Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 48

Chapter 48 - Fantasy Versus Reality

Massaging her temples to try and stave off the headache she could feel coming on, Elizabeth Weir took a moment to study the live video feed of the young woman wearing a too large lab coat who was swinging her legs almost idly as she sat on the isolation room bed before turning to the others sharing the room with her.

“Okay.” She finally said as she focused on the somewhat troubled looking Beckett. “So what are we looking at?”

“Hard ta say.” Beckett confessed, sounding more than a little perplexed about the whole issue. “I ran the lass through the standard battery of tests using both our and Lantean methodes. And the results were odd ta say the least.”

“Odd how?” Elizabeth pressed, well aware the sheer width that description could cover given the various things the stargate program had run into over the years.

“Well.” Beckett hemmed, clearly trying to figure out how to word it in a way they would all understand. 

“If humans were horses, you would be a more or less normal one.” He finally began with an apologetic glance over to her before switching his gaze to Sheppard and Teyla. “Sheppard and I would be crossbreeds. Teyla would be a Warmblood. Eventus would be a war horse. And Rayla there would be a racing horse.”

Elizabeth took a moment to work through the analogy before frowning. “So you're saying she's human?”

Beckett nodded. “I'd say a little farther away then the Ancients themselves were, but aye.”

He looked down at the tablet he was holding. “In fact, looking at some of these genetic markers I'd go so far as ta say she had a relatively recent Ancient ancestor.”

“Are we talking about superpower levels of Ancientness?” Sheppard inquired as he shot the monitor a concerned look. “Because I'd swear she has super hearing or something.”

“Her ability to hear us through the isolation room walls was somewhat unnerving.” Teyla agreed with a nod.

“From what I can tell, that's purely genetic.” Beckett returned with a shake of his head. “It's somewhat more sensitive than the Ancients themselves possessed, but only due to the improved ear structure.”

“That said.” He continued with a grimace. “Aye, I can confirm she has what appears to be a somewhat more limited form of the healing ability Eventus possesses.”

“How limited is limited?” Sheppard asked with a frown.

Shaking his head, Beckett let out a tired sigh as he motioned to the monitor with his tablet. “Ye have to understand, the equipment the Ancients used to measure such things seems to no longer be in the city. So I'm only going off the accelerated healing speeds I observed during the two's respective blood draws.”

“However, using how long it took each ta heal from that as a measuring stick, I'd say her's are somewhere between one eighth to one fourteenth the strength of his.” He gave an acknowledging tilt of his head. “Though how much of that difference is due to natural ability, knowledge, or understanding I cannae say.”

From what Elizabeth had been able to find about the subject in the database, differing strength for people with near ascension abilities had been something of the norm. As were differing abilities, even amongst people who were genetically identical. Which had led to some interesting speculation that the abilities a person manifested were a reflection of either their personality or spiritual self.

“What about physical capabilities?” Sheppard put forward in a questioning tone.

“Harder ta say without putting her through a full physical.” Beckett admitted. “But taking sexual dimorphism into account, I’d say she was closer ta the Human end of the spectrum than the Ancient one.”

Which Elizebeth knew wasn’t that large of a difference outside of a much higher level of cellular radioresistance. “Have we figured out yet how she got into the city?”

“She claims to have woken up in an object whose description was somewhat similar to the stasis pods I saw on the Enterprise.” Teyla offered.

“Zelenka was able to follow her path back to the room she woke up in using the internal sensor logs.” Sheppard added in. “But the room is locked down with some command level override the techs say they've never seen before.”

“Were you not going to attempt cutting through the door?” Teyla inquired with a slightly confused tilt of her head.

Sheppard shook his head. “I called that off when the Ancient-Vision headset identified the room as biolab seventeen.”

Her eyes snapped to Beckett and the doctor shook his head. “I checked the lass over for various pathogens as part of the standard battery of tests, and she’s as clean as can be. To the point I dinnae think she’s ever been sick a day in her life.”

“Lucky her.” Sheppard muttered.

“Keep trying to override the door.” Elizabeth ordered, wanting to know just what they'd stumbled onto this time. “But I don't want power tools or explosives anywhere near that room. Because the last thing we need is another nanovirus incident.”

“Don't have to tell me twice.” Sheppard agreed with a nod.

“Did Rayla have any idea how she ended up here?” Elizabeth asked Teyla since it seemed once more that the Athosian had been regulated to talking with their newly discovered guest.

Teyla gave an apologetic shake of her head. “She doesn't seem to recall anything from before she woke up in the pod.”

“I'm not entirely sure there's anything to recall.” Beckett said in an uncertain tone as he stared at the monitor. “One of the tests I ran her through was the Lantean equivalent of a brainscan. And the only activity it picked up in the areas of her brain where long term memory should be was an unfolding learning matrix.”

That brought up a troubling possibility that had been living in one of the darker parts of Elizebeth's brain since they had encountered the dying alternate versions of her. “Is it possible Rayla was just a young child when she was put into stasis?”

“Not with the two methods the Ancients used.” Beckett shot down to her relief. “And the learning system isn't really safe ta use at anything but the lowest levels till a person finishes going through puberty.”

“I suppose that's–

“Um!? Hello!?” Rayla's lightly accented voice interrupted before Elizabeth could finish, echoing out from the speakers as the young woman on screen looked around the room. “I know you're probably busy doing things! But I'm getting really bored! And a little hungry!”

