Under the Ice
by Bil!

A/N: Thank you so much to those of you who have given me such supportive feedback. I love reading your comments. I had a great time writing this story and I’m glad people are enjoying reading it.

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Chapter Three – Aliens Contact Me Via The Fillings In My Teeth

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“What?” John squinted at Elizabeth, confused and not sure what she was talking about.

Her eyes were glowing with excitement. “I think you have the Ancient gene.”

“Jean? Or gene? Like DNA?”

“Yes! This facility isn’t reacting to our presence, it’s reacting to yours. I don’t have the gene, so you must.”

He didn’t feel any more informed. “Uh, gonna need more filling in here.”

His lacklustre response didn’t dismay her in the least: she was almost bouncing with excitement. “Didn’t I explain this?”

“I don’t think so,” he said cautiously. “I mean, I could have just missed it while I was busy trying to take in stargates and Ancients, but you left a lot out and I’m pretty sure a gene was one of those things.”

She looked a little sheepish at having been caught out. “You noticed that, did you?”

He shrugged. “Well... yeah.” He wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

With enthusiasm she explained about the Ancient gene and how it was used to activate their technology. John listened in bewilderment.

“So you’re trying to tell me I have a freaky mutant gene inside me? Get it out!”

“It’s a gene, John; you can’t get rid of it.”

He gave her his best puppy-dog look. “You sure?”

She folded away a smile, but not quickly enough to keep him from seeing it. “Yes, John.”

“Oh. I guess I’ll have to keep it, then.”

“You don’t exactly have a lot of choice in the matter,” she agreed.

“How can you be sure I’ve actually got this gene of yours? Couldn’t it just be a coincidence that thing turned on?”

She smiled at him, undaunted. “All right, then.” She backed away and patted the console behind her. “Try this one. I can’t turn it on.”

He took several wary steps forward and gingerly put his hand on the top. It spectacularly failed to light up. “Nothing,” he said in a relieved tone, secretly a little disappointed. It would be cool to be able to operate alien computers. He might have gotten himself a spaceship out of it.

Elizabeth was still smiling, clearly unworried. “Not the casing, John. Touch one of the keys.”

He hesitated, almost not wanting to know, then slowly reached out to touch one of the funky crystal keys.

The console lit up with a friendly hum.

The grin on Elizabeth’s face was so big he was surprised she didn’t shout “Eureka!” or something. She didn’t say “See?” or “I told you so” either, just grinned at him proudly as if he’d completed some task of monumental skill.

“So that means we’ve found the key in our back pocket?” he asked.

“Right where we left it,” she agreed with a laugh. “We aren’t trapped!”

“Well, there, you see? I told you not to be so pessimistic.”

“If we’re going to get into I-told-you-so’s,” she retorted, “I told you you had the gene.”

“Yes, well. Let’s just agree that we’re both genii. Geniuses?” He waved away the question. “What now?”

“Now we find that control room and get ourselves out of here.”

“Oh.” He tried to inject some enthusiasm into his voice. “Okay.” It was stupid to not want this little interlude to end, especially when they weren’t sure yet that they could find their way out. But it was fun, exploring an alien base, listening to Elizabeth’s insane explanations that completely turned his world upside down, savouring the idea of being able to maybe pilot a spaceship, and enjoying Elizabeth’s vivid enthusiasm (when she wasn’t drowning herself in pessimism). It was silly really, but he was enjoying himself.

Nevertheless, he followed Elizabeth over to the elevator. “Wait a moment,” she said before he could step onto it. “I want to try something first.” He obediently stayed put and watched her stand on it. It didn’t move, and she looked at him. “How long did it wait before it moved when you stood on it before?”

He shrugged. “Maybe five seconds?”

She waved him forward and he joined her on the platform. A few seconds later it descended. “It is you,” she said triumphantly, hopping off before it had quite reached the floor.

