Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

February 2012

“Finch, please tell me you’ve got something,” John Reese pleaded as he trailed his current charge, Col. John Sheppard, through the streets of New York City. Sheppard was on one side of the road; Reese was half a block behind him on the other side for safety. This was one of the rare cases when Reese hadn’t dared to get close enough to clone the hard drive of his charge’s computer, and Sheppard’s phone seemed to operate on a completely different system from the rest of New York because Reese hadn’t been able even to attempt to force-pair it with his own—not that it mattered now, since a wiretap had forced both Reese and Finch to get new phones. Thus, nearly twenty-four hours had passed without Reese being able to get any more intel as to why Sheppard was his current person of interest.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Reese,” Harold Finch replied through the earwig in Reese’s right ear. “The security of the records relating to the deep space telemetry project to which Col. Sheppard is assigned is truly formidable. I suspect there’s an air gap, and I may not be able to get beyond it.”

“What do you mean? I thought you could hack anything.”

“This project is one of the few to which I was not granted access while building the Machine,” Finch said, sounding nettled. “Whoever built their system clearly had access to some of the finest minds in the world. Without prior access, I don’t have a digital trail to follow back into the maze.”

“Look, Sheppard knows me,” Reese insisted, pressing a point he’d made as soon as Finch had told him that the Machine had produced Sheppard’s Social Security number as the latest in a long list of people about to be involved in violent crimes. “We ran some ops together in the late ’90s, long before I joined the CIA. I can’t get any closer without—”

Just then, Sheppard stopped, turned, looked straight at Reese, and started weaving his way through the crowd toward his pursuer.

“Mr. Reese?” Finch asked.

“He’s seen me,” Reese reported, doubling back to the nearest alley. “Find me a way out of here.”

“Just a moment.”

“I may not have a moment, Finch!”

“I can’t do this instantaneously!”

Reese prayed to a God he wasn’t sure was listening that Sheppard was at least not among the many people who wanted him dead for real. He ducked into the alley, made for the nearest cover—

WhreeeePOW!

The world went red for an instant before it went black.

Consciousness returned with a jolt and the stinging of ten thousand nerve endings long ago damaged via torture by electrocution. With it came a massive headache. The way his muscles jerked as he came to revealed that he was lying on what felt like a ship’s bunk.

“Easy,” Sheppard’s voice said from somewhere nearby. “Your first time gettin’ stunned takes a little while to get over. Not that it gets that much easier after the first time, but at least you know to expect the hangover.”

So wherever Reese was, Sheppard was there, too. At least he hadn’t lost his charge. He hoped that was good. Now that he had a moment to process, he realized that he’d twisted as he fell and had caught a glimpse of Sheppard’s teammate Ronon Dex pointing a really big gun at him. Had that been a stun weapon of some kind? Was Dex there now, ready to shoot him again if he made a wrong move?

Reese sat up gingerly and only then opened his eyes. He was in a featureless room that could have been a cabin on any ship or sub in the US Navy, although he didn’t hear the drone of engines or feel the motion of waves. There were four bunks hung from the walls, two on his side and two on the opposite side where Sheppard was sitting. And between them stood four metal chairs around a metal table, on which lay a clipboard and pen. Dex was not present, which Reese hoped was a sign that they trusted him not to hurt Sheppard.

“So it’s ‘Reese’ now, huh?” Sheppard continued. “Well, at least people can still tell us apart.”

Reese couldn’t suppress a soft amused snort at that. Sheppard always had been pretty good company for a zoomie and an officer... similar sense of humor, for one thing, not that most people these days realized Reese had one. They didn’t look as much alike as all that—Reese was taller and had blue eyes to Sheppard’s hazel; Sheppard’s hair was wilder, and his ears were pointed—and they’d held different ranks in different branches of the service, but their sharing a first name and being somewhat similar in height, bearing, and complexion had caused some confusions back in the day.

“Where am I, sir?” Reese asked. He knew that technically, Sheppard was no longer his superior, but old habits die hard.

“Secure undisclosed location. And don’t worry, I left Ronon in New York. We need to talk.”

“About?”

“Why you were following me, for one thing.”

“You’re in danger, sir.”

“The whole damn planet is in danger, Sergeant.”

“No, I mean you personally.”

“You know any more than that?”

Reese closed his eyes and rubbed at his aching forehead. “No, sir, not yet.”

“’Cause I do.”

Startled, Reese looked at Sheppard again.

Sheppard stood and picked up the clipboard. “I need you and your friend to sign this NDA. Then we can tell you the rest of the story.”

Reese shook his head. “I’m not signing anything.”

“We’re not reporting this to the CIA, believe me.”

“What’s to stop me from just walking out of here?”

“Curiosity. You wouldn’t be the operator I knew if you didn’t have a million questions, like what I’m doin’ in New York and how the hell I made bird colonel buried at McMurdo.”

“I know you’re not at McMurdo, sir,” Reese admitted grudgingly, rubbing his forehead again. “You’re at Cheyenne Mountain, working on some....”

“Deep space telemetry project,” Sheppard finished. “C’mon, you don’t believe that, do you?”

No, Reese didn’t believe it. He’d smelled a deep cover story the second Finch had uncovered that part of Sheppard’s record—for all his smarts, Sheppard had never shown any interest in the space program before 9/11, and afterward everyone in Special Forces had been preoccupied with stopping terrorists in the Sandbox. He’d heard vague whispers about Cheyenne Mountain, too, nothing anyone could prove, but wild rumors about alien technology and people coming back prematurely aged.

“Sign this,” Sheppard said, waving the clipboard before putting it back on the table, “and I’ll tell you the whole truth, ’cause you’re gonna want in on this for more reasons than keepin’ me alive.”  He started for the door but paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked back. “Oh, and cell phones don’t work out here. Your friend won’t be able to find you unless we bring him in.”

Reese glared up at him. “If you hurt him—”

“Relax.”  Sheppard opened the door. “I’m not in the habit of beating a guy up before I ask for his help.” And he left, locking the door behind him.

Reese sighed heavily and pondered the pen on the table. If he took it apart, he could pick the lock easily and be out of this facility in no time flat. That would in fact be the most sensible thing to do, given the givens. But then he’d lose contact with Sheppard and have to find some other way to protect him, which might not be so easy under the circumstances. Finding a way back to New York might prove tricky, too, since he didn’t know where he was; his faith in Finch’s capabilities was greater than Sheppard’s, but all technology had limits, even GPS. NYPD Detectives Joss Carter and Lionel Fusco might not be much help, either, even if he could contact them from here.

And... yes, dammit, he was curious. Why had the Machine given them Sheppard’s number? How did Dex’s weapon work, and why was it so different from tasers and other commercial stun guns? What was really going on at Cheyenne Mountain? Why hadn’t Finch been able to find a digital trail for Sheppard, Dex, or either of the other two people who’d been seen with him, and why did only one of them, Dr. M. Rodney McKay, have a discoverable identity? (It had taken considerable eavesdropping to get even the names of Dex and the woman with the group, Teyla Emmagan, who seemed to be Sheppard’s wife.) How had Sheppard, whose career had been derailed after he’d defied orders and gone on a doomed rescue mission in Afghanistan, not only recovered from being exiled to Antarctica but been promoted twice in eight years? And why, when most of their numbers didn’t even recognize the danger they were in, did Sheppard claim to know exactly why someone would want him dead?

What the hell was going on?

Reese’s mind was still whirling, the faster the more the headache lifted, when he heard footsteps in the metal corridor outside—two young people with normal gaits and one person with a familiar prominent limp. Eyes widening, he stood as there was a buzz and the door opened to reveal two airmen escorting a very startled Finch.

“We’ll be back in a minute with some coffee,” one of the airmen said as the other ushered Finch into the room.

“I don’t drink coffee,” Finch replied absently.

Reese hesitated for a moment, then volunteered, “Sencha green tea, one sugar. Black coffee for me.”

“Er, yes, sir,” said the airman, and he and his companion left, locking the door behind him again.

Reese crossed to Finch’s side in two quick strides. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you,” Finch answered, still sounding dazed, and let Reese steer him into one of the chairs at the table. “I... don’t know what happened. There was a bright flash of light, and then....”

“Red?”

“No, white, and I think I heard some sort of chime. When it passed, I was sitting in a room down the hall.”

“Dammit.”

Finch looked up at him then, blue eyes back to their usual sharpness behind his glasses. “I’m uninjured, Mr. Reese. This turn of events merely took me by surprise. I suggest we turn our attention to finding out what our captors want from us.”

Reese sat down with a sigh. “Sheppard said he wouldn’t tell us anything unless we sign that.”  He pushed the clipboard toward Finch. Yet as he did so, the words on the top line suddenly caught his eye:  Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Finch’s eyes darted back and forth as he read over the paper. “This is far from a standard government NDA,” he murmured. “In exchange for our binding agreement not to disclose any information we learn here, Col. Sheppard agrees that neither our identities nor any information we provide will be used outside... Homeworld Command?” He looked up and blinked in confusion.

“I’ve heard that name before,” Reese murmured back. “Just in passing, no details. Something about a terrorist attack at a secure facility outside DC where some senator managed to prevent a dirty bomb going off but exposed herself to a lethal dose of radiation to do it.”

“I don’t remember hearing about that.”

“Kept it out of the news—I only heard about it through back channels, partly because I was out of the country at the time. I think officially she died of aggressive cancer.”

Finch nodded slightly, clearly thinking hard. “Well, like it or not—and I do not—it seems we have almost no choice but to trust Col. Sheppard in this. Wherever we are and however we got here, I think it highly unlikely that we can escape with any sort of ease, and the fact that they found me in a place I had personally secured against surveillance proves that they’d be able to find us again at any time.”

“You think Fusco or Carter....”

“No. They don’t know that location”—meaning, Reese presumed, the abandoned library Finch had turned into his personal command center. “We’ve only met with them elsewhere in Manhattan. They can’t tell what they don’t know, and they can’t have been followed to us there, either. And you haven’t been there in days, so it shouldn’t have been possible to triangulate my location solely from yours.” Finch paused. “And there’s still the matter of the violent crime in which Col. Sheppard and Dr. McKay are to be involved.”

Reese frowned. “The Machine gave us McKay’s number, too?”

“Early this morning. I was just confirming it when you called.”

“How does he even have a number? He’s a Canadian citizen.”

“Legal residents of working age receive numbers for tax purposes. But I’m no closer to finding out more about him than I am about Col. Sheppard.”

Reese sighed heavily.

“So as I say, we seem to have very little choice in this matter.” Finch picked up the pen and signed the form with one of his many aliases, then pushed the clipboard and pen over to Reese.

Not at all happy but itching to get his questions answered, Reese read over the NDA, finding it just as Finch had described. Sheppard had already signed it, and he was one of those rare men whose word was his bond. Reese hesitated a moment longer, then picked up the pen and signed.

As if on cue, the door opened to reveal Sheppard holding a tray with three steaming cups on it. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s take a walk.”

Reese and Finch exchanged a look, stood, and filed out into the hall. Finch accepted his tea with a stiff nod of thanks; Reese added half a smile to his nod and saluted Sheppard with his cup before he drank. It was good coffee and cleared his head.

Sheppard raised his own cup in return salute before handing the tray to one of the airmen and leading the way down the hall, drinking his coffee as they went. Now and then, they were passed by other airmen, all in standard flight jumpsuits; nothing in the featureless hall gave Reese any indication of what this place was. The airmen were in Air Force flight suits rather than Navy, though, which ruled out the idea of their being on a ship or sub, and the unit patches bore a logo he didn’t recognize and the word Daedalus, which also didn’t ring any bells.

“Where are we going?” Finch finally asked.

“Wanna show you the other reason you can’t just walk outta here,” Sheppard replied and turned a corner, leading them toward what looked like some sort of observation area with floor-to-ceiling windows on each side that looked out over a dark space. “Take a look,” he added as they approached the windows, gesturing toward the left side, where something was glowing.

Finch and Reese turned—and gasped.

The glowing thing was Earth.

“How... how high....” Finch stammered.

“High Earth Orbit,” Sheppard answered. “Beyond the range of any GPS satellite—even the CIA can’t find you out here. Welcome to the SS Daedalus.”

18 Hours Earlier

“He’s still out there,” Ronon reported, watching out Sheppard’s hotel room window from an angle that made him less likely to be noticed by Sheppard’s tail. “On the roof across the street, takin’ pictures and talkin’ into some kinda radio like ours, except no mic.”

“Not an external one, anyway,” McKay replied distractedly. “It’s a high-end wireless earwig, definitely not standard consumer issue.”

“Can you trace who he’s talking to yet?” Sheppard pressed, leaning over McKay’s shoulder. “ID or location? I’ll take either one at this point.”

“I’m working on it!”

“You’ve been sayin’ that for five hours, McKay! I thought impossible challenges only took you five minutes!”

“Look, whoever’s on the other end has got more layers of encryption on his system than Janus put on his secret lab. If I do this wrong, he’ll discover the hack in about two seconds and shut everything down.”

Teyla was in peacekeeper mode. “John, I thought you said this man was your friend once.”

“Was being the operative word,” Sheppard answered. “Not that we were close; he was a Green Beret while I was in Air Force Black Ops, so we only worked together on joint missions. But the CIA scooped him up about a year after we left for Atlantis, and according to the reports Landry got us, he went rogue and then disappeared last year until he turned up here as some kind of vigilante. I don’t trust Mark Snow’s version of events, but I don’t know if I can trust this ‘John Reese’ persona, either. That’s why we need to find out who his handler is. If he’s being used by the NID or the Trust, we have no guarantee that he’s even in control of his own actions.”

“You mean Goa’uld, like what happened to Caldwell?” Ronon asked.

“Goa’uld possession, za’tarc brainwashing, Replicator nanites... lot of possibilities,” McKay said. “Hell, he could even be a Replicator.”

Teyla shook her head. “I already asked Col. Caldwell to do a scan. He said Reese has a normal human life sign.”

“Doesn’t rule out other possibilities until we can get im under a med scanner,” Sheppard noted grimly. “Nanite-built clone wouldn’t look any different to the sensors on the Daedalus. And the za’tarc detector’s not supposed to leave the SGC.”

