Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The stargate loomed before him, far more menacing than a simple ring of naquadah had any right to be. The last time Adam had stepped through the gate, things hadn't ended so well for him. In fact, this was the first time since the incident that he'd even been back to Atlantis.

"Jensen, there you are." Malik gave him a wide berth as she circled around to approach him from the front, keeping her distance but offering Adam a friendly smile. "Come on up, we're almost ready to leave."

"Be there in a minute." Adam gave the gate one last look before taking a deep breath and following Malik up the stairs to the jumper bay, sunglasses firmly in place.

His last mission had been a disaster from start to finish. First of all, there'd been no one to greet them when they'd arrived on the other side despite the MALP having previously confirmed there were people living on the planet, and once they'd made their own way to the village, they'd discovered that it'd been culled, and very recently, too. But before Vande could give the order to fall back to the gate, a squadron of Wraith darts had honed in on their position.

Adam couldn't remember much of what happened after that, only the mad dash back to the gate as members of the team had been picked off by transport beams around him. His lungs had been burning and his legs had begun to falter by the time the gate had come into view, then his world had exploded into fire. Everything had descended into silence save for the ringing in his ears, and his eyes had been awash with a bright orange heat that seemed to be consuming every part of his body.

Then he'd woken up in the infirmary at Panchaea, where a nurse had told him a whole month had passed since the disastrous mission. He'd been the only one out of their group of six to make it back, somehow stumbling through the event horizon almost dead while the others had been culled or shot down before they could reach the gate.

Sarif had been the one who'd saved him, using untested Ancient tech fused to the tattered remnants of Adam's skin and bones, held together by controlled bursts of exposure to an Ancient healing device. After a month of extensive monitoring and countless surgeries to ensure his body wouldn't reject the tech, Adam had finally been deemed stable enough to allow him to wake from the induced coma.

Five months of physio and counselling later, he was being sent out on his first mission since the incident, to make contact with a new planet Atlantis was hoping to trade with for food after one of their previous partners had been wiped out in a culling. It'd be months yet before their own crops planted on the mainland would be ready to harvest, if they even managed to make it that far.

"Jensen," MacReady said shortly when Adam arrived in the jumper bay, checking his gun to avoid looking at Adam. He'd never come out and said it—and probably never would—but Adam had a feeling MacReady couldn't quite forgive him for living when he'd lost four of his own team that day six months ago.

"MacReady," Adam returned in kind. "Big group today." Two jumpers had been prepped, one flown by Malik and the other by Chikane, and Adam counted at least a dozen others who would form the ground team.

"Intel says the Genii are one of the longer-lasting civilisations in Pegasus. Now, I figure you don't get to stick around this long without having a few tricks up your sleeve, so I convinced Miller to send two squads instead of the usual one. The second jumper will follow us cloaked, just in case."

Adam grunted in acknowledgement. No guesses which jumper he would be on—he'd passed all his psych evals and firearm recertifications and jumped through all the hoops that had been put in front of him, but no one wanted to be the first to put him back on the front lines, nevermind that that was where he would be most useful.

Then MacReady said, "You're with me," and headed for the jumper Chikane was piloting before Adam could say anything.

Already on board were UN Task Force soldiers Black, Singh, and Argento, all of whom Adam had worked with before and who gave him cordial nods as he passed them in the back of the jumper. A less welcome sight was Namir, a Tai Yong Medical representative.

"What's TYM want from a bunch of farmers?" Adam asked him as Chikane brought the jumper over the access panel to the gate room.

"Same as what SI wants, I'd imagine," Namir murmured back with a smirk.

Of the three corporations that had helped the UN fund the Atlantis Expedition—Sarif Industries, Tai Yong Medical, and the Santeau Group—SI and TYM were on the rockiest ground with each other. With TYM's greater focus on the medical applications of any Ancient tech the expedition found, one would have thought SI's broader interest in all Ancient tech would enable them to stay out of each other's way. And yet, wherever one went, the other was sure to be close by.