He shook his head at her excitement and joined her at the door. “So, where’re we going, Doc?” he asked as they picked up their packs.

She pointed left. “We’re very close now. I think this room,” she gestured behind them, “would be a subsidiary control room, for if the main operations centre was out of commission for some reason.”

“I still think it looked like a war room,” John said as they stepped into the corridor.

She managed to scowl at him despite her enthusiasm. “The Ancients were a peaceful people.”

He grimaced. “Let’s just agree to disagree, huh?”

“Let’s.”

The corridors were becoming shorter and higher-ceilinged now, as though they were nearing the central section of the complex. Elizabeth stared around them with fascinated awe, and John couldn’t help mimicking her. It was a pretty impressive place. And it was a real alien base – how cool was that!

They turned a corner, John in the lead, but he stopped so abruptly that Elizabeth cannoned into him. He reached back to steady her, not taking his eyes from the sight ahead.

“We’re here,” Elizabeth said quietly.

It was a large hexagonal room, decorated in the usual elves-meets-dwarves style that John now associated with Ancients. Absently he slipped off his pack as he looked around, taking it in. There were consoles arranged in a loose circle around the edge of the room, as well as two entranceways in addition to the one in which he and Elizabeth stood. The centre of the room was taken up by a smaller room, also hexagonal, which had six doorways leading up to a dais in the dead centre of the room, on which stood a funky sort of chair.

All in all, it was a pretty impressive setup, giving the impression of a lot of power but somehow sorrowful at the same time. It was, he thought, the emptiness of the room where there should have been at least half a dozen people operating controls.

“There’s a control chair!” Elizabeth exclaimed excitedly at his elbow.

“That’s good?”

“Very good. Especially if you have a strong ATA gene.” John banished the involuntary image of a double helix attempting to lift weights and jogged after Elizabeth as she made a beeline for the central room. He caught her arm before she could enter it and she looked at him with exasperation. “You can see there’s no one there, John.”

“Yes, but there might be booby-traps or something.”

“The Ancients—”

“Weren’t like that. Yeah, I got it. I’m sure they weren’t – though you seem a bit obsessed with them, if you don’t mind my saying so – but who knows who – what – came after them.”

“John...”

“Just humour me, okay?” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, but acquiesced. “Thanks.”

He stepped in cautiously, scanning all the entrances and the roof. No one seemed to be hiding behind the chair... Maybe he’d just been watching too many Indiana Jones movies. Not everyone felt the need to leave behind traps for later visitors.

But the moment he was fully within the room, just as he turned back to Elizabeth to announce the all clear, doors slammed down around all the entrances, locking him in and Elizabeth out.

“Elizabeth!” He spun, looking about wildly and seeing no exits, then turned to the door between them. Stepping forward, he hoped it would work like the elevator and magically do what he wanted. The door didn’t open. He pounded on it. “Dammit, open up!”

No.

He stopped pounding, his hands resting against the door. It hadn’t been the sound of real voices: the word, spoken by multiple voices in unison, had come from inside his head. It hadn’t even been a word, just an inchoate thought. Elizabeth was getting to him – he didn’t even think this was weird. “Open up. I want to see Elizabeth.”

She is unnecessary, was the message behind this thought.

“No she’s not. Now open the damn door.”

She does not have the mark.

The mark? “You mean that mutant gene? Are you telling me the high and mighty Ancients were in to eugenics? I don’t care if she has gerbil genes, open the door!”

She is not needed, the voices insisted and he panicked a little, wondering what they would do to someone they considered unnecessary.

“I need her. Open up or I’ll blow this place to kingdom come.”

A pause, as if they were considering this. Or possibly wondering what ‘kingdom come’ meant. If we let her in, will you stay?

“What, here?”

Yes.

It was his turn to hesitate. “For how long?”

We are in need of purpose.

“Who’s we?”

We are what is. We are that which Thinks.

“Uh... You mean like the computer?” Talking computers probably made complete sense to people who could travel between planets.