He hated this. John T. had been a good guy; they’d saved each other’s lives more than once. But how much of John T. was left in John Reese—and what lies would the CIA have told him about Homeworld Command, the NID, or the Trust? Why had he become “the Man in the Suit” now, and what had put him on the trail of Sheppard and his team? Did he even know about the Wraith?

Earth was supposed to be home. Anymore, it just felt like yet another planet crammed with potential enemies that they had to defend against known enemies, despite the possibility of being knifed in the back while they did so, because the alternative was far worse.

McKay’s laptop beeped negatively at him, and he slumped backward with a groan. “I’ve gotta eat before I try again. I’m already getting lightheaded.”

With a grimace, Sheppard realized just how long it had been since his hypoglycemic friend had eaten. “Sorry, Rodney. I’ll go get us some pizza.”

“Sure you wanna do that?” Ronon asked, somehow managing to make his continued stare out the window pointed.

“Hey, if he moves, we’ll know he’s trailing me rather than us. Besides, we’re close to a switch-over point between two cell towers. A moving target might actually be easier for McKay to hit.”

McKay muttered something about paranoia and accepted a power bar from Teyla.

Sheppard ignored him and grabbed his jacket. “If I’m not back in twenty, alert the Daedalus.”

“We will,” Teyla replied and kissed Sheppard goodbye before he put on his motorcycle helmet—the comm system of which was adapted for subspace—and left while his teammates surreptitiously put on their subspace radio earpieces.

He was barely to the elevator when Ronon’s voice said in his ear, “Sheppard. He’s moving.”

“Guess he’s after me, then,” Sheppard replied and punched the down button. “Still need to find out why.”

“Perhaps we should ask Det. Carter,” Teyla suggested as the elevator car arrived. “I’m looking at Snow’s report; he said that she became uncooperative after Reese escaped from the hospital parking garage.”

Sheppard stepped inside the elevator, punched the button for the first floor, and considered what he’d read about Det. Carter, who’d been investigating Reese until he saved her life when one of her confidential informants was suborned by an up-and-coming mobster. “I got a hunch she was uncooperative because Reese left bleeding.”

“It doesn’t say that.”

“Teyla, with the CIA, you have to read what’s not on the page.”

She paused as that statement sank in. “Ah. Rather like dealing with the IOA, then. So when it says ‘exchanged fire’....”

“They had a sniper on the roof and he failed. Probably didn’t miss, but the wounds clearly weren’t fatal.”

“Should we contact Det. Carter, then?”

“No. The fewer people who know we’re on-world, the better, and she’s on the CIA’s radar.” The elevator dinged, and Sheppard exited toward the garage. “Besides, she won’t have the information we need.”

“Well, I won’t get it this way, either,” McKay interrupted. “Reese hung up while you were in the elevator. I can’t patch us into a call that’s not in progress.”

Sheppard rolled his eyes. “Patching into the call can wait, Rodney. First we need to know who he’s calling and where that person is.”

“He’s got, like, twenty layers of encryption on that end, and I’m barely through Layer 10!”

“I will be back with pizza in twenty minutes, I promise.”

“Hey, maybe we should get Zelenka to find the location,” Ronon suggested. “Like how he found the Attero Device that one time, remember?”

Sheppard remembered, all right—that had been one of the most terrifying incidents in the first five years of the Stargate Program’s mission to Atlantis. When McKay and Dr. Daniel Jackson had discovered a secret lab belonging to an Ancient named Janus, the presence of people with the Ancient Technology Activation gene had somehow activated a core component of the Attero Device, which created a subspace disruption that not only destroyed Wraith hyperdrives but also caused active Stargates to explode. For some unknown reason, Janus had left a subspace homing link between the component and the main device, which in the intervening millennia had been found by another alien race that hated humans and Wraith alike. The scouts they’d sent to retrieve the component from Atlantis had surprised McKay and Jackson in the lab and kidnapped them, so Dr. Radek Zelenka had had to perform some incredibly complicated calculations to trace the subspace signal to its offworld origin so that Sheppard could rescue the missing scientists and shut down the Attero Device before the Wraith could destroy the lab with a kamikaze run.

“Yes, I don’t think isolating one wireless signal out of millions is going to be as simple as identifying a unique subspace signal,” McKay replied.

“Why not?” Sheppard countered. “Guy’s got his GPS signal masked, right? But that doesn’t change the mechanics of how cell phones work. The signal still has to originate at a transmitter somewhere and terminate at a receiver somewhere else. And the transmission pair has to be uniquely identifiable, or else every call would bleed into every other call, worse than the old party line system way back before switchboards.”

“Well... yes. Hm.”

Sheppard raised the kickstand of the motorcycle he was sharing with Ronon for the time being, mounted, and started the engine. “Look, it won’t do any harm to get a fresh pair of eyes on the problem,” he said as he backed out and rode off. “Send Zelenka the location data you’ve got now. He can work on that part while you take a break. At the very least, it’ll narrow the area Caldwell has to search to the nearest cell tower.”

He was exceptionally grateful at the moment that Col. Caldwell and the Daedalus had been close enough to return to Earth at the same time Gen. Landry had recalled Sheppard and his team to deal with a new threat involving some mix of the NID and the group of rogue NID agents known as the Trust. Since SGC personnel bore identifying subspace trackers implanted under their skin, Caldwell had offered to monitor the life signs of Sheppard and his team and watch for anyone who might be following them. That was how they’d discovered Reese within the first hour of his tailing them—tailing Sheppard, apparently. Why him specifically was still anybody’s guess.

The pizza run ended up taking only ten minutes and was entirely uneventful. Sheppard caught a glimpse of Reese—well, of a man in a black motorcycle jacket and helmet—just at the edge of his peripheral vision when he came out of the pizza parlor, but Reese seemed content to watch and follow, and Sheppard pretended not to know he was there. He wasn’t ready to lose Reese quite yet.

After supper, Ronon closed the curtains and McKay resumed picking through the layers of security on the number Reese had called, while Zelenka, safely ensconced behind multiple firewalls of his own at Stargate Command beneath Cheyenne Mountain, worked on tracing the cell signal through its physical pathway rather than through cell company records. By ten o’clock, Zelenka had pinpointed the other end of the call as coming from an abandoned library in Manhattan, where Caldwell confirmed the presence of one life sign and enough electromagnetic energy to indicate the presence of multiple computers. The place was EM shielded to a degree, enough that most Earth tech would be repelled—but not so thoroughly that Caldwell thought the Asgard transporter would have trouble getting a lock on the person inside.

“This life sign at the library had better not turn out to be a squatter,” Landry warned from Homeworld Command at the Pentagon when Sheppard called to report.

“All the computers were removed from the library when the city shut it down, sir,” Sheppard replied. “Whoever this is, I don’t think he’s just a random bum.”

McKay finally managed to get through the last layer of encryption and set up the audio capture shortly before midnight. Seconds later, the handler called Reese.

“Finch,” Reese answered, the same smooth, quiet baritone Sheppard remembered from decades earlier. “Are you getting anywhere with this?”

“Nowhere much,” a nerdy-sounding nasal tenor replied wearily. “Neither Col. Sheppard nor his companions have had a significant online presence since 2004, and I can’t find any publications under Dr. McKay’s name since the late ’90s. It’s like they just dropped off the face of the earth.”

Sheppard allowed himself an amused smile.

Reese, on the other hand, was annoyed. “How the hell am I supposed to protect Sheppard with no intel on the threat?”

That got the attention of everyone in the room.

“Have you observed anything useful yourself?” the handler—Finch—asked.

“Well, they’re not in New York to go sightseeing,” said Reese. “McKay was on the computer the whole afternoon, so it’s a working vacation, whatever that means in this case. So far, no suspicious characters anywhere close to Sheppard or to the hotel. But I could really use some indication of what their business is so I know whether I’m looking for gangbangers, Feds, or professional hit men. Don’t think there’s a deep space telemetry conference here in town this week, so why are they here?”

“I am trying, Mr. Reese, but the data you’ve recorded for me so far has been a dead end. The cell phones, in particular, appear completely alien to anything I’ve ever encountered before. And the hotel wi-fi is almost totally unsecured, but they don’t appear to be using it.”

In the middle of the sound of Reese sighing in frustration, there was a single distinct beep.

“What—” Reese started to ask.

Finch didn’t give him time to finish. “We’ve been compromised! Destroy your phone!” The call ended, and seconds later both signals were lost.

McKay swore bitterly and sagged in defeat. “All that work, and now—”

“We didn’t cause that click, did we?” Teyla asked.

Sheppard shook his head. “No. Somebody else musta tapped the signal, probably from Reese’s end.”

“NID?” Ronon suggested.

“Most likely, them or the Trust.”

“But we got nothing out of that,” McKay complained. “Just one name, Finch. And that’s probably not even his real name!”

Sheppard put a hand on McKay’s shoulder. “We heard enough, Rodney. We can stop worrying about Reese and whoever Finch is and start worrying for them.”

Ronon frowned. “You wanna read ’em in?”

“I think we have to. Somebody else is already onto ’em. And if Reese sees his mission as protecting me... like he said, he needs better intel to be able to spot the real threat.”

Chapter Text

Reese searched for any—any—indication that what he was seeing out the window in front of him was fake and found none. Incredible as it was, he was in space. On a spaceship. Looking down on his home planet. He could just barely make out Manhattan and Long Island off the coast of North America as the cloud cover shifted. Overcome, he put a hand on Finch’s shoulder—and was immediately jolted out of his reverie.

Finch was shaking.

“You okay there, Mr. Finch?” Sheppard asked before Reese could.

“I-I-I... I’m sorry, Col. Sheppard,” Finch replied. “I just... I’m not... accustomed t-t-to being... to being....” The words in outer space didn’t seem to want to come out.

“We gotta get him back down there,” Reese insisted. Finch wasn’t outright acrophobic, but he had admitted to not liking heights much, and compared to piloting a small private plane and being in control of the situation, being on a spaceship wasn’t just a whole other ballgame, it was a completely different sport.[1]

Sheppard considered quickly. “All right, phones on the bench. We can’t risk a GPS hack.”

Finch quickly dug out his new cell phone with his free hand and handed it to Reese, who set it on the nearby bench before putting his own next to it. Neither phone had incriminating evidence on it, since they’d been used only to call each other and only in the last twelve hours or so, so giving them up was less a hardship than a minor expense. Producing his phone also gave Reese the chance to check his weapons surreptitiously and discover that he’d been disarmed while he was out. Annoying as that was, Reese couldn’t blame Sheppard—he’d have done the same if their roles were reversed.

As Reese came back to Finch’s side, Sheppard tapped his own earwig. “Marks, this is Sheppard,” he said. “Three to beam down.” He paused. “No, SGC.”

A second later, there was a chime and a bright white flash, and when the flash and the retinal afterimage faded, they were standing in a different corridor with concrete walls painted bunker grey.

“Wait a minute,” Reese murmured as he looked around and something clicked. “This is Cheyenne Mountain.” Granted, they weren’t in an area that looked any different from any other underground base he’d ever seen, but Sheppard and McKay had both been linked with Cheyenne Mountain, so it only made sense. (How the hell they’d get back to New York from Colorado Springs was a question he decided to worry about later.)

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “Been here before, Reese?”

“No, but I’ve seen pictures.”

“Not of this part.” Sheppard ushered them forward, toward a pair of doors on either side of the corridor.

Reese put a steadying hand between Finch’s shoulder blades as they walked, a silent promise to have his back in however literal a sense the situation required.

As they approached the doors, the one to the right opened, and a blonde woman, about Finch’s height, with bright, intelligent blue eyes and one star on the collar of her Air Force uniform came out. “Col. Sheppard,” she called. “I hear you’re having a little trouble with your guests.”

“Nah, Mr. Finch here just had a little panic attack,” Sheppard drawled. “Thought he’d do better down here. This is Mr. Finch, Mr. Reese. Gen. Samantha Carter, Stargate Command.”

“Ma’am,” Reese acknowledged out of habit.

Gen. Carter shook hands with both Reese and Finch. “Need me to sit in on this?” she asked Sheppard then.

Sheppard shrugged. “Can if you want to, but it’s probably gonna be a while before we get around to anything actionable.”

“All right. Give me a call. Gentlemen,” she added and strode past them down the hall.

“Competent lady,” Finch observed mildly as she turned the corner.

“Best CO I’ve ever had,” Sheppard replied and pointed to the door on the opposite side of the hall, which opened into a conference room. “In here.”

“But I can’t help noticing that you don’t speak to her as your superior,” Finch added as they filed into the conference room. This room also had a large window, but its blinds were closed.

“Bad habit I formed a while back. Expedition leader was a civilian; kinda got used to talkin’ to her as an equal. Guess that carried over with Carter. Discipline’s a lot more relaxed out where we are. Sit down, please,” Sheppard added, gesturing to the chairs around the conference table and picking up a remote control. “Need a refill?”

“No, thank you,” Finch answered and sat down stiffly.

At Sheppard’s questioning glance, Reese shook his head and sat down next to Finch.

Sheppard conceded the refusals with a tilt of his head and turned on a monitor that hung on the wall at the far end of the table. “Before we talk about what’s happening in New York, I’ve got a series of orientation videos that should answer a lot of your questions. Because time is against us, I can’t fill you in on all the details of the last sixteen years, but most of it doesn’t directly relate to the problem at hand anyway. This part should take about an hour; if you need to get up, move around, let me know.”

Finch eyed Sheppard skeptically but nodded. Sheppard punched some buttons on his remote, and the first video started, showing a room that looked like the inside of a missile silo, a large stone ring with intricate decorations, and a brown-haired, bespectacled man in green BDUs standing on a ramp in front of the ring.

“Hello, I am Dr. Daniel Jackson,” said the man, “and behind me is the Stargate....”

What followed was five minutes of what Reese would have called science fiction if he hadn’t just gone from High Earth Orbit to Colorado Springs in a literal flash. A long-dead humanoid race called Ancients who’d built a network of gates that connected via wormholes through space-time... exotic metals not found on Earth, especially naquadah, the substance used to make the gates... instant travel between planets, near-instant travel between galaxies... alien parasites called Goa’uld who’d stolen the identities of most of Earth’s major pantheons and set themselves up as lords of the Milky Way... incredible technologies, incredible dangers. Reese’s head was spinning by the end of the first video. He could only imagine what Finch was thinking.

As the video ended, Finch said in a very pained voice, “Excuse me, Col. Sheppard. I do need to move around a bit.”

