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gilascaveEr, yeah. So I sat down to write an angsty Carson Beckett story and this happened. Chapters one and two are done, and I have to ponder where the rest is going. But for your entertainment here is the prologue and chapte rone. Chapter two will be up soon.
I've done a basic spellcheck, but not polished it. That'll happen no doubt once I finish writing it.
The M/S slash is secondary to the Beckett plot, but it's there so I tell you. No clue who Carson wants to schtupp, but I generally don't write non-slash, so.. I imagine he'll be with someone, sometime.
Rated PG13, vague spoilers through whatever has aired so far.
Alone in Your Mind
by James
Prologue
One very important thing Elizabeth Weir had done, when preparing her team for the mission to Atlantis, was consider the social aspects of taking 200 people to another galaxy from which they might not ever return home. She'd discussed it with some of the SGC psychologists and anthropologists, as well as General Hammond and in the end she'd drafted a revised code of conduct, based in extremely small part on the US Air Force's code of conduct as applied to the SGC.
Things like rules against fraternisation had had to be re-written to deal with the fact that 200 people alone together, far from home, were eventually going to start having sex with one another. If it turned out to be years before they returned to Earth -- the issue of families, and succeeding generations, had to be taken into account as well. No one talked about it yet, but it might be that their children or grandchildren would be the ones to return to Earth someday.
That meant there had to be children, and grandchildren.
Individual members of her team had been selected based on expertise and adaptability, as well as psychological profile and personality. It was impossible to ensure that everyone would get along, but she'd taken every step she could to ensure that most of the team would at least tolerate everyone else, and be professional and mature enough to deal with the fact they were stuck with each other indefinitely.
She'd taken pride in seeing how well her selections had turned out as the months went on and, for the most part, everyone seemed to get on. Of course there were personality conflicts and disputes, but nothing that disrupted the overall mission or overall social stability of the city.
It was rapidly becoming their home in feel, as well as reality -- they'd been in Atlantis for little under a year based on the earth calendars their laptops kept track of for them. The holidays committee had a huge anniversary celebration planned, coinciding with the planet's autumn solstice. People were celebrating birthdays and organising social events -- and forming relationships, both casual and not-so.
Dr Weir had her suspicions that sometime in the next few months, they were going to be holding a wedding for Dr Carol Bennett and Corporal Lance Mason. Or Robert DeBauer and Frederick Danson would be the first, if they could ever agree on which part of the newly-opened section of the city they wanted to make their new living quarters in. Living together was not a necessary step to being married, but Dr Weir felt that it was still an open question if Robert and Frederick would end up strangling one another while arguing over whether or not they wanted living quarters with windows, or an extra room.
All in all, Dr Weir felt like everything was going extremely well.
She'd even -- almost -- got used to finding John and Rodney making out in the hallways.
There were many things she was glad for, and trying to keep levels of closed-minded bigotry out of the Atlantis team was high on the list. She prided herself on a reasonably high personal level of acceptance of the rights to individuals to do whatever they damn well pleased, in their private lives. But it still didn't ever prevent her brain from stuttering to a stop and asking itself -- *John* and *Rodney*? -- whenever she caught them.
And lord, it seemed like she caught them a lot. Sometimes she thought about instilling rules about public displays of affection, and forbid anyone from making out where she was likely to stumble upon them. That wasn't entirely fair, she knew, and she was perfectly willing to make it a very specific rule applicable only to the major and Dr McKay.
She thought very seriously about it whenever John pissed her off. Which, once he'd started sleeping with Rodney, had become less often. She knew it was because he had less time to get into trouble, than the fact that Rodney might actually be being a good influence on him.
In the end, however, she just told herself she should be happy that so many of her team were settling in to Atlantis, and finding friends and more among the available pool, and that Dr Piotr Vordrosky had finally taken her hints that she was not interested in having dinner with him in the privacy of his quarters.