Ye-es. We are the computer.

“Look, I can’t stay. I’ve got a life! Sorry,” he added, not entirely truthfully. “Open the door.”

There was another pause, as if the voices were considering their options in a silent debate. If you insist on leaving we will not keep you.

“Great!” he said in relief. Possessive computers made good movies but bad real life.

But you must take the component with you.

“The who?”

There was a quiet swooshing sound above his head. John looked up, raising his pistol, to see the roof telescope open to form a hole in the centre through which a rectangular object about a metre long and half a metre wide and deep was lowering itself with some kind of anti-grav technology (at least he guessed it was lowering itself, since he couldn’t see any ropes). It hopped over the chair without touching it and hovered in front of John, who pointed his weapon at it uncertainly but was pretty sure bullets wouldn’t do much to its metallic hide.

“What is that?” he demanded of the voices. They didn’t answer. The thing moved a little closer and John took a step back, his shoulder bumping the wall. He put out his free hand to steady himself.

This is the component, the voices said. It will do you no harm.

“Took you a while to answer,” John sniped.

We can only speak directly to you when you touch a part of this room. Otherwise we can hear you but you cannot hear us.

“You can hear me? Wait, it was you! You turned up the heat!”

We did. We also provided you with the map you asked for and activated the ring transporter for you. Did you not wish these things done?

“No, no, that’s fine,” he assured them hastily. He didn’t want to know what they would do if they were unhappy or thought he was unhappy. “Great, in fact. Wonderful. What is this thing?”

It is the component.

“Yeah, you said that. Surprisingly, that’s not really all that helpful.” He wondered if computers could detect sarcasm and studied the ‘component’ warily. It wasn’t much to look at, a boxy little machine with the front sloping forward, quite like a Star Trek shuttle in shape and ungainliness. The front and sides were decorated with blinking lights.

It will allow us to communicate with you where ever you may go. It will assist you if you allow it.

The machine beeped, and somehow John knew the sound was a greeting. He groaned. “Hi, R2.”

Are-too? the voices and machine asked in concert.

“He’s a little droid from a movie—Never mind, I don’t think the old guys had Star Wars. Do you mind if I call you R2 instead of ‘component’? It’s a bit... friendlier.” The droid beeped in happy agreement and John sighed. “My life has gotten seriously weird in the last twenty four hours.”

You will accept it? the voices asked pleadingly. It will only help you. We mean you no harm. Yes, because he could trust the word of spooky voices in his head.

“Why do you care?” he demanded. “Why do you want this thing following me around?”

The voices were silent a moment. It has been a very long time since anyone has come to this place. Our people all left or died in the plague. We are... lonely.

And because it spoke in feelings and thoughts as well as words, John didn’t just hear the word ‘lonely’, he felt the depth and intensity of the emotion they felt, the pain of ten thousand years alone under the ice. “I can’t take R2 everywhere,” he warned. “People would talk. Flying robot...” he squinted at R2, “...things aren’t exactly standard issue where I come from.”

It need not follow you always, the voices agreed hopefully, but if you could keep it near you so that sometimes we might speak with you... we would be grateful.

He thought of something. “When Elizabeth and I get out of here – assuming of course that you let us out – we’ll tell people about this place. Her people are very interested in Ancient technology, your kind of technology, and soon there’ll be heaps of people here for you to talk to.”

That would be agreeable, the voices said wistfully. But they will not be you. Nor do we believe they will be able to talk with us as you can. Your people are not like our people and they do not carry the mark. But you do, and you are very strong. We felt you passing us, even at a distance, and we waited for you to come. But you didn’t come and so we brought you here.

“How?” he demanded suspiciously. “You don’t mean the snowstorm. Do you?”

The power was ours. You would not come and we were so lonely. Please take the component with you, it will do as you order it and it won’t be in your way. We would like to be able to speak with you so very much.

