Aberrant: Stargate Universe - Samuel Eugene Lawrence

[Mr Fox]

Samuel Eugene Lawrence was once again growing bored. He had worked for the NID for several months now and at first the alien tech had been the coolest stuff he'd ever. He thought he'd died and gone to heaven being able to play with the new gadgets the uniforms brought back from off world. There were only so many trinkets that he could classify and label before the new shiny wore off though. It was so frustrating. The things they brought him were so advance that Earth tech couldn't hope to reproduce most of them, but now that he understood some of how they worked he longed to be able to get creative, but that was beyond what he was here for. The mission mandate was to find technologies that Earth could use to defend itself.

Then everything changed. RL1137. They had discovered an artifact that jump started evolution itself. Of course they didn't know that's what it did. Nor had Samuel when he first examined it. All he knew was that it had caused the deaths of at least 6 men so far.

So it was that he approached the device with great caution in a full bio hazard suit. Once near the device he cataloged the symbols arrayed around it's surface. Nothing seemed to be too unusual. The language was Ancient, one of the four oldest most advanced races known to have existed. Of course, recognizing the symbols was not the same as understanding them. Since the artifact didn't do anything he grew bolder and tried touching one of the symbols, but again nothing happened. He was starting to fear that the thing might be out of power.

He was ready to video tape the thing, but the damned gloves were too thick for him to get the lens cap off. Grumbling to himself, he removed one glove to remove the lens cap, when he noticed that one of the symbols was now glowing. He thought that was odd, but moved the camera up into position and pressed record. As he moved around and around the artifact videoing he kept coming back to the one symbol that glowed. It was like an N but without half of the upwards stroke at the end. It was fascinating how the character glowed. The symbol looked like it was chiseled into the rock, but it glowed as if it were opaque glass. Without being aware that he was even doing it he reached out with his bare hand and contact was made.

That was how he came to be his own first test subject. Later after he had recovered and was viewing the tape he could hear his own voice say just as he touched the symbol, "!&$#ing hell, it's like a super nova going off in my head!!!" Samuel didn't have any memory of the incident other than being engulfed in light and pain.

Looking back, he was convinced it had been the greatest moment of his young life. At 19 years of age he had just become the next step in human evolution. He was sure of it.

In one inadvertent touch he'd gone from being intelligent and gifted to being smarter than anyone in the world. He had the proof. He took an online IQ test and made a perfect score. It rated him at 275, but he was sure if there had been more questions it would have gone even higher.

*****

Over the next couple weeks the NID had brought him subject after subject to test the device on and refine it's use. Working with Dr. Soie, who was kept ignorant of what was really happening, he was able to eventually realize that a certain genetic marker was needed to survive the procedure. Luckily he had that marker. The survival rate was dismal, but his NID handlers had assured him the test subjects were all either death row volunteers or terminally ill patients with nothing to lose. With his expanded intellect he had his doubts about that, but he wasn't in a position to really object.

[Stargaizer]

This was the most freedom that he'd been offered since the NID had sprung him. Working with this 'evolution accelerator' with only a minimum of supervision, or actually all by himself during the slower parts of the night.

He was even fiddling around in the control room when an unscheduled man came in and touched the device. He was actually the one who had to call the guards to clean up the mess, but he did get a nifty little piece of technology out of it. One that he conviently forgot to tell the guards about.

The most aggrivating part of working with the technology was the fact that he couldn't read the writing, be it Ancient or Goa'uld. There was so much more that he could possibly learn if he could just figure out what it all said. So, in his off time, he started work on two seperate projects, one was a visual recognition program for his handheld PDA (which had a camera attachment) that could identify the characters it was looking at, and sorting through the government's databases for translations. Of course he started with the NID databases that he was allowed access to, but if he didn't find what he was looking for there, then he'd search the NID databases that he didn't have access to, and then expand his search into government classified databases. Surely if the government was bringing these back from somewhere then they had an egghead somewhere that could read it. Just hopefully they'd plugged it into a computer somewhere.

[Mr Fox]

The database was frustratingly slow to put together. It seemed that every occurrence of this language discovered to day was kept in a separate classified and encrypted file. Samuel wasn't sure but he thought he might have caught a glimpse of a possible other track to explore. A computer that might lead to another that appeared interesting. Was hard to say though, and it all took time. It might be something to investigate once he had made it through the NID files.