********
CHAPTER ONE
"Dr Gallagher, would you please--" Carson Beckett stopped as he realised the woman was ignoring him. He stepped closer to the table, well aware of the danger in getting too close to a scientist at work. He carefully didn't touch anything, nor did he try to get in her line of sight as she scribbled notes. "Dr Gallagher," he tried again.
She glanced up. "Yes, Dr Beckett? Oh! Dr Beckett, could you please--" She rummaged through the equipment on the table before her, and Carson's hopes that she would have any idea why he was here, were dashed.
"Dr Gallagher," he started again. "I know it may not seem all that urgent that you get your regular physical," he paused as she thrust a small metal band at him. It was a piece of Ancient technology, which made him realise exactly what she was going to say next. He shook his head. "No, no--"
"Could you try to make this work? I haven't had a chance to get any of the other ATA folks down here. I'm not really sure what it does," she added, frowning at it.
As though that would encourage him? Carson shook his head, still wary of anything to do with technology he didn't understand. He'd got used to certain, simple things - like doors. But a small, curved piece of metal might look innocent yet could end up destroying half the galaxy.
"You missed your appointment, last week, and this morning. I really need you to--"
"Just try it on! We're pretty sure it fits on the wrist," she'd stood up and come over to him, grabbing his arm and moving the band towards him -- obviously intending to slip it on without so much as a by-your-leave. He pulled free and tried to get her attention.
"Dr Gallagher, your *physical.* I'll get Dr McKay to order you, if I have to." Between alien diseases, injuries, and god knew what else, it was important to keep up-to-date records on everyone's health. Most of the others understood, and showed up for their scheduled appointments. It was only the occasional absent-minded professor who seemed to forget.
She blinked at him, looking thoroughly confused behind her thin-rimmed glasses.. "Dr McKay? What's he got to do with it?"
"He's your superior, isn't he? He can order you to get yourself down to the infirmary."
"Why am I going -- oh! My physical!" She nodded, and Carson sighed. "Right, that's next week! I think this will fit just like this--"
Carson was about to try to explain to her that next week was *this* week, or even last week, when she grabbed his arm again. He pulled back, but this time he wasn't fast enough. She got the band onto his wrist before he got free.
The metal, or whatever the substance was, felt cold. As he reached for it to snatch it off, he noted that it fit loosely. As his fingers touched it, the top of the band glowed blue and the ends of the band tightened around his wrist.
"Oh, bloody hell," Carson whispered. He stared at it -- the band changed, expanding a long, thin strip up and down the back of his wrist. It was that part which glowed blue, as though a stone had been set into a bracelet.
"Oh, excellent!" Dr Gallagher clapped her hands. "So.. what does it do? Can you make it do anything?"
Carson wanted nothing more than to take it off and never see it again. He looked up at Gallagher, swallowing nervously. "It's...a maintenance interface."
"A what? How do you know?" She'd grabbed a notebook and started writing things down.
Carson was having difficulty seeing it, through the schematics and lists that were scrolling before his eyes. Atlantis had gone a long time without an active maintenance crew, and there was a long, long list of things to be done. THe first few lines had been in the Atlantean script, but as soon as he'd realised he couldn't read it, he'd been given an option to select a translation.
Merely thinking it had been enough, and now he was looking at a list written in scots gaelic, describing mechanical and engineering problems that needed somebody with two hands and a tool-belt to deal with.
"Dr Beckett? How do you know what it is? It isn't doing anything." Gallagher's voice intruded through the visuals, and he tried to answer her question.
"I can...see it."
She looked around, doubtfully. "Where?"
Grimly, Carson tapped his forehead. "RIght here."
Gallagher gaped at him for a long moment, before her face changed into an expression of scientific glee.
Carson just wanted the bloody thing to switch off so he could go home and hide under his bed. The schematic responded with an illustration of the furniture in his quarters and how it could be adjusted to accommodate a person his size, underneath its frame.
