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“Ah, Sheppard, good.” Rodney watched John put his tray down and slide in across from him, eyebrows lifted in silent inquiry. “There’s this thing—well, it’s a secret physics conference, or actually, I guess it’s a sad attempt from an old colleague to one-up me, but he must have gotten a lot of funding—” Rodney had given it some thought before he blurted it out, but it came out sounding unpracticed anyway.
“Was there a question in there, Rodney?”
“I—yes.” He paused. “John. I was wondering if you would accompany me to a physics presentation. On Earth. It’s only a day. Two if you factor in travel time, I guess. And after that—we could go do whatever you want. Or even do things separately, after. I’m sure you have people you’d like to visit.”
John took a bite of his sandwich and wore a considering look as he chewed. “Why me?”
“Because you’re—Well, it’s not like you could spend the entire leave surfing! Or, I guess you could, but you’re...you, and…”
“Meredith,” said John, warningly.
“Oh, what! Would you rather be polishing your golf clubs with a toothbrush?”
“Okay, let’s try this again,” said John, putting down his sandwich. “Are you asking me to this thing as a USAF officer escorting a valuable science officer to a secret location, or are you asking me as a...friend, who wants back up?”
“Um,” said Rodney, avoiding John’s eyes. Then he firmed his jaw and looked at John squarely. “Actually, I’m—I’m asking you as my date.”
He watched John’s face carefully, and slumped with relief when he saw John’s eyes go pleased and his mouth twitch upward.
“Okay.” John nodded. “Sure, I’ll go. What’s it about?”
“Oh—really?” Rodney felt a wave of relief and thought he might actually be able to eat after all. “Well, Tunney won’t tell anybody what it’s about until we’re there. Some sort of secret project.”
“Huh,” said John, between bites of his sandwich. “I wonder what could be all that secret on earth. I mean—that we don’t already know about.”
“Probably just some small contribution to quantum computing, or something equally theoretical,” said Rodney, waving a hand. “They’re ridiculously tight-lipped about these things. They don’t want to be scooped. But there’s always a chance it will be something moderately worthwhile. Tunney isn’t as smart as I am, but he’s not entirely useless.”
“So it could be something actually interesting?”
“Maybe.”
“Cool.”
And that was that.
-
“Private jet,” observed John. They were walking toward it from the airport across an endless stretch of tarmac.
“Compensation for other things he lacks,” said Rodney, but it wasn’t one of his best insults, because he was distracted by John.
John had a suit on, his hair was still sticking up defiantly, and he was wearing sunglasses, so instead of looking like he was on his way to a physics conference, he looked like a movie star on the red carpet.
“How do you know this guy, anyway?”
“We were in grad school together, and he was always trying to compete with me. He couldn’t do it on an intellectual level, so he did it by schmoozing with the professors and looking over my shoulder.”
Here Rodney tripped on nothing and John tilted an eyebrow at him, which made Rodney realize he might have been staring at John’s everything a little too long, so he turned and led the way up the ramp. He could feel John fall into step behind him.
Once they’d taken off (and after John had introduced himself to the pilot and copilot with a lot of technical pilot talk that Rodney refused to find charming) John started poking around the cabin. Rodney poured the champagne.
“Wow, is this Tunney with the Dalai Lama?” said John. “What do you think they talked about?”
Rodney squinted across the cabin at the picture John was studying, and made a disgusted noise.
“Yes, that’s Dr. Malcom Tunney. But considering that the Dalai Lama doesn’t speak English and uses a translator, probably not much. Tunney is an ass-kisser type, so I’m sure it was all ‘world peace is so important as long as I stay rich’ and ‘smile for the photo op’.”
“Is Tunney that rich?” John had moved on and had his head in the supply closet.
“Maybe,” said Rodney. “Because of the ass-kissing, he was always pretty good at drumming up funding for his research. I assume Kramer, inc. is loaded.”
“Well, he can’t be that rich, because this plane is an older model. I mean, it’s still a private jet, but it’s like buying someone’s fifteen year old Volvo.”
John circled back around and slouched into the chair across from him.
“That’s about what I would expect from Tunney. Trying hard to look good for investors, but saving a couple mill where he thinks he can get away with it.”
“Only the best Volvos for his rivals. Are you going to eat those?” John pointed at the basket of strawberries.
“No,” Rodney shuddered. “Childhood trauma.”
“Really?” asked John, interested in the way he was when someone said they’d wiped out on a skateboard to get that cool scar. Rodney almost lost his train of thought when John lovingly shoved a strawberry between his lips, but managed a reply.
“I ate an entire bowl so I wouldn’t have to share with Jeanie, and threw up.”
John laughed.
“Huh. Well, more for me.” John ate another, even more slowly and lovingly than the first. Rodney was forced to cross his legs and John slanted him a look that suggested he knew it was his fault and he was proud of it. Rodney didn’t call him on it, because this was their first date, and he wanted it to go more smoothly than Rodney’s first dates normally did.