[Stargaizer]

Time, time, this was all taking too much time. Samuel was about as patient as the next super-genius, but this was just taking too much time. Things would be so much faster if he could just plug the jack into his head and skip his computer and keyboard entirely. That would be impossible though, or at least it would require more time and engineering than he was willing to devote to it now.

But then a strange thing happened.

He started back to the search, and was moving faster than ever when he noticed that his hands never touched the keyboard. He was programming, hacking and typing at the speed of thought, it was almost as if he had connected his brain, wirelessly nonetheless, to his computer and was controlling it with his thoughts.

This was cool... but more importantly, it would save time.

He went back to his search, moving faster and more efficiently than he ever had (a feat in and of itself). He noticed something else odd and beneficial too; when he came up to a firewall or an encryption, after pausing and analyzing it for a moment or two (sometimes more, on the more well thought out ones), he was able to find the hole or the key to it that would let him move on and continue with his search. At this rate he could finish his main search and go after that other interesting lead before the start of his shift.

The good thing is that he was now moving far more quickly and efficiently through the realms of computers than he ever had, and his work would be done in record time. The bad part was that he was completely zoned, and was unaware of the flow of time and what was going on around his physical body.

[Stargaizer]

Quote:

Samuel Lawrence:
Samuel was not aware of the alarms sounding throughout the building that his body was sitting in. The first he was aware anything was wrong was when the current firewall he was trying to breach just crumbled and all the data beyond just seemed to evaporate. The collapse of the data structures was advancing menacingly toward him. Had he been discovered? Had he tripped some kind of alarm or fail safe? Regardless he had just seconds to get out or... or what? What might happen if he were inside the computer when it died?

(((SGC) rolls 5d10 and gets 10,5,3,7,10. rolls 1d10 and gets 3. Total successes: 3))

With great relief and feeling like it might have been dangerous to him had he not escaped, Samuel came back to himself and heard a real live alarm siren. Something was definitely going on and the NID had launched emergency protocols. The computers were self-destructing. That was what had nearly trapped him.

Samuel knew what was happening, he'd set up a frag program to wipe all the info on all his drives and networks, if they were as good as him, they'd be physically turning everything on all the drives to a '0'.

But there were ways around that...

Samuel shook his head just enough to clear it of his mad rush against the cascading self-destruct. Without hesitation he pulled all the cords out of his laptop, physically disconecting it from the destroy command, and then he hurried and flipped it over and ripped out all the batteries. If the computer didn't have any power, it wouldn't be able to write everything to a '0'. He had gotten out of the computer with a little time to spare, he just hoped that the command hadn't reached his computer yet.

He wasn't done yet though. He got out his travel screwdriver set (one of the first tools that he requested when he started working the computers here... for 'adjustments') and started pulling out the harddrive. If they were as good as him, they'd use the internal battery, the one used to keep the BIOS clock running, to finish wiping the drive even after all the 'normal' powersupplies were taken out.

Once the HDD was out, he ripped off the stupid tie that the NID made him wear, and began the process of using it to strap the HDD to the inside of his groin, where a standard patdown wouldn't find it.

This wasn't the first time he was on a computer when things hit the fan...

[Stargaizer]

This wasn't the first time that he'd been on a computer when things hit the fan... Of course, this was the first time that he had absolutely no idea what it was that had hit the fan.

He finished hiding the HDD, then started formulating a plan...

Facts: Alarms were blaring and someone had initiated a wipe of all the computer evidence.

Option 1: Someone was in that wasn't supposed to be.

--Sub-Option 1.1: That someone was worse than the NID, meaning that they weren't friendly, meaning he shouldn't meet them. Lock the door for extra time and planning. He wanted to get away with them none the wiser.

--Sub-Option 1.2: That someone was better than the NID, meaning that they were friendly, meaning they could get him away from the NID. Lock the door to act like a prisoner or someone forced to work against their will.

----Sub-Sub-Option 1.2.1: That someone was better than the NID, meaning that they were friendly, meaning that if he played it right they'd think he was a prisoner or someone forced to work against his will, take them away from here, help him, and he could get back into contact with the NID, thus making him more valuable for them. This could happen even if he took option 1.2 if the NID contacted him first; however that would open the door for a double-double cross.

Option 2: Someone was out that was supposed to be in.

This could end up with an evac before option 1 could happen. Leave door unlocked and wait for orders.

