1776 @Connor1776_ - Twitter Profile

@BaronDestructo Sweating pipes. Coolant hiss. The team’s helmet lamps cut the dark into nervous slices. O’NEILL Alright. Show of hands for “not the creepy power source.” Three hands. McKay’s stays down. McKAY It’s a tiny detour. Slight delay. On the way. I said that. I heard myself say that. ROMMIE You also said “potentially,” “more or less,” and “ish.” Your confidence interval is a crime scene. DANIEL Jack— O’NEILL Yeah, yeah. We follow the physicist. Against every instinct I have developed since nineteen ninety-seven. They move. INT. CONTAINMENT COMPARTMENT – MOMENTS LATER A squat chamber. One flickering field in the center, cheap and dying, wrapped around… nothing. No specimen. No monster. Just a battered data core on a trickle battery, looping the same dead packet. McKAY Okay. So. Not a prisoner. DANIEL Then what is it containing? ROMMIE (scans) Itself. This field isn’t a cage. It’s a recorder. Low power. High repetition. It’s been screaming the same file into an empty room. O’NEILL Great. A haunted answering machine. Rodney, if you touch that— McKay already touches it. McKAY I’m not touching it. I’m interrogating it. Completely different verb. The field hiccups. A floor plate clicks. The hatch behind them SLAMS shut. A KLAxon starts. Red light paints the walls. Somewhere deep in the ship, bulkheads begin to seal in sequence. ROMMIE Failsafe lockdown. The ship just decided we live here now. A small screen flickers alive on the bulkhead. WRAITH MICHAEL fills it. Hybrid-slick. Patient. Delighted with himself. MICHAEL Hello. O’NEILL Oh, I hate that face. MICHAEL You always did prefer the simple monsters. This one required… patience. The beacon. The open bay. The little dying light in the dark. You do love a mystery you can walk into. McKAY That containment field was bait. MICHAEL A breadcrumb. With a battery. I find economy charming. DANIEL You’re close. MICHAEL I’m nearby. Close enough to hear the doors close. Close enough that “soon” is not a metaphor. He smiles that thin, borrowed-human smile. MICHAEL Do try to keep the air a little longer. I’d hate for you to spoil the reunion. The screen winks out. Silence, except the klaxon and McKay’s breathing. ROMMIE Communications are chopped. Transporters were already unreliable. If he triggered shipwide lockdown, the jumper bay may be isolated too. DANIEL Michael doesn’t hunt alone. If he’s here, there are more. O’NEILL Wraith. On a ghost freighter. In a universe that already had enough problems. McKAY In my defense, the reading was real— The overhead speaker coughs. A burst of static. Then a familiar voice from ENTERPRISE-D, shredded by the anomaly but unmistakable. SHEPPARD (COMM) —peat, away team, we just lost your telemetry and the freighter’s going dark sector by sector. Somebody want to tell me why I have a sudden urge to start shooting? O’NEILL Because Rodney followed a blinking light into a closet and now Michael’s RSVP’d in person. SHEPPARD (COMM) Damnit, Rodney. Why do I still listen to you after you blew up three-quarters of a solar system? McKAY It was five-sixths, it was one time, and I was very close to being right! The lights dip. Something heavy moves in the decks above them. Not footsteps yet. The promise of them. ROMMIE They’re coming. O’NEILL Okay. New plan. We get this door open, we do not die, and if we live through this? (looks at McKay) You don’t get to pick the next detour. McKAY …Define “next.” The klaxon keeps screaming. CUT TO BLACK.

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