“What are you going to buy stateside?” asked John. And they spent a while discussing ways to fill their limited personal cargo allowance on the Daedalus. They carefully didn’t talk about what they would do after this event, and Rodney kind of thought it was contingent on how well the date went. It made him a little nervous, but short of blowing up a solar system, Rodney was confident he couldn’t screw it up too badly.
They finished the bottle of champagne and then John took a power nap, draped artfully across his reclining chair. It stopped Rodney from brooding about what was coming, because he hardly ever got to watch Sheppard sleep like this: natural and actually relaxed, instead of the tense way he slept on missions.
Rodney cautiously ate two strawberries and was surprised to find they were kind of pleasant.
-
“What could possibly be so secret he needs 200 pages for this agreement?” demanded Rodney.
“If you want to go in, sir, you have to sign it,” said the supercilious receptionist.
“Dinosaurs?”
“Excuse me?” asked the receptionist.
“Do they have live dinosaurs back there?”
“Or laser weapons?” put in John, with an elbow and a sideways grin at Rodney.
“Of course you want it to be laser weapons,” said Rodney. “It’s probably something strictly theoretical, and knowing Tunney, not entirely his. He always had a penchant for snatching other people’s ideas.”
“Jeez, this thing is worse than Tolstoy,” muttered John, more seriously. “Maybe we’d better actually look at it. There might be a conflict.” John gave Rodney an eyebrow wiggle and started flipping through it.
“Are you seriously going to read that whole thing?”
“Yes, Rodney. It’ll take me about a week.” He glanced up. “I’m skimming for scary words like ‘risk’ and ‘penalty’. Like, here: ‘In the event of an unanticipated security threat, you agree to indemnify Kramer, inc, and all associated parties of any wrong-doing, blah, blah, blah. Not responsible for loss of life, blah.”
“Loss of life! Maybe it is a weapon,” said Rodney. And then, hesitantly, “We could just...leave.”
Rodney didn’t know why he was offering it. He wasn’t even sure which he would prefer. He didn’t really want to go in there without John. This had stopped being about proving to his colleagues that he hadn’t gone full shut-in, and become more about trying to impress John with his dateworthyness. It felt strange to care just slightly less about what his peers thought than what John thought.
“And waste all this effort? We haven’t even talked to your friends.”
John was smirking at him, and Rodney squinted at him, trying to see around the sarcasm to what Sheppard was really saying, which—oh!
“Ah hah—I know you. You just don’t want to take the chance it’s a laser weapon!”
“Well,” drawled John. “I’m pretty curious, it’s true. Should we do something a little reckless and sign the damn things?”
“Weapon or not, it can’t be worse than getting on a wraith ship,” Rodney sighed.
“That’s the spirit!”
They signed, and John gave the receptionist his most insincere smile as they walked through into the reception area.
-
“Nevada,” said John, sipping some wine. He looked completely at ease in his suit, like he did this all the time. Rodney felt overly warm and found he had forgotten how much he hated bowties.
“Or Arizona,” said Rodney. “God, secret facilities seem so 1950s.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t have one,” said John.
“I’ve got a secret lost city, that’s way better,” said Rodney, waving that away.
“Well, when you put it that way—”
“Rodney McKay?” said Neil deGrasse Tyson.
“We thought you were dead,” said Bill Nye, emerging from the crowd to stand in front of them.
“Oh, only once or twice,” said John. They looked at him in confusion.
“Right,” Rodney gave a forced laugh. “John, this is Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who you might know from—”
“Bill Nye the Science Guy!” said John, with far too much enthusiasm in Rodney’s opinion. “And I watched your show, too,” he continued, beaming at Tyson. “What was it called? Nova something.”
“Nova Sciencenow,” corrected Tyson, then, “Who’s this, McKay? Your TA?”
“What? No—” started Rodney.
“I’m John Sheppard,” John offered his hand and shook with both of them.
“No ‘doctor’ in front of that?” asked Tyson.
“No,” said John, mildly. “Though sometimes there’s a ‘lieutenant colonel’.”
“What are you doing here with McKay, then? Security detail?” Nye sounded like he thought that was a long shot.
“Nah, Rodney can take care of himself pretty well. I’m his date.” John gave them a bland smile, which became more genuine as it moved to Rodney.
Rodney managed not to choke on his canapé.
“Oh,” said Tyson. “Huh.”
“That’s unexpected,” said Nye.
John said nothing, just continued to smile his most affable smile.
“Well, uh, I guess we should find seats,” said Tyson.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” said Rodney, feeling oddly triumphant about this encounter in a way he hadn’t anticipated, considering he hadn’t really gotten to shout at anybody.
As Nye and Tyson walked away, Rodney turned to John and thwapped him on the shoulder.
“You moron , you can’t tell people this is a date! Are you trying to get court-martialed?”
“Relax, Rodney. These people aren’t military. And believe me, the SGC is not gonna ask.”
“Oh. I…guess. Okay. So then, can I tell people this is a date?”
“Well, it is a date, right?” asked John.
“I thought that was clear when I asked you on a date!”
“Then yes, Rodney, you can tell people I’m your date.”