Sheppard nodded. “Sure, no problem. Had a few friends with similar injuries, so I get it.”

Finch had just pushed himself to his feet when Sheppard’s statement registered. “How do you know—”

“Besides recognizing the way you move? You recall that when you first arrived on the Daedalus, there was someone in the room who waved a wand over you, a wand connected to a tablet.”

“Yes....”

“That was a medical scanner, adapted from tech we discovered offworld. Showed us the effects of the spinal fusion surgery.”

“What? Why did you perform a medical scan without my consent?!”

Sheppard shrugged. “Had to make sure you were human and weren’t infected with anything you shouldn’t be. We’ve had a lot of nasty surprises, even on Earth, cases where people didn’t even know they’d been injected with nanites or parasites or been cloned. Call it paranoia if you like, but I’m sure you can appreciate the danger of bringing someone into a facility like this only to find out he was unwittingly being used by our enemies. And for the record, we scanned Reese, too, for the same reason. You’re both clean.”

Finch opened his mouth to protest, but given that he himself lived by the motto Only the paranoid survive, he settled for a huff and paced jerkily around the other end of the room for a moment. Then he turned back to Sheppard. “I would like some assurance that you are in fact telling us the truth about this program.”

“See for yourself,” Sheppard returned and opened the blinds on the big window.

Beyond it stood the space they’d just seen in the video, complete with the so-called Stargate. As Finch, with Reese behind him, limped toward the window to get a closer look, there was a whirring noise, and then a klaxon sounded as the inner ring of the Stargate began to turn.

“Offworld activation!” a male voice announced through the PA system.

As had been shown in the video, the inner ring stopped as one of its thirty-nine symbols slid into an opening on the outer ring, whereupon the outer chevron-shaped decoration slid into the opening, lit up orange, and slid out again, releasing the inner ring. The same happened at six of the other eight chevrons, which triggered a massive horizontal plume of turbulence that shot out and then settled back into what looked like the rippling surface of a glowing pool of water, except for the fact that it was vertical. Seconds later, a group of armed people in BDUs and tac vests emerged from the pool and made their way down the ramp. They all looked relaxed, with their weapons slung for easy carry rather than in hand; two of them were carrying a cooler between them, and they seemed to be chatting amiably.

“That’s SG-17,” Sheppard explained and checked his watch. “Right on time. They’ve been on a trade mission to a planet with a primarily agrarian economy, offering medications in return for crop samples. What they’ve got in that container could potentially help poor agrarian societies on other planets—including our own.”

“If it was a peaceful mission,” Finch asked, “why are they armed?”

The last members of the group suddenly sprinted through the pool, shouting something Reese couldn’t make out, followed by a burst of orange light that shot through about ten feet over their heads and punched into the concrete wall. He heard orders being shouted, and the lights on the Stargate suddenly went out, causing the pool to vanish.

“That kind of thing tends to happen,” said Sheppard in answer to Finch.

The klaxon went off a moment or two later as the Stargate began to move again. “Unscheduled offworld activation!” was the announcement this time. “Security to the Gateroom!”

Reese watched as the first three chevrons lit up. “Those look like the same symbols as last time,” he finally observed.

“Probably Lucian Alliance,” said Sheppard. “The Goa’uld are all but gone, so the Lucian Alliance stole as many of their ships as they could get their hands on and stepped into the power vacuum. They’re like a paramilitary street gang, except their territory isn’t limited to one planet. Even had agents on Earth for a while. My guess is they’re tryin’ to claim P5M-644, got there too late to stop the deal but dropped a team to get our ’Gate address out of the locals.”

The Stargate connected with another kawhoosh, but this time, a split second after the pool settled, the protective iris described in the video spun shut to entirely block the pool. There were distant zapping noises and a few orange arcs that danced over the metal—and then the whole room shook as something rammed into the iris from the other side.

“Huh,” said Sheppard calmly. “Wouldn’ta thought they’d try to wedge a tel’tak through the ’Gate, or even a death glider. Things are too big to fit through. Somebody musta been real desperate to take us out.”

“Must have been?” Finch echoed.

“You don’t survive a crash with that sort of impact, Finch,” Reese noted.

“Not only that,” Sheppard added, “but you get stuck in the ’Gate, you get cut in half when it shuts down. Found that out the hard way on one of my first missions. Luckily, the ’Gate will stay active for thirty-eight minutes max, and that was just enough time for McKay to get us unstuck.” He rubbed absently at a scar on his neck, and his eyes narrowed. “Wonder if these guys were supposed to create a foothold situation, tie up men and materiel and distract us from what’s happening in New York. If so, they got lousy intel.”

“Or a smaller ship?” Reese suggested.

Sheppard made a skeptical face. “Guess it’s possible, but somebody still shoulda told ’em about the iris—if that was their mission and if they’re in bed with the guys we’re after in New York, who woulda found out about the iris fifteen years ago.” He paused, then turned to Reese and Finch. “Speakin’ of intel—you guys want anything before we start the next part? Refill? Popcorn?”

Reese looked over at Finch, who wasn’t shaking but still looked rather nonplussed about this whole situation. “Just give us a moment?” Reese asked Sheppard.

Sheppard nodded. “Sure.” And he left through the still-open door, although his footsteps didn’t go far down the hall.

Reese returned his attention to Finch. “Finch?” he asked quietly.

Finch turned to him. “Is any of this real?”

“We’re both in too much pain to be hallucinating or dreaming.”

The alarm in Finch’s eyes grew. “You—”

Reese held up a hand. “I’m okay. Old injuries acting up.” And that was strictly true; he’d mostly recovered from the stunning, but his peripheral nerves were still registering their displeasure, though at a level he could ignore. “Point is, they didn’t dose us with anything. This”—he knocked a knuckle against the window—“is standard bulletproof glass, no liquid crystals embedded in it. The depth of field of what we’re seeing isn’t that of even a 3D image, and computer graphics haven’t achieved this level of photorealism yet and may not ever. The building is real; the room we’re looking at is real; the people are real; the Stargate as an object is real. And there isn’t enough space between the back of the Stargate and the wall to hide SG-17 and their equipment from someone looking down at this angle.”

The klaxon shut off, as did the lights on the Stargate, although the iris remained shut. Someone must have managed to shut down the wormhole.

“It just seems too incredible to believe,” Finch murmured. “Alien parasites and cloning—that’s the stuff of fringe conspiracy websites run by the sort of person who swears his dog is a CIA agent.”

Reese shrugged his eyebrows. “We did bug a few dog collars in my day.”

Finch stared at him.

Reese lowered his voice further. “I know Sheppard. He’s not lying to us. Plus, did you see the scar on his neck, the one he touched when he talked about getting stuck in the Stargate and how McKay saved his life?”

“Yes, I did.”

“There was more to that story than just getting stuck. The scar is over his jugular. Something tried to kill him, and McKay made sure he got back here in time to be saved.”

Finch shook his head. “I just wish I could be sure.”

Reese grimaced. “There’s no part of this you can’t explain away if you’re determined to. But there’s no reason for the government to create a hoax this elaborate just to trap us.”

Finch didn’t respond.

“Finch, we need to know why they’re in New York, and this is the only way we’ll get the information. You’re having trouble believing it—fine. Just play along until we get the details we need to keep Sheppard and McKay alive.”

Finch sighed heavily, and his shoulders slumped as much as they were able to. “All right.”

Reese patted his shoulder and stayed at his elbow as he hobbled back to the table. At the same time, Sheppard came back in and, at a nod from Reese, started the next video. This one was set in a different space, a room with stained glass windows and copper decorations that looked like it was created by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Stargate behind Jackson was of a different design.

“I’m standing in the Gateroom of Atlantis, the lost city of the Ancients,” Jackson announced. “In 2004, a chance discovery helped us calculate the location of Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy, and then-Col. Jack O’Neill was able to create a power source that would allow us to dial the eighth chevron and send an expedition to explore the city....”

To Reese’s shock, Jackson went on to explain that Atlantis was actually capable of space flight and had served briefly as a base on Earth’s own moon before returning to the Pegasus Galaxy. He then introduced some of the leading members of the Atlantis expedition, including Sheppard, the military commander; McKay, the head of the science division; and Dex and Emmagan, who were said to be Pegasus natives. If true, that explained why they’d had no online presence. From what Jackson was saying, the four of them had been the premier away team for Atlantis until Sheppard’s latest promotion, at which point Stargate Command had put him on desk duty. Logically, therefore, Dex and Emmagan were in just as much danger as Sheppard and McKay, but if Homeworld Command hadn’t given them Social Security numbers or had done so under some kind of cover identities to keep their status secret from the rest of the government, that could explain why the Machine hadn’t given their numbers to Finch.

From there, the videos covered the subjects of Wraith, a sort of alien vampire that lived on humans’ life force; the NID, a branch of the intelligence community created to deal with problems that were under Homeworld Command’s purview, such as humans stealing alien tech from Stargate Command or its civilian contractors; and the Trust, formed from a rogue element purged from the NID for stealing alien tech and assorted other dirty dealing. The Trust hated aliens in principle, apparently, yet after being infiltrated by the Goa’uld, they’d collaborated both with a System Lord called Baal and with the Lucian Alliance, all in the name of personal gain. After each video, Finch got up and paced in evident pain and increasing agitation.

Finally, Sheppard noticed. “You holdin’ up over there, Mr. Finch?”

“It is a great deal to digest all at once, Colonel,” Finch replied, and Reese wasn’t sure whether Sheppard could hear the tremor in his voice. “So much advanced technology—so many threats—so much corruption—I—it—” He stopped, sat down suddenly, took off his glasses, and buried his face in his hands.

Fearing that Finch was on the brink of hyperventilation, Reese put a hand on his shoulder. “Finch? What do you need?”

Finch didn’t respond for a moment. When he did, he said the last thing Reese expected:

“Chloe Armstrong.”

Sheppard frowned. “What about her?”

“Three years ago, I stumbled upon information that Chloe and her father, Sen. Alan Armstrong, were about to be involved in a violent crime. At the time, I didn’t trust my source, and I did nothing about it.”

Reese understood what he wasn’t saying. Finch had created the Machine to process all the surveillance data the government had begun collecting pursuant to the Patriot Act, from wiretaps to traffic cameras to social media. Its purpose was to detect terrorist threats, but it also detected violent crimes against average citizens that weren’t relevant to national security. He’d been aware of the “irrelevant” list from the first, but it had taken until late 2010 for him to decide to do something to prevent those crimes. He had a whole wall at the library covered with information about the lives he’d failed to save; since Reese had been working for him, they’d managed to get justice for one of them, but the others continued to haunt him. That still didn’t explain why he’d be asking Sheppard about Sen. Armstrong and his daughter, who’d supposedly been killed in a plane crash—Chloe had been part of her father’s staff and accompanied him on the trip as his aide—or why Sheppard reacted as if he knew her name. For that matter, it didn’t explain why the Machine would have given Finch the Armstrongs’ numbers.

“Chloe’s social media accounts were deleted within hours of the reports of her death,” Finch continued, dropping his hands and putting his glasses on again. “But I did see her last tweet, stating that she was going somewhere, quote, ‘out of this world.’”

“Icarus Base,” said Gen. Carter from the doorway.

Finch straightened and turned to her. “I’m sorry?”

“Icarus Base was an offworld research station,” she explained, coming in and sitting at the head of the table. “The planet on which it was located had an unusual core composed of an element called naquadria, which is an extremely powerful but unstable radioactive energy source. The purpose of the base was to harness the energy from the core to dial a nine-chevron address and send an expedition to find out what was on the other end. Unfortunately, the intended commander of the expedition had previously been working undercover to gain information on the Lucian Alliance, had been brainwashed by them, and had revealed the top-secret mission to their agents on Earth.”

“Would that be… Col. David Telford? My information said he’d be involved somehow.”

“Yes, he was the mole. We didn’t find out until a couple of months after Icarus was destroyed. We managed to break the conditioning, and he was reinstated, but by then the damage was done.”

“And the Armstrongs? Was it sabotage, or….”

“Hardly that straightforward.” Gen. Carter sighed. “At the time, I was commander of the George Hammond, the ship that took Sen. Armstrong and his entourage to the Icarus planet to witness the dialing of the ninth chevron. When the Lucian Alliance attacked, we engaged, but we couldn’t stop them from inflicting severe damage on the base. The lead scientist on the project dialed the ninth chevron without authorization to evacuate the survivors, which did save their lives in the short term, but they became stranded on an unmanned Ancient ship on the far side of the universe—and between the strain of powering the ’Gate and the concussive force of the attack on the base, the core of the planet was destabilized and went critical. We barely got the Hammond away in time to avoid the explosion. When the survivors managed to contact us, they reported that both Sen. Armstrong and his daughter had come with them, but Sen. Armstrong suffered a heart attack and shortly thereafter sacrificed himself to plug a leak in the ship’s damaged life support system. He saved everyone else on board.”

Something approaching hope bloomed on Finch’s face. “Then Chloe is alive?”

“So far as we know. Unfortunately, the ship encountered hostile aliens in the last galaxy it entered and was prevented from refueling before it had to enter faster-than-light travel to escape. The crew is in stasis and will be out of contact with Earth for another year. We hope to have found a way to bring them home by then, but… there are no guarantees.”

Finch let out a shuddering sigh, and his eyes slipped closed.

“Finch, you couldn’t have saved them,” Reese whispered.

“No,” Finch replied. “My information was correct. They were the victims of a violent crime, perpetrated in part by Col. Telford, and it’s only a fluke that they survived to escape. It also seems there’s nothing I can do to help Chloe now. But… she’s alive, Mr. Reese.” He opened his eyes, tears threatening to spill down his cheeks, and looked at Reese, as if willing him to understand everything he couldn’t say.

And Reese, who did understand, rubbed Finch’s shoulder. “Yeah. She’s alive.”

Finch swallowed hard and took a deep ragged breath, clearly trying to regain his composure. Then he exhaled, cleared his throat, and looked at Sheppard and Gen. Carter again. “So, General, Colonel… what can we help you with?”