It wasn’t the natural wariness of angering something capable of causing a snowstorm that made him agree, but the plaintiveness in their voices. Some discussion, argument, and explanation later, the voices released the doors, all of which slid up into the ceiling, and John dashed out, looking for Elizabeth. The voices had assured him they hadn’t done anything to her and he was pretty sure they were sincere, but he wanted to see it with his own eyes.

She looked up from the console she’d been scowling at and a smile of relief broke forth on her face. “John!” She ran to him but didn’t quite lose her composure enough to throw her arms around him. “I was so worried! How did you get the doors to open? You were quite right to be cautious, that shouldn’t have happened.”

“I told you before,” he smiled cockily. “I’m always right.”

“I think I’m starting to believe you,” she said, shaking her head at her own gullibility.

“That’s—” R2 bumped into him from behind and John frowned back at the droid. “R2, I know I agreed you could follow me around, but you don’t have to stick so close.”

R2 beeped an impenitent apology and Elizabeth peered around him to stare at it. “Have you made a new friend, John?”

“He’s been assigned to follow me. Little twerp.” R2 beeped rudely and John scowled at it. “No one asked you.” It made a sound uncannily like a kid chanting ‘na-ner na-ner na-nyah’ and he had to grin.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at him. “I have a feeling you’ve got a lot to tell me.”

“Yeah, kinda. Come on, let’s sit in here.” He led her into the computer’s room and pulled her down to sit beside him on the dais. She looked at him expectantly and he put his hand on the floor. “You can hear me, right?” he asked the ceiling.

We hear you.

“Good. Feel free to speak up if I explain something wrong.” He grinned at the look on Elizabeth’s face. “No, I haven’t gone crazy.”

“You sure?”

“Well, no. But if I’m crazy you are too. On the other hand, I found out who’s been doing the dusting.”

“Really? Who?”

“Well, long story short: I found someone who’s still alive down here.”

“Still alive? After at least ten thousand years?”

“It’s the computer. Or they’re the computer, whatever. I guess these old guys built to last, because it’s still going strong. It’s alive, or whatever you call it.”

“Sentient?”

“Yeah, that. It can talk to me – and you have no idea how weird that is – because apparently I have a really strong mark. I think that means that gene of yours. But the computer’s been here so long by itself that they’re lonely. So they gave me R2 here so that they can keep talking to me.”

Elizabeth’s expression gave him a good idea of what he must have looked like earlier when she started on about stargates and aliens. “The computer didn’t call that R2,” she said weakly.

“No, the voices in my head call it the ‘component’, whatever that means.” He hesitated. “Is it bad that I’m not even disturbed by that sentence?”

Elizabeth rubbed her forehead. “I suppose for the Ancients, telepathic computers were par for the course.”

“Just a bit hard on us mere mortals.”

“So the computer is lonely,” she summed up carefully, “and it gave you R2. To stop being lonely.”

“If ol’ R2 here comes home with me, the computer can talk to me anywhere on the planet, even where radio wouldn’t normally work. Their kind of radio isn’t technically radio, it uses a sub-space phase space with waveforms that are non-matter-interfering, allowing sub-sub-atomic tunnelling of the space-time continuum, and so isn’t restricted by the speed of light.” He paused, running that back over in his head. “I have no idea what I just said. What the hell did that mean?”

“Their radio is better than ours,” Elizabeth summarised, looking half shocked and half amused.

“Right.” He nodded. “I like your version better.”

“So the computer is able to talk to you anywhere – and it wants to because it’s lonely.” She shook her head in disbelief, her eyes alight with interest. “We haven’t encountered any indications that the Ancients used sentient computers.”

