Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 47

Chapter 47 - ?????

The warmth that had surrounded her for as long as she could remember was draining away leaving nothing but a slight chill in its wake. She reached out, trying to grab the warmth as it descended her body and pull it back, only for her hands to impact some sort of structure with a loud sharp sound that made her flinch.

Forcing her eyes to open, she was able to see a clear structure of some kind a short distance from her face, the closeness of it enough for her to immediately try and jerk back only to stop as she collided with a soft material that gave slightly at her impact.

Trapped… She was trapped… Panic began to set in at that thought, and she began to hammer and push with the full weight of her body against the clear structure in front of her to no effect until with an odd hiss it separated into two and pulled apart, allowing her to fall forward onto the reddish floor.

A series of shapes started flashing red on a nearby vertical surface, visual interface a little voice in the back of her head seemed to whisper, and she squinted, trying to make sense of them only to blink in surprise when the words somehow seemed to arrange themselves into an understandable form in her brain.

“Subject Rayla.” She carefully enunciated as she read the words on the interface, her own voice somehow a surprise to hear even though she knew she had said the words. “Maturation complete, emergency release initiated due to subject distress.”

She was Rayla, the certainty of that was absolute in her mind. And she had certainly been in distress being trapped like that. Which meant she had been watched by something that had recorded who she was and what she was feeling.

“Hello?” She called out, looking around the empty room from her position on the ground in hopes of finding the being only for her shoulders to slump dejectedly when the only thing to see turned out to be more interfaces and five structures like the one she had just escaped from with small forms growing within.

Pushing herself back up to her feet, she took a moment to get used to the odd feeling of her bare feet on the somehow surprisingly warm floor before cautiously walking over to the visual interface that was displaying her name.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” She tried again, only for a sudden realization to hit as she caught sight of the darkened control console with the corner of her eye.

Tapping one of the control keys with a finger, she frowned when the only response was a box with words in it saying ‘unauthorized access attempt’ appearing on the visual interface.

She tried pressing a different key to the same message, and then upon attempting a third was left to look on in confusion when the visual interface winked out and the phrase security lockdown flashed through her mind.

Pouting in annoyance at the locked control console, she looked around the room again to see if there was anything still active before her eyes settled on a trio of glowing control crystals next to the door.

Jogging over to the door control, she touched the middle crystal and let out a happy cheer when the doors slid open revealing a well lit corridor beyond.

Her ears twitched slightly as the sound of distant voices reached them, and she dashed down the corridor towards the sounds in hopes that whoever the voices belonged to might be able to help her understand just what was going on.

It took her nearly seven minutes to track down the source of the voices, a man and woman standing in a similarly shaped room to the one she had woken up in with their backs to the door as the man studied a centrally positioned visual interface.

“Can you help me?” She asked, the sudden sound of her voice causing the light haired woman to spin around in seeming surprise and point the weapon she had slung across her shoulders at Rayla.

“Oh! Oh wow!” The woman muttered as her eyes flicked over Rayla’s body before almost forcefully focusing on her face. “I, that’s certainly.”

The floppy haired man finally turned at the words, and his eyes went wide the moment they fell on Rayla, his face going red moments after before he spun back around with a speed comparable to what the woman showed when she had turned to look in the first place.

“Is that one of those ghosts?” The woman asked in an awkward tone as she kept her weapon pointed at Rayla.

“No.” The man said, his voice sounding particularly odd at the moment compared to what she remembered hearing on her approach. “She’s solid, very solid.”

“I’m Rayla.” She offered helpfully, smiling at the woman to show her friendly intentions. “I woke up here. Could you help me?”

They looked like they knew what they were doing, and the control console hadn’t shut off when they’d used it, both things that suggested they were supposed to be here.

Using the hand not holding her weapon, the woman reached to the communications device on her belt and twisted a knob.

“Major.” She began. 

“Cadman.” Rayla heard a male voice respond from somewhere around the woman’s ear.

“We’ve ah…” The woman, who Rayla guessed must be Cadman, continued in an odd tone. “Run into a naked elf…”

A moment of silence passed before the man’s voice returned. “A naked elf?”

“Yes sir.” Cadman returned. “Called herself Rayla. Female, blue eyes, pointed ears, about my height, blond hair down to her ankles, looks to be in her early twenties, and yeah, completely naked.”

Rayla looked down at herself in confusion at the objectionable sounding tone the woman had used when she had mentioned her lack of clothes. The slight chill had disappeared shortly after she’d gotten out of the thing she’d woken up in, but she supposed the other woman might think otherwise.

“I’m not cold.” She informed Cadman helpfully.

The floppy haired man’s whole body seemed to tense at her words, and Rayla looked over to him for a moment trying to figure out why before focusing back on Cadman.

“Are you sure she’s not…” The communication device man’s voice began, only to stop as she heard the sound of him letting out an almost tired sounding breath. “You know what, never mind, where are you?”

