[Henry Pratt]

0447
Briefing Room
[ 2.5 days until Overload ]

Thankfully, the Admiral didn't sit by and debate with Henry and the other scientists about the grave danger facing the base. While he wore a uniform, he demonstrated unwavering respect for the expertise of his civilian team members. They could have sat here all day and convened a committee to debate their next step - indeed, Oxford was decisive, ordering the immediate evacuation of the base.

Henry's mind began to whirl. Ever since stepping foot in this galaxy, the Vedas complex had been their base. Sure, for the first few months they'd technically lived in a small annex until the main base was opened up, but to depart the planet could almost be seen as a sign of giving up. Henry began to make a quick mental list of all the items and artifacts he would need to pack over the coming days. While they'd only scratched the surface of the mysteries and mythology of this galaxy, what they had uncovered would push the boundaries of knowledge back on Earth.

While the teams were evacuating the base, they weren't going without a fight. Doctor Cross volunteered to stop the overload, with Blake offering his translation expertise. "Sound like I'm with you Captain," Henry said, turning to Huntley, who had requested a language expert to help work on the cure for the strange virus that had infected SV-3. "Mind you, I stopped taking biology in Year 10, and I stopped listening in Year 8."

2208
Medical Laboratory
[ 2 days until Overload ]

The teams and personnel assigned to the base had split up. Some were helping with the evacuation, some where trying to shut down the overload, and the remainder were working on a cure for the virus. Even with the size of the expedition, this division of labour meant that it was all hands on deck if they stood any chance of resolving any of these three crisis.

"Do you know much about Ascension?" Henry asked Javan and the others assembled in the lab. The archaeologist had grabbed everything he could from the lab where they believed the virus had originated, and had all the texts and results printed and laid out on a table in front of him. "I must confess, to anyone with a scientific background is sounds absurd, rising up to become energy and throwing of the chains of your mortal life. Not even the Greek poets dared pose such a thing."

< Tag Matthew Oxford , Victoria Palmazio , Evan Cross , Blake Warren , Vanessa Whitmore , Steve Hamrick & Javan Huntley >

[Javan Huntley]

2209
Medical lab

Javan glanced at Henry. "I don't actually know much, I'm still trying to understand the whole Stargate thing...But Viral agents, that's something I can get my head into." Javan looked at the notes, some of which had been translated. He spotted what looked like a basic three digit code. It wasn't the same as the way humans did it, but it was obviously a genetic code. Javan was no moron, he looked at the printout of the actual RNA sequence, then at the code. The pieces fell into place.

"I found something that may help. But we have to work fast. Accroding to make up this virus will act like the one made by the government several years ago. It's supposed to force an evolutionary response. Could you translate these pages?" Javan passed a small stack of papers to Henry. One of them described the virus as a 'god maker', that would force the inflicted to evolve beyond the need for physical being.

[Evan Cross]

0447

Briefing Room

Doctor Blake volunteered to head down beneath the base as part of the team to prevent the overload, and with the admiral showing no objections, Evan gave him a grateful nod. Still, the anthropologist raised a legitimate question a moment later, but keeping a perfectly straight face, Evan quipped back. "Depends. How do you feel about the lights?"

2231

Project Control Center

Evan dabbed at the beads of sweat that had collected on his forehead with his sleeve, the immediacy of the situation continuing to sink in; certainly, the warning notifications flashing in red only added to the sense of urgency. Sitting cross-legged, back against the wall, things weren't going quite as well as he'd hoped.

"You know, when I woke up this morning, this is just not what I had in mind. Is the whole life-threatening, impending death thing usually this bad? I mean, how do you deal with this? Does it get easier? Sorry. I talk a lot in these types of situations. Apparently. Never really been shot at… or been faced with getting blown into tiny little microscopic pieces before. R&D is usually… quieter? This is what I get for leaving a position at a Fortune 100 company. 'Sure! Alien technology! It'll be fun,' I said. Until it tries to kill you. I think I used to have nightmares about this as a little kid."

