Dr. Meredith McKay loves her job. Sure, it might not be glamorous, or in a warm environment, or near her husband... Okay maybe she doesn't love her job, but she really, really likes it. Because she gets to study (coughplaywithcough) extremely advanced technology created by the Ancients! The Ancients, if you haven't been told, were a race of highly advanced humanoid aliens that came to the Milky Way thousands of years ago. They were the race that created the Stargate, an Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole) creating device that can connect two planets together for travel. They also created a chair. A chair that, frustratingly, Meredith could not activate by herself. Oh she tried. Twice. And with a computer interface. But it was determined that Ancient technology will only activate if the user has a specific gene, thus called the Ancient Technology Activation gene or ATA gene for short. A gene that Meredith does not have. So Meredith is relegated to using people with the gene, unfortunately.
"Damn it Carson, just get into the chair!" Meredith exclaims, exasperated. She'd been attempting to get him to sit in the Ancient chair for five minutes so that she could get a reading on the output that the chair gives off.
"Fine," Carson Beckett, the Scottish doctor of the outpost, sat down on the chair. He waits ten seconds before jumping back up, "Ya see? Nothin'! I could sit in tha' bloody chair all day long an' nothin' will happen."
Carson started to walk out of the room.
"Carson, get back here!" Meredith shouts, annoyance peaking.
Carson continues out, passing the head of the expedition, Elizabeth Weir, "Excuse me, Doctor Weir."
Meredith strode toward Elizabeth, loudly complaining about Carson's lack of initiative, "This guy's not even trying!"
Elizabeth looked at Meredith, "He's the one who first discovered that the gene was the reason behind Ancient technology activating."
"Yeah, well he says he wished he never had it," Meredith responds, irritated.
"Really?" Elizabeth asks incredulously.
"Yeah, can you believe that?"
"Well we can always try testing you a third time Mare," Elizabeth jokes.
"That's not funny," Meredith replies, offended. Why wouldn't she want to make sure she didn't have the ATA gene? If she did, she wouldn't have to deal with other people while studying the Ancient technology.
"We've only found a handful of people who are genetically compatible with Ancient technology," Elizabeth says, walking toward the chair, "and despite your heroic efforts to interface ours with theirs, we need every one of them to sit in this chair." Elizabeth looks down at the chair in contemplation before looking at Meredith, "Including Doctor Beckett."
"What are we supposed to do? He's afraid of the thing," Meredith gestures to the chair.
"This chair controls the most power weapons known to human kind," Elizabeth solemnly says as she gazes at the chair, "I'm afraid of the thing."
Meredith stares at her in disgruntlement as Elizabeth continues, "But every time someone sits in it we learn something new about the ancients who built this outpost. Doctor Beckett should be proud that he's genetically advanced!"
"He's not more advanced," Meredith corrects, because he's not, it's a fucking gene that anyone could have. "It's a randomly occurring characteristic determined by your ancestors."
Elizabeth looks at Meredith in amusement, "This really bothers you. This whole gene thing, huh?"
"Oh, I'm absolutely overcome with envy," Meredith responds dryly.
YOU ARE READING
Damn it John
FanfictionDr. Meredith Mckay and Major John Sheppard have known each other for years. They don't, however known what the other does for a living outside of scientist and military black ops. That changes when they both get assigned to work in Antarctica.