“Oh. Good. Okay. Yes.” Rodney straightened his bowtie for the twelfth time.
John, in turn, proceeded to thwap Rodney on the shoulder and said, “Why didn’t you tell me you knew famous people? I can’t believe Bill Nye insulted me.”
Rodney squinted at him and said, “I had no idea you even knew who those two were. They’re hardly football players or, or military heroes—”
“No, they’re celebrity scientists! That’s pretty cool.”
“I guess so,” said Rodney.
“So...should we go see if autographing that Tolstoy was worth it?” asked John.
“Seriously, I will learn to kiss ass if there are dinosaurs in there,” said Rodney.
They ambled into the auditorium.
-
At first, sitting in the dark, his shoulder braced against John’s, Rodney had been paying more attention to John’s proximity than to the presentation. He’d allowed his mind to wander to how this date might end, or theoretically, how it might continue on after today. They could go anywhere, any country, any restaurant, any beach... And in the midst of that, Rodney would probably be allowed to, uh, make a move that, if he was lucky, would result in kissing and nakedness. He stole a glance at John, who gave him a sneaky little smile back and squeezed Rodney’s arm where it lay on the arm rest. So—Sheppard was distracting, but Tunney’s boring Steve Jobs impersonation was an equal and opposite deterrent.
That was until, after a few minutes, Tunney got past the self-aggrandizing Hallmark Card bullshit and Rodney tuned back in sharply at the diagram of the bridge. He started to have a bad feeling, like indigestion, or failure, or...
“Oh. Oh no way.” Rodney sat up straight in his seat, fast enough that John slumped over into him before righting himself.
“Is that what I think it is?” murmured John, the note of concern plain in his voice.
“That’s my bridge. My sister and I came up with that,” Rodney hissed.
“I know, McKay—and I remember how this went down.” John’s voice had gone military-situation-tight.
“Oh, right,” said Rodney. “Right, hole in the fabric of space-time. This is very bad. I can’t believe he stole my work and has managed to ignore every single warning I put in—”
“What are we going to do about it?” interrupted John.
“I can try to talk him out of it.”
They both considered Tunney, still down there grandstanding on the stage, and simultaneously understood how unlikely a solution that was.
“Or we can just get out of here, make a few calls,” suggested John.
“Yes, good. I don’t want to be inside when this turns on. Once was enough.” Rodney grimaced, thinking of Rod, but also of the sick feeling in his stomach at the words ‘tear in the fabric of our universe.’
“More than enough,” agreed John. “And we don’t have a ZPM here to overload and shut it down. Let’s go.” John stood up, gave the people next to him an apologetic smile, and started to inch out.
“Right behind you,” Rodney said.
“Oh, leaving already?” asked Tunney, interrupting his own presentation, just as John reached the aisle.
“Yep,” John answered for Rodney, loud enough to be heard across the hall. He reached over to grab Rodney’s elbow, and yanked him the rest of the way into the aisle.
“I’m afraid you can’t. The Tunney Matter-Bridge is being brought online as we speak. The containment field is already active.”
“What?” shouted Rodney. “You can’t do this without our consent.”
“I assume you signed the confidentiality agreement?”
“That 200-page tome?”
“Then you gave your consent,” said Tunney, smoothly. And then he was blathering about altruistically saving the world again.
“Look, Tunney, this is a really bad idea,” shouted Rodney, interrupting. “Please don’t bring that thing online with all these people here. You’re putting everyone in danger.”
“Respectfully, I disagree.” Tunney’s tone and posture radiated smug faux-enlightenment and Rodney wanted to punch him more now than he ever had in grad school. “There’s nothing to be worried about, Dr McKay. And this jealousy is unbecoming.”
“You’re not going to be able to control it! The energy will build too fast and cause a feedback loop,” Rodney tried. “I have experience with this sort of thing—”
“Oh, really?” said Tunney. “Maybe some research you’d like to bring forward.”
“I can’t—” Rodney could feel his blood pressure spike. John’s hand closed around his bicep and squeezed.
“Of course, you can’t, because it’s my ground-breaking research,” said Tunney before he turned his attention back to the audience, and continued smoothly, “Please, everyone, join us in the lobby for hot chocolate. The bridge is now up and running. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have while you review the brief.”
“Jesus,” muttered John, as people filed out around them, some of them giving Rodney looks.
“I suddenly remember that I hate most of these people,” said Rodney.
“The feeling seems to be mutual.” John spared a glance at the presentation’s picture of the bridge. “Now what are we going to do?”
“It’s got to be shut down,” said Rodney. “Fast, before it builds up to full stream. It might already be too late.”
“Let’s go,” said John, and even with his suit on instead of his tac vest, Rodney saw he’d gone alert and serious, no more teasing crinkle to his eyes or tilt to his mouth.
-
Unfortunately, when they emerged into the lobby, it was already full of chattering people, most of whom were morons who disliked him. Fortunately, after his failed attempt to talk sense into Tunney, no one wanted to talk to Rodney.
