Rodney took his time, making certain everything was in place, well-seated, all connections tight. He replaced the housing and surveyed the machine carefully. The Ancients had peculiar ideas about electronics. God forbid they should put a simple on/off switch on anything. Some things responded to touch, others to thought, others required a sequence of buttons to be pressed. He picked up Graden’s instruments and took some readings. It was sipping power, like an electronic device on standby, so it was already initialized.
Now the real problem was to figure out how it worked. There were small doors on each side of the long rectangular device. These were where the samples were placed, he was certain, based on the internal layout of the device. But he couldn’t get them to open. There was also a small screen that he knew should pop up out of the front of the housing and he couldn’t get that to happen either. He must have made some small sounds of disgruntlement, because Emily appeared at his elbow again, watching him work.
After a few moments, she volunteered, “Did you notice that the doors on each side say ‘press simultaneously?’”
“What?” he asked irritably and joined her at the end of the bench to peer at one of the small doors again. He moderated his tone to make it more friendly when he continued, “All I see is the word ‘press.’”
She frowned. “Oh. Hm. I sent an email meant for all Atlantis personnel, well over a year ago, containing my research into non-alpha-numeric symbols—didn’t you get it?”
“You’re saying this symbol means ‘simultaneous’? I thought it was just some kind of decoration.” He didn’t remember getting such a memo, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t. No need to dwell on his previous lack of respect for her work, at any rate.
She looked annoyed. “Maybe it didn’t get through for some reason. I’ll have the SGC print something up to distribute, like a pamphlet or something. I find these symbols all over ancient technology—it’s something everyone on base should be well-versed in.”
“Maybe it got lost in the shuffle during one of our many crises?” he suggested.
She seemed perturbed over this revelation. She shook her head and he watched as her curls bounced and jiggled, just inches from his face. He caught a whiff of a fruity scent, something like ripe peaches, that must have come from her hair. He realized she was speaking again and tried to focus.
“Possibly. At any rate—yes, this symbol means simultaneous. It seems an odd method of opening these small apertures to load samples, though, doesn’t it? I was thinking one side was for loading the sample and the other for extracting it, once finished, maybe?”
“Hm,” he said, furrowing his brow. He reached out and touched both doors at the same time and nothing happened. He tried again, pressing a little harder and leaving his fingers there a little longer. Again, nothing. “Maybe it’s the angle. Here, you press that one directly in the center of the door and I’ll press this one—on a count of three.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You do realize I’m not one-hundred-percent certain I’m correct about what this does.”
“What’s the worst that can happen? It’s from a genetics lab. It’s not a bomb,” he said confidently with an enthusiastic smile. “I just want it to do something so I can take some more readings. There isn’t much more to learn from it at this point. We can’t analyze a sample until we get the doors open, right?”
She looked doubtful. “Ok, but what kind of sample do you want to put in it?”
“On Earth they commonly use mouth swabs, hair or skin, don’t they? Do you have any hairs you could spare?” He smiled, gesturing at her abundant locks.
She touched her hair self-consciously and nodded, moving to the other side of the device.
He rubbed his hands together and raised his eyebrows at her in anticipation. “Ok, on three. One. . . two. . . three!”
She locked eyes with him, concentrating, and when he said three, she pressed on the door at the same time he did. He watched as her expression went from concentration to surprise and then rapidly to horror. He looked down and realized what her expression was about. His hand had been sucked into the machine and was being held there—gently, but firmly. “Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no,” he said, sending her a shocked look.
“Dr. McKay, I can’t seem to remove my hand from the device,” she uttered in a strangled voice.
He braced his other hand against the device and pulled. The harder he pulled, the tighter the constriction against his wrist became, until he felt his fingertips tingle. He could hear things engaging and moving inside the machine. He eased up on the pressure and he felt the circulation return to his fingers.
He glared at her. “Are you certain this is a genetics device at all? It seems more like some kind of device meant to keep a couple of prisoners together or something.”
“All I know for certain is that it was found in a genetics lab. I would think something meant for prisoners wouldn’t need to be this large or elaborate. What are the liquids inside for?” She looked terrified.
His next thought was lethal injection but he swallowed convulsively and kept that thought to himself because she looked like she was already on the verge of a panic attack.
“What should we do?” she implored, then gasped, her gaze flying back to the machine.