“South pier, building twelve, ninth floor.” Cadman answered in a clipped tone.

“All right.” Communication device man said as the sound of faint footsteps echoed out. “I’ll be down there with a team in a few minutes… And an extra set of clothing.”

“I’m really not cold!” Rayla repeated, a good deal louder this time so the communications device would be more likely to pick it up. Since, from the sound of things, it had missed her previous attempt to inform them of that particular fact.

“Sheppard, out.” Communication device man finished as the communications device he was talking over seemed to switch off.

Cadman focused back to Rayla with an odd look in her eyes. “So, just spitballing here, but does the word modesty mean anything to you?”

Furrowing her brow in thought as she wracked her memory for anything even approaching the word, Rayla finally shook her head. “No. Should it?”

The floppy haired man started coughing suddenly, and Rayla turned a worried look to him when it began to sound like he was having trouble catching his breath. “Is he going to be alright?”

“He’ll be fine.” Cadman said in a somewhat annoyed tone as she gave a brief glance over to the man before motioning with her weapon to the opposite side of the room from where she herself was standing. “Would you mind standing over there?”

“Why?” Rayla asked, not seeing any difference between that patch of floor and the one she was currently occupying.

Cadman let out a tired sounding sigh. “You’re standing in the doorway, and Doctor Zelenka would probably like to head to the transporter to make sure Major Sheppard’s team doesn’t get lost on their way over.”

That made sense, so Rayla strode over to the general area Cadman was indicating.

“It’s clear now.” Cadman said, and Zelenka all but ran out of the room the moment her words were finished.

Looking out the now empty doorway, Rayla waited till his steps faded completely before turning back to Cadman. So this Major Sheppard. Will he be able to help me figure out what's going on?”

Because she was coming to realize she very much didn't like not knowing that. “Also, what's an Elf?”

“Maybe.” Cadman answered her with a shrug. “And an Elf is a person with pointy ears.”

One of Rayla's hands went up to her ear, brushing aside her hair as she traced her fingers over the structure confirming that the shape was a good deal more pointy then the ones she could see on Cadman's head.

“Is being an Elf a good thing?” She inquired, tilting her head slightly as she pondered the question of why finding out the answer to that suddenly seemed to matter to her.

“Depends on who you ask.” Cadman admitted with a chuckle. “Generally though, most people tend to like them. Or well, the general concept of them since I think you're the first Elf we've ever actually met.”

“I'm a concept?” Rayla asked in confusion as she tried to figure out how that might work.

Cadman visibly cringed at that. “I didn't mean it like that. We just have a bunch of legends about different species that at one time or another visited Earth.”

“And Earth would be?” Rayle asked, since it didn't sound like Cadman was using the word to describe the black and spongy material it brought to mind.

“No.” Cadman corrected with a sigh. “Earth's the name of the planet we come from.”

“Oh!” Rayla exclaimed in understanding, only to furrow her brow as connections formed between the two words and a thought occurred. “You named your planet after the ground? That's not very creative.”

Cadman winced. “It's been brought to our attention a number of times.”

Now Rayla felt a tiny bit bad for pointing it out, as it was obviously a bit of an upsetting subject to the other woman.

Her ears twitched slightly at the sound of approaching footsteps, and she turned to the door as a feeling of sudden impatience seemed to come over her. “People are coming, do you think it might be Major Sheppard?”

“I certainly hope so.” Cadman muttered.

The footsteps seemed to slow as they approached the doorway, before stopping a few Rayla lengths away.

“Everything still good in there!?” Shepherd's voice called out.

“S U S F U.” Cadman returned, leaving Rayla to frown slightly as she tried and failed to work out what those letters spelled.

“All right.” Sheppard continued. “Gonna send Teyla in with the clothes then. Because, well, you know.”

“I do not!” Rayla admitted as the sound of footsteps resumed, moments after which a dark haired woman walked in carrying a bundle under one of her arms.

Teyla exchanged a brief glance with Cadman before focusing on Rayla as an amused smile graced the corner of her lips. “You would be Rayla then?”

“That is my name.” She confirmed with a smile, something undefinable about the other woman somehow making her feel both more and less at ease.

“You're different from Cadman.” She said, looking between the two as she tried to figure out just what it was that made her think that.

“Yes.” Teyla confessed with a slight incline of her head. “I am Athosian.”

Something about that name sounded almost familiar to Rayla, but try as she might to remember all she could recall about it was seven symbols that formed a stargate address.

“Oh.” She muttered in amazement as her mind followed that thread to a large amount of other information and symbols. “There are a lot of planets out there.”

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Author's Notes: Sometimes you have chapters that practically write themselves, this was one of those chapters.

And on that note, meet Rayla, pretty much the opposite of the follow and listen secretary type Eventus was hoping for. But then, that was really never more than a pipe dream given his refusal to take any action that would affect personality formation. On the up side though, at least she's not evil.