So Samuel needed to know if the someone who was where they shouldn't be was inside or outside... but he didn't want to just stick his head out the door. So he quickly opened the door, locked it from the outside with his keys, then locked himself inside the room. Then he drug his chair underneath the security camera in the corner of the room and climbed up on it. He took his keys and stuck them above the celing tiles, so if they were 'good guys' they wouldn't be able to tell he'd had a way out but he'd still have the option of letting himself out.

Last came the tricky part. He put both his hands on the security camera. If he could 'project' himself into a computer to hack, maybe he could 'project' himself into the surveillance system to see what was going on...

[Stargaizer]

Luckally there wasn't anything going on in the security system like what was happening in the computer network. As such, he was able to see what was happening in the building. It seemed as if it was option 1.2, he'd decide later if it was option 1.2.0 or 1.2.1.

As he watched the chaos outside his room, he took note of the locations of different people, their faces, and any abilities that he could notice.

Then, one of them approached his door. He didn't have much time to plan, but he decided against the sniviling blob in the corner of the room routine. So, he stood by the side of the door, laptop in hand, waiting for the guy to come in.

The laptop was the flimsiest thing in the room, besides some papers and folders (which wouldn't look very convinsing), and so it shouldn't hurt the guy. Samuel figured that after he ineffectually swung the laptop, he'd start begging for his life... and that should give off about the best first impression that he could hope for... given the situation.

[Mr Fox]

((Please continue in Team Romeo. Omar has just broken the lock on your door and is entering your room.))

[Stargaizer]

Samuel was escorted by two Airmen to a small room only charitably called anything other than a cell. There was a table and several sturdy chairs in the center of the room; the Airmen led him in and then took up guard duty just outside. He was only left waiting ten minutes or so before a petite blond woman in a black turtleneck and fatigue pants came in followed by a small mountain of a man. The woman took a seat across from Samuel and laid a tape recorder between them. Her tone was crisp and professional, "My name is Major Samantha Carter of the US Air Force. What is your name?"

Omar stood behind her and off to her left. He was not smiling, but neither did he seem angry.

The guy from the facility... this could turn out interesting... ok, name, rank and serial number... how many times have I been through this? Samuel's tone was flat, mirroring slightly Carter's tone. "Samuel Eugene Lawrence... ma'am." A little civility couldn't hurt... or military protocol-ish

Carter nodded, moving right along, "You indicated in the Gate Room that you were a member of the NID working on the artifact stolen from PL1137. Tell me about that."

Samuel inhaled deeply, the beginning of a sigh, but instead of completing it, let it out slowly. No sense beating myself up over that... I can still turn this around... hopefully... "I did indicate that I worked on it, and that was accurate, however I would like to state, for the record, that the NID approached me, and made me a very nice deal, at least several months before the artifact showed up."

Carter arched a brow at that, "What were the terms of that deal, Mr. Lawrence?" Her tone was curious now, but still very guarded.

Samuel nodded, as if he knew that that was coming. "Well, let's just say that as a child I was very gifted with computers, but not nearly as gifted with scruples. I ended up poking around where I shouldn't, ended up one of the youngest people sentenced to a High Security prison. While there, I managed to scrounge enough to get back into those places that I shouldn't be, and apparently the NID found out about it. They told me that if I worked for them, they'd make my history disappear... and they said they had some 'toys' that were 'out of this world'. My curiosity was piqued, so I said 'OK'... and thus began our 'arrangement'. They kept my history buried and I crunched code."

Carter sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I see. That fits. What did the NID tell you about them?"

"They didn't really tell me much about themselves, just kept me stocked with toys and I didn't ask many questions," Samuel replied.

Carter leaned back in towards him, "And what did you find out without asking questions, Mr. Lawrence? I can't imagine you'd just let secrets lie around without poking around at least a little."

Omar leans down and whispers in Carter's ear. "Does he know any names"

Carter waved at Omar, speaking softly to him but not whispering, "We'll get there."

Samuel shrugged a little and leaned back slightly in his chair... apparently getting comfortable for the long haul, and apparently ignoring the exchange between his questioners. "Well, sometimes they had me go back into those places that I shouldn't have been, but with more experience and better equipment, they never knew. But, I did dig into the NID a little bit, just to test my boundaries and abilities."

Carter matched his posture and gestured for him to elaborate.

Samuel continued "Mostly though I just stuck with the toys. Just figuring out the physical interface kept me up more nights than I'd like to admit, much less getting our coding to understand each other. I did get some of the basics... base layouts, personnel lists, rotation schedules, inventories, and, towards the end I was getting some information on translations... my own little project."