Closing his eyes, Carson groaned. Which didn't help, because with his eyes shut it was impossible *not* to see the information scrolling in his mind. He tried getting the list to stop by thinking about the fact he was a medical doctor, not a maintenance man. That had prompted a new scroll -- orientation for new personnel. He couldn't help but read it, caught by the information he found in the first 'page' of instructions. He read through it twice, noting absently how responsive it was to the merest thought. He could scroll back and forth and call up new pages as questions occurred.
The summary was, of course, that he was screwed.
*******
"Let me get this straight," Dr Weir sat back in her chair in the conference room, looking from Dr Gallagher to Dr Beckett. Carson had a vaguely distracted look on his face which she assumed was understandable under the circumstances.
"It's intended for a member of the city's maintenance crew," Dr Gallagher repeated. "It apparently plugs them in directly to aspects of the Atlantis computer system, so they can... maintain it."
"This is extraordinary." Rodney leaned forward, glancing from Carson to Dr Gallagher. "A neural interface to the Ancients' computer systems would expedite our entire mission here -- we could--"
"There aren't any other on inventory," Carson said, sounding...distracted. Weir looked at him, worried, and saw that his eyes were flickering slightly back and forth. As though reading something, she realised. He suddenly focused on them. "That's not to say there aren't any, just that they aren't listed in the inventory."
Everyone in the room stared at him with varying degrees of concern. Rodney, for his part, looked not at all concerned -- he looked like he was about to leap across the table and snatch the interface from Carson's wrist. Major Shepperd, on the other hand, looked like he was wondering how badly things were going to go, and how long before the shit hit the fan completely.
"You...have an inventory?" Weir asked. "Of the equipment in the city?" She found herself growing excited. That, if nothing else, would be an incredible boon.
"Sort of. It's only for official equipment, not for anything anyone might have brought in." He paused, and got that distracted look in his eyes for a moment. "And it's out-of-date, as far as I can tell. Once the Wraith began their siege, they people didn't exactly take time for paperwork."
"This is unbelievable." Weir shook her head in amazement. "This is *incredible*."
Rodney interrupted her. "Even a partial inventory of the city would be incredibly useful. If we can--"
Weir had to interrupt him, because Dr Beckett had looked at him with an expression she couldn't ignore. Rodney seemed to miss it, but she saw the concern -- the fear -- on his face. "Why don't we set up a controlled experiment, and let selected personnel access this interface. We can get whatever information we can from it, but safely." She looked at Carson's hands, folded together tightly on top of the conference table. The blue glow was almost unnoticeable under the edge of his sleeve. "Why don't you take it off for now, and we'll get volunteers from the ATA pool--"
"I'll do it," Rodney said instantly. Not surprisingly. "We don't need volunteers. I'm right here." He even raised his hand slightly, as though anyone might overlook the fact that he was volunteering.
Weir smiled, but tried to interject a note of caution. "We need to make sure--"
"You can't."
They all turned to look at Carson. He looked pale, and no less worried than he had since he and Dr Gallagher had walked into the room.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I can't take it off. It's designed to be transfered to another maintenance person in the event the original owner is unable to perform his duties." Carson's voice was wavering slightly, his accent deepening. "Which is in the event of death, catastrophic brain failure, or the destruction of the city itself. At which point no maintenance engineer is required."
*********
Carson read the words again, near the beginning of the orientation he'd first called up in Dr Gallagher's lab. It was stated clearly, the employment contract that he'd effectively signed upon putting on the interface. The Atlanteans had guarded the interfaces well, ensuring that no one who didn't know what he was getting into, wore the band.
Those instructions had, along with so much else, been lost. Luckily the actual duties of the job he'd got himself signed up for seemed fairly simple. Keep the city of Atlantis in good repair.
Carson wanted to go back in time and shoot himself in the foot before he'd had a chance to discover the ATA gene sequence. As he thought it, the schematic for time travel flickered helpfully in front of his mind's eye. It wasn't actually useful, as he couldn't use it to go shoot himself, back on Earth. But he filed it away as yet one more thing to look into when he had a chance.
