Not Enough Radek Zelenka

Requested by @i-vote-crowley

"Rodney?" "I know what I'm doing." "Rodney, I am trying to tell you as a friend, I have serious doubts." "Well, you're wrong. Sorry, but there it is. And to bring this up now when I'm about to do this smacks of nothing but professional jealousy." "Fine. Kill yourself, just like the Ancients did!" "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean by that?" "I believe if the overload is allowed to continue, the weapon acts as a sort of release valve to prevent catastrophic containment failure. The Ancients barely managed to shut it down, and they lost their lives in the process."

"Excuse me?" "Well, according to your report, during the tests, Dr. Collins made an adjustment to the containment field. Isn't it possible that he triggered the surge himself?" "Are you looking for a scapegoat, Colonel?" "Not at all, Doctor. I'm admittedly looking for a rationale that would allow Dr. McKay to continue his very important work. Is there something wrong with that?" "No. Collins knew the system just as well as any of us. He wouldn't have made that kind of mistake. Everything was going well, and everyone did their job." "Then what?" "I don't know. In terms of physics, it shouldn't have happened." "We're still analyzing the data from the accident. It's going to take time—" "What I do know is the device did what it was supposed to do." "No, Rodney, it didn't." "Well, apart from the obvious containment issues—" "It overloaded, and you couldn't stop it."

"McKay!" "I have given the command to shut down. Something's creating an overload." "Then we should evacuate." "Just give me a few seconds." "We may not have that time." "Wait. Wait. Wait. It's stabilizing. The generator is offline." "What the hell just happened?" "Obviously there was a surge of some kind… Look, Collin…Collins!"

"Radek, talk to me." "I'm picking up some minor power fluctuations. Chamber temperature's holding steady. There it goes again." "Is everything okay?" "Everything's fine. The containment bottle was designed to automatically compensate for any sudden changes in energy output." "This never happened in the simulations." "Maybe we should abort." "I said it's fine. Collins. See if you can boost more power to the field manually." "You got it." "Okay."

"Prepare for test firing, on my mark." "Levels just spiked into the red!" "What?" "Shut it down! Shut it all down!" "I'm trying." "The interface is not responding." "All right, I've already switched to back-ups." "The levels are going off the scale!"

Radek Zelenka out of context.

Radek Zelenka out of context.

"All right, let's do this." "Well, just because it works in simulation doesn't mean…" "I would prefer not to suffer a fatal seizure while we wait for you to round up more mice for testing, so, shall we?" ("Rodney…") "Don't try and talk me out of this. I may very well listen." ("I was just going to say, "thanks".") "Well, you're welcome. I can honestly say that the entire experience has been very, um… Ah. About time." "Hold on, Rodney. I thought all the mice died." "Well, what are we, mice or men?" "Are you sure about this?" "Absolutely. Yes." "Okay." "Just give me a sec."

"We've been running simulations all day. I think I may finally have something. I was able to get the generator to run on a buffer loop, which tricks the Dart into taking only the power that it needs without overloading." "Mm. Great. Good thinking. Now, can we just see it?" "Anxious?" "Yes." "Okay. Firing. All right. Life-signs holding steady. Now, re-materialization initiated." "Now, I'm no scientist, but those mice used to be a different color." "This is never going to end. I'm going to be stuck like this forever."

"The power requirements are delicate. We should have run more simulations before we…" "Yes, yes! Twenty-twenty hindsight." "You shouldn't be here." "I'm sorry?" "I'm telling you, these calculations are wrong. Having two consciousnesses inside of a single brain must be very taxing." "Listen…" "You're making mistakes." "Now, leave it to me before you do more harm than good."

"All right. Let's give this bad boy a try. Start her up, but slowly ease her into it." "No, no, no, no. It's not ready. Some of these calculations are not right." "Maybe you just don't understand them." "What the hell happened?!" "We started it up." "I said, "Slowly ease her into it!"" "I was at three percent."

STARGATE ATLANTIS ↝  This Mortal Coil

SGA 38 Minutes

"And do you have a degree in physics? Hmm? Well, what about mechanical engineering?" "Rodney?" "Yes? Sorry. I'm sorry. What? Please?" "Why don't we let Zelenka handle this?" "I, I'm fine." "No, you're not." "And I'd like you to talk to Dr. Heightmeyer." "I think it would be more useful if I was to…" "Rodney. I'm not asking you." "Fine."