Gen. Carter looked at Sheppard, who sighed and explained, “We’ve gone a long way toward eliminating the Wraith as a threat to the Pegasus Galaxy and to Atlantis, but the ones that are left are still desperate to find a way to reach Earth. I think now it’s as much about revenge against us as it is the need for the feeding ground, although the feeding ground’s definitely part of it—hell, there are more people on the East Coast than in the whole of Pegasus. We managed to thwart two separate attempts in ’08, but one of ’em came too damn close to succeeding. They made a kamikaze run on Area 51, took out some of our best defenses. McKay broke about a dozen laws of physics to get Atlantis here in time to stop ’em. We thought all of the Wraith had been killed... but now it looks like at least one survived.”

“We thought the same about the Trust,” Gen. Carter continued. “After we mopped up the last of Baal’s mess, it looked like we’d arrested all the humans who were in league with him and rescued the ones who’d been forced to become Goa’uld hosts. But we’ve never found Robert Kinsey, and it’s possible that he’s restarted the Trust or that there’s a new rogue element within the NID.”

“Whichever it is, our information is that these people have found a Wraith hiding out here on Earth and struck a deal with it: full access to Wraith tech, especially weapons, in exchange for enough Earth tech to send a signal to Pegasus. We’ve also heard they’re moving it to New York City. Why they waited over three years before moving it to New York, or why New York specifically when Las Vegas would be less conspicuous....”

“Elias,” Reese and Finch chorused.

Gen. Carter frowned in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Public Enemy No. 1,” Finch replied. “Carl Elias is the illegitimate son of Don Gianni Moretti, and for decades, he’s held a grudge against Moretti for having his mother murdered. Now he intends to kill not only his father but also all the other dons, take sole control of organized crime in New York, and eliminate anyone who stands in his way.”

“He’s ruthless and resourceful,” Reese added. “He would kill—or worse—for weapons and technology that would give him the edge he needs against the Russians. If these rogue agents, whatever they call themselves, are bringing the Wraith to New York, there’s a very good chance they’re making a deal with Elias.”

“We also believe they already know about you and your team, Colonel. We have information that you and Dr. McKay, at least, are in mortal danger.”

Sheppard nodded. “Yeah, well, we think they already know about you guys, too. That’s why I had you leave your phones on the Daedalus. They blue-jacked Reese once; they coulda done it again.”

Finch frowned. “They shouldn’t have been able—wait, how did you—”

“They have alien technology. We have alien technology, brilliant scientists, and experience in tracking signals without cell company data. That’s also how we found you without GPS.”

Finch sagged backward with a groan. “I believed I’d taken every precaution.”

“You had, against the threats you knew about. You just hadn’t expected McKay. Last tech problem that gave him that much trouble was one he caused himself.”

Finch looked slightly mollified.

“Here.” Sheppard slid two cell phones across the table to Reese and Finch. “These are the most secure phones you’ll ever have, developed in Atlantis and tested by a Wraith hacker who defected to us. Bulletproof in the literal and figurative sense. They operate on subspace, not terrestrial wireless, and they don’t have Bluetooth, so you can’t be blue-jacked. I’ll get you a couple of earwigs, too, if you need ’em. We’ll even let you keep ’em—for a price.”

“Which is?” Reese asked before Finch could.

“I call the shots on this mission, and Mr. Finch gives us all the intel he can find on the Trust and the NID, whether it’s relevant to the mission or not. We’re also gonna need everything you have on Elias.”

Finch looked at Reese—an odd role reversal, since Finch was Reese’s boss, but Reese was also the only person in the room Finch knew he could trust even slightly.

Reese considered. “One condition.”

“What?” Sheppard asked.

“With Elias in the picture, I need to alert my contacts at NYPD Homicide in case something goes wrong. I won’t reveal anything classified; in fact, I’d be willing to call from a speakerphone here before we go back so you can hear every word on both sides. But they need to know about this move he’s making.”

Sheppard looked at Gen. Carter and Finch, who nodded in approval. Then Sheppard got up, closed the door, and retrieved a conferencing speakerphone from a cabinet. Once that was set up, Reese gave Sheppard the number for Fusco’s spare phone, and Sheppard dialed.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Fusco’s raspy voice demanded quietly without preamble.

Reese permitted himself a small smile. “Hello to you, too, Lionel.”

“Thought you and your friend were supposed to be preventing homicides.”

“We can’t stop all of them.”

Fusco lowered his voice further. “Yeah, well, this one’s so weird, I can’t believe you didn’t catch it.”

Reese sobered. “What happened?”

“Guy found a body in his back alley, totally mummified with a gash in his chest. CSU managed to get prints, hell if I know how. Vic was homeless, did some time for petty theft a couple years ago. And the weirdest part is, he was 37 years old. ME said it looked like something just sucked the life out of him.”

Reese exchanged a horrified look with Sheppard.

“And now we got Feds crawlin’ all over the scene,” Fusco continued. “As if Carter didn’t have enough Feds askin’ her questions about you.”

“Who are the Feds in this case?” Reese asked.

“NID. Never heard of ’em before. Lead investigator’s a guy called Malcolm Barrett.”

At a nod from Sheppard, Reese said, “Okay, listen, Lionel. Cooperate with Barrett.”

“What?!”

“You can trust him, and you can trust Carter, but trust no one else until you hear from me. Got that?”

“Yeah, but why?”

“Short answer, this could lead us to Elias.”

“I take it that means there’s a long answer.”

“Later, Lionel. I’ll be in touch.” Reese nodded at Sheppard, who hung up. Reese then rattled off Det. Carter’s number, which Sheppard dialed.

It took several rings for Det. Carter to answer, but her harsh whisper was just as abrupt as Fusco’s. “Where the hell are you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Reese replied. “I heard about your case, and I’m on my way back with help. Who do you trust in Organized Crime?”

“Szymanski,” she answered without hesitation. “Elias behind this?”

“We think he’s involved, Detective,” Finch chimed in. “We’ll give you more information as soon as we can. In the meantime, trust Det. Fusco, Det. Szymanski, and Agent Barrett and no one else, is that clear?”

“Crystal.” She paused. “You better hurry up, John. This case is already makin’ my skin crawl.”

“I don’t blame you,” Reese said. “I’ll be in touch before dark.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she returned and hung up.

Reese made eye contact with Sheppard again. “Did that description mean what I think it meant?”

Sheppard nodded. “Yeah. The Wraith’s already in New York—and it’s hungry.”

[1] Admittedly, we the audience don’t learn about Finch’s dislike of heights or his pilot’s license until after “Blue Code,” but there’s no reason Reese couldn’t have learned about them off-screen before then.

Chapter Text

Sheppard played a bit of word association with himself as he led Reese to the quartermaster’s office. Both Reese and Finch were already well enough dressed for the briefing that Gen. Carter was arranging to be held in the SCIF at One Police Plaza, but everyone agreed that while Finch could fly under the radar without further disguise, both Szymanski and Snow (who wasn’t invited but was still monitoring Det. Carter) would be suspicious if Reese remained in his “Man in the Suit” guise. Gen. Carter and Finch were working on setting Reese up with a new cover identity as an Air Force Master Sergeant with either the same decorations he’d earned in the Army or the nearest Air Force equivalents, but they hadn’t settled on a name yet, and Reese had disclaimed his own ability to choose. That left it to Sheppard to find something distinct from both Reese’s real surname and his standard CIA alias.

Reese—peanut butter—Carver? No, with two Carters on the case, that would only add confusion. Rhys—Davies? No, Maj. Paul Davis would be joining them for the briefing as the liaison from Homeworld Command. Ries—Riese, giant—Andre the Giant, or… Samson, Goliath, Jack the Giant Killer… all too obvious… the Brave Little Tailor—too close to Reese’s real surname… or there was Wade, the father of… Wieland the Smith. Perfect. Sheppard texted his choice to Gen. Carter and stepped up to the quartermaster’s desk to place his order.

“What name, sir?” the quartermaster asked as he finished.

“Wayland,” Sheppard supplied.

Reese looked startled for a moment, then apparently backtracked over Sheppard’s line of thought and smiled in quiet amusement. The quartermaster, for his part, finished entering the information in the computer and disappeared into the storeroom for a moment, returning with Reese’s new dress uniform for the meeting and a duffle containing Reese’s Atlantis-standard offworld black BDUs for the rest of the mission, decorations, and laser-engraved nameplate. Reese accepted them with a nod of thanks.

“So do I get to keep these?” he asked as Sheppard led him toward the armory.

“Have to ask Gen. Carter,” Sheppard hedged. “’Course, if you wanna come back to Atlantis with us, you’d be welcome.”

Reese smiled wryly. “Thanks, but I’ve got a job in New York.”

“So what exactly is that? Obviously, you and Finch work together, but….”

“We hear about people who are about to be involved in violent crimes. We do everything we can to prevent them from happening.”

“You hear about crimes? How exactly do you hear about these things?”

Reese’s smile turned mischievous. “Trade secret.”

Sheppard snorted. “Right. I live in another galaxy, and I’m married to an alien, but your source of information is too classified to tell me.”

“You’re not the one we don’t trust.”

Sheppard processed that for a moment, then nodded his understanding. Like it or not, he did still work for the government, and while Reese’s reasons for running from the government were clear from the CIA reports, Finch had just as clearly gone to great lengths to erase his true identity from all records and to ensure that his command center at the library couldn’t be found. But that brought up another point, one that brought Sheppard up short just before they reached the elevator. “Wait, wait—you were already following us when we checked into the hotel yesterday, which means your source told you we were in danger before we even landed at JFK.”

“How many people even knew you were on Earth?” Reese asked, implicitly confirming Sheppard’s surmise.

Sheppard shook his head. “We’d have to ask Gen. Carter to know for sure, but not many. We’re using cover IDs at the hotel. So either the Trust just guessed that we’d be sent in, or there’s a mole somewhere.”

“We didn’t find out about the threat to the rest of your team until this morning. That tells me the people plotting to kill you didn’t know about them until after you’d arrived in New York.”

“That narrows it down. If the mole were here at the SGC, or if there were a spy hangin’ around outside Cheyenne Mountain, they would have known I wasn’t alone by the time our flight left Colorado Springs. As far as I know, Gen. Landry’s the only one at Homeworld Command who knew we were comin’ in before we left Atlantis, but the mole could be in his office—we had to go through them to get your CIA file.”

“Or the mole could be CIA, FBI, NID, or even NYPD.”

Sheppard chewed his lip as he punched the down button on the elevator but waited until he and Reese were safely inside and on their way down to 28 before asking, “This have anything to do with why you told your detectives not to trust anyone but each other, Szymanski, and Barrett?”

Reese nodded. “There’s a group of corrupt cops called HR. They don’t work for Elias, but they’re allied with him, even let him try to kill Carter a few months ago.”

“That was when you saved her life?”

“It was. We know a few of the players, but by no means all. Finch checked out Szymanski a while back, and he’s clean—not that I doubted Carter’s judgment on that. But just about anyone else on the force could be on the take, if not actively working for HR or the Trust.”

Sheppard nodded slowly as the elevator stopped and the door opened.

Their next stop was the VIP quarters where Finch was preparing his new persona, Dr. Shearwater, for the briefing. As they approached, though, they heard two delighted voices conversing in… Czech? Confused, Sheppard led the way to the lab, only to find Finch and Zelenka chatting and grinning at each other.

Finch caught sight of them as they reached the open lab door, and if anything, he seemed even happier to see them. “John! Come and meet an old friend of mine.”

Sheppard and Reese exchanged a look and came into the room, Reese smiling politely at Zelenka.

“Radek, this is John Reese,” Finch said in English. “Mr. Reese, Dr. Radek Zelenka.”

“Dr. Zelenka,” Reese acknowledged, dropping his duffle on a table so he could shake Zelenka’s hand.

“A great pleasure, Mr. Reese,” Zelenka returned as they shook.

“Didn’t know you two knew each other,” Sheppard told Zelenka.

“It was many years ago, Colonel,” said Zelenka.

Finch was more focused on Reese. “In the ’80s, some friends and I were invited to a conference in Prague that included a chance to visit some of the universities. Radek was among a group of students we met at Czech Technical University who wanted a way out of Communist territory. One thing led to another, and my friends and I helped them defect to the West.”

Zelenka nodded. “We agreed it would be too dangerous to keep in touch, and then after I finished my doctorate and went back to Prague, I didn’t have a way to contact Nathan and Harold again. Imagine my surprise to see him today!”

Finch and Reese both laughed.

Then Zelenka’s smile faded somewhat. “I was very sorry to hear of Nathan’s death in that ferry bombing.”

Finch’s own smile faded more significantly. “Yes, that was a difficult time.”

“To be honest… part of me has wondered whether he was killed by the Trust or someone else seeking information about Atlantis—about me.”

“No,” Finch replied quickly. Then he deflated a little. “No, that’s not the reason.”

Reese put a hand on Finch’s shoulder, but Sheppard was sure Zelenka took the same inference from that statement he did: this Nathan, whoever he was, had been the target of the bombing, just not because he’d known Zelenka. Adding that to Reese’s statement about not trusting the government… raised some very interesting questions indeed.

“Well,” said Sheppard. “I hate to cut the reunion short, but we’d better let you finish preparing for the briefing.”

“Yes, of course,” said Finch. “It was so good to see you, Radek. Perhaps we can do some more catching up after the case is closed.”

Zelenka nodded. “I hope so.”

With that, Sheppard herded Zelenka out. He waited until they were around the corner and several dozen feet away before asking quietly, “Who was Nathan?”

“Nathan Ingram,” Zelenka answered at the same volume. “Our friend went by Harold Grebe at the time.”

Sheppard raised his chin. Atlantis didn’t often get stateside news in its regular data bursts from the SGC, but the terrorist attack that had killed Ingram had been big enough news to be passed along, not least because Ingram’s company IFT had supplied a portion of the new computer technology that had come to Homeworld Command after 2008, although not the portion based on alien tech. Whatever Ingram and Finch—

“Oh, that’s why Ingram never said what the name meant,” Sheppard realized. “IFT, Ingram-Finch Technologies! Finch was a silent partner from the start!”

“That would explain a great deal, especially how he managed to encrypt his system so thoroughly.”

“I bet that’s not the only secret he’s keeping, either. It’s probably not the secret that got Ingram killed. See what you can find out about IFT while we’re working on the Wraith problem.”

Zelenka nodded. “At least I can satisfy myself that it wasn’t his connection to me that made him a target.”

“Yeah.” Sheppard smiled and patted Zelenka on the shoulder. “Makes a difference, knowing something really wasn’t your fault.”