Sarif hadn't given Adam any explicit instructions for this mission—they were going to negotiate with farmers, for crying out loud—but now that Adam knew Zhao had enough interest in it to send one of her elite field agents, nicknamed the Tyrants for their willingness to do anything to get their hands on new tech first, he'd have to keep a close eye on Namir.

-

Chikane landed the jumper outside a village that looked so primitive Adam had to wonder if the villagers had ever seen a flying machine before. He found it highly unlikely that MacReady's paranoid theory about the Genii having something to hide would be correct when a far simpler explanation was they'd remained too small and insignificant to attract any Wraith attention.

Still, MacReady wasn't deterred by the wide-eyed stares of the villagers who had ventured to the outskirts to see what was going on, and waved everyone off the jumper with their tac gear and weapons. They stopped a respectable distance away so that MacReady could approach the villagers alone, his hands carefully nowhere near his gun.

"We don't mean you any harm," Adam heard him say. "These weapons are only for defence against the Wraith. Our last trading partners were taken in a culling, and we're looking for someone else we can trade with for food."

The man at the head of the group of villagers regarded MacReady with an intense stare before finally nodding. "I will take you to Cowen, our chief."

The villagers, naturally, were curious about their new visitors, but their gazes lingered on Adam longer than they did on anyone else. The Task Force members wore tactical vests over their long-sleeved Atlantis uniforms and Namir was dressed similarly in TYM colours, but Adam was wearing just an undershirt under his vest, leaving the cabled strands of naquadah that made up his arms visible for everyone to see.

Gradually, he realised that his true role on this mission was to showcase the advanced levels of tech the expedition had at its disposal—Sarif had specifically asked him to forego the uniform jacket, and MacReady hadn't kicked up a fuss about him being out of uniform—to prove to the Genii that Atlantis had something worth trading. It left a sour taste in his mouth, but he didn't let it show on his face.

The village chief, Cowen, invited them into his home for negotiations. MacReady opened with a softball offer of antibiotics, of which the expedition had plenty to spare, and Cowen responded with an equally low offer of the village's harvest in return. They traded compromises back and forth for about an hour before settling on the antibiotics and a crate of C4 for slightly more food than their previous trading partners had offered.

"Miller's not going to be happy with this," Adam said when MacReady passed him on the way out of the house. It had been a unanimous decision between all parties in the early days of the expedition that they wouldn't provide the Pegasus natives with technology too far ahead of the level they'd currently attained to avoid upsetting the balance. Since then, it also served the twofold purpose of not attracting too much attention from the Wraith.

"I'll handle Miller." MacReady jerked his head to indicate that Adam should join him by the side of the road. "Black, Singh, and I will head back to Atlantis. I want you, Namir, and Argento to stay here and make nice with the locals. Malik and the second jumper will stay behind to provide backup in case anything goes wrong. Until then, they'll stay cloaked, so don't give away their position."

"You really think these people are up to something?" Adam swept the village with the scanners built into his retinal prostheses, but not a single potential threat jumped out at him.

"Just got a feeling. Better to be safe than sorry." MacReady worked his jaw like he was about to say something else, but after a few seconds of silence, he only said, "Watch your back," before leaving.

-

Although it was morning Atlantis time, they'd arrived on the Genii homeworld late into the afternoon, so it wasn't long before the farmers were returning from the fields with the setting of the sun. News of the expedition's arrival had somehow spread to them too, and they all lingered in the town square where preparations were being made for the harvest feast that was being held that night.

Adam tried not to let his discomfort show, but it was getting dark, and he'd soon have to take off the sunglasses that were hiding the glow from his eyes that was sure to draw even more scrutiny. He looked around for a distraction, found Argento conversing with a group of young men and women, and realised that he hadn't seen Namir in some time.

"The other man from our group who stayed behind," he asked Sora, the young woman who'd been showing him around the village, "do you know where he went?" Adam wouldn't put it past Namir to try and cut a deal behind Miller's back if it meant Zhao got to one-up Sarif. She sorely needed a victory after Sarif's success with bringing Adam back from the brink of death.