Evan popped his head out from where he was working for just a moment. He had to crane his neck, but he could see Blake and Whitmore were still going at it strong, the anthropologist providing the translations and the warrant officer the technical know-how. "Doctor Lee and I are going to be exchanging some words about what exactly working for this program in a research capacity entails when I get back to Earth. Um, I'm guessing there's no instruction manual on those consoles. That would make life entirely too easy. We wouldn't want that. And I don't need to remind you that me attempting to isolate the correct control pathway like this can be extremely dangerous. I'd rather not trigger an accelerated countdown... or worse. Anything you can find to narrow down my options would be great."

<Tag: Blake Warren ,  Vanessa Whitmore , anyone else? >

[Vanessa Whitmore]

2231
Project Control Center

She volunteered to go help out with the engineering part. Granted she wasn't an engineer but an extra set of hands could never hurt. Though she was versed more in naval prototypes and the architecture behind the things. She didn't care how much the Admiral protested; she was staying and doing her job. The woman looked over to the Dr. and sighed. "I haven't seen the plans for here, so I can't really of much help with it comes to what connects to what, I am afraid." she told him. She was just glad that Martin decided to tag along seeing as they were looking at computers.

Vanessa wasn't really sure what use she could be here but she was going to stay because she had volunteered. Unless someone else needed her somewhere else. "Captain Martin might be able to help she has worked on these computers with her eyes closed." she pointed out with a shrug.

<Tag: Evan Cross, Blake Warren, Stephanie Martin>

[Blake Warren]

0447
Briefing Room

Blake figured that said it all, as he stood up to go grab his mission gear. "Well, I learned how to make candles on a reservation, long story, used to work on one."

2231
Project Control Center

At least it was small mercies that Blake had the Stargate Program experience he did, as he scrawled translations done on a notebook to put in front of Cross. "Well, there was a few months ago when a lot of us caught a variety of weird little infections, I about suffocated because I was turning colors, long story. And then there was the time back in the Milky Way when SG-11 arrived just in time to a Aztec-descended civilization for the New Fire Ceremony, and that required SG-3 on rescue duty."

Blake stepped to another console and started scribbling translation of this one. "Ehh, I was a professor at University of Denver and hated the job with a burning passion when Colonel Moore approached me about the Paiute."

Based on the labeling, he pointed to three different circuit paths in one of the diagrams. "Well, these three are taking power back up to Vedas' systems. These characters here," he pointed to a word looking like इनपुट, "are the Hindi for 'input.' Any help?"

<<Tag Evan Cross >>

[Stephanie Martin]

2231
Project Control Center

If it was one thing that she hated it was being volunteered and then volun-told to do anything. She was along because Whitmore decided they needed another computer tech? Well okay then. "Those computers are foreign to me too not to mention Dr. Warren here is the only one who can read THAT" she pointed out at the language on the diagram. "I could perhaps try giving it a virus to change its language output." she joked. If only things were that simple. Giving a computer console that was counting down a virus in general was a very BAD idea. At least in her mind. Especially one that could blow up the entire ship. She gave the others the look that mentioned she was kidding when Vanessa raised a brow at her.

Stephanie looked over the console controls and got frustrated with the language. "No one happens to have a labeling machine on them?" Though it was just before Blake pointed out input. "Input doesn't mean much to me unfortunately" she stated. It was like looking at some archaic transcript. Trying to remember which button did what was going to be a nightmare. That was the least of her worries really.

"Usually there are certain controls on these types of consoles that are like the big red don't push me types, except they aren't big and red..." Vanessa chimed in.

"That's comforting Whitmore Thank you. Dr. Cross?" This was his project and she wasn't going to interfere. Stephanie tended to get along with the geek crowd better.

"Too many types of input to narrow that down specifically unless one of you has something I have too many guesses."

<Tag: Evan Cross, Blake Warren, Vanessa Whitmore>

[Steve Hamrick]

2209
Medical Laboratory

Steve was staying out of Pratt and Huntley's way, with the pillow he'd had just that morning close at hand. Two more rounds of Huntley's temporary measure over the day, and Tulas had refused to give him anymore.

Ergo, precautionary pillow to muffle himself with as he hazarded to speak. "Well, I only know what I've read in 'SGC for Dummies,' requires high level brain activity and advanced evolution and a sort of willingness to let go of things."