Right now he had to convince the stupid maintenance schedule that he couldn't tear himself away from the meeting, and attend to the most urgent items on the repair list. He tried to focus on Dr Weir and discover if she'd made any decisions on a course of action. THey were all still discussing it, how and whether to try removing the interface. Whenever they brought it up, he rattled off the relevant data describing the metal band and it's link to his mind, and how it was designed specifically to prevent exactly what they were doing.
It was for the safety of the city, he understood that part. The maintenance crew -- it should have been five or six Atlanteans, not just one Earthling -- had access to every part of the city, including life support and defense. Things which could be used to cripple the city if in the hands of the wrong person. The screening procedure for selecting and hiring maintenance crew was extremely stringent.
Dr Gallagher had apologised for putting it on him. Neither she nor Rodney had actually looked sorry that *someone* had turned the thing on, and even Dr Weir was starting to talk about how it could be useful. Looking on the bright side, and all that.
"You're not in any actual danger, Carson?" she asked, again, and Carson looked away from the diagrams of the water treatment plant that was in dire need of refit.
"Not from the device, nor the interface itself," he confirmed. "But if it expects me to do all this work... I'll keel over from exhaustion."
Dr Weir sat forward, looking suddenly more interested. "What you're saying, is that you know what's wrong with the city, and how to fix it?"
Carson watched the others exchange looks. Excited. They were about to leap out of their seats and haul him around, making him fix everything.
It was, he had to admit, safer than having them stumble about flipping switches and hoping nothing blew up. The information being presented to him was, as far as he could tell, accurate and intended to guide the engineer through the necessary repairs and upkeep of the city.
"I'm not an engineer," he said, faintly.
Rodney, Dr Weir, and Dr Gallagher all began talking at once about how they could effect repairs despite that tiny detail.
The scrolling data in his mind began demonstrating the clear, detailed, and graphically augmented step-by-step guide to any system in the city.
Then it flashed on the top of the repair list, highlighting the first three in a helpful shade of red.
Carson groaned, and dropped his forehead onto his arm.
end chapter one
I've done a basic spellcheck, but not polished it. That'll happen no doubt once I finish writing it.
The M/S slash is secondary to the Beckett plot, but it's there so I tell you. No clue who Carson wants to schtupp, but I generally don't write non-slash, so.. I imagine he'll be with someone, sometime.
Rated PG13, vague spoilers through whatever has aired so far.
Alone in Your Mind
by James
Prologue
One very important thing Elizabeth Weir had done, when preparing her team for the mission to Atlantis, was consider the social aspects of taking 200 people to another galaxy from which they might not ever return home. She'd discussed it with some of the SGC psychologists and anthropologists, as well as General Hammond and in the end she'd drafted a revised code of conduct, based in extremely small part on the US Air Force's code of conduct as applied to the SGC.
Things like rules against fraternisation had had to be re-written to deal with the fact that 200 people alone together, far from home, were eventually going to start having sex with one another. If it turned out to be years before they returned to Earth -- the issue of families, and succeeding generations, had to be taken into account as well. No one talked about it yet, but it might be that their children or grandchildren would be the ones to return to Earth someday.
That meant there had to be children, and grandchildren.
Individual members of her team had been selected based on expertise and adaptability, as well as psychological profile and personality. It was impossible to ensure that everyone would get along, but she'd taken every step she could to ensure that most of the team would at least tolerate everyone else, and be professional and mature enough to deal with the fact they were stuck with each other indefinitely.
She'd taken pride in seeing how well her selections had turned out as the months went on and, for the most part, everyone seemed to get on. Of course there were personality conflicts and disputes, but nothing that disrupted the overall mission or overall social stability of the city.
It was rapidly becoming their home in feel, as well as reality -- they'd been in Atlantis for little under a year based on the earth calendars their laptops kept track of for them. The holidays committee had a huge anniversary celebration planned, coinciding with the planet's autumn solstice. People were celebrating birthdays and organising social events -- and forming relationships, both casual and not-so.