He felt it too. Something inside the machine was wetting his fingers with a cold solution of some kind. He went to tap his radio, but the hand he usually used wasn’t up for the task at the moment, so he awkwardly made use of the other one. “Radek? This is McKay. I need you to come down to the archeology lab ASAP.” He smiled at her nervously while he waited for a reply. He glanced at his watch and suddenly felt something roughly abrading his forefinger. He heard Emily whimper. “Ow! Dammit. Radek!” he bellowed.
“McKay? Is that you?” he heard faintly over a loud rushing sound which promptly shut off.
“Yes it’s me. Get your ass down to the archeology lab. Dr. Freedman and I. . . we have. . . we need assistance immediately.”
He heard a sigh over the radio. “Fine. But it will take a few minutes. I was just taking a shower. What kind of assistance do you need?”
“Our hands are stuck in a device. Just get down here.” He frowned and couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You wear your radio in the shower?”
“I must have forgotten to take it off. It’s very late. Why aren’t you in bed?”
“Just hurry, ok? McKay out.” He glanced at Emily. She had a strange, contorted look on her face. “He just got off his shift in the control room. I was hoping to catch him, but. . . he’s already gone back to his quarters.”
She seemed to cough and struggle to say, “Did you just say he was wearing his radio in the shower?”
“What? Didn’t you just hear our conversation?”
She made a strange sound in the back of her throat and stuttered, “No, I don’t have. . . my radio on at the moment.” Then she started laughing hysterically. She turned away, as much as she could, and covered her mouth with her free hand, her hair falling forward, bouncing with each convulsive laugh.
“Dr. Freedman? Emily? Are you ok?” he asked, staring at her in disbelief. He’d never seen anyone react that way to a stressful situation before. “It’s going to be ok, Emily. Don’t, ah, don’t. . . worry. Radek will, you know, get us free somehow.”
She glanced at him and took a couple of breaths. It looked like she was trying to stop. She quieted enough to get out, “I know. It’s just so crazy—I mean look at us!” Then she was giggling again which led right back into the uncontrollable laughs that had her whole body shaking.
She sobered up a second later when they both felt the sting of another solution being sprayed on the tender skin that had just been scraped raw.
“Ouch! Dammit. What do you think it’s doing?” he demanded of her.
“I don’t know! That felt like antiseptic to me, but I hardly have anything to base that on.” He thought maybe she was about to start laughing again, because she was lunging and twisting, then he realized the display had popped up on the device and she was struggling to try to see it, but her hand was trapped in such a way that she couldn’t get at an angle where she could see it properly. He, however, could just take a step to the side and see it fairly clearly, though at an awkward angle.
“What does it say?” she demanded.
“There’s a large symbol. Underneath it, it says touch here to continue.” He reached out to touch the screen.
“Wait! What does the symbol look like? Don’t you dare touch one more thing until we know more.” He looked at her, expecting her to look wild-eyed and desperate, but instead she was deadly serious.
“I can’t turn it off, unless I have access to the controls, Dr. Freedman.”
“I’m well aware of that, but by pressing that you could irrevocably set something in motion that neither one of us wants to experience!”
He glared at her.
“You said, it says touch here ‘to continue.’ I really don’t want it to continue doing anything, do you? Describe the symbol to me. Now.”
He grit his teeth. He didn’t like it when people second guessed him—especially when they might be right. “Fine. It’s sort of circular in shape and there are three lines. One is convex, the next is straight, and the third is concave. There is a small oval shape wrapping around the three lines in the middle.”
“Draw it.”
“Dr. Freedman—”
“There’s a notebook right there, dammit. Draw the symbol. Accurately.”
He awkwardly slid the notebook nearer with his left hand and shot her a withering glance. He wedged his body against the notebook so it wouldn’t fall to the floor and he drew the design as best he could with his left hand. Then he held the notebook out to her.
She took it and studied it. “How accurately would you say you drew this?”
“Accurately,” he ground out. “What? You don’t recognize it?”
“Give me a minute.” She was still staring at the design.
“Well, either you recognize it or you don’t,” he said impatiently.
“I’ve never seen a symbol like this in an Ancient context,” she admitted, but still looked pensive.
“See? I knew this was a waste of time.”
She closed her eyes and said, insistently, “But it is familiar. I’ve seen something like it before.”