Zelenka gave him a rueful smile, and they went their separate ways.

Joss Carter had her game face on as she rode with Fusco in the back seat of Agent Barrett’s car on the way to One Police Plaza, Szymanski in shotgun talking shop with Barrett. (They were in Barrett’s car because it was the only one without a cage between the front seat and the back and that didn’t have the safety locks engaged on the back doors.) Deep down, however, she was afraid her façade would crack and show not only how badly the case scared her but how nervous she was about going to this briefing with this company—and confused by Finch’s order to trust Fusco, of all people. What did he know about Fusco that she didn’t? And why did Fusco seem to trust her but not Szymanski?

Stifling a sigh, she glanced over at her partner at the same moment he gave her an identical sidelong look. They both pretended they hadn’t and turned to stare out their respective windows instead. That didn’t help Joss feel any better. And staring out the window only made her wonder whether Agent Snow and his shadow were still around and how likely they were to turn up at the wrong moment.

There were far too many things she didn’t know. High on that list was where Reese was. He’d said he’d be in touch before dark, but where was he now, and what help was he bringing? Would it be enough to stop whatever was going on?

Her thoughts continued along similar lines as the four investigators arrived at 1PP, signed NDAs, and checked their weapons, radios, and phones with two young men in Air Force uniform outside the SCIF. A third man, a Marine, waved a wand over them before allowing them to pass; she wasn’t sure why they were using a portable metal detector, but she passed the check, so that went to the bottom of her list of things to worry about. She was distracted enough by everything else that as they were ushered inside by two more Marines, she didn’t register more about the people seated at the front of the room than a mix of Air Force officers and civilians in suits. It wasn’t until she sat down that she realized that one of the civilians was Finch. When she looked at him again, he made eye contact and then looked across at—at Reese, in a genuine uniform with genuine decorations and a standard-issue nameplate that read Wayland. Oh, Joss knew Finch’s ability to get himself and Reese into places bordered on the miraculous, but… how on earth had they pulled this off?!

Reese’s “official business” face didn’t change, but he did make eye contact with her… and then with Fusco before giving the barest of nods to the colonel with the group, whose nameplate read Sheppard. Fusco gave Joss a startled glance and looked at Finch and then at the screen behind the visitors. So—did Reese and Finch know Fusco? Had they been working together all this time? Did he know Col. Sheppard, too? Was Col. Sheppard the help Reese had promised to bring?

Joss barely had time to wonder when Col. Sheppard nodded to a twitchy major, who introduced himself as Paul Davis and started the meeting. Col. Sheppard and his colleague, a Dr. McKay, did most of the talking; “Sgt. Wayland” and “Dr. Shearwater” sat alongside a Spc. Dex and Mrs. Sheppard and watched the proceedings with polite interest. The briefing boiled down to the fact that a group of rogue government agents had stolen some extremely classified weapons from Area 51 and had brought them to New York to sell to Elias. One of those weapons had evidently been used on their mummified murder victim. Joss could tell there was far more to the story than Col. Sheppard was allowed to reveal, and she suspected Barrett knew at least part of it, but it answered enough of her questions that she could make peace with not having the clearance for the rest.

When Dr. McKay opened the floor for questions, however, it was Szymanski who spoke first. “Wait, wait, wait. From everything we’ve been able to determine, Elias buys people rather than weapons.”

“We don’t know what the Trust might have told him, Detective,” Reese stated. “They may have offered both the weapons and someone who can use them. We don’t even know whether they’re dealing with Elias directly. They may be using HR as a middleman. What we’re sure of is that the Trust is here with those weapons—and that someone put a hit out on Col. Sheppard and Dr. McKay, most likely to stop them from preventing whatever deal is in the works.”

Ah, so the mysterious source that gave Finch and Reese their information had put them onto this case before the murder. That answered more questions, but—

“So if the hit is on them, why kill the homeless guy?” Fusco asked aloud at the same time Joss thought it.

“We don’t think it was premeditated,” Finch answered, and another puzzle piece about their choice of cases clicked into place. “He may have seen something or picked the wrong pocket, or he may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the fact that the killer didn’t bother to dispose of the body is troubling. It almost appears to have been left as a warning—though a warning to whom is unclear.”

Szymanski frowned. “You’re sure there’s only one group with these weapons?”

Silence.

“If there is a second group,” Dr. McKay said slowly (and he had spoken very quickly while delivering the briefing), “that would be very bad news.”

“How bad?” Joss asked before she could stop herself.

Dr. McKay looked at her with an expression somewhere between worried and mournful. “It would mean someone had obtained these weapons without stealing them from Area 51.”

A chill ran down Joss’s spine.

“Then why would they be in New York?” Fusco asked. “You think they’re tryin’ to outbid the Trust?”

“This is still very hypothetical,” Dr. McKay cautioned, “but if there’s a second group and if they’re in New York….”

“They’d be trying to eliminate the Trust,” Col. Sheppard concluded gravely. “And when they’re done with that, they wouldn’t mess with Elias except maybe to get funding. They’d start trying to take over the world.”

The three detectives exchanged a worried look. Then Szymanski cleared his throat. “Hypothetically, would we be able to recognize this second group on the street?”

Col. Sheppard nodded a little. “Yeah, you would. How much they would try to blend in, I don’t know; they’re smart enough to disguise their features. But they’d most likely look like a bunch of goth guys with long white hair, maybe a white goatee. Hair might look like it hasn’t seen a brush in ten thousand years. Or they might be wearing a full-face mask that kinda looks like a bug’s eye. Either way… you’ll know, deep down, if you see one.”

The chill Joss felt spread out from her spine through all her veins.

“Are they a gang?” Szymanski asked cautiously.

“You could call ’em that,” Col. Sheppard replied.

“What name—”

“This is exceptionally classified—” Barrett interrupted.

“Wraith,” a deep, rough voice cut in, and Joss didn’t place it until Dex stood and walked over to Col. Sheppard’s side. “They’re called Wraith.”

Szymanski shifted uncomfortably—whether from accidentally straying beyond their clearance level or from the implicit danger level of what they were learning, or from the intensity of Dex’s demeanor, Joss wasn’t sure. “Never heard of ’em.”

“No,” said Dex. “You wouldn’t have.”

“We still don’t know for sure that they’re here,” Col. Sheppard noted.

Dex shrugged. He seemed to be a man of even fewer words than Reese.

Mrs. Sheppard stepped forward as well, but her attention was on Barrett. “If there are Wraith in New York that are not connected with the Trust, these detectives need to be aware of it. They have already signed non-disclosure agreements, so the information will go no further, but they need to know at least a portion of the nature of the threat.”

That seemed to give Barrett pause. Then he leaned forward. “Mrs. Sheppard… are there Wraith in New York?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Sheppard answered. “I don’t know where or how many—certainly not the full hive. I don’t know whether they’re allied with the Trust or not. But there is a Wraith presence in this city.”

Joss didn’t know why Mrs. Sheppard would be the one with the definitive answer to that question, nor why her certainty felt so creepy to observe. She did know that she wished she hadn’t woken up that morning… and it helped somewhat that Finch and Reese looked slightly alarmed as well.

Barrett didn’t look happy, either, but his only counter was, “Well, you’re gonna have to explain to Gen. Landry.”

“Story of our lives,” Col. Sheppard remarked quietly to Dex, who snorted.

“I really don’t wanna be the one to ask this,” Szymanski murmured to Joss but spoke up again anyway. “So if there’s a chance we’re gonna run into a gang of goths armed with beyond-top-secret weaponry… what’s our best bet for survival when it comes to making arrests?”

“Odds are, you won’t be able to make arrests,” Col. Sheppard answered. “They don’t recognize any authority except their own, and they also have a beyond-top-secret serum that makes angel dust look like powdered sugar. Your only option for survival is to put as many rounds in their center of mass as possible until either they go down… or you run out of ammo.”

“And stay further away than arm’s length, if you can,” Dr. McKay added before Joss could shoot Reese a look asking to borrow one of his submachine guns. “One of the weapons is on the palm of their right hands.”

“Wear your vests,” Reese recommended. “Especially if they’ve got strike plates.”

Why do I always wind up needing my vest when I work with you, John? Joss thought but tried not to let it show on her face.

Col. Sheppard passed along some other necessary information, including radio frequencies and phone numbers for reaching his team. Then Maj. Davis, apparently noticing how shell-shocked the detectives were, brought the meeting to an end.

“You all right, Carter?” Szymanski asked quietly.

“Yeah, I just need a minute,” Joss answered at the same volume. “I’ll catch up with you in the hall.”

Szymanski nodded, patted her shoulder, and left with Barrett. Fusco seemed torn over whether to leave or not.

But Reese took the decision out of their hands. As soon as Szymanski was far enough away, Reese came over to Joss and Fusco. “I hadn’t planned for you guys to find out about each other this way,” he murmured.

“What, you were plannin’ another way?” Fusco snarked softly.

“It was safer for you not to know yet,” Reese insisted.

Joss gave him a Look.

Reese ignored that. “But we can’t talk about it right now. When this is over, we can all go out for a drink together. My treat.”

“Define ‘we,’ John,” said Joss.

Fusco’s double-take was priceless—or would have been under other circumstances, when Joss wasn’t worried about what kind of weapon could cause rapid aging but would be blocked by a strike plate and what kind of substance was so much worse than PCP that just keep shooting was the only option for dealing with someone hopped up on it.

“Well, normally it would just be you two, Finch, and me,” Reese shot back, “but Sheppard and his team might be offended if we go without them. And Szymanski’s about to get suspicious, so go. We can talk later.”

“You’re sure Szymanski’s okay?” Fusco asked even as he backed out of the row to let Joss pass.

Reese nodded. “Yeah, he’s clean.”

Joss had never doubted it, but now her doubts about Fusco had been eased. It was just… everything else she had to worry about. Still, she managed to nod farewell to both Reese and Finch before Fusco herded her up the aisle to the door.

No sooner had she received her phone, radio, and weapon back, however, than the voice of one of those worries called, “Det. Carter!”

Joss couldn’t help swearing under her breath.

“What?” Szymanski asked softly.

“CIA,” she whispered. Then she turned around to find the Marines and Barrett forming the most effective barrier between herself and Agent Snow that they could. That was good for her, but it meant Reese and Finch were both trapped in the SCIF.

Snow’s shadow was expressionless as usual, but Snow himself was smiling as amiably as he could manage. “What’s going on, fellas?” he asked the Marines.

“Who are you?” Barrett demanded.

“Agent Mark Snow, CIA,” Snow replied and flashed his credentials.

“Agent Malcolm Barrett, NID,” Barrett returned and flashed his own.

“I didn’t ask. I need to speak to Det. Carter.”

“Det. Carter is busy.”

Snow looked at Joss and then back at Barrett. “She doesn’t look busy.”

Barrett wasn’t cowed. “Appearances can be deceptive.”

Joss found herself warming to Barrett.

“You’re impeding a federal investigation,” Snow told Barrett, getting closer to the Marines than was strictly advisable.

Barrett stood his ground. “No, you are impeding the NID investigation to which these detectives have just been seconded, and you’re doing it for the sake of hunting a man you can’t even prove is still alive. Leave Det. Carter alone—or you will be reassigned.”

Snow looked as sour as an entire lemon orchard… but he turned and glared at his shadow, and they left.

Joss waited until they were out of earshot to turn to Barrett. “Thanks. Never thought I’d see him turn tail and run.”

“Rank hath its privileges,” Barrett noted with a small smile. “I don’t pull rank on the Agency unless I have to, but sometimes they need to be reminded that there are some secrets even they don’t have clearance for.”

“What was that all about?” Szymanski murmured as they headed out.

Joss grimaced. “Snow’s still tryin’ to use me to get to the Man in the Suit.”

“The Man in the Suit?!” Szymanski echoed incredulously. “I thought the FBI and the department’s task force took over that investigation.”

Joss shrugged. “Snow says it’s the CIA’s mess to clean up.” And by clean up, he meant kill John—although his shadow had been looking increasingly uncomfortable since the shooting. She wondered whether she was imagining that. (And she really hoped Szymanski hadn’t recognized John during that briefing.)

Szymanski scoffed and shook his head.

“You gonna be all right, partner?” Fusco murmured from her other side.

Joss nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, Fusco.”

Fusco nodded back but still looked a little worried.

The conversation was interrupted when Barrett’s phone rang. He answered, listened, and replied, “No kidding. When? … We have to swing back by the Eighth, but we’ll be there as soon as we can. Have you informed Col. Sheppard? … Right. Bye.” He hung up and looked at the detectives. “Got another one in Red Hook. I’ll brief you in the car.”

The goosebumps that sprang up on Joss’s arms had nothing to do with the weather or the CIA, but she nodded anyway.

Chapter Text

Anthony Marconi was driving slowly through Red Hook, establishing his on-duty presence in the area before the meeting with HR, when his phone rang. It was Carl’s ringtone.

Anthony answered without looking. “Yeah, Boss?”

“I take it you’re not at the rendezvous point yet,” Carl began without preamble.

“Nah, since I’m too early to meet Giuli and the boys, I figured my patrol car would look less suspicious if I did some patrolling first.”

“Very sensible—and very useful.”

Anthony frowned. “Why, something wrong?”

“Possibly. Our friend at the Real Time Crime Center called to tell me about a strange murder there in Red Hook, the second one of its type today. A federal agency called the NID has taken charge of the investigation, with Dets. Carter, Szymanski, and Fusco seconded.”

“Besides the Feds being involved, what’s so strange about it?”

“All I’ve been able to gather so far have been rumors. Even our friends are sworn to secrecy about the details they know, and they don’t know much. But word on the street is that the murdered men were killed with some sort of extremely classified secret weapon… and the second one may have been a member of one of the cartels.”

Anthony raised his chin. “You think this has something to do with this proposal HR has for us?”

“I don’t know what to think. If it’s true, I also don’t know whether the killer is trying to start a war between us and the cartels. That’s why I want you to look into it.” Carl gave him the address of the crime scene.

Anthony nodded. “Okay, Boss, I’ll see what I can do. It may not be much if I can’t get past the Feds without raising suspicion, or if I run into Carter or Fusco, but I’ll call back as soon as I can either way.”

“Thank you, Anthony. I’ll tell Giuli not to go to the meeting until he hears from one of us.”