Dr Weir had her suspicions that sometime in the next few months, they were going to be holding a wedding for Dr Carol Bennett and Corporal Lance Mason. Or Robert DeBauer and Frederick Danson would be the first, if they could ever agree on which part of the newly-opened section of the city they wanted to make their new living quarters in. Living together was not a necessary step to being married, but Dr Weir felt that it was still an open question if Robert and Frederick would end up strangling one another while arguing over whether or not they wanted living quarters with windows, or an extra room.
All in all, Dr Weir felt like everything was going extremely well.
She'd even -- almost -- got used to finding John and Rodney making out in the hallways.
There were many things she was glad for, and trying to keep levels of closed-minded bigotry out of the Atlantis team was high on the list. She prided herself on a reasonably high personal level of acceptance of the rights to individuals to do whatever they damn well pleased, in their private lives. But it still didn't ever prevent her brain from stuttering to a stop and asking itself -- *John* and *Rodney*? -- whenever she caught them.
And lord, it seemed like she caught them a lot. Sometimes she thought about instilling rules about public displays of affection, and forbid anyone from making out where she was likely to stumble upon them. That wasn't entirely fair, she knew, and she was perfectly willing to make it a very specific rule applicable only to the major and Dr McKay.
She thought very seriously about it whenever John pissed her off. Which, once he'd started sleeping with Rodney, had become less often. She knew it was because he had less time to get into trouble, than the fact that Rodney might actually be being a good influence on him.
In the end, however, she just told herself she should be happy that so many of her team were settling in to Atlantis, and finding friends and more among the available pool, and that Dr Piotr Vordrosky had finally taken her hints that she was not interested in having dinner with him in the privacy of his quarters.
********
CHAPTER ONE
"Dr Gallagher, would you please--" Carson Beckett stopped as he realised the woman was ignoring him. He stepped closer to the table, well aware of the danger in getting too close to a scientist at work. He carefully didn't touch anything, nor did he try to get in her line of sight as she scribbled notes. "Dr Gallagher," he tried again.
She glanced up. "Yes, Dr Beckett? Oh! Dr Beckett, could you please--" She rummaged through the equipment on the table before her, and Carson's hopes that she would have any idea why he was here, were dashed.
"Dr Gallagher," he started again. "I know it may not seem all that urgent that you get your regular physical," he paused as she thrust a small metal band at him. It was a piece of Ancient technology, which made him realise exactly what she was going to say next. He shook his head. "No, no--"
"Could you try to make this work? I haven't had a chance to get any of the other ATA folks down here. I'm not really sure what it does," she added, frowning at it.
As though that would encourage him? Carson shook his head, still wary of anything to do with technology he didn't understand. He'd got used to certain, simple things - like doors. But a small, curved piece of metal might look innocent yet could end up destroying half the galaxy.
"You missed your appointment, last week, and this morning. I really need you to--"
"Just try it on! We're pretty sure it fits on the wrist," she'd stood up and come over to him, grabbing his arm and moving the band towards him -- obviously intending to slip it on without so much as a by-your-leave. He pulled free and tried to get her attention.
"Dr Gallagher, your *physical.* I'll get Dr McKay to order you, if I have to." Between alien diseases, injuries, and god knew what else, it was important to keep up-to-date records on everyone's health. Most of the others understood, and showed up for their scheduled appointments. It was only the occasional absent-minded professor who seemed to forget.
She blinked at him, looking thoroughly confused behind her thin-rimmed glasses.. "Dr McKay? What's he got to do with it?"
"He's your superior, isn't he? He can order you to get yourself down to the infirmary."
"Why am I going -- oh! My physical!" She nodded, and Carson sighed. "Right, that's next week! I think this will fit just like this--"
Carson was about to try to explain to her that next week was *this* week, or even last week, when she grabbed his arm again. He pulled back, but this time he wasn't fast enough. She got the band onto his wrist before he got free.
