Notes: In case anyone was wondering, the idea for the device came from an episode of Lois and Clark in which a pen-light beams information directly into Lois Lane's brain via a particular wavelength.

Recap: He pulls the trigger and pulls the trigger and pulls the trigger and pulls the trigger. Over and over and over, light flooding his pupils, bursts of information shot straight through to his brain, triggering synapses to fire repeatedly. Rodney imagines his brain under an MRI, lighting up like fireworks on the first of July. And while his finger mashes the trigger repeatedly and John tries to tackle him to the ground, to move his arm, pull the gun from his hand, Rodney wonders why his brain isn't kicking in with images of what his brain would look like right now if it were under the machine that is an Ancient Not-MRI-But-Better.

Instead, he finds darkness.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions that a minute will reverse.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock




    Day not-twenty six, Rodney spent in the basement working on The Project. Summer was his favourite season, not because of the weather, but the timing.

    Rodney abhorred the sweltering heat of summer along the US-Canada border. They were far enough North that the winters were long, bitterly cold and frequently piled high with so much snow that he had to wake up early in order to slog through it on his way to school. Rodney didn't like the cold, but it was preferable to the heat, humidity and relentless, blind inescapable pressure of summer. Thirty-plus degrees in the shade, not including humidity. Sunburns, sunstroke, heat stroke. Rodney had even had a seizure once or twice from heat-exhaustion and hypoglycaemia.

    In summer, Rodney stayed inside, preferably in the basement where it was dark and damp and blessedly cool. In the basement his parents left him alone and let him "play". Of course, he had stopped playing and started working on his experiments and projects sometime during grade one.

    School was boring. The other kids were really abhorrently stupid, incapable of even finishing the most basic assignments, and the teachers talked down to him like he was a moron. Rodney had quickly given up on trying to find anything interesting to do at school. He finished his work early without hardly reading it and set it aside to work things out in his head.

    Rodney didn't need paper. Paper would be nice, but the last time he had tried to work something out by hand, Chris Woods had drawn all over it. Working things out in his head was faster anyway, and put a look on his face that the others had quickly learned meant Do Not Disturb.

    Summer time meant time alone in the basement without teachers or other students or assigned work. Summer time meant dark, damp, cool work.





    "All right, what do we know?"

    Elizabeth sits tense behind one of the many angled tables of the large conference room, actively keeping her fingers from tapping, fidgeting, twisting against any available surface.

    "The Ancients used an entirely different mode of thought than we do," one of the scientists begins, "Not just a different approach to problem solving but a physically different way of thinking. Their brains worked differently."

    "How differently?"

    "Even among Earth-humans, the way people think is split. Men tend to think with one quadrant of their brain at a time with a deep focus. Women tend to use two quadrants of their brains at a time." The scientist paused for a moment, then shook his head. "The point is, the Ancients, as best we can figure, used all four quadrants of their brains at the exact same time."

    "I've heard the sociologists," John speaks up, "think the ancient people spent most of their time meditating." He's not leaning back in his chair, not slouching, his arms aren't crossed. His best friend is in a catatonic state.

    "Yes, in order to facilitate ascension. The anthropologists believe that the meditation is actually one step in allowing the full, simultaneous use of the brain. Ascension may be what occurs when a human or Ancient is capable of using 100% of the brain simultaneously. The body becomes redundant."

    "But what does all this mean?"

    "It means Rodney's in trouble."





    It comes slowly. When Rodney wakes in the infirmary, he feels no different from before, feels no sudden pressure of knowledge pulsing out through his skull or skin or hands. He only feels a kind of low anger and shame, disappointment that it didn't work, irrational thoughts clashing with each other.

    Carson takes half a day to run tests; half a day of wasted time when three Wraith hive ships are descending on the city and they still have no option other than a half-assed and ultimately incomplete plan to shatter the city.

    No one says a word about the device. Side effects, faults, inappropriate use of an Ancient device, even; not a word. Rodney takes that to mean that it was harmless, that they have more important things to do and that finally, finally, they are looking at the big picture.