Okay, neither man looked offended, so he only said what he intended to say, so far so good. "I don't know if it's relevant, but I seem to be the most affected and I'm an ATA carrier, natural gene." As the thought crossed his mind that Huntley had really pretty eyes when he looked at him, Steve shoved the pillow fully over his face to muffle the comment to near-unintelligibility

He might have lowered the pillow too soon. "God, when this is over, I'm so going to have to give you an out off this team, Captain. I mean, if you want it, I don't expect any of you to want to work with me after this crap and damnit."

Steve sighed in frustration and held the pillow to his face, muttering into it as the thought came across his mind that it'd be easier to just smother himself with it and get the embarrassment over with.

"At least if I really focus I can tell I'm still talking," he muttered into the pillow. "I guess Huntley would be most willing to kill me, we're trained to be comfortable with killing, Cross and Pratt aren't."

<<Tag Javan Huntley , Henry Pratt >>

[Javan Huntley]

Javan glanced at Hamrick. "Just so you know, Steve, I went through a homosexual phase when I was in high school, didn't work out, but I still have a lot of friends who are gay, who still hit on me. I'm not going to punch you, or kill you." Javan had barely heard the muffled words, but hear them he did. He sighed and pulled out an injector gun. He loaded a dose of the temp measure and walked over to Hamrick. "This is your last dose, and trust me you dont want to risk another. I gave myself an over dose and spent a good twenty minutes puking my guts out."

Javan looked at the console, then pulled out his tablet. He took a photo of the pages of untranslated papers, The new app the tech department had made him, gave him a rough translation. "sh!t. The Virus is set mutate at intervals, I think. It's also changing aspects of our DNA." He pulled up a live video of a blood sample under the most powerful of his microscopes. It showed the twentieth chromosome.

"That's not a normal chromosome." He pulled up another photo of the same Chromosome, only this time, a normal one. "The 'arms' have been altered. Thankfully that section of the code is just where you find that special Gene of yours. I'd say, left unchecked? You could become a Deva. Its causing a controlled mutation. Its working on all of us at different levels, but if we leave it alone, there is no telling what it will do. And watch this." He touched the Vadas original computer and it responded. "I think as long as we have the virus we can control the systems, I haven't figured out how to do more than change it from one screen to the next, but I'm getting better."


((making it so its just the virus taking the place of the Gene. Once they are cured it will stop working))

[Henry Pratt]

2210
Medical laboratory
[ 2 days until Overload ]

Henry shook his head when Captain Huntley commented that the genetic makeup on the virus had traits in common with one the US government had been developing to evolution. All throughout studied history, men had tried to play god, and very rarely had it worked out well for them. Flying too close to the sky, just like Prometheus. The thing was, the gods always seemed to have the last word in these matters.

The archaeologist examined the Devas text that Huntley had given him, quickly working his way down though the Hindu language it was written in. Just as the Captain has surmised, the experiment had been about ‘god making’.

“This was part of an experiment by Mariamman, she was a minor goddess of health and healing,” Henry explained. “As part of their war with the Asura, the Devas were looking for an edge over their enemy. Outnumbered and outgunned, they were attempting to create super-soldiers by...”

Henry looked up from the text, first to Javan, and then to the infected Colonel Hamrick.

“...trying to share their superpowers with ordinary humans.”

The room went silent for a moment. Henry, a prolific reader, had looked over reports from the SGC and Atlantis about incidents when humans had been forced to try and evolve. They rarely ended well.

Colonel Hamrick suggested that there might be a link to the ATA gene, which was required to activate Ancient technology.

“That is possible,” Henry replied. “We know the Devas and Ancients were close allies, and that some Ancients lived on this very base when the Devas were at their height.”

Meanwhile, Captain Huntley had been working at light speed, determining that the virus was mutating rapidly, and that it gave him the ability to use the original base’s computer system, a problem that had plagued the expedition since their arrival. While it was concerning to see how quickly the changes in the infected personnel had manifested, it did give Henry an idea.

“See what you can find about Mariamman,” Doctor Pratt suggested. “Maybe she developed a way to reversing the changes.” It was a long shot, but all they had to go off at the moment.

