9 June 2005
Stargate Atlantis
McKay/Zelenka
Not actually smutty

There's a whole barter economy going.

Disclaimer: Sci-Fi's.  Not mine.




Rodney misses Internet porn.

Not that he's an addict or anything.  But he knows to value things for what they give him.  The military intranet is purely separate from the world wide web, and it's shockingly clean.  When he was on Earth, in contact with it, it fed him the data he wanted, assuming such data existed.  Whereas the Internet connection he had at home was pretty much for reading lightweight articles, catching up on his TV, and porn.  A whole world of it, right there in the ether, just waiting for him to show an interest.

It's all on the other side of the universe right now.  The in-house network they've set up in Atlantis is a pretty chaste system.  They could take naked pictures of themselves and post them, but it would defeat the whole anonymous-attraction thing.

And besides, there's porn, and there's porn.

Still.  Bits crop up.  People whose laptops weren't new-out-of-the-box at the staging area mostly have a few files.  The techs who built their own computers threw in extra hard drives with fun tidbits on them: books and songs and Monty Python clips and the occasional naked body part.

Rodney's right there in the lab when they hit the motherload.

One laptop, owned by an idiot who can't even repair the thing himself.  Who doesn't even have the imagination to name his porn directory something like family photos\pictures of penguins.

It's broken, of course.  The whole thing is riddled with spyware and minor viruses.  They're lucky he didn't take the whole network down.  It's not hard to fix, but cleaning it takes hours, and all the time it's occupying counter space that could be used for something productive.

Except, when they've cleaned it up, it turns out the other reason the computer's not working is that the entire hard drive -- all of it, all 120GB -- is full of porn.  So much there isn't room left for more than a couple of text documents and a low-res snapshot of his family.

They give the computer back to him, all cleaned up.  Pure as the driven snow.  To be safe, it has a nice new hard drive in it.

The programmer who works out a way to copy-lock the porn files is going to be a millionaire when she gets home.  In the meantime, she's the Alan Greenspan of Atlantis.  They have a new currency, and it's copy-locked porn.  (Oh, you can try to copy the files, but when you open the new file, all you'll get is an eardrum-shredding scream.  No data in there, not even corrupted.  Just noise.)  One of the chemists works out a chart of relative values, just as a starting point of course, and they're off.

First it's just the science team, but it's a small city, and people talk.  Quiet e-mails come in, asking what non-porn items might be acceptable in trade.

It's not an economy Rodney feels the need to oversee himself, but after a week or so of careful manoeuvring, he gets a commission on every transaction.  Nothing huge, or even really noticeable, but every hundred or so trades he gets an extra cookie with lunch.

It tastes better than the other cookies.

He's eating one when Radek comes looking for him, folds into the chair opposite, and starts in on his plans for reviving the aquaculture system in the city's lower levels.  It's a good plan.  They've been talking about it for an hour before Rodney registers that Radek's got a new pen.  It's a nice one -- ball-point, but good enough quality that it won't smudge.  Padded grip.  Thick enough to really hold, miles better than the stick-pens that came with their army-issued stationery supplies.

Rodney's a minor connoisseur of pens.  He brought a couple of good ones with him, and when he was working with the military on Earth, he insisted on the pens that can write in space. 

So he's not jealous, but still.  He reaches out to touch it.

Eyes narrow behind Radek's glasses and he twitches back, just for a second.  Gives him a long, serious look.  And then lets Rodney stroke the shaft of his pen.

"Where'd you get that?"

"I have resources."

"Don't be mysterious."

Little grin.  "I have cornered the market in shoe fetish pornography."

Rodney blinks.

Radek smiles wider.  "It is very popular."

"Okay, I'm actually surprised. I wouldn't have thought with a population this small --"

"I think it is shoes."

"What?"

"Entire Atlantis population wears sensible shoes. So maybe they fantasize. Is like shopping."

Rodney mentally calculates how many lingerie-photos he hasn't sold yet. Under the current system, they're grouped with soft-core.  He's going to have to raise his prices.

Also, they're going to have to go down and look at the aquaculture system. He's not a seaweed man, generally, but little voices in his head are singing about good sushi.  He hasn't had any in a long time.

So they go down, in coveralls and  rubber boots, to have a look.  Radek's storing his new pen behind his ear; it's braced by the arm of his glasses.  Rodney keeps sneaking looks at it.

He wouldn't steal it.  Not from Radek.  But he can look.

And, really, the aquaculture system's amazing.  When they get it working (soon -- they're both working on it, and the system's not so much broken as long out-of-commission), there's going to be rice as well as seaweed.  Maybe some aquatic veggies.

They need to start fishing.  Finally, a real use for xeno-oceanography.

Rodney's thinking about it out loud.  Talking about the sushi he's had in Vancouver, in LA, in Tokyo that time he was there for a conference.  How the conference organizers misspelled his name and also the taxi driver must have misheard him give directions because he wound up miles from his hotel, eating at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant full of teenage programmers, and a couple of them were actually better than useless.  He debugged some of their code while he ate.

He's going on about the shaved pickled ginger when the power kicks in and the whole console hums to life.  Orange light hits both of them.  Not blinding, but it's a surprise, and a little heart-rate kick.  

So there are probably a few extra endorphins in his system when he sits up.  The tinkering bug he's had since he first picked up a screwdriver (and how old was he then? maybe three? he should have more vivid memories of that than he does) still gives him the same body-deep pleasure-kick that he's never quite learned to take for granted. 

Seriously, this is the most fun you can have by yourself.  Except for how he's not actually by himself.  Radek's right there, sixteen centimetres away and grinning right back at him.  Both of them leaning against the console and grinning like idiots, and Rodney's brain is singing about sushi and the makingthingsjoy that he's always had, and how much fun this has all been, and then Radek leans in the sixteen centimetres -- really seventeen, because he comes even closer than skin-to-skin -- and kisses him.

Rodney was already endorphin-high.  This just takes him up a bit higher.  Not quite sex-now, but happy.  More than friendly.  Wide-eyed when Radek pulls back just enough to bump their noses together.  Little rub behind his ear and then Radek gets up, gathers up their tools, and walks back towards the transport. 

Rodney's on his feet, licking at the kiss-taste in his mouth, before he realizes Radek just gave him his pen.



end

jane
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