirmed with a pitying shake of his head. “His inferiority complex is constantly being agitated by the fact that he can’t actually tell the rest of your world about all the good he’s doing. Because of which he’s basically latched onto you as the only peer he can reliably compare himself too.”
“Oh.” Carter muttered, clearly not expecting the direction Eventus had gone with that.
“Given how important feelings of pride and accomplishment are to the type of human personalities attracted to work like your Atlantis expedition. You might want to start handing out at least some openly public awards to your civilian contractors. Or at the very least let them publish the various scientific papers they write under their own names instead of the pseudonyms you make up to hide their participation in the Stargate program.”
There was a lot more he wanted to say about the subject given that sort of “credit theft” was almost antithetical to the way his people had done things. However that could wait till sometime when he wasn’t just delaying things due to his own uncertainty.
“Okay, so, if I pass out or get tossed across the room don’t be overly alarmed unless I don’t wake up by tomorrow.”
With that warning given Eventus set his hands on the device and attempted to link his mind to the neural interface.
The concrete and metal room he was standing in vanished, and Eventus was left blinking muted in surprise at the endless expanse of darkness he found himself standing in.
“Well this is unexpected.” A recognizable voice muttered from behind him, and Eventus spun around to see the very normal form of High Councilor Moros standing before him.
“Huh.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author’s Notes: Always expect the unexpected I say. Makes things easier when it actually happens.
Comments
Marius Petrauskas
nice
Miguel Garcia
And then Merlin began a rendition of “Genie in a Bottle” by Christina Aguilera
Mithras131
Punch him in the face! Repeatedly!