“There’s probably an operations room of some sort.” Rodney scanned the room. “But we won’t get in there without Tunney unless you want to fight your way alone and unarmed through security.”
“Gee, that sounds like a ton of fun, McKay, but let’s make that plan B. And just think, Woolsey will be so proud of us for trying diplomacy first.” But even as John said it, Rodney was pretty sure John was clocking the number of security guards, the doors, and exit strategies. Just because Rodney didn’t have that particular skill set didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate someone’s competence. Rodney, while appreciating, was also trying to think his way around the problem without any of his own Atlantis-based stuff. He needed to get in there and see what he was working with.
“That door,” said Rodney, gesturing. “I saw a bunch of science underlings go in there before the presentation.”
“That a technical term?” asked John, even as he followed Rodney toward it.
“Hey, Rodney,” said someone. And oh—great, it was Nye again.
“No time,” said Rodney, trying to bulldoze his way through like he usually managed with lesser personalities.
“C’mon Rodney, that was really uncalled for. Right in the middle of his presentation,” said Nye, keeping up with them. “Tyson says Hawking thought so, too.”
“What’s a good time to tell someone they’re going to cause a rift in space-time, then?” snapped Rodney, distractedly. They’d gone a few more steps with Nye dogging their heels.
“McKay,” said John, and pointed at Tunney, standing next to the cardboard cut-out of himself, which was holding a thermostat. It had just dropped to 64 degrees. Tunney accepted the scattered applause with smiles, flanked by two security goons.
“That is not good,” said Rodney.
“Why not?” asked Nye. “It’s doing what he theorized it would do.”
“Yeah, and in a few minutes he’s going to realize he can’t shut it down. The temperature will continue to drop, and...I need to get to his operations room.”
“I’m not saying I believe you, but what makes you think you can do anything to this bridge that Tunney can’t?” asked Nye.
“Because he’s a hack,” said Rodney, feeling his blood pressure rise again, “Who stole my—”
“We really don’t have time for this,” said John. “Let’s go.” He hooked a hand around Rodney’s elbow and started moving through the crowd. Nye trailed behind them.
“Dr. Tunney,” said John, in a tone that did not invite dissent. “Dr. McKay would like a word with you. Rodney? Explain it to him.”
“Tunney, you have no idea what you’re messing with. You have to shut off the machine right now, or we are all unbelievably fucked.” Rodney’s loud pronouncement caused a ripple through the crowd. Tunney had a smarmy, falsely-indulgent look on his face that made Rodney want to punch him even more, and he might have, if a timid-looking woman hadn’t crept up to Tunney’s side as they stood there glaring at each other.
“Dr. Tunney,” she almost whispered.
“What?” Tunney hissed, not even looking at her.
“Um, you told us to shut the device down once we reached sixty-four.”
“Yes, go ahead and shut it down now,” said Tunney.
“Well, sir, that's the problem. We've tried. The device won't turn off,” said the minion.
“What? No, the fail-safes—” Tunney turned. “I’ll take care of it.”
“We’ll help,” said John, and it was not a suggestion. Tunney was distracted enough that he didn’t give his security any directions regarding the two of them, so John gestured to Rodney and they both dashed after him.
-
“Malcom, what the hell is going on?” asked an older man who had already been in the room when they entered.
“It’s alright, Mr. Kramer, I just need to look at the readings—” Tunney tapped some keys. “Wait—who’s been in here?”
“Just us, sir,” said the minion.
“Tunney, explain,” said Kramer.
“Let me guess, the bridge won’t deactivate,” said Rodney. He said it with less smugness than he might have a few years ago, because mostly, he felt like screaming.
“Who’re you?” demanded Kramer.
“The man whose research Dr. Tunney stole.”
“That is false!” protested Tunney.
“But he’s been working on this for years,” said Kramer.
“For about two years?” put in John, at his most mild.
“What is your boy toy even doing in here?” shouted Tunney. “This is my operations room! I want authorized personnel only, and—”
“Hey, that’s Lieutenant Colonel boy toy to you,” said John, his face doing a complicated half-amused, half-pissed off thing. “United States Air Force, and currently trying to help save all our asses. But what I’m most concerned about right now are all the people you’ve got trapped in here.”
“If I weren’t stuck in here with you, I’d tell you that you could clean up your own mess,” said Rodney. “Let me guess how you got ahold of this—of my —research. You saw a classified paper you weren’t supposed to see, about a matter bridge used to extract clean energy, which had to be shut down because of the uncontrolled exchange of exotic particles. You thought if you were only transferring heat instead of extracting energy, you’d avoid the exotic particles. So you made it seem like your own work, and completely ignored my warnings about the inherent instability of a matter bridge.”
“I—” said Tunney, seemingly ready to bluster through it, even with the guilt plain on his face.
“Can’t you just shut it down, Malcom?” asked Kramer. “Just turn off the power?”
“I’ve been trying.” Tunney took a deep breath and turned back to the computer. “It’s self-powered once it’s up and running.”
“Can you shut it down?” Kramer asked Rodney after a considering pause.