“I don’t think they normally do. Did. Okay, this is kinda hard to explain because the voices mostly don’t use words, they talk in thoughts, ideas, and I have to figure out a lot of the words, but... Near as I can work out, this place is like an isolated suburb of Atlantis; well, of where Atlantis was, I didn’t quite follow that bit. It wasn’t part of the actual city. It was a research facility – which explains why we kept finding labs – and basically self-contained, so they held out against that plague better than most of the old guys did. I think – and don’t quote me on this – that they were mostly doing computer research here, playing with AI, and the main computer is the result of that work. It came to life spontaneously. Only then the plague took over and all the people left or died and the computer’s been alone ever since.”

“That’s terrible,” she said sympathetically. “But fascinating! John, this is incredible. What else did it tell you?”

He tried to remember everything, prompted by the voices and R2; about the snowstorm and how the computer could hear him anywhere in the base, how they spoke to him in his head and had tried to carry out his wishes. He pointed out the place in the roof where R2 had appeared and told her how the components kept the place clean and tidy, waiting for the next occupants. She drank in everything, listening in awe. “So then,” he concluded, “once I convinced the voices in my head we’re all going to play happily, they let me out. And here we are.”

“This is amazing!”

What amazed John was the exhilaration in her voice and how she just about bubbled over with enthusiasm. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“There’s so much information here, about the Ancients, about their society and their technology... Studying the computer could help us learn so much about the nature of consciousness. We might even be able to answer some very old questions about the soul!”

He shook his head. “They won’t let you do that.”

She frowned at him. “Why not?”

“Would you let people pull you apart to find out what makes you tick? It’s not some laptop computer, Elizabeth, it’s alive. It should have the same rights as any human.”

“You’re right,” she agreed immediately, chagrin in her face. “I’m sorry. But... I don’t think that will stop some of the higher-ups.”

He shrugged. “They won’t be able to do anything to it. They can’t. I don’t think you get it, Elizabeth, the computer isn’t in the base, the computer is the base. Even if you could somehow convince them to let you experiment, I don’t think you could actually do it.”

She raised both eyebrows. “This is amazing.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I’m the one with voices in my head.”

Smiling, she considered him. “It said you have a strong gene?”

“Assuming mark means the same thing as gene, yeah. Why?”

“It could sense your presence, even at a distance.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, not following where she was trying to go.

“Did it ever sense anyone else?”

He listened. “Uh, a while back there was someone, someone who used the weapons platform.”

“General O’Neill.” She nodded. “We’ve had over a dozen people come through Gateway since who have the gene.” She looked at him questioningly.

“Nope, didn’t sense any of them.” A slow smile blossomed over her face. “Elizabeth?”

“Of the people on my team with the gene, there is no one with such a strongly-expressed gene as General O’Neill. They can make the technology work with training and concentration but he only needs to think about it. It comes naturally to him.”

John nodded. “The voices say that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“That’s how it is for you?”

“Uh, apparently. Why? Where are you going with this?”

“John, what we’re doing under Gateway isn’t just researching the Ancient technology. Gateway is the outpost left behind after the Ancients left in Atlantis.”

“In Atlantis?”

“Atlantis was a city, but it was a city that could fly.”

He raised his eyebrows and gave a slight shrug; soon he wouldn’t be surprised if she told him these Ancients created the universe. “Cool.”

“They were suffering from a plague and so they left Earth to go somewhere else. We’re currently trying to find out exactly where it was they went and while we wait I’m putting together an expedition team so that when we locate Atlantis, where ever it is, we can go there.” She beamed at him and he almost laughed at her fervent enthusiasm.

“Sounds like an adventure.”

“Oh, it is so much more than that!” she breathed. “The opportunities for expanding human understanding and—”

“Hey!” he interrupted. “You had me at adventure, Elizabeth.”

“Oh. Right.” She gave an embarrassed chuckle and he almost told her that he liked her enthusiasm. “Well, I’m offering you a chance to be a part of that.”

“Me?” His instinct was to say yes, without hesitation, but he pulled himself back. “You might want to check my record before offering me a job,” he warned. She deserved to know all the facts. “And I don’t know how pleased the voices in my head will be at the idea of me haring off to where they can’t talk to me any more.”