Considering the screen for a moment as she thought over the possibilities suggested by the young woman, Elizabeth turned to Beckett. “Is it safe for me to go in there?”

“Aye.” Beckett confirmed. “The lass hasn't shown an ounce of aggressive behavior since we brought her in.

“Then I think it's time I met our resident elf.” Elizabeth said as she began to walk to the observation room.

It was a quick walk to the location, and she gave a nod of greeting to the pair of female guards before pressing the crystal and walking in.

The elf, a name she wasn't even going to try and argue with given how little good it would likely do, was already focused on the door when Elizabeth walked in. So she offered the young woman a friendly smile.

“Hello, I'm–

“Wow.” Rayla muttered in awe before Elizabeth could finish her introduction. “I didn't know women could get as tall as you.”

Elizabeth nearly tripped at that, the unexpected choice of topics throwing her for a loop.

“Cadman and Teyla were both my height.” Rayla continued, seemingly oblivious to Elizabeth's near misstep. “And Doctor Ko was only a little bit taller.”

A sudden feeling of self consciousness hit Elizabeth, but she quickly shook it off since now wasn't the time to revisit that particular bit of teenage angst. 

“Women tend to come in nearly the same range of heights as men.” She offered in amusement. “Just less often. But as I was saying. I'm Doctor Elizabeth Weir.”

“I'm Rayla.” The other woman offered with a smile. “I don't think I have a title or second name though.”

She paused and tilted her head slightly in a way extraordinarily reminiscent of Teyla. “Unless you count Subject as a title. But I'm pretty sure at this point that was being used more as a descriptor.”

“Subject?” Elizabeth inquired, not recalling any mention of that by Teyla or the others that had talked to the elf.

“Subject Rayla.” She said with a nod as she traced a number of Ancient symbols out in the air with one of her fingers. “It was on one of the visual displays in the room I woke up in alongside a statement about how I was mature and had been released due to becoming distressed. Which at the time made me think that someone was watching me, but now I'm pretty sure it was just an automated monitor keeping track of my vital signs like the sensors Doctor Beckett scanned me with.”

“So you can read Ancient then?” Elizabeth asked, filing those bits of information away for later.

“No.” Rayla admitted with a shake of her head. “Only Lantean and A-Thirteen.”

Silently chastising herself for forgetting that the Ancients hadn't referred to themselves as such, Elizabeth focused on the other question. “A-Thirteen?”

“The language Doctor Beckett was entering into his handheld computer interface.” Rayla returned simply.

“We call it English.” Elizabeth said.

“Oh.” Rayla exclaimed, batting an overly long lock of hair away from her face as she grinned at Elizabeth. “That's a much better name than A-Thirteen.

“It's been suggested that naming things is one of our specialities.” Elizabeth put forward with a light laugh. “I believe you mentioned being hungry?”

“It started a little bit after Doctor Beckett took my blood.” Rayla admitted, shuffling slightly on the exam tablet she had picked as a seat. “I didn't want to say anything at the time because he seemed really focused on trying to figure me out. But it's been a couple hours since then and this room doesn't have an assembler that I can find.”

“An… Assembler” Elizabeth repeated, not exactly sure what Rayla was talking about.

The elf flattened her palms and made a box-like shape with them. “A cube shaped device which creates food out of energy.”

Sudden realization flashed across Elizabeth's face. “You mean the synthesizer.”

There had been some debate on what to call the device Sheppard had discovered in his room, and a number of other places since. Mostly because everyone who had ever watched Star Trek wanted to call them replicators, but that ran into the general problem that the name was already in use by the self replicating robots that almost took over the galaxy.

In the end they'd settled on calling them molecular synthesizers, which had inevitably gotten shortened to just synthesizers.

“You know how to use them?” She inquired in interest, since the only one who had been able to so far was Sheppard himself.

“I think so?” Rayla offered, clearly unsure about the claim. “You activate it, then you tell it to make you the food you want and it will…” She frowned in consideration. “But I don’t think I want any of the eleven types of Nutriloaf… And they’re the only food I know… Which seems kind of odd now that I think about it.”

A lot of things about the young woman’s circumstances were odd, but Elizabeth didn’t voice that out loud. “The cafeteria is still open, though I believe it’s yet another grilled fish day.”

“I have never eaten fish before.” Rayla returned with a grin of excitement. “I look forward to trying it.”

Turning to the door and about to motion for the young woman to follow, Elizabeth paused as a thought hit before turning back to the young woman who had already hopped off the bed to follow. “Though we should probably find you some proper clothing first.”

“Oh.” Rayla muttered, looking down at herself with a somewhat castigated frown. “Right, that modesty thing that keeps people from thinking I’m offering to have sex with them.”

There were several things wrong with that explanation that Elizabeth dearly wanted to correct, but instinct was telling her that if she started it was very likely they would be here all day. “Something like that, if you’ll follow me, we can hopefully find something that will fit you.”

“All right.” Rayla said with a somewhat uncertain look on her face.

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Author’s Notes: Poor Doctor Weir, but that’s what you get for dedicating yourself expedition mom. Though at least Rayla is somewhat more friendly then the usual Ancient mad science experiments.