“Well,” said Rodney, moving to the computer and motioning Tunney out of the way. Tunney reluctantly shifted back a few steps. Rodney tried some basic commands that he knew would probably not work. “No. Not easily. Oh, Tunney, did you notice this?” He pointed at the screen.
“The fluctuations?” Tunney looked at the screen. “It’s not supposed to do that.”
“Yeah, it’s unstable. Before, we...I mean, maybe we can use the instability to spike and overload the stream, which will force it to shut down.”
“That...might work,” said Tunney, grudgingly, but with an undercurrent of relief.
Rodney was all set to give a very articulate ‘duh’ when there was a scream from the direction of the lobby. John swung around and ran toward it, security trailing him, so Rodney was forced to follow to make sure John didn’t get himself injured on their first date.
-
“It was like a lightning strike!” Nye was saying. “Except it did that.” He gestured at the half-frozen man, laying prone.
“He’s alive,” pronounced John, standing after taking his pulse. “But this is way beyond first aid. What the hell was that, McKay?”
“The heat’s being drawn out by the bridge,” said Rodney, “but not evenly, therefore—”
“Sudden cooling,” said Tunney. “Yeah. Like...like—”
“Freeze lighting,” said Rodney.
“You are still not allowed to name anything,” said John, shaking his head.
“Hey, you kind of got your laser beam!” said Rodney, snapping.
“Uncontrollable ice beams are definitely less awesome than expected,” said John, giving Rodney a sideways half-smile, and then grimacing at the frozen man. “Rodney, where’s the least likely place in here for this thing to strike?”
“Oh, um, I suppose it would be where the temperature is fluctuating the least, which here would be the center of the building, probably. Less pressure from the outside, and thicker insulation from the walls. That should translate to a steadier heat drain.”
“Great.” John turned to Kramer, who was looking grim, and said, “Mr. Kramer, where’s the center of the building? We need to evacuate people there while Dr. McKay figures out how to shut this down.”
“That’d be backstage of the auditorium,” said Kramer, with, to his credit, barely a moment’s hesitation.
John turned to the security goons by the door, and gestured Mr. Kramer into the ensuing conversation, with what Rodney thought of as his Military Commander face on. Rodney felt free to leave that to John, because at the same time a bunch of astrophysicists descended on Tunney, and by proximity, Rodney. He was just shouting down some idiot who was trying to tell them this was tied to his own crack-pot theories on dark energy when he tuned back in to John’s voice.
“Folks,” said John in a tone that cut across the hall. He had stepped up the foyer’s stairs to be seen by the crowd. “It’s going to be a lot safer in the center of the building. If you could follow security to the auditorium’s backstage area, we might be able to avoid any more ice beam injuries.”
“We’re all just supposed to go hide in the backstage area?” asked a pompous-looking guy in tweed. “What is going on here, Dr. Tunney?”
“It’s a small...glitch in the Tunney Space/Time Matter Bridge,” Tunney said. Rodney could hear the capital letters. “My team and I are working on it, but for the time being, it will be safer to take shelter.”
“What kind of glitch?” asked Nye.
“A...uh, unforeseen complication in the shutdown procedure,” Tunney blustered.
“A problem inherent in the physics of a matter bridge,” put in Rodney.
“But you can fix it, right?” said a woman Rodney vaguely recognized. She might have been in his grad program, too.
“We’re working on it. This is extremely experimental—” Tunney started, but was drowned out by an argumentative protest from the rest of the physicists in the audience. The thermostat in cardboard-Tunney’s hand continued to drop.
“We are wasting time,” Rodney shouted.
“Rodney?” said John, turning away from his conversation with a bald man whom Rodney assumed was the head of security. And he mouthed ‘minions’, hooking a thumb at all the rest of the astrophysicists in the room.
“Oh for—” said Rodney. “Fine . Anybody who thinks they can help figure out how to reprogram the bridge to overload, come to the operations room. Everybody else, follow Colonel Sheppard and try not to get in the way of any freeze lightning.”
-
There were only about ten or so scientists who stuck around in the hall outside the operations room. Rodney didn’t question where the whiteboards had come from, but he did question the intelligence of all his colleagues and the institutions that had given them their degrees.
He only noticed John had rejoined them a while later when he was shouting at Nye, who, as an engineer, had no practical experience in quantum mechanics.
“I know what I’m doing,” shouted Rodney.
“So do I!” shouted Tunney. “I built the thing. We have to —”
“Yeah, and you also got us into this situation,” said Nye to Tunney.
“Hey,” said John as he strolled up to the board, casually slipped between the three of them, and pointed a finger at an equation. “That’s wrong.”
“No it’s n—” started Tunney. And then he shut up and looked where John was pointing. “Oh.”
“You’re welcome,” said John, and moved away. Rodney realized Sheppard had just pulled off a classic move to de-escalate a confrontation while correcting the math of a world class physicist. He was momentarily so turned on, he couldn’t remember what he’d been arguing about. Luckily he had a lot of practice ignoring Sheppard’s debilitating hotness in life or death situations, and he wasn’t even wearing the thigh holster here.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Rodney. “Listen to me.This is the only way we have a chance in hell of overloading it.” He snatched up the marker and wrote out the logical conclusion to what they already had. Tunney started to argue, but Rodney could tell he was beginning to see sense.