The metal, or whatever the substance was, felt cold. As he reached for it to snatch it off, he noted that it fit loosely. As his fingers touched it, the top of the band glowed blue and the ends of the band tightened around his wrist.
"Oh, bloody hell," Carson whispered. He stared at it -- the band changed, expanding a long, thin strip up and down the back of his wrist. It was that part which glowed blue, as though a stone had been set into a bracelet.
"Oh, excellent!" Dr Gallagher clapped her hands. "So.. what does it do? Can you make it do anything?"
Carson wanted nothing more than to take it off and never see it again. He looked up at Gallagher, swallowing nervously. "It's...a maintenance interface."
"A what? How do you know?" She'd grabbed a notebook and started writing things down.
Carson was having difficulty seeing it, through the schematics and lists that were scrolling before his eyes. Atlantis had gone a long time without an active maintenance crew, and there was a long, long list of things to be done. THe first few lines had been in the Atlantean script, but as soon as he'd realised he couldn't read it, he'd been given an option to select a translation.
Merely thinking it had been enough, and now he was looking at a list written in scots gaelic, describing mechanical and engineering problems that needed somebody with two hands and a tool-belt to deal with.
"Dr Beckett? How do you know what it is? It isn't doing anything." Gallagher's voice intruded through the visuals, and he tried to answer her question.
"I can...see it."
She looked around, doubtfully. "Where?"
Grimly, Carson tapped his forehead. "RIght here."
Gallagher gaped at him for a long moment, before her face changed into an expression of scientific glee.
Carson just wanted the bloody thing to switch off so he could go home and hide under his bed. The schematic responded with an illustration of the furniture in his quarters and how it could be adjusted to accommodate a person his size, underneath its frame.
Closing his eyes, Carson groaned. Which didn't help, because with his eyes shut it was impossible *not* to see the information scrolling in his mind. He tried getting the list to stop by thinking about the fact he was a medical doctor, not a maintenance man. That had prompted a new scroll -- orientation for new personnel. He couldn't help but read it, caught by the information he found in the first 'page' of instructions. He read through it twice, noting absently how responsive it was to the merest thought. He could scroll back and forth and call up new pages as questions occurred.
The summary was, of course, that he was screwed.
*******
"Let me get this straight," Dr Weir sat back in her chair in the conference room, looking from Dr Gallagher to Dr Beckett. Carson had a vaguely distracted look on his face which she assumed was understandable under the circumstances.
"It's intended for a member of the city's maintenance crew," Dr Gallagher repeated. "It apparently plugs them in directly to aspects of the Atlantis computer system, so they can... maintain it."
"This is extraordinary." Rodney leaned forward, glancing from Carson to Dr Gallagher. "A neural interface to the Ancients' computer systems would expedite our entire mission here -- we could--"
"There aren't any other on inventory," Carson said, sounding...distracted. Weir looked at him, worried, and saw that his eyes were flickering slightly back and forth. As though reading something, she realised. He suddenly focused on them. "That's not to say there aren't any, just that they aren't listed in the inventory."
Everyone in the room stared at him with varying degrees of concern. Rodney, for his part, looked not at all concerned -- he looked like he was about to leap across the table and snatch the interface from Carson's wrist. Major Shepperd, on the other hand, looked like he was wondering how badly things were going to go, and how long before the shit hit the fan completely.
"You...have an inventory?" Weir asked. "Of the equipment in the city?" She found herself growing excited. That, if nothing else, would be an incredible boon.
"Sort of. It's only for official equipment, not for anything anyone might have brought in." He paused, and got that distracted look in his eyes for a moment. "And it's out-of-date, as far as I can tell. Once the Wraith began their siege, they people didn't exactly take time for paperwork."
"This is unbelievable." Weir shook her head in amazement. "This is *incredible*."