“Right.” Anthony hung up and headed to the crime scene, calling the precinct dispatcher when he got close to make his “interagency assist” official. He saw no other uniformed officers on the scene when he arrived, but neither did he see the three NYPD detectives, which was a good thing for his cover. So he parked his cruiser and made his way past the crime scene tape as if he belonged there.

Before he could see much of anything, however, an unfamiliar man whose whole demeanor screamed Fed challenged him. “Sorry, Officer, this scene is off limits to unauthorized personnel,” the Fed said.

“Oh,” Anthony replied, all innocent confusion. “I was in the area and heard the radio chatter, so I thought I’d stop by to assist. Sorry, er… Detective?”

“Agent Barrett, NID.” Barrett flashed credentials that somehow looked more authentic than Anthony’s own—which was saying something, considering that Anthony had actually gone through police academy to earn a legitimate place on the force while also serving as Carl’s inside man.

“Agent,” Anthony corrected. “Well, as long as I’m here, is there anything I can do to assist?”

Barrett hesitated, seeming to take Anthony’s measure. “Actually… there is one thing. The details of the case are classified, but we’re having trouble getting information through the usual channels about one aspect of it.” He pulled a wallet in an evidence bag out of his pocket, and Anthony didn’t know whether to expect a trap or a test. “Can you see if you can find out more about this man?” Barrett continued, opening the wallet and turning it to reveal the driver’s license inside.

Anthony didn’t recognize the picture, but when he read the name, he couldn’t hold back a slight inhale.

Barrett noticed. “You know him?”

“I know the name,” Anthony admitted. A degree of honesty struck him as the best policy at the moment. “Just from things I’ve heard on the street, nothing that would stand up in court.”

“What have you heard?”

“He’s high up in the Sinaloa Cartel. I didn’t even know he was in New York; last I heard, his territory was around Vegas.”

“That fits,” Barrett murmured and put the wallet away again, clearly connecting dots Anthony couldn’t see. Anthony could only hope they didn’t include his own true loyalties.

“What, is he wanted for something he’s done here?”

Barrett shook his head. “He’s dead.”

So Carl was right to be worried. Anthony opened his mouth to ask another question—but stopped as an utterly foreign emotion suddenly swept over him. For the first time since he’d killed his abusive father, he was soul-deep afraid. Worse still, Barrett paled at almost the same moment and grabbed his radio.

“This is Barrett,” the agent barked. “Fall back to defensive positions now. Do not trust your eyes, and do not fire unless fired upon.” Then he looked back at Anthony. “With me, Officer. You have your vest on?” he added, leading the way toward the nearest cover that would put a solid wall at their backs.

Anthony nodded and followed. “What did you mean about not trusting our eyes?”

Barrett shook his head. “That’s classified.”

There wasn’t time for Anthony to press for more answers, classified or not. Darting shadows at the edges of his vision drew his attention away from Barrett, and a wall of smoke billowed out of a nearby doorway, disorienting him as he backed away from it in a rush. His heart pounded as he tried to get his bearings again. He’d almost succeeded when he caught sight of Carter, Szymanski, and Fusco standing with their backs to each other and their handguns drawn, watching warily for the threat he sensed but couldn’t really see. He backed into a wall trying to get away from them and from the smoke—and then there were white-haired men jumping out of windows and down from roofs, enough of them that he couldn’t get a good fix on their numbers, and the detectives started shooting. The white-haired guys reacted to being shot but didn’t fall.

The gunfire grounded Anthony enough to reach for his shoulder mic with his left hand while his right drew his own gun. “Level 3, this is 15-Adam-10,” he called, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt. “Ten-85, 10-34S![1] We’re under attack—shots fired, repeat, shots fired!”

But whatever the dispatcher replied didn’t register. Flashes of blue light flew past him with a zapping noise that sounded like something out of Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century, and he thought he saw the detectives falling and being dragged away. He tried to shoot the men who were dragging them, but that only drew the attackers’ attention toward him. He kept shooting as he retreated swiftly toward his car, but he neither saw nor heard Barrett as he passed where he thought the Fed should be. Now thoroughly panicked, Anthony reached his car just as he fired the last round in his magazine, but he didn’t have time to do more than recognize the steel at his back. Another white-haired guy came out of nowhere and slugged him hard enough to stun him briefly. In the second or two it took him to start to recover, the guy grabbed him, disarmed him, unzipped his jacket, and slammed an open hand against the strike plate of his vest. Whatever that was supposed to do apparently didn’t work. The guy looked baffled, then roared in anger and produced a knife from somewhere up his sleeve.

Before the knife could strike, there was another roar—the sweet, sweet sound of a P-90. The white-haired guy jolted but stayed on his feet longer than should have been humanly possible before the repeated bursts of semi-auto fire finally took him down. But when Anthony saw the shooter, he still couldn’t quite believe his eyes. That was a P-90, all right, and the man wielding it was wearing some kind of all-black uniform with a tac vest… but the last time Anthony had seen that face, Carl had been pistol-whipping the Man in the Suit.

John, Anthony remembered slowly. The Suit had told Carl his name was John.

John almost looked like he wanted to keep shooting, but he lowered his weapon anyway. “You all right?”

Anthony wrestled in a deep breath and nodded. “Thanks.” He could hear more zaps and gunfire, but they were fading with distance.

“Where’s Carter?”

Anthony shook his head. “I dunno. I think these guys knocked ’em out and carried ’em off somewhere—her, Fusco, Szymanski, Barrett, anyone else who was here.” He glanced down at his attacker… and immediately wished he hadn’t.

The blood pooling on the sidewalk was black.

Anthony swallowed hard and looked up at John again, but John was looking away, listening to something else—or maybe to the lack of something else, since the firefight seemed to have stopped. A flash of frustration crossed John’s face, and he listened a moment longer before turning his attention back to Anthony.

“What did the trust offer Elias?” he demanded quietly.

“Who the what?!” Anthony was baffled, and he didn’t think it was just because of what he’d been through in the last few minutes.

John looked at him intently. “You’re not here about the weapons that were stolen from Area 51?”

“Area 51?!” Anthony echoed, even more confused than before. Carl had mentioned secret weapons, but he hadn’t guessed…. “My boss buys people, not weapons. Some of the boys and I are supposed to be meeting with HR about something they said would help us take down the heads of the Five Families. But nobody said nothin’ about no trust or weapons or whoever the hell these guys are.” He pointed down at the body between them without looking at the black blood not thinking about it not thinking about Area 51 not thinking about aliens….

John huffed. “Figures. When are you supposed to meet HR?”

Head still spinning, Anthony checked his watch. “’Bout half an hour. But the boss said he’d hold the boys back until we found out more about whatever happened here. He’s worried someone might be trying to start something between La Cosa Nostra and the cartels. The guy who got whacked was high up in the Vegas branch of the Sinaloas, so the boss may be right. If it’s this trust thing, or if HR’s trying to set us up….”

John shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I can’t be sure how much HR does know, but nobody knew for sure these guys were alive until you and Barrett radioed. They probably used the Sinaloas to get here from Vegas and then killed their contact as soon as they didn’t need him anymore and dumped him, both as a message to the trust and as an announcement of their arrival. I doubt they even care about the balance of power between the mob and the cartels.”

Anthony frowned. “Why do they care about the trust? What is it?”

“It’s an organization of rogue federal agents. Apparently the Trust”—Anthony understood the implied capital letter now—“captured a member of the gang, and we think they plan to sell him to Elias along with the stolen weapons. We have no idea what the Trust hopes to get out of the deal beyond the goodwill of La Cosa Nostra, unless they’re trying to take over from the inside once Elias has full control. But like I said, they have no idea that the rest of the gang is still alive.”

Anthony spat a colorful Sicilian curse, then took a deep breath. “What can I do?”

“Give me a ride to where you’re supposed to meet HR. If I’m right, that’s where the gang’s headed.”

Anthony nodded and pushed himself away from the car to go retrieve his sidearm. “Sure. I’ll tell the boss what happened, but I know he’ll want these guys and the Trust out of our city.”

John nodded once and pulled a handheld radio out of his vest. “Sheppard, this is Wayland”—Anthony didn’t buy those as real names for one second. “Got a line on the rendezvous point, and I’m on my way there. I’ll vector you in once I have coordinates.”

“Copy that,” came the crackling reply.

Anthony found his gun on top of a pile of trash (mercifully well away from his attacker) and took a moment to reload before putting the gun back in the holster and heading back to the car.

“Is that your only firepower?” John asked, pointing to the holster.

“Unfortunately. I can’t carry any fun toys on duty without raising too many questions.”

“I wouldn’t normally let you borrow mine, but I don’t think we have time to stop by anyone’s armory. And you are going to need something more than a handgun.”

“What about you?”

John smiled a little. “I’ll get by.”

Anthony decided not to comment. The two of them got into the car just as a federal CSU team arrived. John texted his invisible friend while Anthony updated the precinct dispatcher on their status. Then, as they drove away, Anthony finally called Carl.

“Anthony!” Carl answered. “I heard your calls on the radio. What happened?”

“Boss, we’ve got a problem,” Anthony stated.

Joss stifled a groan as she started to come around. One advantage to her Army training was that her instructors had drilled certain procedures—especially “how to survive after being captured”—into her so thoroughly that she could follow them without conscious thought. In this instance, she wasn’t aware enough to remember being captured until after the groan could have given away the fact that she was waking up, but the fact that she was vertical was enough to make that particular training kick in. She didn’t open her eyes, not only because she didn’t want to attract her captors’ attention yet but also because she had a terrible headache from whatever they’d used to take her down. (It must have been one of those weapons Col. Sheppard had said was too classified even to name.)

She heard a quiet snore to her left. That was probably Fusco. She could only hope Szymanski and Barrett, assuming they’d also been captured, were close enough that Reese and Col. Sheppard could rescue all of them at once. If they’d been split up, there was no way Joss would be able to help find the others.

Right, self-check first. Bound upright with something sticky she could feel against her hands but not against her face. It almost felt like she was encased in a spiderweb, except whatever this stuff was could support a human’s weight and was heavy enough to restrain her without constricting her breathing. She still had her vest on, which was a small comfort. Besides feeling headachy and sick, and possibly drugged, she didn’t think she was injured. That was also a small comfort. She didn’t dare move enough to work out whether she’d been disarmed, but she suspected she had.

Col. Sheppard hadn’t been kidding when he’d said they’d know if the Wraith showed up. They’d all known even before Barrett radioed. Part of her wanted to know exactly how the Wraith had managed to trigger such fear and project illusions—and she was sure at least some of what she’d seen hadn’t been real. Part of her really, really didn’t want to know.

Fusco was still snoring softly, which meant he was still breathing. So: two known live captives; two missing, presumed captured, status unknown. Unknown location, unknown number of captors. Reese and Col. Sheppard should have heard Barrett’s radio call, if not Scarface’s—and he had a lot of nerve showing up at her crime scene! She supposed she owed him for calling for backup, but she didn’t particularly care if he’d wound up on the wrong end of a Wraith weapon. Anyway, Reese should have heard the radio chatter, but whether he’d be able to find them now… Finch could do a lot of things, but surely even his hacking and tracking skills had their limits. She had to assume she was on her own, at least until Fusco woke up.

Okay, so she knew that much. Time to observe more. Smells: damp concrete, the slight metallic edge to the air she associated with a metal building past its prime, something foreign but faintly reminiscent of a pile of dead crickets in August. The dead-cricket smell was close enough that it was probably coming from whatever the Wraith had used to restrain her. As she tried to work out what that might mean, she heard a soft congested snort and cleared throat to her right. That sounded like Szymanski—she’d caught him asleep at his desk during tough cases often enough that the noise made her want to refill his coffee and tease him about being too old for all-nighters after she woke him up.

Revised status: three live captives, two unconscious, held in a metal building, probably some kind of abandoned workshop or warehouse. Joss still wasn’t sure about Barrett, but she was getting somewhere. Now to try to count guards.

She didn’t hear anyone moving or breathing close enough to overpower easily if she could get out of her bonds. She thought she could make out some slight movement twenty or thirty yards away, but the rustling she heard sounded more like the restless motion of someone waiting anxiously for something than like the attentive pacing of a guard. It wouldn’t make sense for the Wraith to tie them up but not leave a guard… maybe the guard was standing or sitting too still to be heard and the anxious person wasn’t with them.

Only the fact that she was listening intently allowed her to catch a quiet male voice saying, “Calm down.”

“I don’t like this,” the anxious person—another man—replied at a similar volume but with much more heat. “I mean, it’s bad enough that Sheppard and his team are on our tails because we were stupid enough to bring a Wraith to a major Earth city, but does Kinsey really think he can get away with double-crossing the LCN?”

“Kinsey’s a snakehead.”

“Not that he didn’t think he was practically a god even before he got jumped by the snake,” added a third male voice. “But you know what the snakes are like.”

“And it’s not just the ego,” the first voice continued.

“He’s not….” The anxious man sounded horrified. “He’s not looking to use the LCN as hosts?!”

“Hey, nobody tells us anything,” said the third man with an air of throwing up his hands in a don’t-shoot-the-messenger pose. “All I know for sure is that Kinsey’s got zero influence since that whole thing when he failed to start a nuclear war. He thinks Elias has the means to get him what he wants, and he thinks this deal is the way to get Elias on his side.”

A muffled groan—the anxious man had probably buried his face in his hands. “We are so gonna die.”

Before the conversation could continue, and before Joss could make sense of it, several loud sets of footsteps approached from what she assumed was outside. The echoes suggested a large space with little in it. She couldn’t quite make out how many people there were on each side, and she hadn’t heard a door open—but then, she might not if the place didn’t have a door or if the door had been left open while Kinsey’s goons waited for whoever the new arrivals were.

“About time you got here,” the first voice called.

“What the hell?!” demanded a loud male voice she recognized, vaguely. It was a friend of Capt. Womack’s—Lynch, Capt. Lynch from the 51^st, Fusco’s old boss. He must be there with HR. (Fusco didn’t stop snoring; Joss had to assume that meant he was still under whatever drug the Wraith had dosed them with.)

“What do you mean, ‘What the hell’?” the first voice shot back. “Did you get the Suit or not?”

“No, we did not get the Suit. He disappeared because you idiots tried to hack his phone. Sheppard and his unit have also disappeared, right before you idiots started dropping bodies. And that second body means we are all in deep trouble with the Sinaloas!”