Sora looked around the square much like Adam was doing, but she also came up empty. "I'm sure he's around here somewhere," she said. "Our people would not harm him."

Not what Adam was worried about, but he didn't want to involve Sora in a feud she had no stake in, so he just nodded and let her drag him towards the bonfire that had been built outside the perimeter of the village.

Adam didn't join in the festivities but lingered just inside the edge of the crowd, and after a while, Argento came to join him, bright-eyed and just a little too relaxed as she sipped from the cup in her hand.

"Drinking on the job?" Adam teased her. He liked Argento; she'd come all the way out to Panchaea multiple times after the incident to see how he was doing, and before that, had been nothing less than cordial towards him even during the times Sarif and Miller, and by extension, SI security personnel and UN troops, had been at odds with each other.

"Agent MacReady said to make nice with the locals," Argento said solemnly. "Just following orders."

"Of course." Adam supposed letting loose a little would help them gain the villagers' trust, and there was a jumper full of backup lying in wait to step in if something happened. Personally though, he was going to abstain from sampling the moonshine since his tolerance for alcohol had been drastically reduced with his organic body mass after the incident. "Have you seen Namir?" he asked Argento after a scan of the crowd revealed nothing.

"Not since MacReady left, I don't think."

Argento's new friends approached and asked if the two of them wanted to join the dance around the bonfire, which Adam took as his cue to leave.

"I'm going to go look for Namir," he told the group. "Wouldn't want him to miss out on all the fun."

"Sure," Argento said agreeably. "Come back soon!"

Adam accepted a cup from a passing villager to better blend in with the crowd as he carefully moved amongst them. A sweep of the area confirmed that Namir was nowhere to be found, and conspicuously, neither was Cowen. Adam turned his attention back to the village.

With everyone at the feast, it was empty save for the occasional villager who would come back to fetch more food and drink from the stores, but Adam couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. He'd been trained in counterespionage—Sarif was fanatical about protecting company secrets—but he couldn't find any concrete proof that he was being tailed. Surely if someone didn't want him to wander the village alone they would raise their objection out loud.

At any rate, the possibility he was being followed became unimportant when he found Namir and Cowen in a small hut on the other side of the village, clearly in discussion about something. Adam watched them through the window, making no attempt to remain hidden, until Cowen caught sight of him and fell silent.

"Jensen," Namir said, turning around. "How fortuitous. I was just thinking of bringing you into our negotiations. Won't you come inside?"

His words only served to make Adam more suspicious—TYM never cooperated with SI unless they stood to gain something from it—but it was either go in, or leave and miss out on the chance to find out what Namir was up to. Adam went in.

The room was lit by only a single candle, and away from the moonlight and the bonfire, Adam was only all too aware of the ethereal glow being cast by his irises, and the unnervingly close attention Cowen was openly paying them.

"Fascinating technology," Cowen said, reaching out with one hand. "Do you mind if I—"

"I do," Adam said stiffly, holding his ground even though he wanted to jerk away. "What negotiations were you discussing?"

Cowen dropped his hand. "Straight to business, then."

"Before we get into anything, you should be aware that access to Atlantis and its resources are subject to the approval of Director Miller, and neither of us work directly under him. You really should wait for Agent MacReady to return."

"All in good time. This is a separate arrangement."

At the hungry, predatory look in Cowen's eyes, Adam frowned and looked over his shoulder. "Namir, what—"

Electricity coursed through his body, originating from the small of his back, and his limbs grew heavy and stopped responding before they dropped him to the floor. He hit his head hard on the floor but didn't lose consciousness yet. Above him, Namir and Cowen shook hands.

"The Genii look forward to doing business with you," Cowen said.

Chapter Text

After the incident, there were mornings when Adam would wake up and couldn't quite figure out where he was. His eyes and limbs sometimes took a little longer than his organic body to shake off the vestiges of sleep, and it took weeks of sharp, sudden panic at not being able to see or move before he gradually learned to control his breathing and lie still until the brushed steel of the ceiling in his room came into view, and the feeling of lying in bed under the blankets returned to his arms and legs.