< Tag Steve Hamrick & Javan Huntley >

[Evan Cross]

2231

Project Control Center

Evan tilted his head, looking at Blake from a different angle, as he tried to imagine anyone changing colors, let alone the anthropologist standing a few feet away from him. Nope. Still couldn't see it. "Not entirely sure I want to ask. Actually, I kind of do. Not that one." Systematically eliminating another possibility, he looked down at the notebook sitting in front of him. Thankfully, the handwriting was legible, though that interpretation could have been flawed, comparing the other man's writing to his own small print. "Yeah, well, I still feel like a blind squirrel looking for a specific nut in an ocean of them. There are millions of control pathways designed to regulate the various functions of a device as complex as this. And I need to find the cluster that regulates the main power conduits. Take that back. That's a terrible analogy. Isn't it? The nut doesn't explode if you don't find it."

But it sounded like Blake was having more luck than he was, the anthropologist having set up shop at another console, where he was now studying a diagram with detailed labels in Hindi. He explained that the characters he was looking at translated to input. That seemed promising. Evan dropped what he was doing, snorting at Martin and Whitmore's banter. "A 'do not touch button?' I think someone's been watching too much Hollywood. Or is that actually a thing out here? Don't tell me that's a thing out here. Maybe I need to get off the base more and see some of this stuff for myself. Or not. Then I'd probably end up in more situations like this. That'd be bad, right? Could you imagine me in the field? You can, uh, just keep bringing back all the cool portable toys to the relative safety of the lab. Yeah, yeah. That sounds good."

He caught himself going on again, as Martin looked to him for instructions. But until he isolated the correct pathways and determined the extent of the repairs, the extra hands were just that. Extra. "Give me a minute to see what Doctor Warren dug up. We can go from there."

He spent the better part of that minute looking over the circuit pathways Blake indicated. "Now we're talking. Congratulations, Doctor. You just increased our odds of actually fixing this."

And, once he had returned to his previous spot and gotten everything hooked up, he really regretted opening his mouth at all. The beginnings of a frown taking shape, as he re-checked the read-out on his tablet just to be sure, told the entire story. "Forget I said anything. That… that can't be right. Unless... Hey, uh," he snapped his fingers at Martin, "Captain, take a look at this. So, according to every console down here, we're looking at damaged conduits that are having to draw more energy to compensate for 'leaks,' right? The readings on my tablet show those same conduits as fully functional. You thinking what I'm thinking?"

<Tag: Blake Warren , Vanessa Whitmore , Stephanie Martin >

[Blake Warren]

2232
Project Control Center

Blake scratched uncomfortably at the back of the neck. "Well, Steve and I had been working on manually changing the language settings via his programming knowledge and my knowledge of the language, but that's project is somewhat behind schedule. Oh, for here I think it's fully 'input back to base.' This is the line that's bringing power back to Vedas from the generator down here. I think."

He laughed at Cross's reluctance to know more. "Local medicine, body chemistry changing, couldn't breathe oxygen, that old saw." As for the blind squirrel, they were all kind of blind. "It's more like picking the one milk snake out of a whole big ol' pile of coral snakes."

As Cross joined him, Blake shrugged slightly. "The Devas didn't label things quite that obviously, but you might be happier in the field than you think. I've always been miserable with purely lab or academic work."

He really tried but this wasn't his field. Blake thought about it and made a complete shot in the dark. "The power conduits are miraculously fixing themselves?"

He did the only thin that did fall within his skills, use his very fine handwriting to roughly re-draft the diagram and change the labels to their English translation.

<<tag Evan Cross , Vanessa Whitmore , Stephanie Martin >>

[Steve Hamrick]

2210
Medical Laboratory

It was only their condition that made Steve believe that Huntley was telling the truth. He could feel it as the temporary antiviral took effect.

Yep, that thing called professionalism was taking a hell of a beating today, but he'd learned years ago that tended to happen in the SGC. "Thank you."

As the medic moved quickly and efficiently back to topic. Which wasn't good news, but it was news. "Well, that's not good. I don't have the 'pretend I'm a god' kind of personality to be one of them."

But maybe they could at least use the temporary upgrade everybody else was getting. Martin had gone down with the team while he'd stayed to guinea pig for Huntley's research. "I'm going to radio Martin and let her know. It might help them down below if she starts manipulating the consoles directly."

