Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 116

Chapter 116 - Museum Woes

Museums were interesting, Rayla decided. So far she had seen the bones of creatures that predated the Lanteans showing up in the galaxy. Every type of crystal the humans had been able to dig up. And an exhibit about the Goa’uld that Daniel insisted wasn’t actually the Goa’uld even though Vala had seemed pretty sure that it was.

“It’s not a bomb.” Daniel insisted as they left the inappropriately named Egyptian display. “After Osirs was unearthed the US government went over every Egyptian artifact they had access to with a fine toothed comb. And all they found was a couple Goa’uld skeletons, a handful of depleted power cells, three remote controls to nothing, and thirteen tablets that had the Goa’uld equivalent to gossip columns on them.”

“I didn’t say it is a bomb, Daniel.” Vala corrected as they walked. “I said it was a bomb, the primary power crystal was missing from the central setting. And without that it’s just a pretty bit of jewelry that might someday explode if you run the right amount of electricity through it.”

“Or.” Daniel said, drawing the word out in a way Rayla had come to know meant that he was particularly annoyed. “Since it was dated to the twelfth dynasty, maybe it was an imitation of one made by the Egyptian people.”

Vala tilted her head to consider that before giving an acknowledging nod. “I suppose it might be.” She suddenly perked up. “You know, if you have it removed from that case I can check for you!”

“No!” Daniel snapped, turning to glare at the bodyswapped woman. “You’ll just steal it!”

“I’m pretty sure Daniel is right about this one.” Rayla put forward so they wouldn’t go back to that old argument. “The infrared pattern of the metal looked like the rest of the gold jewelry in the exhibit, and the gemstones didn’t have any of the ultraviolet refraction you’d expect to see from control crystals.”

The sound of footsteps stopped, and Rayla glanced over her shoulder to see the pair giving her odd looks.

“You can do that?” Vala finally asked.

Rayla nodded. “Dad said it’s because he based my genetic structure on a Lantean instead of a Human. So since they can see a little bit into the farther ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, so can I.”

That was also supposedly why she could lift nearly twice her bodyweight, hold her breath for almost twenty minutes, control certain machines with her mind, and was highly resistant to most types of poisons and ionizing radiations.

“Lucky you.” Vala muttered as she started walking again, only to pause after a single step and smile. “Finally taking us to the Ancient section I see.”

“Roman not Ancient.” Daniel corrected as he stepped past the stopped woman who stared at his back for a moment pouting before quickly matching his shorter stride. “While the Romans were certainly influenced by the Ancients who returned from Atlantis, it’s hard to tell just how much given the only similarities seem to be names, a handful of myths, general language structure, and a few minor architectural similarities.”

Stepping into the room, Rayla began a slow walk past the various exhibits. Noting as she did that Daniel was probably once against right since nothing really seemed to remind her of Atlantis in any way that would suggest a shared history. 

An odd feeling caught her attention as she walked past a half naked bronze statue of a dramatically posing woman, and she stopped to study it to try and figure out what it was.

“That's one of the bronze statues recovered from the temple of Diana in Pompeii.” Daniel began as he walked up next to her. “Which was a Roman city destroyed about Nineteen hundred years ago when the nearby Mount Vesuvius volcano erupted.”

“I think...” Rayla finally said as she took a few steps closer to the statue. “It’s trying to say something.”

“It's a really interesting case because the city was completely buried in ash over the course of just two days.”

“Yeah.” Vala agreed as she joined them, tilting her head slightly as she studied it herself. “That the artist really liked naked women.”

“Which led to a near perfect preservation of everything within the city.”

“No.” Rayla began to correct, only to tilt her own head as she considered Vala's words. “Or well maybe. But I meant the voice coming from it.”

“So we've recovered some truly astounding artifacts and even…” Daniel trailed off, giving her a very odd look. “I'm sorry, voice?”

Rayla pointed to an area just below the statue's chest. “The one coming from there.” She tilted her head the other direction. “But I’m hearing it with my head and not my ears, which is really weird because the only time that's happened before is when dad showed me how to use his tablet’s neural interface to listen to funny animal videos at night without waking him up.”

Daniel twitched.

Scrunching her nose, Rayla focused extra hard on the barely there voice. “I think… It's saying something like, I wait for those who come after… In Lantean.”

Daniel twitched again.

“Though it has a really weird cadence to it.” Rayla continued as the voice once more repeated the phase. “Like whoever is saying it was trying way too hard to make themselves sound important.”

“So… A guy?” Vala smirked, staring at the statue with an odd gleam in her eye.

“Why does stuff like this keep happening?” Daniel suddenly muttered under his breath, causing Rayle to turn away from the statue to stare at the oddly defeated looking Archeologist.

“It was supposed to be a quiet day at the museum." He continued in a self pitying tone. “No alien threats, no weird mysteries, just history.”

That seemed off to Rayla, and she frowned in confusion. “But isn't your history full of aliens and weird mysteries?"

“She's kind of got you there.” Vala laughed, reaching towards the point on the statue Rayla had indicated with a finger only for Daniel to dart forward and slap her hand.

“No touching!”

“It's all right.” Rayla reassured him since Vala hadn’t been anywhere near the point that was now practically begging her to touch it. “I'm pretty sure the access point is on her hip, not her stomach.”

She reached forward and tapped the point on the statue's hip, causing it to momentarily flash purple before four hidden panels on its stomach separated to reveal an interior compartment with an almost organic looking silver and gold metal pendant sitting inside whose faceted dark blue crystal glowed dimly with the light of a still active charge.

“See.”

Which was when every light in the area suddenly went out casting the room into a gloomy darkness that was only barely held back by the tiny bit of illumination provided by the pendant.

Daniel let out a tired sigh as he grabbed Rayla’s shoulder and pulled her away from the statue. “That meant you too, Rayla.”

Rayla cringed, really hoping she wouldn’t get in trouble for this. “Sorry…”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author’s Notes: It wouldn’t be a trip to a museum in Stargate without something happening. But hey, at least this time nobody got possessed by a Goa'uld.