So he returned to consciousness and found himself blind and immobile, it wasn't cause for immediate concern. Something was clawing at the back of his head, something important he couldn't quite remember through the haze that was clouding his mind, but whatever it was, he decided it could wait at least until he'd poured a cup of coffee down his throat.

He waited, then waited a little longer. He'd gotten quite good at estimating the passage of time using his internal clock only, and this was taking longer than usual.

He waited longer still, then just as he was about to give in and call for assistance using the voice-activated comm on his desk, he heard someone moving about not far from where he lay.

"Who's there?" he asked, panic flaring in his chest. He always locked his door before going to sleep. If he was needed urgently, Sarif had the override code, but he had a way of always making sure his presence was known to everyone when he entered a room.

"Ah, you're awake."

The unfamiliar voice brought the day's events rushing back to Adam: he'd been deployed on a mission to negotiate with the Genii, and the last thing he remembered was Namir tazing him in the back. In hindsight, Adam should have known better than to turn his back on Namir.

"Who's there?" Adam repeated when there wasn't any more information forthcoming.

"My name is Ladon Radim," the stranger replied. "Chief scientist of the Genii." Adam felt someone come to stand by his head. "Interesting."

"What do you want with me?"

"Why, to study you, of course. Whoever did this"—a hand ran across Adam's shoulder where Ancient tech met flesh, and he belatedly realised he wasn't wearing a shirt—"was an artist. To be able to fuse the technology of the Ancients with the human body…this could be just what we need to gain the upper hand in our battle with the Wraith. As they have evolved, so must we, you see."

He didn't, actually, since his eyes still weren't working, but Adam resisted the urge to make the quip and instead asked, "What did you do to me?"

"Your…associate, who delivered you to us, also helped us put together something he called an EMP generator. I'm afraid you won't be able to do much while it is on. I'll want to study you in motion later, of course, but for now, this will suffice."

Someone had to have noticed he was missing. Even if the villagers had been able to ply Argento with so many drinks that she'd passed out drunk, MacReady had been scheduled to return soon. As much as he might dislike Adam, he wouldn't leave him behind. Adam was sure of it.

Unless…Adam couldn't suppress the thought that maybe MacReady was in on it too, that he'd purposely left Adam behind with Namir. But what about Argento? Adam refused to believe that she would go along with a plan like this, or could be convinced to do so. Someone had to be looking for him.

"Oh, I wouldn't get my hopes up about a rescue," Radim said, as if he could read Adam's thoughts. "As far as anyone knows, you've been taken by the Wraith."

"They'll never believe it."

"They don't have to. Just know that they'll never find you." Radim gave Adam a pat on the shoulder before leaving the room.

Once the heavy clang of the closing door faded away, Adam strained his ears for a hint of where he was being held, but only dead silence greeted him. Wherever he was, it was well shielded from the outside. He took a deep breath next, and the cold, stale air that filled his nose suggested he was in some kind of underground facility, where the chances of someone accidentally uncovering him on a cursory search of the area would be low. He'd been in some sticky situations before, but without even being able to control his body, he wasn't sure how he was going to get out of this one.

Then he heard a slow creak and a soft curse, like someone was trying to sneak into the room unheard. Adam stayed silent, resisting the urge to call out until he had more information.

There was a quiet but emphatic, "What the fuck," as footsteps that were no longer trying to be stealthy came closer. Adam could have sworn he recognised the voice, but—

"Jensen?"

That was definitely, "Pritchard?" He'd been on the cloaked jumper with Malik as a replacement for Chang, the Task Force's usual Ancient specialist who'd come down with a bout of food poisoning, but he was supposed to stay on the jumper unless his expertise was required.

"Fine mess you've gotten yourself into." Pritchard tugged at one of the straps running over Adam's chest, and he felt it loosen, but he still couldn't move his arms and legs.