Rodney interrupted her. "Even a partial inventory of the city would be incredibly useful. If we can--"
Weir had to interrupt him, because Dr Beckett had looked at him with an expression she couldn't ignore. Rodney seemed to miss it, but she saw the concern -- the fear -- on his face. "Why don't we set up a controlled experiment, and let selected personnel access this interface. We can get whatever information we can from it, but safely." She looked at Carson's hands, folded together tightly on top of the conference table. The blue glow was almost unnoticeable under the edge of his sleeve. "Why don't you take it off for now, and we'll get volunteers from the ATA pool--"
"I'll do it," Rodney said instantly. Not surprisingly. "We don't need volunteers. I'm right here." He even raised his hand slightly, as though anyone might overlook the fact that he was volunteering.
Weir smiled, but tried to interject a note of caution. "We need to make sure--"
"You can't."
They all turned to look at Carson. He looked pale, and no less worried than he had since he and Dr Gallagher had walked into the room.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I can't take it off. It's designed to be transfered to another maintenance person in the event the original owner is unable to perform his duties." Carson's voice was wavering slightly, his accent deepening. "Which is in the event of death, catastrophic brain failure, or the destruction of the city itself. At which point no maintenance engineer is required."
*********
Carson read the words again, near the beginning of the orientation he'd first called up in Dr Gallagher's lab. It was stated clearly, the employment contract that he'd effectively signed upon putting on the interface. The Atlanteans had guarded the interfaces well, ensuring that no one who didn't know what he was getting into, wore the band.
Those instructions had, along with so much else, been lost. Luckily the actual duties of the job he'd got himself signed up for seemed fairly simple. Keep the city of Atlantis in good repair.
Carson wanted to go back in time and shoot himself in the foot before he'd had a chance to discover the ATA gene sequence. As he thought it, the schematic for time travel flickered helpfully in front of his mind's eye. It wasn't actually useful, as he couldn't use it to go shoot himself, back on Earth. But he filed it away as yet one more thing to look into when he had a chance.
Right now he had to convince the stupid maintenance schedule that he couldn't tear himself away from the meeting, and attend to the most urgent items on the repair list. He tried to focus on Dr Weir and discover if she'd made any decisions on a course of action. THey were all still discussing it, how and whether to try removing the interface. Whenever they brought it up, he rattled off the relevant data describing the metal band and it's link to his mind, and how it was designed specifically to prevent exactly what they were doing.
It was for the safety of the city, he understood that part. The maintenance crew -- it should have been five or six Atlanteans, not just one Earthling -- had access to every part of the city, including life support and defense. Things which could be used to cripple the city if in the hands of the wrong person. The screening procedure for selecting and hiring maintenance crew was extremely stringent.
Dr Gallagher had apologised for putting it on him. Neither she nor Rodney had actually looked sorry that *someone* had turned the thing on, and even Dr Weir was starting to talk about how it could be useful. Looking on the bright side, and all that.
"You're not in any actual danger, Carson?" she asked, again, and Carson looked away from the diagrams of the water treatment plant that was in dire need of refit.
"Not from the device, nor the interface itself," he confirmed. "But if it expects me to do all this work... I'll keel over from exhaustion."
Dr Weir sat forward, looking suddenly more interested. "What you're saying, is that you know what's wrong with the city, and how to fix it?"
Carson watched the others exchange looks. Excited. They were about to leap out of their seats and haul him around, making him fix everything.
It was, he had to admit, safer than having them stumble about flipping switches and hoping nothing blew up. The information being presented to him was, as far as he could tell, accurate and intended to guide the engineer through the necessary repairs and upkeep of the city.
"I'm not an engineer," he said, faintly.
Rodney, Dr Weir, and Dr Gallagher all began talking at once about how they could effect repairs despite that tiny detail.
The scrolling data in his mind began demonstrating the clear, detailed, and graphically augmented step-by-step guide to any system in the city.
Then it flashed on the top of the repair list, highlighting the first three in a helpful shade of red.
Carson groaned, and dropped his forehead onto his arm.
end chapter one