Which was when the freeze lighting sliced through the room and hit the wall behind the computers. Rodney found himself on the floor, with John’s body covering him, which was not a completely unfamiliar position. Also familiar was the way Rodney had zero time to enjoy it.
“Shit. John?”
“I’m okay,” he murmured in Rodney’s ear. Rodney suppressed his inappropriate reaction to that, but then undid the suppression by accidentally copping a feel, his hand sliding down John’s body as John got his knees under him and then gave Rodney a hand up. John spared a split second to give Rodney a dark, flirtatious look, but then schooled himself to his military situation face before he turned to check out the rest of the room.
“Thank god that wasn’t the computer bank,” murmured Rodney, still standing close, both for warmth and because it was generally best to be close to John when something started trying to kill them. Rodney felt sure there was going to be some running at some point, because somehow there always was. “I think it’s time to call the military and let them know they might have a problem, if we—if I can’t—”
“Rodney,” said John, voice low. “I already made a call. When Kramer was still busy getting the last of the guests into the auditorium. The SGC is aware of the situation, but they can’t do anything with that containment field in place.”
“We can’t shut it down anyway,” Rodney told him. And then the full implication of that hit him. “Oh, no, no, no.” He turned to Tunney. “If that containment field goes down, the heat exchange would trigger extreme weather. Tornadoes and...and high winds, dust storms, actual lighting—” he snapped his fingers.
“Stormaggeddon,” suggested John, helpfully.
“Yes! Of course, it doesn’t actually matter,” Rodney continued, following the logic to its bitter end, “because we’ll all freeze to death before that, but there’s no guarantee the heat sink won’t just keep going.”
Tunney was finally looking less argumentative and more like he was coming down with something, his face pale and sweaty, even as the temperature dropped. Rodney would have been glad Tunney was finally facing the consequences, if he and John (and, okay, the other guests) weren’t in here with him.
“We’ll figure it out,” John said, giving Rodney’s shoulder a squeeze. “Is everybody okay?”
Miraculously, no one had been hit but the wall, and when Kramer checked in with his security, the inner area of the auditorium hadn’t been hit at all.
“Dr. McKay,” said Tunney. “Code your program for the overload. We need to try something.” Then, grudgingly, “And you’ll be faster.”
So Rodney made his way through the huddled clusters of Tunney’s more dedicated staff and the guest scientists and started working. The coding itself didn’t take him that long, considering he’d been doing the coding equivalent of improvised Olympian gymnastics in Atlantis for several years with non-Earth technology, but after that came the hard part.
“Now we just have to wait for it to overload,” said Rodney. He felt like he should be sweating, because he was certainly nervous enough for it, but it was too cold for that.
They could hear the sound of freeze lightning in other parts of the building, and the whole place was creaking . Ominously.
“C’mon, c’mon,” muttered Rodney.
“It’s not going to be enough,” said Tunney.
“It’s got to be.” Rodney willed that little line to go just a tiny bit higher.
“The containment field is going to go any minute.”
“We’ll be fine for a while,’ said John. He looked at Kramer. “Steel and several feet of concrete, if I’m not mistaken?”
“It is,” Kramer confirmed. “Meant to keep the heat out with minimal air conditioning.” He grimaced as he said it. “The heater is already going flat-out.”
“Hey, and the power feeding the bridge is still all over the place,” said Nye. “It looks like it’s getting worse.”
“Yeah, and like a really insane kid on a swing, we need it to fluctuate right over the top of the swing set,” said Rodney.
“I always wanted to do that,” said John.
“Of course you did,” said Rodney. He spared a moment to give John a remonstrative half-glare. Kramer’s radio went off, and—so did the one Sheppard had somehow acquired. Both men’s expressions went grim.
“The furnace is down,” announced Kramer. “We blew it out, running it like this.”
“Rodney,” said John, half-question, half-demand.
“I can’t manufacture a spike. The algorithm can’t overload the system until it spikes high enough.” Rodney ran his hands through his hair. “At least it’s just heat and not exotic particles this time.”
“This time?” said Nye.
“Classified,” said Rodney, tightly.
“How much longer?” asked John, just as his radio crackled to life again.
Rodney tuned it out when it became clear that security was radioing to say that some moron had left the relative safety of the backstage area in order to find a toilet—not being able to wait her turn in the single one backstage, and apparently ready to risk turning into a popsicle for it.
“How did she get down there?” Kramer was demanding into his radio. Rodney continued to watch the spikes. Just a little bit higher…
“What’s happening?” one of the scientists demanded. “Did someone die?”
“No,” Kramer said. “The others think she might have been trying to get to the lockers where security stored cellphones and other recording devices guests might have brought.”
“How come security hasn’t gotten her out yet?” asked John.
“The section is blocked off. Frozen off.”