"It was Namir," he said as Pritchard continued fiddling with the buckles. "He cut some sort of deal with Cowen."

"Yes, we figured that much for ourselves. Malik saw the two of them wandering through the village getting all chummy with each other, then Namir came out of the village alone and went back through the gate. Nobody really thought much of it until the feast was over, Argento was passed out, you were missing, and MacReady still wasn't back. Then Malik more or less bullied a group of us into coming down to check things out."

"Namir's gone?"

"None of us caught the gate address, but I'd put money on him going back to Atlantis and running off to Hyron to hide behind Zhao before anyone caught on to what was happening." Pritchard moved away, but from the few steps he took, he didn't go very far.

"Why are you here?" Adam asked to fill the silence. There were four Task Force soldiers on the jumper with Malik and Pritchard who would be better suited for a field op.

"Because as the resident expert on Ancient and modern tech, I am absolutely invaluable for charging headfirst into unknown danger, don't you know that? But I swear that woman has the gift of foresight, because there's no way those Task Force goons would've been able to get through the security measures I had to crack to get down here. Simple farmers, my ass."

"You came alone?"

There was a long pause. "I saw a keypad lock through the window of a shed that we passed by, and I stopped to check it out. Behind the door was a long flight of stairs leading underground, and I couldn't hear anything so I thought it couldn't hurt to have a look, but the Task Force goons had already moved on and I didn't want to call them back in case someone heard me, so yes, I came down by myself. And I found you. You're welcome, by the way."

Adam groaned. "This is why Sarif doesn't let you out into the field."

"Let's get one thing clear: I don't let myself out into field. In the lab is where I do my best work." There was the sound of switches being flipped. "Feel anything?" Pritchard asked.

There was still nothing, even when Adam concentrated on moving just the tip of one finger like he'd practised back in the early days of relearning fine motor control. He told Pritchard as much.

"Damn. Gonna have to do a manual reboot. You're lucky I've started carrying cables in my pockets."

There was a port in Adam's upper left arm that Sarif usually plugged his computer into when he needed to make upgrades or download data, and it sounded like Pritchard was using his phone to similar effect.

After a few seconds, a series of Ancient letters scrolled across Adam's retinas in soft green, the equivalent of a start-up message. A few more seconds, and the blackness slowly dissolved into fuzzy greyness. When he turned his head to the side, the shapes of the furniture in the room gradually began to take form. This time, when Adam twitched his finger, it moved.

"Better?" Pritchard asked.

Adam turned his head to the other side and saw the rough outline of Pritchard leaning over him, his features just one indistinguishable blur. "Getting there."

From experience, it would take at least a few minutes for all systems to restore themselves after a full shutdown, and at least half an hour before they were back to their usual levels of responsiveness. But if the sound Adam had just heard was a door closing not too far away, they didn't have half an hour.

"Have you got your gun?" he asked. Miller never let anyone through the gate unarmed, even the scientists and technicians.

"Of course." Pritchard shoved his phone back into his pocket. "Did you hear something?"

"Maybe. You still remember how to use that thing?"

"Yes, Jensen," Pritchard said drily. "In fact, I just recertified. Would you like to see my certificate of completion?"

"Go take cover somewhere with a line of sight to the door. Don't shoot unless you have to; I don't know how many there are, and the noise will attract attention."

Pritchard grumbled under his breath as he always did when he had to follow Adam's lead, but he complied anyway, getting into place on the other side of the room.

Adam blinked a few more times, and the blurry shapes around him resolved into low-resolution images of tables, cupboards, and shelves brimming with scraps of technology about forty or fifty years behind that of Earth's. Not by any means advanced in comparison to the Wraith and the Ancients, but a far cry from the primitive farming community the Genii had presented themselves to be.

When the door began to creak open, Adam closed his eyes and concentrated on what little feeling he could sense returning to his arms and legs. It was difficult to be sure when he didn't want to move for fear of attracting the newcomer's attention, but if he could feel the nicks in the cold steel under his fingertips, he was almost certain his limbs would obey if he told them to act.