He might suck at applying himself to the puddlejumper's interface, but Steve knew at least manipulating the Vedas computers. "With your training, it'll help to focus on the medical equipment. Just my experience, but I'm a trained computer person, way better at the Vedas operating system than I am with a jumper, because, not trained pilot. The infirmary equipment will 'understand' you better. Kind of open the medical-trained part of your brain to Vedas."

Taking Pratt's advice, Steve worked one of the other consoles. At least he had control of his mouth again as he spoke. "Mariamman, I'm working on it. You ever wanna just haul off and smack some of the so-called 'higher' species upside the head, Doctor?"

Steve focused on the console, and shoved aside the immediate computer warnings of both the imminent overload and every other thing currently buggy. It wasn't for the first time that Steve wondered where on the proverbial family tree his ATA came from as he tapped his earpiece on SV-3's frequency. "Hamrick to Martin. We've got some new findings up here, not saying it's all good, but the injection might let you control ATA technology down there."

Though, he'd always assumed to came from his father's English side of the family somehow.

<<tag Javan Huntley , Henry Pratt >>

[Javan Huntley]

2215
Biolab

Javan took Hamricks advice and began using his medical knowledge to 'push' for the screen to move. And it did.

"As my baby sister would say, that is freakin sweet." He was on a roll now, scanning the pages wth his tablet, getting translations of the rough variety, but it was enough. "I think I see what I am looking for. The Virus has a kill code. I just need to inject us with a certain mix of chemicals. Damn that's going to work. If I inject us with that much arsenic it will cause severe brain and organ damage at the very least. I just need to find something with the same basic make-up, something not so toxic."

He was looking for something else when a screen came up. "Uh, that can't be good. Doc? Please tell me the rough translation of this is wrong. Because if it isn't we're in for a rough time. It says, if I an reading it right, that after 72 hours the virus can't be killed and the process will speed up. By that measurement we only have a short window of time before it gets ugly. And like Hamirck I am not very good at playing God."

[Henry Pratt]

2215
Medical laboratory
[ 2 days until Overload ]

“I don’t if I would go so far as to physically assault a Hindu deity,” Henry replied to Steve. “But based on all the headaches their left-behind experiments have caused us since arriving, I would definitely give them a stern talking to.” Ever since the expedition had come to occupy this outpost, there had been one crisis after the other, more often than not caused by an experiment the Devas had abandoned. Maybe if they’d cleaned up after themselves a little better things their war with the Asura might have turned out a little different.

The archaeologist had taken up position at a console, and was himself conducting a search on any research data left behind by the Mariamman. Back on Earth, she was a minor goddess of healing in the Hindu faith. Here, she looked to have been quite a minor person herself - there was very few documents in the base database attributed to her. Pratt skimmed down them, finding that while they were about various pieces of medical research, none of them looked at first glance to be related to the virus SV-3 had found themselves infected with.

Captain Huntley found something, and called him over. Henry read the document over the man’s shoulder, and instantly felt his heart since. According to what was on Javan’s screen, they were up against the clock to cure the virus or face it becoming impossible to treat.

“On the bright side,” Henry mused, checking his watch. “The virus will reach it’s final mutation around the same time as the base explodes. Probably a good time to have someone with god-like powers around.”

With a sigh of resignation, but a renewed fire of resolve to find answer burning inside of him, Henry returned to his console, unaware that his last comment may have given the others an idea.

< Tag Steve Hamrick & Javan Huntley >

[Blake Warren]

2232
Project Control Center

Blake was still working on the translations, sketching diagrams, translating the labels and tearing the page out of his field study notebook, laying the sheets lightly on the controls. It was a bank of consoles opposite of Cross and Martin that Blake was focusing on the words and not necessarily the information, until he re-read his own translation.

It was a shorter timer than the original one, the console monitoring what was going on with the planet's core as opposed to the generator itself. None of the words were good. 'Destabilize' 'Eruption' And he was sure of that translation. "We have a problem. The generator might be overloading in two days, but the geology station over here is showing a volcanic eruption pretty imminent, and those are really some big numbers for," he checked the characters, " 'estimated volume,' that's probably how much magma the system's predicting."