“McKay. Tunney,” interjected Nye. “Look—isn’t that the monitor for the containment field?”
“Security are all pinned down?” John was demanding in the background.
“Oh god, the containment field is about to go,” said Tunney. “Shut down your algorithm, McKay. It’s making it too unstable.”
“That’s the point,” snapped Rodney. “We don’t have any other way of collapsing the bridge!”
“And the freeze lightning is getting worse,” shouted Tunney. “We have to shut it down!”
“We can’t—” started Rodney, and then, “Wait, where's John?”
“He went to help my security get a guest out of a corridor that’s been frozen shut,” said Kramer
“What?” exploded Rodney. “That’s where the worst of the ice beams are!” If John died on their first date, in a drab concrete building on Earth, Rodney was going to be so pissed. Rodney snatched a radio from the charging station near the door.
“Sheppard, you’d better not be dead,” Rodney shouted into it.
“Still alive, Rodney,” said John. “I’m outside the corridor that was frozen shut. Me and—” here John cut himself off and then continued, “Jervis are going to break down the door.”
“With what, your heads?” asked Rodney.
“With a fire axe,” said John, and Rodney could hear glass breaking in the background.
“Colonel—” started Rodney.
“Kinky,” muttered Nye.
“John,” Rodney continued, glaring at Nye. “The freeze lightning is completely unpredictable, and coming faster. You are going to get flash-frozen out there for the sake of one person who couldn’t hold it!”
Tunney made a sound of dismay and the noise from outside abruptly got worse.
“The containment field’s gone!” said Tunney. “And the bridge still hasn’t overloaded! It’s just going to get stronger. We have to shut it off, Rodney. There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t!” said Rodney. “This is how we did it las—” He cleared his throat. “This is the only way.”
The security radios crackled to life again. “... too many beams …” he heard, the sound broken up by static. “... secured Mrs. Ross but the exit …”
“What, what, what’s going on!” demanded Rodney.
“... cut off from the second floor …” they heard. “... alternate route …” and “ Colonel Sheppard...scaling.... ”
“Oh, that’s just great, of course he is,” said Rodney, and then shouted into his radio, “Colonel, don’t do anything stupidly heroic!”
“Sure thing, Rodney,” came John’s cheerful sarcasm, clear even through the static. Maybe he wasn’t doing anything too horrifying. Then someone not-John said, “Freeze lightning! We’ve got three hit! Shepp— ” and the transmission cut off.
“Hello? Hello!” shouted Rodney into the radio. “Oh for—. He’s either been hit or is going to do something even more stupidly heroic. I have to go save him from himself. Don’t touch anything, Tunney!”
The building was making all sorts of terrifying noises, and as Rodney raced through the reception hall, he saw three different ice beams lance across near the ceiling. If Rodney weren’t so worried about John, he was sure he would have had several heart attacks.
He knew roughly where John was but he didn’t necessarily know how to get there. However, if the original route John and the security team had taken was blocked off and he was scaling things, that meant Rodney should probably get to the second floor and find something to lower to them, like a rope or a chair or...one of those useless-looking red carpets. He grabbed one and dragged it behind him as he raced up the lobby stairs and through to the other part of the building. It had a fancy glass atrium for a roof, which was going to collapse from the violent weather outside at any moment and shower everyone below with shards of broken glass—if the freeze lighting didn’t get them first.
There were a handful of tuxedoed figures below the second floor gallery. Rodney ran toward them, dragging the carpet and shouting, “Sheppard! Get out of there!
“Rodney?” yelled John, as he skidded toward him along the balcony, having already somehow climbed up to this level. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving you!” said Rodney. Although John looked mostly intact. However—”What happened to your hair?”
“Nothing,” said John, shiftily. “Oh, good idea with the carpet. Here, let’s get it over the railing and get those guys out.”
“Your hair is frozen,” said Rodney, even as he was helping heave the carpet over, and bracing himself against the railing to help anchor it, as a security goon boosted Mrs. Ross up.
“Close encounter with an ice beam,” muttered John. “That’s it Mrs. Ross, just grab my hand.”
Mrs. Ross looked about eighty, and a little worse for the wear, but still gave John an adoring, if somewhat shaky smile. Then the rest of the security team were scrambling up after her, and they were a lot heavier. The roof overhead creaked, and a few panels in the middle broke, just as they hauled up the last of the security team.
“Go!” yelled John. They ran toward the foyer as the larger glass panels began to shatter.
“I told you I wouldn’t die,” said John, faux-wounded, as they ran, each of them holding one of Mrs. Ross’ arms. “Not on our first date.”
“And not if I have anything to say about it,” said Rodney.
-
They skidded back into the command room after passing Mrs. Ross into the capable hands of Jervis, to be returned to the others. Rodney was moving so fast he would have toppled over if John hadn’t grabbed his arm and redirected him toward the main computer.
“Did it—hey!” The program had been turned off. “Tunney, you moron! That was our only chance!”
“What’s wrong?” asked John.
“Dr. Tunney just screwed up our only plan to shut down the bridge.”