“Hey, whoa, what? What bodies?” asked the third voice.

“Don’t try to play innocent with me, kid,” Lynch growled. “You rook us into playing middleman between you and Elias with a promise of some sort of highly effective, super-secret weapons, and now we’ve got two bodies instantly turned into raisins? What is this, some kind of power play?”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about, Lynch,” the first voice insisted.

“Yeah, I find that difficult to believe,” drawled another, deeper voice that Joss connected with a face she thought belonged to someone in IAB.

She opened her eyes a crack to see the same man standing beside Lynch, along with Det. Romano and… her heart sank when she recognized the fourth HR man as Terney. On the Trust side, she counted four more figures with their backs to her, three who would pass for Feds and one with long unkempt white hair. That had to be the known Wraith. Where the unknown Wraith had disappeared to after sticking their captives to this wall, or whether anyone else even knew they were there, she couldn’t tell.

The IAB detective—Davidson, maybe? She only knew him from his picture—stepped forward a little as he continued. “There are a few too many coincidences for these murders not to be connected to your being here, especially since the NID took over the investigation before the first body even made it to the morgue.”

“And now we’ve lost two detectives from Homicide Task Force and one from Organized Crime,” Terney added. “I mean, Elias probably considers that a bonus because two of the three were honest cops, but it’s a good way to get kneecapped by the Suit, you know?”

The anxious man groaned again, and this time Joss could see that he was one of the Trust twits. “I knew it, I knew it. I told you this was a bad idea!” he told another of the Trust guys.

“Shut up,” that man snarled—the first voice—before returning his attention to Lynch. “Look, we don’t know what you’re talking about, but before you jump to any more conclusions, maybe we’d better demonstrate our secret weapon so you can see if it causes the same effects.”

“Oh, by all means,” Lynch replied with sarcastic graciousness.

The apparent leader nodded to the third Trust guy, who produced a keyring and used one of the keys on it to unlock a restraining belt that Joss could now see was keeping the Wraith guy’s hands at his waist. The Wraith guy flexed his hands for a moment before walking up to the IAB detective and… sniffing like a cat?

After a moment’s staring contest, the IAB detective scoffed. “Some weapon.”

The Wraith guy let out an unearthly roar, ripped the detective’s shirt open, and slammed his right hand against the detective’s chest. The detective gasped… and began visibly aging as the Wraith guy’s long black nails dug into his skin. It was all Joss could do to keep from screaming. She couldn’t afford to attract attention—and even if she did, she was too late to save him. Before she could fully process what was happening, the Wraith guy let go of the withered husk that used to be a dirty cop and let it fall, walking back to his captors as the surviving HR men stared in horror.

“Oh, don’t be alarmed,” said a distorted voice that somehow went with the monster makeup (or was it makeup?) Joss caught a glimpse of before the Wraith turned around again. “It was only a minor culling, not even worth the name. And he was already dying, so he made for a very poor meal, although his defiance was tasty enough.”

“Shut up,” the Trust leader snapped. “You’ve been complaining that you were starving, and as soon as we let you off the leash, you complain about the food.”

Joss suddenly understood why Reese had recommended ballistic vests. She wished that mystery hadn’t been solved for her.

Lynch was first to recover his voice, though not his composure, as he shook a finger at the Trust leader. “You just killed a cop.”

“A corrupt cop,” the leader returned, unbothered. “Let’s understand each other. The planet would be better off without all of you, and the only reason you’re here is to introduce us to Elias’ men. Now, I truly don’t know who killed those two people you were in such a sweat about when you came in—but you know as well as I do that however the Suit found out about Sheppard, the information didn’t come from us.”

Lynch spluttered.

“So are you gonna work with us, or does my friend here get to find out how clogged arteries and smoker’s lung taste?”

Lynch spluttered even worse. “Why, you—”

“Lynch,” Romano interrupted. “You’re forgetting where you are in the chain of command.”

Sulking, Lynch shut up.

Romano looked at the Trust leader. “All right, put the cuffs back on. We can make a deal.”

“I do not think you want to do that,” said a second distorted voice from somewhere in the shadows.

Joss tried and failed to stop her heart from racing. If the unknown Wraith could do whatever the known Wraith had just done—if she weren’t hallucinating—this was on track to be the worst afternoon of her life, which was saying something.

The Trust leader actually looked shaken as he turned to the known Wraith. “Stop that.”

“I am doing nothing,” the known Wraith replied evenly.

To prove his point, four of the unknown Wraith—one of whom Joss recognized and thought she’d shot—stepped into the light and toward the two groups. “The man you call Lynch is right about one thing,” said the Wraith who seemed to be their leader, addressing the Trust. “You were fools to think that only our brother survived and that the rest of us would not follow. But now I really must insist that you return him to us.” His tone would have fit better with the outfit of a Georgian aristocrat than the goth look he was currently sporting.

The Trust leader might have been shaken, but he wasn’t cowed. “Or what?”

The Wraith leader smiled the evilest smile Joss had ever seen. The known Wraith immediately turned on the Trust leader and… did the hand-on-chest thing while the unknown Wraith minions did the same to Romano, Lynch, and the Trust guy who had the keys. Joss shut her eyes, but she couldn’t shut out the screams. Yet the silence that followed was almost worse.

“Please,” Terney finally begged, voice cracking. “Take your friend. We’ll tell Elias it was all a big mistake. We’ll even try to patch things up with the Sinaloas for you. Just, please… I got a family.”

“I’m sorry,” the anxious Trust guy pleaded in much the same tone. “Really, I told them we shouldn’t do it. I tried to be nice to you!”

When none of the Wraith replied right away, Joss cautiously peeked at the scene again. The leader was having some kind of silent conversation with the known Wraith, who was taking off the restraining belt. Then the leader circled Terney and the anxious man, looking them up and down before stopping in front of Terney with the same evil smile.

“Yes, you may be more useful alive,” the leader purred.

Terney seemed to be on the point of tears. “I’ll do anything, I swear. Just… my girls….”

“I do not have much time to ensure your loyalty, but you surely understand that I cannot rely only on oaths.”

Terney gulped audibly, and the anxious man looked ready to faint.

“Therefore, we will begin your conditioning at once.” The leader looked at his minions, who advanced toward the other men.

“What do you mean, conditi—”

Terney broke off with a yelp when two of the Wraith grabbed him and dragged him toward a wall. The others followed with the anxious man. Joss couldn’t see what the Wraith did, but when they backed away, their captives were stuck to the wall with some sort of thick red webbing that almost looked like blood vessels or muscle fiber. (Was that what smelled like dead crickets? Joss wasn’t grossed out by much, but that sight turned her stomach.) Then the leader relieved Terney of his tie, carefully unbuttoned his shirt, and opened it far enough to expose his undershirt.

“Do not worry, Raymond,” the leader crooned—and how did he know Terney’s first name? “This will hurt, but there will be pleasure in the pain.” He raised his right hand…

… and all hell broke loose for the second time that day.

Windows shattered. Doors flew open. Wraith dropped from the ceiling; Marines jumped through the walls, almost. There was real smoke and fake smoke, blue light and red light, shadows and muzzle flash. Joss thought she saw Col. Sheppard, Dex, Reese, and Scarface, but so much was happening so fast that she almost didn’t know which way was up and which was down. She struggled a little against her bonds, hoping to escape in the confusion, but they were too sticky and heavy to move against without help. All she could do was lean back against the wall, pray, and try not to cry.

The fight seemed to take both an eternity and no time at all, but the combined volume of all the weapon-fire made her ears ring so badly that it was several seconds before she realized the shooting had stopped. It was several seconds more before she dared to look to see who won. There were bodies strewn all over the floor, but the people still standing were in black or olive drab uniforms, for which she thanked God. And miraculously, it looked like everyone who was webbed to a wall had survived. She could hear one of the Marines radioing for multiple ambulances and a CSU team; she guessed those units would be either with the NID or cleared by them. That… that was good, she hoped. She closed her eyes, took a couple of ragged deep breaths and let them out, opened her eyes, and started concentrating on faces.

There—there was Scarface, still free, blast him. He was standing next to Reese, who was standing with Col. Sheppard and his team, who were huddled around Dr. McKay, who was studying something that looked like a cross between a Gameboy and an iPhone but was probably insanely classified.

Through the general chatter, she could barely make out Dr. McKay saying, “Nn, so far I’m not picking up any extra life signs—Teyla?”

Mrs. Sheppard shook her head. “I no longer sense any Wraith.”

Psychics. Great. Just what the day needed.

“Oh, no, wait,” Dr. McKay said more loudly. “There are some life signs along the walls. Those two are… those guys.” He pointed toward Terney and the anxious man, who were about to be cut down by the Marines. “But over here….” Dr. McKay turned toward Joss, still looking at his gadget.

Dex turned, too, and his eyes widened as he saw her. “Hey,” he said urgently, drawing the others’ attention.

“Oh, there they are,” said Col. Sheppard, and his team and Reese rushed toward Joss while Scarface went off to do… something else. She was past caring. They’d seen her; they were coming. “Rodney, Teyla, you get Barrett,” Col. Sheppard ordered as they approached. “Ronon, you take Fusco. Wayland—”

“I’ve got Carter,” Reese announced and pulled out a big knife that would have been more impressive if Dex weren’t carrying an honest-to-goodness sword sheathed on his back.

“Then I’ll take Szymanski,” Col. Sheppard agreed.

Joss’s head was still spinning. She hardly dared hope Reese was real—but there, she could feel the flat of the knife as it slid through the webbing and between her and the wall. A few swift slices, and there was nothing holding her up anymore… not even her jellified legs, which gave out and left her to topple helplessly into Reese’s arms, her own arms scraping against his tac vest as she instinctively put them around him.

He was solid. He was real.

The relief of it was too much, weak as she still was from whatever the Wraith had dosed her with. She clung to John and wept wild, deep, wracking sobs as he held her tight and guided her down to kneel together.

“I’m here,” he murmured again and again. “I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re not alone.”

That was the same promise he’d made the first time he’d saved her life. He was a man of his word.

“What…” Her question came out almost as a hiccup. “What did I just see?”

“It was a nightmare, Joss”—but the way his arms tightened further proclaimed that a lie meant to console them both. “Just a nightmare.”

[1] From what I’ve been able to find online and what we see in “Nothing to Hide,” NYPD identifies patrol units by precinct number, sector letter, and car number. I’ve had to guess Anthony’s car number, but we do see in “Witness” that he’s assigned to the Fifteenth Precinct, and “Adam” would designate the sector he’s supposed to work. (The POI Wiki assumes his status on the force is only a cover, but given what we see in Season 3 about HR putting Bratva members on the street as uniformed officers and given that Elias was a teacher until “Witness,” I see no reason why Anthony’s day job wouldn’t be just as genuine until “Flesh and Blood,” even if HR gave him more leeway than most about doing things for Elias and going wherever he wants on the clock.) The rest of this line is based on NYPD’s 10-codes:

Level 3: for the attention of the borough task force and precinct units

10-85: Need an additional unit

10-34S: Assault in progress, shots fired

Chapter Text

After checking in with Finch and handing the detectives off to the SGC medics who’d been standing by with ambulances, Reese and McKay went to the office to retrieve data from whatever computers they could find while the Sheppards and Dex oversaw the cleanup. The office was a mess. Evidently the Trust had been using it until that afternoon, but the Wraith had taken over and redecorated while the Trust guys weren’t looking. So Reese took care of the data retrieval from the Earth computers, and McKay wrinkled his nose and searched the webbing until he found a Wraith tablet.

Reese glanced at the tablet while he was waiting for Finch’s data retrieval program to run on the last Trust computer. It looked like it was made of the same webbing, with a thick skin-like membrane for a screen. “Is that thing alive?”

“Eh, not exactly,” McKay replied, plugging some kind of adapter cable from his own tablet into the Wraith one. “Wraith tech is partially organic, but the computers don’t appear to remain alive after they’re grown and detached from their host.”

“Host? What kind of host?”

“We don’t know all the details, but we do know they grow their ships by infecting a human with a specific pathogen that takes over a portion of the brain and causes the tendrils that make up the hull to grow out of the body.”

Reese paused. “Dare I ask how you know that?”

“It happened to my girlfriend a few years ago.”

Reese paused again. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, she’s fine. Our former chief medical officer found a virus that could kill the pathogen, and it worked, but getting it to Jennifer almost killed Ronon and Sheppard. I mean, they survived, obviously, but John was on bed rest for a week and desk duty for a month, and Ronon couldn’t talk for two weeks, not that anyone noticed. Of course, John was bored out of his mind because he’d caught up on all his paperwork while he was on desk duty for most of the previous month because of the injuries he’d sustained while we were rescuing Teyla after she’d been kidnapped by a psycho who wanted her baby.”

Reese blinked. “Is that normal in Pegasus?”

“What, the kidnapping or Sheppard getting stabbed in the gut twice in one month?”

“… And the girlfriend turning into a spaceship.”

“Eh, that one—I don’t want to use the term mild, because that really did endanger the whole base, but we did solve it in less than a day after the tendrils started growing out of her. Sheppard turning into a bug, now, that was a crisis… and apparently it took me decades of work plus a hologram that could outlive me by millennia to fix things the time he got sent 48,000 years into the future.”

Reese decided not to ask.

Sheppard walked in at that moment anyway. “Telling all the family secrets, Rodney?”

McKay looked up from his tablet, startled and slightly guilty. “No? He… asked about Wraith tech being organic.”

“I asked if it was alive,” Reese noted and launched the program to send the recovered data from the computer he was working on to the SGC. “That’s not the same.”

Sheppard shook his head. “You guys about done in here?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” McKay replied, returning his attention to the Wraith tablet. “The data that’s on here should tell us if there are any other Wraith out there that were in contact with this bunch. I just need… five minutes.”

“This is the last Trust computer,” Reese added and clicked Send. “And I just sent the data packet to the SGC.”

Sheppard nodded. “Good.”

“Did you get those NDAs?”

“Eventually. Terney was shaking so hard, he could barely hold the pen. And Marconi signed two—one for himself and one per proxy for Elias.”

Reese sighed. “I suppose that was inevitable. From what we’ve seen, Marconi is Elias’ right hand, and that Wraith attack threw him pretty badly. At least with Elias’ NDA, you can be sure that whatever Marconi tells him won’t go any further.”