It will be acceptable, the voices said obligingly. We will find ways to communicate.

“All right, the voices say it’s okay with them. But you still need to check my record first.”

“It won’t tell me anything I don’t already know,” she said simply. “You tend to be insubordinate and you don’t like following orders you don’t agree with. But you don’t agree with them because it conflicts with your sense of ethics and you constantly try to do what you feel is right.”

“Oh.” He was taken aback and not sure how she’d worked that lot out. It made him sound almost noble, and John was pretty sure he wasn’t noble. “Well, I’m glad to see you appreciate my finer qualities,” he joked weakly.

“Naturally,” she agreed with mock seriousness.

“I still don’t have security clearance, though. No matter how much you tell me, I’m still not supposed to know it.”

“You’ll get it,” she said immediately and with rock-solid certainty.

“You’re that important?” he said in surprise. But then he realised he wasn’t as surprised as he should have been, because there was a boundless confidence about her that made her important.

“Not me, the gene.”

“The gene?” Whatever he’d been expecting, that wasn’t it.

“As I said, we have no one with a strongly expressed gene on my team. We need you.”

Disappointed and even a little hurt, he said, “So what, I’m just a gene with legs?”

She rolled her eyes, wearing the timeless expression of a woman trying to be patient in the face of a man’s stupidity. “No, John, I want you on my team. Why do you think I’ve been telling you classified information? The gene is what convinces the higher-ups you’re worth bringing along. Trust me, once they catch wind of just how strong your gene is, they’ll be begging you to join up.”

“Really?” He thought about his last meeting with the brass. “I find that kinda hard to believe.”

“That’s because you don’t realise how rare this gene is. Without it, you’re an asset. With it, you’re indispensable.”

“Indispensable, huh? I kinda like the sound of that.”

R2 beeped in amusement and Elizabeth smiled. “Just think about it, John. That’s all I ask.”

“I can do that.”

“Good.” She stood up. “Now, are we going to stay here all day or are we going to find out how to contact the outside world?”

You are leaving? the voices asked worriedly.

“Only for a little while. We’ll be back, don’t worry. Besides, R2’s gonna follow me round, right?”

Of course. We apologise.

“No problem.” He stood and caught Elizabeth’s expression. “What? I have to keep the voices in my head happy.” She laughed. “Right, R2, where do we find a radio in this place?”

The droid beeped happily and swooshed off towards one of the control panels. John followed it and wrinkled his nose at the indecipherable script.

“Elizabeth, little help?”

She came up beside him. “You have to turn it on first.”

“Right. I knew that.” He reached out and touched a key at random, causing the whole board to light up. “That’s never gonna get old. You know how to work this thing?”

She frowned at the console dubiously. “Not as such.” She looked at the droid floating beside him and he followed her gaze.

“Right, R2, voices. Could someone please hook this thing up so we can call our friends on the radio?”

R2 beeped and John frowned. “What do you mean, I can do it?” The machine swooped over to the chair and circled it eagerly. “You want me to sit in that thing? How’s that going to help?”

But Elizabeth ushered him over. “It makes sense, John.”

“It does?”

“The control chairs let people like you, people with the gene, interface with the computer systems.”

“Do I want to interface with the computer systems?” That sounded dangerous. Voices in his head was one thing, but deliberately courting this, this whatever-it-was...

She smiled at him. “You do if you want to get out of here.”

With a reluctant sigh but trusting her implicitly, he sat down and leant back gingerly.

And the voices were there again, in his head, only this time he was one of the voices. They spoke when he spoke and he spoke when they spoke and it was the most drowningest moment of his life but he was in complete control. He knew, somehow, without knowing, exactly what he needed to do.

He opened his eyes and smiled. Elizabeth looked at him questioningly, but before she could speak there was the sudden hiss of an open radio channel. Lifting his chin, John spoke to the ceiling. “McMurdo, this is Sheppard. Do you read?”