    He reads. He sorts through the Ancient database while his team works on incomplete theories, incorrect assumptions, on compressing data to send through the gate. It is only thirteen hours later that he realizes that something has changed. He doesn't recognize or understand the material immediately; it isn't hardwired into his brain, but the background information is there.

    Floating in his subconscious is a kind of Ancient Primer, and the more he reads, the larger it grows, the more he knows, the more the picture becomes clear.

    The more he hates the people around him, who commit the crime of being alive but useless, and of distracting him. The more he fills in the blanks.

    Ancient technology is beautiful; more beautiful than he had thought it before because now he understands the clean design at a level he couldn't before. There is no wasted space, no useless wiring. Every part and piece is a multi-tasker, holds more than one job and fulfills each one simultaneously. Even the casing serves as a transmitting device, prevents outside influence from scrambling any data. The surface of the pieces, the creases and cracks and pores of them, hold an infinite number of self-replicating nano-bots that connect the brain activity of ATA carriers to the machine.

    The ghost in the machine, his mind whispers, and Rodney presses one palm to the skin of a Jumper, breathing deeply for a moment and imagining the schematics of the nano-bots, their tiny impulses firing at a miniscule level. A population of perfect communication.

    It is beautiful.





    "I haven't seen any negative effects so far," Carson reports, "other than some crankiness, but that's only natural what with--" he gestures helplessly in the direction of the monitor displaying the three hives inching closer to Atlantis.

    "So no evidence that the information is overloading him in any way? None?"

    "None. If anything, the device seems to be working."

    Working. Elizabeth feels hope flutter into existence somewhere in her left wrist, the pulse of it wired into her brain.

    It is terrifying.






    This, he thinks sometime later, is intuition. And it should scare him or bother him or irritate him; his brain making jumps from the question to the answer with no steps in between, no logical flow from A to Z. But he doesn't have time to worry. So he doesn't.





    In the third grade, Rodney was sent home with a note for his parents. The note, in short, said this:

    Your son does not know the times tables. Please do some exercises with him or hire a tutor.

    Few things would have been further from the truth. Rodney knew the times tables. He knew 1-10 backwards and forwards. He just didn't see the point in being quizzed daily on something so mundane.

    Later that year, his teacher sent him home with a second note. In short, it said:

    Your son is illiterate. Please do some exercises with him or hire a tutor.

    In the fall, Rodney moved to grade ten.





    Knowing of these events, a person is capable of coming to a better understanding of Rodney McKay's character. From a very young age, Rodney knew that other people were incredibly likely to be incredibly wrong. They started at the correct premise (Rodney never does his times tables; Rodney never reads in class) and then flat-out ignored the evidence (Rodney's obvious, incredible brilliance) in order to draw completely, abysmally, life-threateningly incorrect assumptions (Rodney is stupid).

    Rodney knew exactly what they said about the word assume.

    That was why he loved the scientific method. And not just the scientific method, but logic proofs, well-thought out arguments, rhetorical devices, carefully plotted experiments. A logic proof only worked if every piece of it was correct. If A, then, then, then. Beautiful, clean final conclusions laid out neatly so that anyone could follow along.

    A hypothesis was like a logic proof that never ended. If A, then, then, then--but what if? What if, then, then, then, what if? If it didn't work, you started back at the premise, or re-wrote it. You corrected each element with strict scrutiny in order to end up at a solid, clean conclusion that could, if needed, be further improved upon at a later date. A hypothesis took in all current data and accounted for it, applied it.

    In experiments, Rodney had array after array of test variables and as many controls as he felt were necessary. In experiments, Rodney based his premises on hard data: The periodic table, known chemical reactions, the laws of conservation, the laws of the universe. The laws of physics.

    Of all the sciences, Rodney loved Physics best. Physics was all about hard data leading to predictable results; hard conclusions. Patterns, algorithms. In physics, everything fell into place, but there was still room for him to experiment, to ask what if, what if, what if?

