"Seem pretty reactive to me," John informed him and turned to the expedition leader. "Looks like this is some old-fashioned archive terminal, though the console doesn't work. Which explains McKay. Inasmuch as McKay can be explained."
From Ronon's end came a soft snort. By his standards, the Satedan looked positively cheerful. McKay's scowl in no way diminished his glee.
"Old fashioned?" Weir raised an inquiring eyebrow. "As in museum piece?"
"If those among us who actually know what they're talking about could get a word in edgeways, it'd be much easier to grasp." Evidently Rodney had convinced himself that a brain aneurysm wasn't on the charts for the immediate future and scrambled to his feet. "It's not a museum piece. It's more like a… science project."
"A nuclear device?" Teyla asked. She did a great line in deceptively innocent.
"No! Just because I built one, doesn't mean… Never mind." McKay waved his hands as if to chase off a swarm of gnats and focused on Elizabeth as the person most likely to let him finish a thought. "You know about Tesla, right? Turn-of-thecentury-the one before last-picturesque equipment, results we still can't reproduce."
"Such as alternating current," Zelenka suggested serenely.
"That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it. What I am trying to say, and I'd be grateful to be spared further inanities, is that this"-McKay stabbed a finger at the con- sole-"was built from the Ancient equivalent of Radio Shack components. Which explains the somewhat crude look. The device itself, however, which by the way is not an archive terminal as my esteemed colleague seems determined to believe, is highly sophisticated. As a matter of fact, you could say it's a standalone computer."
"Mac or PC?" John blurted out.
"Cray, if they'd been able to make any headway on quantum computing. This device is at least as powerful as the Atlantis mainframe, and it's not connected to any other system."
"It's also dysfunctional," Zelenka reminded him.
"Was," said Rodney. "Was." Going by the look on his face he'd been building up to this ever since was dragged out from under the console. "It was simply a question of reconnecting the power supply and overriding the security features. So now-"
"You're saying it was password protected?" Elizabeth asked with immaculate timing and deflated McKay's voila moment.
"Yes," sighed Rodney. "Are you sure you want me to continue?"
The question dropped into a trough of silence, and John found himself holding his breath. If anyone decided to reply, this could take a very, very long time.
"Thank you," McKay said at last and moved in front of the console. "As I was saying, I was able to override the security features, so now-"
"Rodney?" Elizabeth again.
Across the room, Teyla bit back a smile. Ronon was somewhat less subtle.
McKay exploded. "Do you think this is funny? I've spent two days trying to-"
"No, I don't think it's funny." As so often, Weir's calm undercut his outrage. "I'm just not sure if it's wise to activate the computer. You said power had been disconnected. In my admittedly limited experience things don't unplug themselves, so there may be a reason why someone has taken this device offline. And I'd like to remind everybody that, a few doors down from this room, is the bio-physics lab where we found the nanites."
She had a point, and it coincided with John's own concerns, the ones that explained why Colonel Sheppard was pulling scientist-sitting detail. Not that a P90 would have been of any earthly use against the robo-bugs that had infected a third of the expedition a year or so ago. If nothing else, the incident had taught them to beware of accidentally breaking things in this sector of the city. "You're thinking this is mad scientist central?" he asked Elizabeth.
"Until we've found proof to the contrary, it's safer to assume exactly that and to act accordingly. Which means no switching on or opening stuff until we know what it is or does."
"Elizabeth, this is a computer," Rodney declared in the tones of a saint pushed to the brink of his forbearance. "We know what computers do."
He had a point, too, and Zelenka seemed to agree. "If Rodney is right, Dr. Weir-"
"Of course I'm right."
"If Rodney is right," the Czech repeated, pretending he hadn't heard, "and anything should go wrong, all we need to do is pull the plug again, but-"
— given that it's unlikely to be running Windows, nothing will go wrong," finished McKay.
Feeling Elizabeth's eyes on him, John returned her gaze and shrugged. "If push comes to shove, Tll switch it off," he said, patting the P90.
At last she gave a brisk nod. "Alright. But be careful."
"Naturally."
Looking a lot happier than he had a minute ago, Rodney struck a sequence of keys on the console's control pad. The keys bore Ancient symbols, and John couldn't for the life of him say whether they represented the local version of QWERTY or something more cryptic. What was the Ancients' position on touch-typing, anyway? His ruminations were interrupted by a hologram lighting up above the console. It winked in and out of existence a couple of times-almost as if it'd gone a tad rusty during the past ten millennia-but eventually it stabilized.
Teyla gasped, McKay and Zelenka stared at each other, Elizabeth took a step back. John knew he was standing there with his mouth hanging open, but he couldn't help it.
"This is different," observed Ronon, sounding moderately intrigued.
The hologram looked young, fifteen or sixteen at the most, but that wasn't the issue. It also looked-
"Is this your idea of a joke?" Whirling around, McKay glared at John.
"I wish," he said, vaguely grateful for an excuse to retrieve his lower jaw from the floor. "But I wouldn't know where to start. Besides, my hair would never do that!"
Which was true-and annoying. The hologram sported a mop of sleek black curls instead of a cowlick that vigorously resisted any attempt to get it under control. Otherwise, however…
Zelenka blew out a slow, stunned breath. "Well, I guess now we know where you get the ATA gene, Colonel."
"He may be correct," murmured Teyla. "The likeness is remarkable."
Apparently, the hologram was thinking along the same lines. It blinked, smiled at John, and finally said, "And who might you be?" Even the voice was similar, still adolescent and scratchy, but definitely similar.
"You first."
"I am Ikaros."
"Turn it off!" Zelenka hissed, suddenly white as a sheet. "Rodney, turn it off!"
"No! Please…" It was the heart-wrenching whimper of a child lost in the dark, and no computer program in the world should have sounded like that.
An icy fist clutched John's gut. "Do it, McKay!" he barked.
A split-second too late, as it turned out. Perhaps for the first time in recorded history, Dr. Rodney McKay had done as he was told. The hologram feathered to nothing. An instant before it vanished, John could have sworn he saw tears on the boy's face. His face…
"It's not a boy," he whispered to himself, fingers tight around his gun. "And it damn well isn't me!"
"Anybody care to explain what that was all about?" Elizabeth asked softly.
Hands trembling, Rodney disconnected a diagnostic cable from his laptop. Finally he turned back to them, almost as pale as Zelenka. "Al."
"What?"
"Artificial intelligence."
"What's so scary about it?" Asking the question, Dex looked even more blase than usual. Next he'd put his feet on the table. "I thought we'd already seen that with the computer virus on Daedalus."
As per Dr. Weir's orders they'd moved the party to the conference room to discuss the implications of their find. "He's got a point, Rodney," she said.
Oh, that's right, Elizabeth! Go on, encourage him!