Just as he was about to try, he heard a crackle of electricity, then a body falling heavily to the floor. Adam opened his eyes.

Pritchard was leaning cautiously over the prone form of what Adam would guess to be a Genii scientist, a live wire sparking on the floor behind him.

"You said not to shoot," Pritchard said at Adam's raised eyebrows. "He's out, but he won't stay that way for long. We need to get out of here." Pritchard reached back to shut off the electricity, and with his other hand, tossed a wadded-up ball of fabric at Adam that turned out to be his undershirt. "Your vest and weapons are gone, but you can at least put that on."

Adam pulled his shirt on and shakily got to his feet, his ankles and knees feeling mostly solid and not about to give out without a moment's notice. He clenched his hands into tight fists then released each finger one at a time, taking note of how quickly they responded; he wouldn't trust them for anything delicate, but it would do for now.

"Put him outside and block off that door." Adam nodded at the only entrance into the room.

"And trap ourselves inside?" Pritchard raised an eyebrow. "Excellent plan, Jensen. You're a true mastermind. I can finally see why Sarif keeps putting you in charge of field teams."

Adam resisted the urge to roll his eyes, which would only spark another round of snark from Pritchard that he wasn't in the mood to be subjected to right now. "They'll be expecting us to come out that way. I've got another idea."

Once the scientist was out of the room and a heavy cupboard had been pushed in front of the door to block it off, Adam went over to the other wall that was brick rather than packed earth. He drew back his right arm, tensed the muscle strands, then sent his fist flying through the wall into the dark corridor beyond.

"Right, because that's not going to attract anyone's attention," Pritchard remarked.

The life signs detector in Adam's retinal prostheses gave the all-clear. "It didn't," he said as he stepped through the hole in the wall. Fluorescent light tubes ran overhead that Pritchard could probably find a way to turn on, but staying in the dark gave them the advantage.

So onwards they went, in no particular direction other than away from where they'd started. The maze of corridors had to cover an area as large as the village above, if not larger based on how many intersecting corridors branched off further than even Adam could see.

In the background, there was the quiet churn of machinery that, coupled with the secrecy and technology they'd already seen, spoke of some kind of manufacturing process being carried out, but they managed not to run into anyone else until they found themselves on a viewing deck overlooking some kind of…facility. There were large tanks and multitudes of pipes running across the huge space below, but from what Adam could see, the Genii weren't actually making anything.

"Just when you thought they had no more secrets to hide," Pritchard murmured, taking a picture with his phone.

"You know what's going on here?" Adam asked.

"Looks like a nuclear facility to me. I'm sure I've got a scanner somewhere, just let me—"

A clatter from further along the walkway interrupted him. "Hey, what are you—"

Adam grabbed the unfortunate technician who had wandered into sight, placing a hand over her mouth and dragging her back into the shadows.

"How do we get out of here?" he growled into her ear with as much gravel as he could inject before slowly removing his hand.

"You're him, the—"

Adam put his hand back. "The next words out of your mouth had better be directions, because you're not going to like what will happen otherwise. Nod if you understand."

The technician nodded frantically. "There's a flight of stairs on the other side of the deck," she whispered shakily. "It'll take you up two floors, then at the end of the corridor will be another flight of stairs that will take you to the surface. But there's a keypad—"

"Thank you." Adam discharged a jolt of electricity from his hand that had the technician going limp in his arms. He gently laid her down in the corner, then went to look for Pritchard, who had found a computer and was poking at the keys with a look on his face that was somewhere between amused and pained.

"I still can't believe we made it all the way to the moon with technology not much better than this," he said without looking up when Adam approached him.

"And here we are, fifty years later, in an entirely different galaxy. It's a miracle. Would you like me to leave you here?"

Pritchard gave him a dirty look. "I'm just looking for intel, but I think the Genii had more to offer us as farmers than as nuclear scientists."

"Hurry up then, we're exposed out here."

