nny | Random Zelenka snippet

Something I found.

Atlantis is beautiful.

He is not - beauty, for him, has been perfectly realised circuits and slow smiles of understanding and balanced equations. Stained glass and architecture and cobbled streets, it is all very well, but it can be rotten underneath. He knows this. Science, engineering is clean all through, and when it is not it is the honest dirt of oil and rust. And engineering is beauty, always has been beauty, except Atlantis attempts to turn everything inside out.

Atlantis is beautiful, and the science is in addition. The beauty is first, and the crystals he admires first as crystals before control pathways, as filigree before circuits, and this is something instinctive. Like the city herself is preening before him, trying to turn his mind from what is important to what is simply show.

The Ancients, they are show.

Rodney, and Colonel Sheppard, and Doctor Weir are taken by show. For them, Atlantis is first. For them, storms and self destructs and wraith are less important than Atlantis is beautiful, and he feels himself pulled into the edges of it. Like a whirlpool. Except: he will not stay for storm, or self-destruct. Except: he will not put Atlantis above lives; he will not run risks for a city.

The secret is simple.

Radek knows Atlantis better than Rodney where it matters. Rodney knows Atlantis the beautiful, Atlantis the ideal; Radek knows that three of the transporters function because of careful application of electrician's tape. The doors to Doctor Weir's office work only because Lieutenant Cadman admitted that hairdryer is less important to success of the mission. Carson's X-Ray display has a 100watt lightbulb jury-rigged to remnants of Ancient technology. Underneath, Atlantis is no more she than Antarctic base, than any lab or machine or job he has ever done. Underneath, every life is more important, and Atlantis is held together with duct tape.

It is why he swears under his breath as they wrap it two, three times around his wrists; do they think it grows on trees?

"Do prdele," he bursts out, as they start to wrap it around again. "Ty seš takovou vùl! You think I am superman? You could have pointed your gun at me and I would sit quiet."

"We've learned not to underestimate you scientists." The man holds a gun; respectfully but not with show. He is used to it and he knows, has seen, what it does. There is no bravado; Radek has learned to tell the difference. "Your Doctor McKay is - "

"Yes. Hero complex. Very unfortunate."

The man - Kolya? - makes a small gesture and the man behind Radek finishes wrapping and cuts the end of the duct tape with ridiculous large knife. That it is for show does not mean it won't be used. He has learned this, too.