Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 56

Chapter 56 - Elvish Woes

Several questions flashed across Eventus’s mind at that, because he had taken pretty much every precaution possible from isolating the lab from the general network to putting together a masking program that would hide the power draw by distributing its load across a number of secondary systems.

Realistically there should have been no way for them to just happen upon it, let alone break in to find Rayla in…

“Cold storage?” He asked, sitting up to stare at the two in sudden confusion since there shouldn’t have been anything mistakable as a stasis unit in the biolab.

“Doctor Zelenka and Lieutenant Cadman happened upon a young woman we believe was in stasis while investigating some odd feedback in the power systems.” Weir explained, shooting a reproachful glare at Sheppard who just shrugged in response.

That created even more questions, not the least because Rayla shouldn't have even finished her growth cycle for another two days.

“Can you describe this woman?” He asked, wanting to be absolutely sure someone hadn't built another Elf and just stuck it into stasis somewhere without telling him about it.

Sheppard looked to Weir who gave him a somewhat reluctant looking nod. 

“Blond, blue eyes, five foot four, one hundred thirtyish pounds, looks to be in her early twenties, and of course the pointed Elf ears.”

“Yeah, she’s mine.” Eventus confessed with a grimace, resolving to go check the logs so he could figure out how he had ended up on the wrong end of a specimen escape. 

A moment of silence passed as Weir and Sheppard shot him looks of pure confusion before the Doctor finally found her voice. “Yours?”

“Not in the sense of ownership.” Eventus quickly corrected, not wanting them to get the wrong idea given how bad it probably sounded to their sensibilities. “But I grew her in a biopod.”

“You grew her in a biopod.” Sheppard slowly repeated, sounding like he couldn’t quite process what Eventus had just said.

“Well yes.” Eventus confirmed with a nod. “Given our current power limitations there really weren’t a lot of other options for creating new and interesting forms of life.”

Various emotions played across Doctor Weir’s face at that before settling into a scowl that was equal parts anger, indignation, and outrage. 

“You can’t just go and create thinking beings like that!” She snapped at him.

Eventus blinked at that, cocking his head slightly as he tried to process just what it was about the idea of his creating Rayla that might have troubled her so much. 

“Yes I can.” He finally said. “We used to do it all the time… Or well, not all the time. But every couple decades we'd engineer a slightly different version of humanity and plop them down on a planet somewhere in the Pegasus galaxy to watch what they'd do.”

Many of them weren't even particularly nice planets, which yes, was sometimes part of the point, but it still left him more than a little annoyed on principle since his people never really went the other way and dropped people on paradise worlds.

“I think what Doctor Weir means.” Sheppard began with a glance over to the silently fuming woman in question. “Is that morally speaking it's not something you should be doing.” 

“Me.” He continued, shooting Eventus a somewhat forced grin “I’d like to know why?”

“I needed help.” Eventus answered truthfully, seeing no reason to lie about that. “And I'd already spent several decades working on the longevity template, so I figured why not finally put it to use.”

Sheppard’s eyes flicked to Doctor Weir, who was currently pursing her lips slightly as she stared at Eventus with a hard to read look.

“Okay.” He put forward in a tone that suggested what he was going to say next was likely supposed to lead to some specific point. “But what if she doesn't want to help you?”

“Then she doesn't have to?” Eventus answered, eying the man oddly as he tried to work out why he even felt the need to ask that. “But why wouldn't she? Assistant to the High Councilor is a highly coveted position.”

“She currently wants to be an archaeologist.” Sheppard offered in an amused tone.

“An archaeologist?” Eventus asked, feeling his eyebrow twitch slightly at the word.

“Yesterday it was a marine biologist.” Sheppard continued, his words somehow softening Doctor Weir's stare. “And the day before that a trader. Thing about kids, you never really know what you're going to get with them.”

That was true enough Eventus knew, but Rayla wasn't exactly a child, and the lack of any definitive psychological shaping should have left her without the various formative issues that led normal young adults to make so many suboptimal choices.

“So… Where is Rayla right now?”

“Anime marathon.” Sheppard answered glibly, leaving Eventus to boggle in confusion as that had absolutely not been on the list of answers he had been expecting to hear. “She found out there were ones with Elves in them and wanted to see what they were like.”

Eventus supposed that made at least some sense, though he really hoped it was something other than Those Who Hunt Elves as that would be absolutely mortifying to have to explain.

“Which reminds me.” Sheppard continued with a slight frown. “Why an Elf?”

“I saw the idea in some media from Earth and thought the elongated ears would be a useful physical indicator for the longevity template.” Eventus answered with a small smile, knowing with certainty they would come to the completely wrong conclusion from his words.

“And Rayla is the only Elf you're making?” Weir inquired, staring at him with narrowed eyes.

“The only Elf.” Eventus confirmed with a nod. “That particular lab is also growing some baby Asgard though as a favor to Heimdall.”

They should still be at least seven months away from full baby status, but he needed to check whether whatever had sped up Rayla’s growth and let her escape from the pod hadn’t done similar for them. As the last thing anyone likely needed was feral Asgard children running around reenacting a fuzzier version of a jumpscare movie.

“Baby… Asgard?” Weir repeated, sounding as if she couldn’t quite believe the words that had just come out of her mouth. “I take it that has something to do with their cloning issues?”

Eventus nodded, glad he hadn't needed to explain that particular issue to her. “You'll have to ask Heimdall if there's anything more you want to know about it.”

Not that he thought the Asgard would tell them much more than Eventus himself already had, but Heimdall would probably appreciate knowing the humans were at least considering his people’s position on the issue.

“I guess this means I’m going to be saying goodbye to my idea of taking a couple days off.” He muttered half to himself as he considered the work he would have to do to get Rayla up to speed. “Who did you have watching over Rayla?”

“Teyla.” Sheppard said. “But she’s been run kind of ragged what with the whole no sleep thing.”

Blinking several times as he processed the Major’s words, an extraordinarily unlikely possibility presented itself that had Eventus rushing to his feet with a distinctly worried look on his face.

“Has Rayla displayed any abilities? Telekinesis, telepathy, healing that sort of thing.”

It was extraordinarily unlikely since as far as he knew Dia hadn’t possessed any, but if Rayla had won that particular genetic lottery, it could explain several of the questions he’d had about how she was grown and walking around right now.

Something in his tone must have alerted Weir that there was something of dire importance at stake, as she rose to her feet, Sheppard following suit a moment later.

“We believe she has healing abilities somewhat similar to yours.” She answered. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t design her not to sleep.” Eventus said as he headed for the door, pulling up his interface as he did to run a location check on her. “And the only way to keep yourself from doing that with powers involves burning mental energy to replace physical energy, great for an emergency where you need to stay awake for a day or two without the negative effects of doing so popping up. But eventually you start hitting a point where your mental energy can’t replenish itself fast enough to keep you above the point where your mind tries to draw physical energy to compensate from your body, which, already lacking physical energy due to the lack of sleep, causes a number of compounding issues that can result in death.”

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Author’s Notes: Dum dum duuuum.

I’d say sorry for the cliffhanger, but it’s not really a cliffhanger since it’s kind of obvious I’m not going to be killing off a character I just brought in. She might suffer a tiny bit though.