"Floppy disks," Pritchard said derisively as he ejected one from the computer and stashed it in one of his vest pockets. "I might have to reinvent a reader for it."

They narrowly avoided another encounter with a technician on their way out, but at least the directions they'd been given were accurate, and they soon found themselves emerging into the night from what looked like a root cellar on the outside. Not far away, Adam could hear the unmistakeable sound of MacReady yelling at someone.

"Can you hear—" Adam began.

"Sure can," Pritchard replied. "Don't suppose he's looking for us, do you?"

MacReady was in the middle of arguing with Cowen when Adam and Pritchard approached the group gathered in the square. Malik's jumper was hovering above the huts behind them, guns trained on the Genii.

"Jensen! Pritchard!" MacReady barked when he caught sight of them. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I was rescuing Jensen from a secret Genii nuclear bunker." Pritchard turned to Adam. "Again, you're welcome."

"Namir and Cowen decided to cut their own deal." Adam didn't bother to hide the glare he threw at Cowen, who in turn didn't even deny the accusation.

"I don't see why we can't come to more than one arrangement between our people," Cowen said coolly.

"Oh, you don't, don't you?" MacReady growled, turning his ire back to Cowen.

"Are you not all Lanteans? Will an agreement with any of you not benefit all?"

"Not really, no. Especially not when it involves handing over one of our own for whatever sick experiments you're cooking in your basement."

"We do only what we must, Agent. You've seen firsthand what the Wraith are capable of. Would you have us defenceless?"

"Had you bothered gaining our trust instead of cutting back alley deals, we might have been convinced to share what we know about Ancient technology. That's definitely not happening now. Pack it up, everyone."

Without taking his eyes off Cowen, MacReady motioned for Adam and Pritchard to go first. The Task Force soldiers fell into step behind them, and they all filed into the jumper waiting outside the village, MacReady bringing up the rear.

"Let's go, Chikane," he called towards the cockpit. "We gotta tell Miller not to ease up on the rationing yet."

-

When they returned to Atlantis, MacReady was called into Miller's office to debrief first, the rest of them who'd been instructed to report in lingering around the tower until it was their turn. Like Pritchard had predicted, Namir was long gone, apparently having returned to Atlantis under the guise of falling ill then vanishing somewhere between the gate room and the infirmary.

Adam expected Miller to grill him on the mission details, but all Miller did was listen to Adam's version of events without saying a word, occasionally nodding as the expression on his face grew stonier.

"Thank you, Jensen," he said when Adam finished his recount. "I'll be sure to speak to Zhao about this. No doubt she'll deny TYM's involvement, but…" Miller sighed heavily and shook his head. Under his breath, he muttered something that sounded like, "Fucking shitshow." Louder, he said, "You can go, Jensen. I'll keep Sarif apprised of any updates."

It was only mid-afternoon in Atlantis, but it seemed like it'd been much longer than that since Adam had been standing in the gate room about to leave on his first mission in six months. It was just about all the excitement he could handle for the day.

He made his way to the jumper bay with the intention of waiting there until the time he, Malik, and Pritchard had been scheduled to return to Panchaea, but they were already there when he arrived, the SI jumper prepped and ready to leave.

"Malik, hey," Adam said, stopping in front of her. "Thanks for watching my back out there."

"No problem, Jensen." Malik gave him a warm smile. "You'd do the same for me."

"Yes, yes, how very sweet," Pritchard drawled, purposely cutting in between them to take a seat. "Can we get going already? I've got some data from the Genii that I'd like to sift through back in my lab."

"You told Miller you had that, right?" Adam asked as he joined Pritchard in the jumper. "MacReady, at least." Part of the contract SI had signed to come to Pegasus included a clause that required sharing with the UN all intel obtained on missions through the gate.

"Sure didn't," Pritchard replied unrepentantly. "And I'll be expecting you to keep your mouth shut, thank you very much, or there'll be no more daring rescues in your future."

Adam let out a slow breath through his nose. In an annoying yet oddly comforting way, it seemed like some things never changed.