Futura Memoratia

Chapter 2 Novus (new)

He grinned knowingly.  “One hour,” he said, nodding, and left.

She set the stack of paper on a low, glass-topped table and sank into a cream-colored, armless chair, gazing at the room in astonishment.  This was her new home.

It was more than one room, she realized moments later with surprise, and it was certainly nothing like the military accommodations she had sometimes used at the SGC when she was too tired or too obsessed with a project to drive home to sleep.  Filled with light, artistic stone elements encrusting the walls—like the rest of the city, it was a place of contemplative beauty.  She quickly realized, as she explored, that this small apartment had originally been meant for a family.  That made sense, after a moment’s thought.  The Ancients would certainly have had families when they lived here at the height of their civilization, before the Wraith had made their existence untenable.

It didn’t take long to unpack.  They hadn’t let her bring much.  There were some books, a few sentimental objects—some of the smaller artifacts from her private collection.  She’d brought a fair amount of toiletries, not knowing what would be available in the commissary.  Her hair was unforgiving and needed constant care and feeding like a demanding pet.  She put those things away in the bath and hesitantly experimented with the fixtures in that room.

She’d brought some clothing, but not much, knowing she would spend most of her time in uniform.  There was a pile of new uniforms in the size she had requested lying on top of the full-sized bed.  After a short while she curled up on one of the chairs in the living area and looked around with a fragile smile, waiting for her escort to return.

The city is massive, she thought, as her guide showed her to her lab.  Atlantis was a maze of corridors, levels, interconnecting bridges and breezeways.  It was so vast, taking transporters from area to area was necessary, which was a bit unnerving, but she thought she could get used to it.  At least they didn’t make her sick.  

The archeology lab was a spacious L-shaped room, already set up with multiple stainless steel cabinets, workbenches and a small desk, shoved in one corner.  Another one of her crates was there, full of her work-related books and notebooks.  The benches and cabinets were littered with artifacts and there was an Ancient console there for interfacing with the Ancient database.  

She donned some gloves and began to carefully pick up, cursorily examine, and sort the artifacts into categories.  She hadn’t expected there to be so many, but then she hadn’t really anticipated just how enormous the city was.  On other worlds, they were lucky to find one object and finding a few in one place to study was like a cache of treasure.  But here, the objects to be studied numbered in the dozens—possibly more if this wasn’t the complete inventory.  Pirate’s booty.

Sometime later she realized she was ravenous.  She’d accidentally missed the midday meal in her zeal to sort and assess her new work environment.  She pulled a piece of folded paper from her pocket and checked her watch, set to Atlantis time before leaving Earth.  The mess was currently serving a hot meal.  She nervously activated the radio on her ear to request an escort from the welcoming committee.

She found an empty table near a window and sat down by herself, sighing.  Starting over again, making acquaintances, was never fun.  This could be a long assignment.  There were probably going to be a lot of lonely meals in her future. 

“Well, hello, love,” someone chirped cheerfully above her.  It was Dr. Beckett.  “Mind if I join you?”

“Of course!  Please, sit.”  She gestured at the open seat across from her and smiled, pleased to have company after all.