Carter couldn't quite suppress a smile at that. It'd taken her a while to get it down, too. "Translations of what?"

Samuel replied, "The two different languages on the devices I was working with... 'Ancient' and 'Goa'uld' I do believe I heard them called."

Carter nodded, "And the device that was recently acquired by the NID? You were working on it, the lead researcher you said. What have you found out about it? Were you at any point exposed to its effects?"

Samuel let a wry smile cross his face. His tone wasn't uncooperative, just... a little smug maybe, "Yes, by the time the Ancient device arrived, I was the most knowledgeable person with regards to the different devices, so yes, I was labeled head... researcher. And, now, if I tell you that I wasn't exposed to any of its effects, then you won't have much use for me, would you. So, yes, I was exposed to its effects..." He shuddered involuntarily as he remembered the pain that thing had caused, but smiled at his harrowing escape from the crumbling data network.

Omar moves away from Carter and leans against the wall behind Samuel

Carver frowned and sat up again, leaning her arms on the table. "Mr. Lawrence, given that you've worked for the NID for the past few months I'm going to assume that your experience with covert military groups has been....less than cordial. Let me explain the difference between us and them: the NID was disbanded over a year ago by the President because it had grossly exceeded the bounds of its mandate. The agents you were dealing with were a rogue cell that refused to remit themselves to proper custody. While your knowledge of the device does make you of interest to us, you don't need to worry about 'being of use to us'. We aren't cloak and dagger people. Now, since you've stated that you have been exposed to the device, would you please tell me what effect it has had on you. Any powers or superhuman abilities you have manifested because of it."

Samuel didn't seem to react to Carter's insistence that he didn't need to worry about 'being of use', but jumped at the chance to show off. He started looking around the room for any sort of electrical devices, from a keypad by the door to a security camera, to a cell phone. He spoke while looking around, "Well, to the best of my abilities, I have discovered that I am probably more intelligent than any two other people on the planet, combined... you got any computers or anything around here?"

Carted arched a brow at that and muttered something about 'another Rodney'. "Or anything?" She pulled out her cell phone and held it out to him. "This work? And am I going to need a cell phone?"

A cell phone, a cell phone, what can I do with a cell phone that would be interesting? Confidently he states, "Yeah, that'll work, and no, you won't need a separate one. By the way, would you like all your calls and texts to be free on this before I give it back?" what can I do with a cell phone? Let's start small... Samuel touched one finger to the phone where Carter laid it. He closed his eyes, and the phone powered off, then, after giving her a smile without opening his eyes, it turned itself back on. Once it had cycled back up, Carter had a text message which read:

Quote:

Major Carter,

I sent this text using my mind... cool huh?

-S.E.L.

-White Nova

He then opened his eyes and gave the phone back so Carter could read the message. "I can do more with a larger computer, but that should be sufficient to at least give you an idea of my capabilities."

While Carter was reading, Samuel added, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, and if I concentrate, I can see where code, like a firewall, is weak so I can exploit it; that's how I got most of the translations. This stuff is pretty well protected..."

Carter blinked, then blinked again. "Huh." A pause. "Cool." She grinned at him, looking back and forth between him and the cell phone. "No offense, Lawrence, but I think we'll be keeping you away from the mainframe for a while. Umm...I'm sure the General will want to go over your background, the whole hacker and prison time stuff, but I'm pretty sure we can find more than one or two things for you to do around here, if you want." The half-offer seemed genuine, though there was still a note of caution in her tone. I wonder if he could do that to a Goa'uld mother ship?

Samuel shrugged and shrunk just a little in his seat. His voice was nowhere near as chipper as it had just been, very deflated. "I know. Once a con, always a con. You guys are a 'reputable' organization, so you can't trust me. I get it, really I do. Oh, and good luck getting to that record, the NID did a pretty good job erasing it... I couldn't even find it." Well, that's what I get for being honest...

Carter seemed confused for a minute and then earnest. "Mr. Lawrence, trust me when I say that this place is like nowhere you've ever been before. Second chances, well, I won't lie that we won't keep a tight eye on you until we know we can trust you, but I'll do my best to get you a fair chance on that. As long as you are honest and upfront with us, you'll at least be heard." She shrugged, "You've already shown that you're willing to cooperate, and you've volunteered information that damaging to yourself. That's a hell of a start. We're keeping everyone under observation for at least two weeks. Give us a fair showing in that time, and we'll do the same. That sound like a good deal?"