    Physics was reliable.

    Physics ended in plausible, predictable outcomes.

    This, Dr. Heightmeyer said, explained a lot. "He's dependant on predictable results," she said at the meeting that week. "His field, his history, his high level of intelligence demand it. He loves predictable results as much as he loves following a new problem in order to find them."

    This didn't really mean anything to the only other person in the room. She was waiting for her to explain.

    "A phobia often results from a situation in which the patient has no control. His phobias are primarily health-related, and specifically related to the variables he is incapable of changing."

    "Bee-stings," Elizabeth spoke up, and she nodded.

    "And citrus." And a hundred other things, went unsaid. "Clearly, Rodney felt that his intelligence was threatened by the current... situation."

    Three Wraith hive ships, Elizabeth figured, might have that effect.






    Rodney's psych profile included files and notes from over twenty doctors. Ten of them fell within a two-year period when Rodney would have been in early grade school. Five of them were scattered over his brief but incredibly intense University years. Four had been completed on military commission, and the last was constantly updated by Dr. Kate Heightmeyer.

    The earliest reports contained a lot of nothing. Basic notes on Rodney's ability to perceive shapes, colours; his complete lack of coping mechanisms because, at that point, they had yet to give him a problem he couldn't solve in his head. Soon after, they had incorporated some very serious personality analysis into his regular testing.

    Rodney had been smart enough to recognize it; young enough not to care to lie.

    It wasn't that Rodney didn't care to interact with people his own age, it was that it was actually uncomfortable, and with very good reason. The rate, the level at which Rodney's brain worked meant that the usual conversations, arguments and friendships perpetrated by his age group and gender were superfluous. Rodney's brain interacted better with adults, partly because of his vocabulary, partly because of his ideas. He wasn't very mature, but he was stubborn and smart and needed to be treated as an equal in conversation.

    In childhood, there is no such thing as equality.

    There are hierarchies and power-struggles and fatal flaws. Playground tragedies in which one leader is deposed and replaced in the space of a recess; the entire classroom rearranging itself around the new position of power.

    Power was meaningless to Rodney in relation to his peers. He didn't need to be picked first for dodge-ball or asked to pair up with someone fun for projects. Rodney preferred to work alone, to work quickly, and to surpass the expectations, the limitations of a project.

    Which was how, in the two years they had spent living south of the border, he had been questioned by the CIA over his sixth-grade science fair project, ("Strictly a working model!" he had screeched at their blank faces, "Do you incompetent morons actually believe a twelve-year old has access to weapons-grade Plutonium?!") and then been offered a part-time job.

    The government of Canada, faced with paperwork over a twelve-year old citizen who had possibly, maybe, kind-of-sort-of accidentally-on-purpose built a weapon of mass destruction in the public sphere of their nearest ally, processed his work visa remarkably quickly.

    Rodney did not have what might be called close friends until after his third doctorate. By then he was old enough that the people he worked with didn't talk down to him or exclude him; young enough that he earned their incredulous respect.

    He was also of drinking age in most countries.

    Rodney's mind had, from a very young age, been almost entirely consumed with work. His thoughts raced day and night, whether he was awake, asleep, reading, watching tv or sitting on the can.

    He would not reach emotional maturity until he was into his third decade of life.






    "The satellite we discovered will need repairs. If properly fixed," and Rodney preens a little on the inside where it doesn't take any time or waste any motion, "it will be more than capable of defeating the three hives."

    "And if more come?" Elizabeth asks. Sheppard looks like he wants to change that if to a when.

    "Not a problem."






    Rodney even knew where to scavenge parts from. The more he understood, the more the layout of Atlantis made sense. He had forgone any sleep the night before in order to accomplish several small tasks: indexing the ancient database, refining his compression algorithm, and fully labelling a map of the city. When he returned from the satellite, he would begin several instruction manuals for the more important devices.

    They will have all the time in the world.