Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 133

Chapter 133 - Back on the Job

As much as Eventus wanted to head back to the SGC and look over the results of Rayla's random encounter. His meeting with Thor and then their joint meeting with IOA took priority given he was hoping to secure the Asgard’s help in dealing with a number of other ticking time bombs.

So they’d landed the cloaked Jumper on one of the UN building’s helipads and he and Xiaoyi had gone their separate ways. Her to her office, and he to a set aside conference room for his pre-meeting meeting with Thor.

“O’Neill.” He greeted the other man as he walked into the conference room. “They have you doing supervising duty?”

“Pretty much.” O’Neill drolled. “Ya know, you might want to update your answering machine message.”

Eventus frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”

O’Neill raised an eyebrow. “If you need to bypass the filtering system please contact your closest maintenance representative?”

“Yes?”

A second passed before Eventus remembered the problem with that. “Oh… Right… I should probably update the message…”

The flash of an Asgard transporter thankfully saved him from dwelling longer on that particular thought.

“Thor! Bud–” O'Neill began to greet the moment the light faded, only to stop dead at the larger form that was now standing in front of him. 

Eventus blinked, and then blinked again, not having expected anything to come of the data he had handed over to them for at least a few more months given all the testing that would have been needed.

“O’Neill.” The normal sized grey alien greeted the man with a slight incline of his head. “It is good to see you well.”

“You're… Taller…” O’Neill finally got out, his eyes roaming over the silvery spandex-like outfit Thor was clad in before settling on an area just below his waist. “And wearing pants?”

Thor nodded. “Given the return to our earlier form it was decided that the use of such garments might be preferred.”

O'Neill seemed to consider that for a moment before giving a nod of agreement. “Yeah, that's probably for the best.” His eyes briefly flicked to Eventus. “I take it the extra height means you guys finally fixed your cloning problem?”

“Unfortunately the opposite.” Thor admitted. “Our biological degradation had begun to accelerate to dangerous levels.” Holding out his hand, a small hologram of a metallic humanoid shimmered into existence above his palm. “This body is what your people would consider an android.”

“An android.” O’Neill repeated, tensing in a way that made it clear he was more than a bit worried about this turn. “Like the one that created the Replicators?”

“Somewhat.” Thor acknowledged. “However this body's self repair nanites are incapable of self replication and cannot survive more than a few minutes outside of the specialized electrofluid this body uses as a power transmission medium.”

Pursing his lips, O'Neill glanced over to Eventus with a questioning look in this eye.

"The nanites die outside of their blood.” He translated for the other man. “We use a similar system for our repair robots, though instead of an electrofluid they utilize an energized field projector.”

“The electrofluid was deemed preferable to an energizing field due to the physical medium's multiple additional uses and higher level of security.” Thor put forward.

“I'd have done the same.” Eventus agreed, imagining the various platform design possibilities. “Do you generate new nanites via a system in the body, or do you have to add in new ones from an outside source?”

“The first.” Thor said. “A separate system breaks down orally consumed materials into their component matter for use in body upkeep and power generation.”

“You mapped out a comparable sense of taste to your original bodies then?” Eventus inquired in interest.

“Many of our people felt they would miss it if we did not.” Thor nodded. 

“That's good.” Eventus said. “Everything I've been able to dig up on the subject says the more you can anchor your consciousness with familiar things like that the less chance there will be for long term personality deviation.”

Thor gave a thoughtful frown. “Quantify long term?”

“Somewhere between ten thousand to a hundred thousand years.” Eventus offered with an apologetic shrug. “Sorry I can't be any more precise, it was some really old data from the crew of an Seed class vessel whose bodies died in stasis.”

“Huh.” O'Neill mused under his breath. “Wonder if that's what happened to Harlal.”

“The Android from Altair?” Eventus asked, only to feel the need to clarify about the name for Thor's benefit. “No association with us.” He frowned. “At least, as far as I know. But we did lose a city ship when originally evacuating the galaxy, so I suppose they might have been some relation.”

“Yeah.” O'Neill confirmed, shooting Eventus an odd look. “Nice guy, not all there though.”

“I suppose it’s something to investigate later when I have time.” Eventus admitted, grabbing the interface from his waist and quickly flicking through to the relevant files.

Spinning the device around, he offered it to Thor. “Here’s what they’re hoping to trade with me for.”

Thor accepted the device, glancing down at it for a moment only to look back up at him with a slight frown. “Does your device possess the standard neural interface?”

“It does.” Eventus confirmed. “To utilize guest access just imagine the color blue.”

Giving a shallow nod Thor focused back on the interface.

“So…” O’Neill put forward after a minute. “Good vacation?”

“Could have been longer.” Eventus admitted. “But I had a nice dinner where nothing that wasn’t supposed to exploded, spent a day watching a television show get made, and read up on the local mythology while relaxing on a beach.”

“Daniel would approve.” O’Neill offered dryly.

“There’s only so much you can do on a beach without the proper equipment.” Eventus defended. “And with my physical capabilities it wouldn’t have been fair to try my hand against the girls in beach volleyball.”

The corner of O’Neill’s lip quirked upwards into a wry grin. “So there were girls there?”

“Four.” Eventus confirmed. “I think they might have been part of a government sponsored concierge program or something like that.”

He’d thought over the subject a bit on the trip back, and that was currently his best guess for some of the oddities with them.

O’Neill gave him an odd look. “Or, you know, spies.”

Eventus had to hold back a laugh at the thought. “What would be the point? Xiaoyi was with me pretty much the entire time. And the only state secrets I really have are the type you’d need a molecular synthesizer to do anything with.”

The odd look the other man was shooting him transitioned into one of general exhaustion. “You guys didn’t run into a lot of shifty people ten thousand years ago, did you?”

“Not really.” Eventus admitted truthfully. “The groups who tended to favor those sorts of things also tended to be the type who wanted to avoid drawing our direct attention.”

“And suddenly things make a little more sense.” O’Neill muttered under his breath, leaving Eventus to wonder just what exactly the man was referring to.

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Author’s Notes: And the next story arc begins with politics and favors.