Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 40

Chapter 40 - Lunch Break

“Which was when Sheppard suggested that any weapon that impressive would have to be powered by a Zed-PM.” McKay narrated from the other side of the dining chambers table as he poked the Lantealoaf on his plate with a fork a few times as if to test out its sponginess.

“Why?” Eventus asked in confusion as he waited for his MRE to cool. “I mean yes, they had the highest power density of any power source we had, but that doesn't mean they were the only power source we had.”

Though with how much work he had needed to do to get his backup power project off the ground someone certainly might have thought so at times.

“Yes, well, Sheppard tries but he's no me.” McKay offered as a speared a chunk of the bread and just stared at it for a moment. “You're absolutely sure this is safe to eat? Because I'm deathly allergic to citrus.”

“Its molecular structure is identical to a regularly cooked Lantealoaf.” Eventus returned as he began to eat, enjoying the diverse semi-objectionable taste of the preserved food. “And while there was the occasional discussion about differences in the quantum structures causing a degradation in the taste, the idea was never able to survive strict scientific scrutiny.”

Of course, bland but filling had been the name of game for most meals so he wasn't sure if it would even have been noticeable if true.

“Want me to fix that for you?” He offered as McKay finally ate a bite, and immediately made the face of someone who'd just tasted something decidedly average.

“Fix what?” McKay asked in sudden suspicion.

“Your allergy.” Eventus said, finishing the last of the MRE and giving the now empty pouch a sad look.

Was he abusing his access to Earth supplies at this point, probably, but it had been twenty three years since he'd had food that wasn't overly average or generically perfect, so he'd be dammed if he wasn't going to enjoy it.

McKay stared at him for a moment with an oddly conflicted look on his face. “You can do that?”

Eventus shrugged. “Immune reactions are relatively simple for someone with healing abilities to fix.”

It was one the most minor of things really, basically just telling someone's body 'hey, these things aren't bad’, which compared to something like fixing a stab wound or broken bone took functionally no energy at all from him.

“How does that even work? McKay inquired with a frown.

“Space magic.” Eventus offered in an amused tone, allowing the scientist to get a glare of significant length in before continuing. “Humor aside, the English language doesn't have the words to accurately describe how it works. The closest I can get however would be something like, I scan the body and then utilize specific types of radiative energy to induce targeted repairs.”

That was massively simplifying even just the limited amount of the science he knew about the mechanisms behind his healing power, but there was a reason properly utilizing healing technology took a full on doctoral course.

McKay seemed to consider that. “And there won't be any side effects?”

“Not to you.” Eventus admitted, his lips quirking slightly in amusement. “But mental abilities only partially break Crylor’s Law, so it will still take a bit out of me.”

“Crylor's Law?” McKay repeated, sounding more than a little intrigued.

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed.” Eventus paraphrased.

“We call it conservation of energy.” McKay returned in a somewhat distracted tone as he shot Eventus a perplexed look. “But what do you mean it only partially breaks it?”

Eventus shrugged. “As far as my people were able to tell, a small percentage of the energy created by mental abilities comes from nowhere.”

It had caused a constant string of annoyance among researchers, mainly because actually creating energy out of nothing was insanely difficult to do.

Visibly frowning again, McKay shot him a clearly skeptical look. “Are you sure it's not just drawing energy from another dimension?”

“No.” Eventus confessed. “However the majority of the energy does come from a higher level dimension and we tracked that down without too much issue.”

Which as far as he knew was what had led to the development of technology like the psionic amplifier and the body swap stones.

“Though to be clear, you can fully break conservation of energy. It just involves things like creating micro universes or materializing virtual particles.”

“Of course.” McKay agreed with a nod as he finished his Lantealoaf. “As to your offer… I'll think about it.”

“All right.” Eventus said, not particularly surprised he was putting a decision on it off. “In which case you were telling me about the time you ran into one of my people?”

“Oh right!” McKay said as he snapped his fingers. “So we flew down to the planet to investigate, only it turned out the people there were basically bronze age.”

Letting out a sigh, Eventus really had to wonder just what Chaya had done to cause such a cultural stasis. Because it should have taken a lot more the just sitting in a monastery and swatting down the occasional Wraith ship to effectively retard the cultures growth like that.

“Now, I figured out instantly something was going on.” McKay continued with a grin. “And after talking to the people there we were able to narrow the source of the energy that had destroyed the Wraith darts to something to do with Athar, who they basically thought of as a god.”

Eventus made an exaggerated show of leaning forward and massaging his forehead. “We’re not supposed to do that, you know? Playing god, perfectly fine. But the moment you extend that to actually pretending to be a god is the moment they sent an enforcement team to drag you back to one of the city ships for judgement by the council.” 

“At the time we figured it was just some bit of lost technology they were worshipping as a god.” McKay clarified. “Wouldn’t have been the first example of that our teams have run into.”

“As you do.” Eventus agreed with a nod, having had to clean up a handful of those situations in the past.

“Eventually we convinced them to let us meet with their high priestess.” McKay went on. “Chaya Sar.”

“The Ancient?” Eventus asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“The Ascended Ancient.” McKay corrected as he waggled a finger. “Of course, we didn’t know that at the time. And Sheppard was so focused on her looks that he ignored the various warning signs and invited her back to the city.”

“Ah.” Eventus muttered in faux realization. “So that’s when it happened, I’d been wondering how Chaya got back to Atlantis to register Sheppard as a citizen without breaking any rules.”

McKay paused in his narration and shot Eventus an odd look. “How Chaya… Wait, you knew her?” He shook his head in a moment of self scolding. “Of course you knew her, she was an Ancient. But what do you mean she registered Sheppard as a citizen?”

“I only knew her because we went out on a couple dates.” Eventus corrected, feeling oddly put out at the idea that he had known every member of his people. “And I discovered her ID in the registry logs when I was trying to figure out why the system was considering Sheppard a citizen of Atlantis.”

“Of course Kirk gets lucky like that.” McKay groused as he crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. “But I thought the Ascended aren’t allowed to do things like that?”

“It’s complicated.” Eventus confessed, only having a vague idea of the laws they operated under himself. “She was probably toeing the line, but you brought her to Atlantis, so she didn’t use her ascended abilities to get there. And registering someone as a citizen is a relatively simple thing to do so long as they meet the prerequisites and you’re already a registered citizen, so she wouldn’t have needed to use any of the knowledge she learned from Ascension to do it.”

“Of course.” He finished with a shrug. “I could be completely off and the rest of the Ascended just missed her doing it till after it was too late to correct.”

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Author’s Notes: Transitionary chapter with Eventus and McKay, because Hyperspace travel when towing a ship is slowish and sometimes people just want lunch.