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As soon as John sits down, something just grabs him by the inside of his head, and the next he knows he's reclining back in the suddenly glowing chair with the doctor – Carson – staring at him in something like fear. Then the doc tells him not to move and goes sprinting off, leaving him alone and as motionless as he can manage.
And the chair is pushing at his mind.
He doesn't know how else to think of it. He doesn't think there are any words to describe the feeling, the way he knows it's the chair and not himself going crazy, the way it feels like he's opened a door and walked into a big echoing room full of…stuff, that he could touch and move around, and it would take next to no effort because the chair is…eager. He wants to say happy, but it's not. It isn't – quite – emotion. It feels like…utter satisfaction, completion, like it's been sitting there for however long (how long? Carson had said thousands of years, but really?), just waiting for him to come and sit down and ask for things. Only not.
One of the things he can touch feels fierce and bright. He remembers almost getting blown up by a glowing squid-thing and feels that part of the echo-room shiver a bit, and promptly decides that Carson's "don't move" applies to the inside of his head, too. That means not thinking about glowy squids, or explosions, or…shit.
Okay, so that really isn't going to work. John tries not to panic at the way the chair keeps twitching (so to speak) at the least thing he thinks, at how damned eager it feels, how it pushes at him, wanting to know what he wants it to do. It does not seem to understand the concept of not doing anything, which, well, he's never been good at it either, so really he sympathises. Under the circumstances, not thinking is too damned hard, so he thinks about the sky instead, about long-past meteorology classes, the boring ones about how fog develops, and the adiabatic lapse rate at Standard International Atmosphere. He's trying to remember the altitudes of the various layers of the atmosphere when Carson comes running back in with General O'Neill, some improbably fit scientist, a more normal-looking scientist, and a civilian woman.
"Who is this?" she asks, and he glances over at her long enough to notice that she's extremely attractive. He goes back to staring at the ceiling, because now is not the time, for crying out loud.
General O'Neill is, understandably, put out. "I told you not to touch anything!"
"I just sat down!" he protests, well aware of how that could really be covered by 'don't touch', but the inside of his head is getting itchy with not-thinking-anything and he's beginning to feel a little frantic.
The not-fit scientist pushes past them both. "Major, think about where we are in the solar system."
That seems safe enough, and the chair really wants to do something, so he tries to remember eighth-grade science. He barely gets past the intention before the chair leaps into the empty question, like a really excited dog or something, and the room lights up. "Did I do that?" he realises he'd muttered that aloud. It was too easy. Shouldn't telepathic chairs be harder to use? In the movies, telepathy always involved hand gestures or nosebleeds or at least intense looks of concentration. But instead, doing things with the echo-room is much, much less upsetting than just sitting there trying not to think. The pressure eases off a bit, enough to hear General O'Neill make a valid point about the extent of the orders he had given.
"Well, sir, you didn't specify anything about telepathic chairs either," John hears himself retort, adding a belated, "sir," on the end and wishing he could cover up his face. He just can't fucking stop while he's ahead.
Christ, Shep, it's not that you're a bad guy or a bad pilot or a bad officer, he can hear the words like the Colonel was still standing next to him, the way he'd stood next to John's hospital bed as he was rehydrated, apologetic and pissed off and resigned all at once. It's that you're a bad subordinate.
The General standing next to him this time raises his eyebrows in the kind of lazy surprise only the really powerful flag officers had. John swallows. The next words would be something like last time, like, I'm sorry, Major, but you went too far at the wrong damned time. It's out of my hands, and I don't think I'd save your ass from this one anyways. I can't trust you to follow orders, I can't trust you at all. But –
"Well, now you're stuck being a guinea pig for these two," is all O'Neill says after a pause. "I'm sure you'll consider it punishment enough in a few short minutes."
The display flickers for a moment, the chair feeling confused as it tries to interpret the flash-memory as an order. He refocuses. It didn't seem like anyone else noticed, but then the not-fit scientist is snarling at O'Neill and the hot brunette woman for distracting him, so apparently he noticed. And somehow without seeming too offended General and the distracting civilian woman are leaving, talking about plans for something or other, and he's left to the not-fit, bitchy scientist and the improbably-fit, quiet scientist.
They swiftly move him from diagrams of the solar system and galaxy to internal systems diagnostics and memory storage and schematics for some kind of…actually he doesn't know what it is, but the chair does, and it is just delighted to offer it up at the vaguest query. After a while he stops staring on the cool glowing 3D holograms the chair brings up and closes his eyes, losing himself in the kind of here-and-now he's only ever experienced in the cockpit before, so that the aggravated Scottish voice cutting across the dentist-drill voice of the not-fit scientist doesn't really make much sense to him for a few moments. But the instructions stop coming so after a second he opens his eyes, blinking slowly.
"Carson, we've only just managed to get to the Ancient data-storage algorithms, he's barely been in it for – "
"Four hours, Rodney!" the Scottish voice is the doctor, Carson, which makes the not fit scientist Rodney. The quiet, fit one is putting down a laptop and looking sheepish. "And he was flying before that, with a drone in the air as well! That's enough, he's out of the chair right now!"
"Really? It's been four hours?" Rodney sounds genuinely bewildered. John agrees.
"Four hours!" he says, and coughs at the dryness in his mouth. He sits up slowly, the chair helping him and then deactivating reluctantly, leaving his mind to contract to its regular boundaries. John suddenly feels how stiff his joints and muscles are, how exhausted his mind is, how hungry he is – and rubs his eyes. "No wonder I feel like a truck ran me over," he mutters.
"Major, I'm sorry," the fit scientist says sincerely. "We were so excited to finally get some real work out of the chair…I'm afraid we got carried away. Let me give you a hand up," he moves to beside the chair. "I remember how Jack was…you're probably going to be hungry, too."
"I suppose I'll be hours unravelling what we got from this session anyways," Rodney grouses, but he looks vaguely guilty underneath the permanently disgruntled expression. John thinks he gets that guy, a little.
"You're right," John replies to the fit-scientist as he stands and sways, leaning on the guy's shoulder more than he meant to. "I am starving."
Carson smiles. "Right, bring him this way, Dr Jackson," he begins walking slowly and they follow him through the busy facility. "We can bring him a snack to tide him over in the examination room. I want to be sure we haven't done him any damage with the prolonged operation of the Chair before he goes traipsing off anywhere."
"Hey, doc, I'm sure there's no – " John tries out of sheer reflex, knowing that the medical profession is and has always been the natural enemy of all aviators, but Carson is far too swift for his admittedly wobbly self.
"Not a chance, Major," he says, affably but firmly. "And you're not flying out of here anytime soon either, so relax."
Dr Jackson helps John settle onto an examination table, and he is reluctantly happy to be sitting again. He tries again, though, on general principle. "Doc, my chopper can't sit out there uncovered in these temperatures – "
"That's no problem, Major, I'll make sure it's taken care of," Dr Jackson says in a tone of voice that indicates he thinks he's helping. John tries not to glare at his retreating back, but forgives much when he calls back, "and I'll have some food sent over!"
He really is starving.