“I had to! We were all going to be skewered by ice!” shrieked Tunney. Then, seeming to gain back some control, “We’ll just have to think of something else.” Without the panic, he sounded defeated, but Rodney had no sympathy. That’s what happened when you stole other people’s research and didn’t heed their warnings.
“Malcom,” said Rodney. “Let me use small words to make this clear to you: you have endangered the lives of everyone in this building, and now you’ve stopped the algorithm designed to stop it without any other sort of plan. How are you going to fix this?”
“I don’t know,” said Tunney. All of his earlier bluster was gone, and he was shivering. Rodney was surprised to find that now he did feel a tiny sliver of sympathy.
It was now cold enough to make everyone’s breath steam, and Rodney pressed his shoulder against John’s for warmth. God, he was hungry and the canapés seemed so long ago. All this running, and being cold, and fearing for his life had to burn a lot of calories. At this rate, he might starve before he froze to death.
Wait.
“We can’t overload it, but we could starve it,” said Rodney.
“What? How?” asked Tunney, straightening slightly. “We don’t have anything here that could draw nearly as much power as the bridge. Even with every piece of equipment in the facility at full draw.”
“Right, right, the bridge is too powerful. The only thing powerful enough,” aside from a ZedPM , Rodney thought to himself, “Is another bridge. We create another one, and they cancel each other out.”
“Wouldn’t that just cause twice the power draw?” asked John.
“I mean—that’s not bad logic, but the, the physics of it is wrong. It’s like—the bridges are going in opposite directions, so to speak, as much as there are directions in bridges to other universes. They can’t double up, they’ll draw the equal and opposite energy from each other and snuff out.” Rodney paused. “I mean. Theoretically. It’s not like I’ve ever opened more than one matter-bridge before.”
“Right,” drawled John.
“The system isn’t built for two. We’re going to have to reconfigure it,” said Tunney.
“Just do it fast,” said John. The thumping and crashing noises from outside were getting worse, and if the storm got violent enough, even steel and three feet of concrete couldn’t protect them.
“Trying,” said Rodney, already hunched over the keyboard. “Tunney, enter your code—”
“Got it,” Tunney said, accepting a keyboard to begin coding the second bridge. Rodney thought that when he was being competent he wasn’t half as bad.
“John?” asked Rodney, reconfiguring the system to allow a second bridge. “Check the math.”
“Here,” said John from behind him, as he leaned in to read over Rodney’s shoulder. The warmth was welcome. “How long, McKay?”
Of course the real answer was ‘more every time I have to stop to answer that,’ but Rodney had learned that John wasn’t usually asking for fun, but in order to calculate something else tactical, so he usually tried to give him a ballpark.
“Two minutes.”
The room fell silent, but that just meant they could all hear the storm damage and the noise from things being flash frozen.
“Almost...I’m done!” Rodney entered the command to bring the second bridge online.
Freeze lightning shot through the room three times in quick succession, and one beam must have hit the lights, because the room went pitch black. Several people screamed and the air seemed like it was crackling with electricity, but Rodney had no idea if it was from the storm or the matter bridges. He felt John grab his arm and manhandle him under the console, blocking him in with his own body, so Rodney yanked John fully under with him, and took shameless advantage of their proximity to put his frozen hands under John’s dress shirt.
“Hey!” yelped John.
“Yeah, yeah, quid pro quo,” said Rodney. So John slid his inside Rodney’s shirt along Rodney’s sides, although they didn’t feel all that cold—running around with security must have made him warmer. In fact, John seemed to be using the opportunity not to warm his hands, but to run them slowly over every part of Rodney he could reach.
“Hey, Rodney,” said John.
“Hmm? What?” Rodney squinted at him in the dark but couldn’t see much of anything. John moved in the dark, and then he felt John’s mouth on his, a little off center at first until Rodney pressed forward into the kiss, pulling John in.
John kissed like he did everything else: mostly on the fly, a lot skilled, and with a strategy hidden underneath the surface. A sly little flick of tongue made Rodney gasp, and John took advantage, licking inside. So Rodney freed a hand in order to seize John by his (mostly thawed) hair and gave back as good as he got. He was too busy trying to catalog the various ways he and John could fit their mouths together—for instance, Rodney swore he could taste John’s smugness in that last kiss—to notice when the noise died down.
It took someone clapping very near his head for him to a) realize his eyes were closed and b) open them to the sight of Bill Nye, way too close, head ducked down to stare at them, illuminated by some dim emergency lighting.
“Blaagh,” said Rodney, flinching back.
“So, he’s definitely not your security detail then,” Nye said. And then, “By the way, you did it, Rodney. Both bridges collapsed.”
-
Rodney hadn’t meant to spend the entire flight back making out with John, but then Sheppard looked at him and said “Think you can make those ice beams happen on purpose, Rodney?” Attacking John with his mouth was the most logical response to that.
They spent their second date in Costa Rica, at a private resort that supplied Rodney with adequate internet and spectacular drinks with little umbrellas in them, and supplied John with waves that left him grinning as he walked back up from the beach toward Rodney.