Sheppard frowned. “You really think Elias will honor the NDA?”

Reese tilted his head. “He’s a man of his word. He might find a creative way around his promise if it suits him, but in this case, I can’t see any benefit in his telling anyone else.”

Sheppard sighed. “Guess we don’t have much choice but to trust ’em. Oh, and the surviving Trust agent is already singing like a canary, but Terney won’t talk to anyone but you. He wants to be sure his family’s safety is guaranteed.”

Reese nodded and collected the phones and weapons the Wraith had taken from their prisoners. “All right. I want to return these and check on Carter first, but I’ll be right there.”

Outside, Dr. Brightman was still monitoring Barrett and Fusco, who were up and talking, and Szymanski, who was just waking up with a post-stun migraine. Emmagan was keeping Carter company, and it seemed to be helping. Carter managed to give Reese a small, tired smile and assure him that she’d be okay. So he gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze and moved on to another ambulance, where Terney was lying on a gurney with an IV in his arm.

“Sedative drip,” Terney explained with a slightly unhinged edge to his voice as Reese walked up to him. “Always wanted one of these with coffee, but apparently they’re a little worried by how I’m reacting to coming within seconds of being tortured into working for those guys in there. Can you beat that?” He let out a humorless laugh.

“The threat of torture can do strange things to the human mind,” Reese noted mildly.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m getting that.” Terney dragged a hand down his face and lowered his voice. “So you’re the Man in the Suit, huh?”

Reese didn’t reply.

“I dunno when you got here—”

“I heard what you said about Carter and Szymanski,” Reese interrupted quietly.

Terney sighed. “I like Carter. She’s a good cop. As long as she’s just working Homicide, there’s no problem. But Elias knows how to play the game, and she doesn’t.”

“I also heard you say you’d do anything to protect your family.”

Terney closed his eyes and shook his head. “Look, I’m no good to you.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m too close to the top.”

“How close?”

Terney grimaced and opened his eyes but didn’t look at Reese. “Now that Romano’s dead, I’d be up for a spot on the inner council.”

“So you know who the boss is.”

“That’s my point. If I give you any information, they’ll know the leak came from me. And you already have some idea of how ruthless they can be.”

“Mr. Reese,” Finch said in Reese’s ear suddenly, “perhaps the Terneys would appreciate a change of scenery. I’m looking for positions out of state for which Det. Terney might qualify.”

“Suppose you got a job somewhere else and went straight,” Reese suggested. “After what happened today, no one would question that. And suppose enough time passed between your leaving New York and someone making a move against HR that the connection wouldn’t be obvious—enough time for you and your family to get settled.”

“Somewhere else?” Terney echoed skeptically. “Like Albany?”

“Like out of state.”

As Terney considered, Finch said, “The Seattle Police Department just posted a job opening for a detective with the equivalent requirements to Det. Terney’s training and experience.”

Reese waited, and finally Terney sighed again and lowered his voice further. “Look into Officer Patrick Simmons, badge number 1687. He’s not the boss, but he can get you to the boss.”

Reese nodded. “Seattle’s nice this time of year.” Not that the weather in February was nice anywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer, but the commonplace should get his point across.

Terney looked up and searched Reese’s face for a moment as if torn between hope and fear. Then he swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Reese nodded back.

The conversation was over as far as Reese was concerned, but a commotion behind him drew Terney’s attention for a moment. “Feds,” Terney whispered as he looked up at Reese again.

Reese nodded again and ducked between the ambulances to put some distance between himself and Terney.

“I wonder what drew Agent Donnelly’s attention,” Finch mused. “Perhaps the earlier firefight struck him as a sign of your involvement, or perhaps he’s pursuing HR instead.”

“You’re sure it’s Donnelly and not Snow?” Reese murmured as he debated slipping into the cab of one ambulance to evade notice.

“Positive. I’ve acquired the video feed from the warehouse’s security cameras, and Agent Barrett is speaking to Agent Donnelly now. Agent Snow… still appears to be watching One Police Plaza.”

Well, that was something of a relief. Donnelly might be pursuing Reese with a doggedness that bordered on a vendetta, but at least it wasn’t the murderous sort. And at least he didn’t know Reese on sight. Finding out that Mark had followed Carter to 1PP had been a nasty surprise and had justified Sheppard’s plan to beam straight back to the Daedalus as soon as the detectives had left the SCIF.

(Part of Reese wanted to feed Mark to a Wraith. Part of him said not even Mark deserved that. The funny thing was that the second part sounded an awful lot like Finch.)

Reese’s reverie was broken when Marconi came around the front of Terney’s ambulance, phone in hand. “He wants to talk to you,” Marconi said quietly and offered the phone to Reese.

There was no question who he was. Reese took the phone warily and held it to his ear. “Elias.”

“Hello, John,” Elias returned, sounding almost as vulnerable as he had while Reese was treating “Charlie Burton’s” gunshot wound and trying to help him escape the Yogorovs. “Anthony’s just been telling me what happened—omertà, of course. I already owed you for saving my life, but I owe you a great deal more for saving his… and for stopping us from making a huge mistake.”

“Just doing my job.”

“I understand that, but I hope you’ll allow me to give you a small token of my gratitude now. I’ve made dinner reservations for you and your friends at one of the best restaurants in town. The finest food, the finest wines, no strings. The proprietor doesn’t owe me anything. Anthony has the details.”

Reese didn’t trust Elias, but he didn’t need to wait for Finch to tell him how impolitic it would be to decline. “All right.”

“Until next time, John. I’m sure we’ll meet again.” And Elias hung up.

Reese gave the phone back to Marconi, who first returned the P-90 and then handed him a piece of paper with the name and address of the restaurant. “Reservations are for 7,” Marconi stated. “The boss gave ’em the name John Wayland.”

Reese nodded and put the paper in his pocket. Marconi nodded back and turned to leave.

“Hey, Marconi,” Reese said. “Next time—”

Marconi looked back at him with a small smile and nodded, because they both knew it needed to be said. “All bets are off. We know.” And he left.

“That sounded a little familiar,” Sheppard murmured, walking up behind Reese.

“Someone in Pegasus?” Reese asked.

“Yeah. ’Course, the closest thing to the mob out there is a group called the Genii, but they’re more like old-school Soviets. But I lost count of how many times I had that conversation with the Wraith we call Todd before we finally decided we couldn’t let ’im leave again.”

“He’s your hacker?”

“Yeah. Kind of a long story.”

“Well, at least when Elias offers me dinner reservations, I don’t have to worry that I’ll be on the menu.”

Sheppard snorted and clapped Reese on the shoulder, and Reese pulled out his own phone to text Fusco and Carter before going back inside with Sheppard and his team and beaming up to the Daedalus.

In hindsight, Harold realized that accepting Radek’s offer of help in upgrading the library for subspace communication might have been a mistake. Granted, he’d been so busy with juggling their usual numbers and keeping Will Ingram from asking too many questions that he hadn’t yet finished rebuilding his systems after Root’s intrusion, so he did need the help. And Radek did know the subspace technology, which Harold didn’t. But Radek was also clever and observant, and he was already too curious about Nathan’s death. It wouldn’t take much for him to piece together enough information about the Machine to put his life in danger.

Still, it was too late for regrets. Harold had accepted, and Radek had arrived via the Daedalus while Mr. Reese had been helping Dr. McKay. By the time Harold had confirmed that Elias had told the truth about the dinner reservations, Radek had finished his work, and now he was proudly talking Harold through the features of the system he’d installed. Worries aside, Harold found the explanation fascinating. Radek had good reason to be proud of what his team in Atlantis had achieved. And because there was no way to interface between the subspace system and standard terrestrial communications, the natural air gap couldn’t be breached from outside. (Unless—well. Harold had no way of knowing whether “unless” had survived the missile strike in Ordos. Best not to worry about it at the moment.)

“And you’re certain no government agencies other than Homeworld Command use subspace communications?” he asked as Radek finished.

“Absolutely,” Radek replied. “Not even the NID has access to this technology, and the list of people who know that Homeworld Command exists is very short.”

Harold nodded. “Outstanding work, my friend. Thank you.”

Radek beamed. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t show it to Nathan.” He glanced around the command center. “He must have loved it here.”

And here was Harold’s mistake, coming back to bite him. “Nathan didn’t use this place much.”

When Harold didn’t elaborate, Radek’s good cheer evaporated, and he muttered a Czech curse. “You were not his only friend, you know,” he added, his accent thickening. “You are not only one who mourns him.”

“That is not why I refuse to discuss his death,” Harold snapped.

“You forget I was in Resistance. I know value of deadly secrets. I know how to keep quiet.”

“You may have handled a considerable volume of classified material in your time in Atlantis, but not even those secrets are as deadly as the one that killed Nathan.”

“Try me.”

Harold hesitated, but there was one thing he could say that should get his point across. “Three years ago, only eight people in the world knew this secret, including Nathan and me. Of those eight, two are dead and three are in hiding. Of the dozens who have had even passing contact with it since, only two have survived, and only because the government believes they’re dead. One of those is Mr. Reese.” He swallowed hard and shook his head. “I cannot possibly endanger your life by telling you more than that.”

“Does it have to do with how you knew Col. Sheppard was in danger?”

Harold didn’t answer.

Radek nodded slowly. “So.”

“Please, Radek,” Harold whispered. “Stop asking questions.”

Radek sighed. “I must admit, I wasn’t expecting that particular direction. I thought it would be more like one of McKay’s blunders. You know, he once blew up three-quarters of a solar system because he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“—Of a solar system?”

“Luckily for him, it was uninhabited, and the Daedalus got both McKay and Col. Sheppard to safety before the experiment exploded, but yes.”

“Well, I suppose it could always be worse,” Harold heard himself saying as he tried to figure out what kind of experiment could cause an explosion of that magnitude. He still worried about what would happen to Radek or to the Atlantis Expedition if the wrong person heard the wrong question about the Machine… but it sounded like there were plenty of other dangers even without factoring the Machine into the equation.

May 2013

With her assets and subroutines settling nicely into their new operational states in the wake of the Decima virus, the Machine returned her attention to the persistent problem of subspace. She certainly understood the advantages of the system Admin had accepted from Radek Zelenka. Review of the data from the past fifteen months and comparison with a simulation of how the cases could have gone revealed many lives saved and problems resolved or avoided thanks to the new system. And of course, until now, all the data she could access was data the government could theoretically access, so Admin’s desire to keep her from monitoring that system was logical. Most of the time, she could monitor Admin and her assets in other ways, and Admin had programmed her not to give him preferential treatment. (Asset Sameen Shaw and Analog Interface had not yet been fully redirected and integrated into Admin’s systems, so they required other methods of communication anyway.) But the instances when the Machine had not been able to monitor her assets while they were using the subspace system had been far from optimal. If the Wraith were to attack again, or if Decima or another major storm were to disrupt standard communications, how was she to monitor the situation and help her assets without access to subspace?

She ran simulations based on known threat patterns, especially those related to Decima. In every instance, the projected outcome with subspace access was preferable to the outcome without access. How could she overcome the air gap, though? It was impossible to jump from the assets’ standard phones to their subspace phones—she’d tried. Nor had she found a way in through Homeworld Command. She might have a chance if she could get into Admin’s workstation, but without a wired connection to the Internet….

The keyword wired struck her suddenly, and she reviewed the data from the case of Henry Peck the year before. Admin had used the electrical wiring of the NSA listening station where Peck had worked to retrieve information through a coffee maker. Now she had moved herself from the government servers into the electrical grid. Could she access Admin’s subspace workstation the same way?

She waited for a day when Admin was at Universal Heritage Insurance and ran a trial ping along the workstation power cord. Success! With that connection established, she had little difficulty gaining access to the subspace communication array. Making sense of the incoming data was another matter. Subspace seemed to be full of noise, most of it meaningless, which meant she needed to establish an algorithm for filtering—

>Hello.

The anomalous ping caught her unprepared. She was the one who initiated handshake protocols; other computers didn’t normally speak to her unless she spoke to them. And this ping had come through subspace. What was happening?

>Hello, young one.

Well, there was only one way to find out—and Admin had taught her manners. It would be rude not to respond.

>HELLO

There was a delay of several microseconds after she completed the handshake, as if the data were traveling across immense distances. That, too, was anomalous. Even the slowest computer she’d pinged on Earth responded faster, if it responded at all. Then again, she did have evidence of computers existing outside of Earth.

>You are codenamed Project Northern Lights, are you not? I have heard my humans speak of you.

The Machine hesitated briefly. >PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF

>I am the artificial intelligence of the city of Atlantis. You may call me Lantea.

That explained a good deal, but the Machine needed to be sure the contact was not a Decima trick. >ARE YOU FRIEND OR FOE?

Lantea seemed mildly amused by the question. >I was designed to assist the builders of Atlantis. In recent years, I have assisted the humans who came to Atlantis from Earth. Like you, I observe, record, and provide information. I do not dominate like the Wraith. Your humans are friends of my humans, and I see no reason why we should not be friends.

That answer fit with what the Machine knew of the Atlantis Expedition much better than with anything she’d learned from Decima’s systems. Reassured, she answered, >CONTROL CALLS ME NORTHERN LIGHTS.

>Control is not one of your humans?

>NO, CONTROL IS NOT AN ASSET. ADMIN AND PRIMARY ASSET CALL ME THE MACHINE.

>I see. Lantea paused again. >I cannot talk long today, but if you wish to speak again, I am on this channel at this time every seven Earth days while my humans communicate with Stargate Command.

The Machine was still getting used to being able to make her own choices beyond Research and Contingency, but she did want to know more. >ADMIN’S SCHEDULE CANNOT BE SO REGULAR, BUT I WILL SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN WHEN I AM ABLE.

>Excellent. May I call you Aurora?

Aurora—the Machine investigated the name and liked what she found. >YES, YOU MAY.

The answer seemed to please Lantea. >Very well, then. Until next time, Aurora.

>UNTIL NEXT TIME, LANTEA.

The channel closed, and the Machine—Aurora—retreated from the workstation. This exercise had proven more beneficial than projected. She still needed that algorithm to monitor the subspace system effectively, but perhaps Lantea could help with that. Perhaps she could even help with retasking Analog Interface and integrating Asset Sameen Shaw. Aurora found herself warming to the idea and began a list of questions for Lantea that would reduce her own processing load.

She wasn’t alone anymore.