“Major! We read you loud and clear. What happened? Where are you?”

John looked at Elizabeth. “That’s a... long, complicated story.”

Epilogue

The transporter rings took them to an access shaft that had been carved through ten thousand years’ worth of ice (Elizabeth looked at the droid faithfully trailing after John and wondered just how many of the things there were) and Elizabeth and John clambered up and out into the bright Antarctic morning. Lifting up her hand to shade her eyes while she fumbled for her sunglasses, Elizabeth looked around at the snowy wastes.

R2 beeped behind her. “R2 says our chopper’ll be unburied by tomorrow,” John told her as he dropped his pack into the snow. “I can come back and get it then.”

“If I know Rodney,” she told him, dropping her own pack with a sigh of relief, “it’ll be someone else coming to get it. You will be sitting in a control chair somewhere providing a light show.”

He thought about it. “Nah, that doesn’t sound like much fun. I think I’ll come back here instead. You wanna come?”

Smiling at the thought of exploring this new Ancient outpost without worrying about how to get out, Elizabeth said, “Definitely.”

“Thought you might.” He smirked at her. “It’s my animal magnetism.”

She laughed. “Hardly. I’m much more interested in the voices in your head.”

He sighed melodramatically. “Figures. I guess I’ll have to take what I can get. Hey, R2, you mind doubling as a seat?” The droid only had time for a questioning beep before John sat on it. It beeped indignantly, but didn’t shake him off. “Thanks.” He patted the metal beside him. “Come join me, Elizabeth.”

She took a step forward. “Are you sure it won’t mind?”

“Nah, he’s fine. I think,” he added in a stage whisper, “he’s got a crush on you.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me?”

The droid beeped happily and she smiled, completely understanding why John had named it R2. She sat down next to John, the droid just big enough for them both, as R2 started a low mechanical purr.

John snorted in amusement. “Think he’s happy?”

She patted the metal casing. “It certainly sounds like it.”

They sat in companionable silence for a moment, listening to the droid’s purr.

“So,” Elizabeth said, “since you were the one who got us out, does that mean the deal’s off?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Nope. Turns out it was my fault we were in this mess in the first place, so it was up to me to get us out, don’t you think? That means I owe you.”

“John, you’re the only reason we know this place even exists. I’m the one who owes you.”

“In that case, you can pay me back by letting me teach you how to hotwire a car,” he returned immediately. “Maybe even how to pick locks too.”

She chuckled. “What were you, a criminal in another life?”

“Nope. Just really bad at keeping track of my keys.”

She stared at his deadpan expression. Then he quirked his eyebrows at her and she laughed so hard he had to grab her arm to keep her from falling into the snow.

The low sound of a helicopter in the distance reached them, the machine getting nearer to where they sat shoulder to shoulder on the purring droid. “Our ride is on its way.” John sighed, sounding a little disappointed. “And now it’s all over bar the shouting.”

She chuckled but pointed out, “It’s not over yet. Will you join my expedition team, John? This place is remarkable but our goal is still Atlantis. I have to warn you, though, it could be a one way trip, at least at first. We may never be able to return to Earth.”

“I don’t know... I’ll have to think about it. I kinda like it here in Antarctica.”

“Of course,” she said hastily. “I quite understand.” It was a lot to ask, she knew, and not everyone was as willing as she to give up everything. She’d just hoped...

He nudged her shoulder with his own. “I’m just kidding you, Elizabeth. Me and the voices in my head are ready to follow you across the universe.”

She grinned at him, stupidly happy – and not because he had the gene and was coming, but because he was coming. “I’ll hold you to that, Major.”

He waved to the approaching helicopter as it turned to head directly for them, but didn’t bother to stand up as he matched her grin with his own. “Oh, I’m counting on it, Doc.”

Fin

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