He rolled his eyes. “Too bad you don’t have eidetic memory.”
“Like you do? Please!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, give me a break. You can’t remember anyone’s name—you can hardly claim to have perfect memory.”
“It—I—it doesn’t work like that! I can perfectly recall plenty of things. Names just aren’t one of them. I’m a genius. It’s part of my. . . charm.”
“Along with hubris?” She was grinning and shaking her head.
“The symbol, Dr. Freedman?”
“It’s interesting that you called me Emily until we got into this mess. Now I’m Dr. Freedman again,” she muttered.
He was beginning to feel really impatient with her. “Don’t you feel the pressure of time, Dr. Freedman?”
“At the moment? It’s not doing anything—so no. Cool your heels, Dr. McKay and don’t touch anything.”
She could be right. It could be waiting for further instruction. Or. . . . “How do you know it still isn’t in some preparatory phase? It could be about to lop our fingers off at any moment.”
She began to speak like she was thinking aloud. “This could represent a shock of wheat or other grain—meaning something to do with harvesting something. That really doesn’t sound good. But then. . . it also reminds me of a symbol I once saw in Rome—two-thousand-year-old graffiti of. . . an aspect of female. . . anatomy.” She was blushing again. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, her left fist touching her forehead. Suddenly she opened them again and they were wide with panic as she exclaimed, “Oh, crap! Crap, crap, crap—we have to get out of this!” She was tugging on her arm again, frantically.
“What? What is it?” he asked hoarsely.
“It’s a damn fertility symbol—that’s what it is! This isn’t a DNA sequencer. It’s going to try to recombine DNA from our somatic cells to make a viable zygote!”
He looked at the device with growing dismay. “Son of a bitch. Are you sure? I thought only gametes could do that—you know, egg and. . . sperm?” He slumped a little. He couldn’t believe he’d just said the word ‘sperm’ to her.
“Of course—that’s the. . . traditional way. But even on Earth right now there are people researching things like this. With cloning and in vitro fertilization, this would be the next logical step. Gay couples who want their own children, people who can’t produce their own. . . gametes. There are any number of reasons why a technology like this would be invented. We just. . . we cannot let this finish the process, Rodney.”
“Obviously. I’m open to suggestions, here.”
“Can’t we just pull the power supply?”
“I’ve already thought of that. There are mechanical parts moving around in there. It’s going to take two hands to take off the housing again and then tools to get to the power supply. We could try to work together, but with two uncoordinated left hands? It would be safer for our remaining digits to wait for Radek.”
“Sh!” She looked alarmed. “It’s doing something,” she whispered.
He listened, staring at her, sure his eyes were just as wide and freaked out as hers were. Then he heard it, like before, the sound of something clicking in place and spraying something on their trapped fingers.
“Oh my God. I didn’t feel that. Did you?” he asked, still whispering.
“No. Our fingers must be numb.” She sagged against the device. Her face looked pale and anguished. “That was probably another disinfectant. It’s been preparing the site—getting rid of any foreign DNA that might be there. It’s going to take a sample from us now,” she said, sounding certain, defeated.
“Ok. Then do you agree we have nothing to lose now? I should try to use the touchscreen, don’t you think?”
She nodded. He felt guilty. If he hadn’t come down here hoping to flirt with her, if he hadn’t been showing off, if he hadn’t bullied her into pressing on the compartment door. . . .
He started navigating through the touchscreen, but it wasn’t a simple matter. There was a lot of genetics-related terminology. He was having trouble locating the root control commands. He suspected she would have better luck wading through this stuff, if she were the one on this side of the machine. He was squinting just to read it from this odd, sideways angle. Then he felt it—a single point of pressure and a squeeze. It didn’t hurt exactly; but it was uncomfortable. Then, with a quiet hiss, the device released their hands.
He pulled out his hand and looked at it, expecting to see a mangled, bloody mess. Instead, all he found was a raw, pink patch on his index finger, less than a centimeter in diameter, with a tiny, bloodless hole, the size of a pencil lead, in the center. The machine was busy again now. In the near silence of the lab, he could hear its whisper-soft clicks and whirs as it prepared the samples for processing. He looked up to see what Emily’s reaction was, but she was already moving between him and the touchscreen, navigating quickly from screen to screen.