Yeah right... but on the off chance... Samuel gave a deep sigh and straightened up in his chair a little. "Well, if it's a good showing that you want, I have something. I don't know how much is still on it, when your guys 'beamed' in the entire data network went down pretty fast, but I was able to get the hard drive out of my personal laptop. It had all the information that I'd gotten from my perusing. If you could give me a little privacy, ma'am, I could pull it out for you; I know where a standard pat down won't find it and it's... well I'd just rather not share that with a... a lady of your... standing." He actually looked a little sheepish and blushed ever so slightly as he finished.

Carter's brows rose higher and higher and she started to blush back. "Um...well, I'd have to leave Omar in the room.....uh, yeah. I'll, uh, be outside. Just...knock when you're done..." She got to the door before turning to ask, "Should I have one of the Airmen get a towel or...anything?" She was a bright pink by now.

Samuel looked confused for a moment, before it hit him. "No, no, nothing like that... just need to drop trough for a moment and untie..." His face was beet red by now.

"Right. Okay. I'll be outside." The Major fairly fled the room.

Samuel stood up and moved to a corner in the front of the room, so as to not be seen by the security camera (easily) or through the window on the door. He then unbuttoned and unbuckled his pants and dropped them to his knees, exposing how he'd used his necktie to tie the hard drive to his groin in a way that didn't show through the pants. He untied it, pulled up his pants, rebuttoned, rebuckled and knocked on the door, signaling he was done. By the time Carter came back in Samuel was seated back at the table, laptop HDD in the middle.

A few shades less red now, the Major came back in carrying a static-free back. She slipped the hard drive into the bag and sealed it up. "Alright. Some of our tech people are going to go over the hard drive first, and once the rest is sorted out over the next two weeks, we'll probably be asking you quite a bit about what we find. Is there anything else you'd like to volunteer to us now? The two Airmen outside will be you escort for the next few weeks, and for obvious reasons your access to any electronics will be closely monitored." She's was back to professional, but it was much friendlier than when she had started the interview.

Samuel's face had reduced a few shades as well. He wasn't as deflated as before, but he still, obviously, didn't like the limitations. "Ma'am, if I may. As I said, I don't know how much information is on that hard drive. In fact, I don't know if I was able to remove it before the erase command was downloaded. So, no disrespect to your techs, but if they spin it up, everything could be erased. As you've seen, I can access electronics with my mind, so I'm the only one on this planet who can get info off of it definitely. As such, I ask that I be the one to extract the data off of it, to make sure that you get it. You can give me a secure, unnetworked computer to dump the info to, but I'm the only way to be sure that you get everything that's still there." Samuel looked to Carter both hopefully and knowing that he was right.

Carter considered it carefully for a long moment. She looked him directly in the eyes when she spoke, "I'll do what I can, but it's up to the General in the end." She stepped up to the door and rapped for it be opened, as she left the told the Airmen, "Take Mr. Lawrence to guest room 16 and make sure he gets a chance to eat."

Samuel left peacefully and compliantly, wondering what 'they'd get to' and why... Omar? was even there. The silent muscle he finally decided.

[Stargaizer]

Samuel stayed pretty busy over his two weeks. He was finally confronted, and signed the NDA, subsequently agreeing to work for the SGC. He also spent a few days, highly guarded, in the shooting range, learning the basics of the P-90 and Zat'nik'tel. He even convinced the superiors to give him a few rounds with a captured Staff weapon, just in case the safety of the team off-world ever depended on him using one.

He also got some training with his powers. The superiors finally agreed to let him get the data off the HDD that he’d given to Carter; of course Carter watched his every move like a hawk. He downloaded all the data that he could, except for his personal logs (he figured that those were personal and didn’t need to be shared), even through portions of it were fraged beyond repair.

And then, through some highly monitored and controlled experiments, Samuel pushed the limits of his new found abilities. He even found out that he could produce an electric current. It wasn’t much more than enough to power a single appliance, maybe two, but it could come in handy… even if it was just to recharge his cell-phone in Europe w/o an adapter.

All in all, Samuel tried to keep himself as busy as he could, while trying to be as compliant as he could with the SGC. The one thing that he did keep to himself though, was that he could ‘tap’ into the security cameras. He never exposed that little trick that he had… everybody has their ‘little’ secrets, right?