"Why don't you find out?" Weir suggested.
He stopped, as if the idea were novel, then nodded. "Right."
She watched for a moment as he called down for Grodin and some of the other scientists, rattling off a list of equipment, only half of which made any sense to Weir's non-technical mind. So amused was she by the flurry of activity that she didn't hear another set of footsteps.
"Dr. Weir." It was Sumner, marching into the control room like he owned it. "You need to come with me.
And now he was giving her orders? "Colonel-"
But he was already halfway out the door, striding off into the shadows of the complex. Damn him. Weir caught Sheppard's eye and saw her irritation mirrored in his face. Suddenly, right then, she realized she had an ally in Major John Sheppard. And that thought was more comforting than she liked to admit. With a curt nod to him she headed out after Sumner, leaving Sheppard to trail along behind them.
Sumner didn't slow his pace, forcing Weir to almost run to catch up. As soon as she was within hearing distance, he started talking. He didn't bother to turn around, he just started talking. "We've only managed to secure a fraction of the place," he reported. "It's huge."
Better and better. "Then this may really be the lost city of Atlantis." It was mind-blowing to even say those words. She was living a legend!
"Oh, I'd say that's a good bet," Sumner replied, and something in his tone of voice gave her pause. She was about to call him on it when Sumner led her through a set of ornate doors, beyond which stood a vast floor-to-ceiling window. And beyond that…
"My God." Slowly she approached the glass. Outside lay a vast city of sweeping spires and arching walkways, a beautiful city of ethereal elegance, all covered by a thin skin of energy. She looked up and far above them she found the source of the mottled blue light that permeated the whole complex. It was sunlight, filtered through the shimmering surface of a vast ocean. "We're underwater."
"I'd say under several hundred feet of ocean," Sumner replied clinically. He was assessing the tactical situation, she supposed, rather than the city's unearthly beauty. "If we can't dial out, this could be a problem."
If we can't dial out…
"Colonel, Dr. Weir!" McKay burst into the room.
"We're underwater," observed the ever laconic Major Sheppard.
"Yes, I was just coming to tell you. Fortunately there's some sort of force shield holding the water back." Sparing a glance out the window, McKay was momentarily derailed. "That is impressive, isn't it?" And then he shook it off, "Dr. Beckett has found something you should see."
McKay led them at a breakneck speed through the corridors of Atlantis, lights flicking on constantly as they passed. The whole city seemed to be waking up, to be welcoming them. Everywhere they turned there were wonders to be seen, secrets to be uncovered. It was almost too much to take in, and Weir found herself worrying that she might miss something vital; that in the rush to see it all they'd walk past some tiny piece of information or knowledge that-
"In here," McKay said, stopping before a set of double doors and waving her and the Colonel ahead of him. With no of idea what to expect, Weir stepped inside and found herself staring at a beautiful woman in long, white robes.
The woman stood at the center of a low dais and it took a moment for her to grasp that she wasn't real. She was a projection, a hologram, and she was talking."…in the hope of spreading new life in a galaxy where there appeared to be none," she said. "Soon, the new life grew and prospered…"
At her side, Weir sensed Sheppard looking around uncomfortably. "Isn't anybody gonna say anything?" he whispered.
"It's a hologram," Weir whispered back, not taking her eyes from the face of the woman — the Ancient woman. This was the face of their ancestors, of a past so distant it had been forgotten even in antiquity.
"The recording loops," Dr. Beckett explained, clearly proud of his discovery. "This is my second time through,"
As usual, Sumner refused to be impressed by the majesty of the moment. "What've we missed?"
"Not much, this is the good part."
"Here, as before, we built a system of Stargates," the hologram continued, "so that fledgling civilizations could travel between the stars, exchange knowledge and friendship."
"Can you rewind it?" Sumner asked. "Start from the beginning."
Oh, for the love of "Just wait…" murmured Weir.
Suddenly, above their heads, the galaxy appeared, swirling above them in all its marvelous intricacy. "In time, a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form," the Ancient woman explained, and as she spoke tiny blue dots began to appear among the stars until the entire galaxy was alive with color — the planets on which the Ancients had seeded life in an almost biblical act of creation. It was truly breathtaking.
"Then, one day, our people set foot upon a dark world where a terrible enemy slept."
On the far side of the galaxy Weir saw a single dot glowing a malevolent red. A whisper of icy air seemed to brush across her skin, stirring the hairs on the back of her neck, and she shivered.
"Never before had we encountered beings with powers that rivaled our own. In our overconfidence, we were unprepared and outnumbered."
Another red dot appeared, then another. Blue was consumed by scarlet, like the slow creep of blood spilling across the galaxy. Weir found that she was actually holding her breath, and no one in the room made a sound. Not even Sumner. Their attention was rapt.
"A great battle was fought and lost," the Ancient woman continued, her voice now heavy with sadness. "The enemy fed upon the defenseless human worlds like a great scourge until finally only Atlantis remained."
And in the stars above them, only one dot of blue remained. A beacon of light in a field of red.
"This city's great shield was powerful enough to withstand their terrible weapons, but here we were besieged for many years."
Suddenly the woman raised her hand, and the walls and ceiling of the room simply disappeared. Weir gasped as she spun around and found herself standing in the center of a large courtyard. Sumner and Sheppard had their weapons raised, while McKay and Beckett simply stared up in shock as a vast, dark shadow loomed above them. A massive alien ship was moving over the city, dark and angular and bristling with armor. Weir was breathing hard now, staring up into the face of an enemy so fierce that it had defeated the builders of the Stargates. Suddenly, a blast of light obliterated the courtyard. Someone yelled, and-
They were back in the room.
"In an effort to save the last of our kind," the hologram said, oblivious to her startled audience, "we submerged our great city beneath the ocean."
Sheppard shifted nervously. When Weir glanced over at him, he met her gaze with a somber shake of the head. This didn't bode well for their mission of peaceful exploration.
"The Atlantis Stargate was the one and only link back to Earth from this galaxy and those who remained used it to return to that world that was once home." The woman paused, ineffably sad and yet possessing a poise that Weir found herself envying. "There, the last survivors of Atlantis lived out the remainder of their lives. This city was left to slumber, in the hope that our kind would one day return."
And with that faint hope for the future, the hologram flickered into nothing and the room settled into a profound silence.
Typically, it was McKay who broke the moment. "So the story of Atlantis is true," he said, faintly disbelieving. "A great city that sunk into the ocean…"
"It just didn't happen on Earth," Beckett finished.
McKay was nodding, picking up the tag-team reasoning. "The Ancient Greeks must have heard it from one of the surviving Ancients."
Sumner grunted. "I don't like finding out they got their asses kicked."