He looked over her shoulder, standing a little closer than was really necessary, and watched in case she needed help. It was close enough to catch the fruity scent of her hair again and he tried not to be too obvious about sniffing it. He felt a bewildering urge to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but resisted it, knowing it wasn’t professional or needed. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing—and was reading each screen much faster than he could—which wasn’t to say it wouldn’t have just taken him a few seconds more. When she found the basic command prompts, he raised a hand to assist, but she quickly told the device to abort the process and discard the samples. Moments later a drawer opened on the front of the device containing two small test tubes, each with a tiny cone-shaped piece of tissue floating in clear liquid.
She crossed the room and sank into the only chair in the room, positioned next to her desk. She looked at her finger for a moment, then pulled her legs up until her knees were level with her chin. She wrapped her arms around her folded legs and rested her forehead on her knees.
“You ok?” he ventured, approaching her cautiously, trying to smile. “Looks like we averted disaster.”
She looked at him warily. “I’m fine. This isn’t the first time a device has taken me by surprise.”
“It’s what you thought, then?”
“Yes. I think it’s safe to say Dr. Weir won’t want my team wasting any more time on this technology. We’ll document it and put it in storage tomorrow and start work on. . . something new.”
She put her feet back on the floor, wearily opened a desk drawer, and pulled out a small cardboard box. She fished out two bandaids and opened one, saying, “Let me see it. You should keep it covered until it heals. It’s not big enough for a stitch and I’m fairly certain it’s clean, given what the device was doing.”
He held out his finger and she gently wrapped the bandage in place. Then she looked up into his face. She looked a little sad and. . . longing? Surely his mind had to be playing tricks on him in the aftermath of the adrenaline rush. His heart was thudding heavily in his chest in response to her vulnerable expression. He felt a sudden urge to grab her up and kiss her, but he wasn’t stupid enough to act on it. He just stood there, numbly watching her, feeling uncertain about what he was supposed to do next.
“Well, what kind of pickle did you get yourself into now?”
Rodney turned to see Radek standing in the doorway with his arms folded and a disapproving expression on his face. His hair was wet and slicked back from his face—it was the most clean cut he’d ever seen Radek appear.
“You’re too late. We figured it out ourselves,” Rodney groused. “Thanks for nothing.”
Radek harumphed, his eyes landing on Emily who was placing a bandage on her own finger. He crossed the room rapidly, a concerned expression replacing the annoyed one. “What did this louse do to you?” he asked, pulling her hand out of her lap to examine her fingers.
She chuckled weakly and said, “It wasn’t his fault. It was just bad luck.”
Radek shot Rodney a suspicious look and rattled something off in Czech.
She smiled a fulsome smile at Rodney and patiently answered Radek. Then she walked over to the device, showing it to him. He assumed she was describing what happened to Radek in Czech. She had completely recovered her composure; she was acting like she thought the ordeal had been mildly humorous.
Radek was being annoyingly, overly solicitous. He switched back to English and said, “You shouldn’t be up so late working on devices. It’s easy to make a mistake.” He sent Rodney another censorious look before turning back to Emily. “Let me escort you back to your quarters. You should get some rest.”
“No, no,” she protested. “I’m fine. I need to wrap up a few things here and then I’ll go to bed, I promise. You two go ahead. I’m perfectly capable of walking home on my own, I assure you. Go on, go. I’m fine. I’m sorry we disturbed your rest, Radek.”
Radek was eyeing him. It seemed like he was reluctant to leave unless he saw Rodney leave too.
Rodney felt like he should say something more to her. Maybe he should apologize again. . . but she didn’t seem disturbed anymore, so maybe it wasn’t necessary. And anyway, he would never say such a thing in front of Radek.
Finally, he ended up awkwardly in the doorway. “I’ll ah, be in my lab for another hour or so, in case you need any help with anything. . . else.” She nodded and he turned to go, hearing Radek quietly telling her goodnight.
He settled in his lab and looked around for something to pass the time. He kept mulling over what had happened and couldn’t manage to make himself accomplish anything at all. He’d had crushes before. It was an all-too-familiar feeling. He knew it would pass with time. The key was to not let it distract him too much and to try not to make a fool of himself. Things like this, feelings like this, would surely go away once he and Katie graduated to some kind of a more meaningful level, right? After a while he heard a sound in the hall and he rose to peek outside the lab. He saw Emily’s solitary figure walking slowly down the hall toward the transporter.