TexasDreamer01

Title and Platform: Recursion Fractal (SquidgeWorld) (tumblr)
Rating: Gen
Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Rodney McKay, Jeannie Miller, Radek Zelenka
Additional Tags: Episode: s03e08 McKay and Mrs Miller, During Canon, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Worldbuilding, Background Jeannie Miller, Background Radek Zelenka

Summary:
"They had their differences, of course, even if he could see the multiplicities of similarities."

Jeannie was so, so curious. He had been, too - still was - but watching her marvel at Atlantis felt like entering the city for the first time again. Touching the door frames, or peering at the ceilings, or staring out the enormous windows to the ocean around them wasn't something she did often. As much as they they argued amongst themselves, his sister was still a scientist at heart and just as focused as he was on their problem of the day.

But still, he kept the glances to a minimum, letting her absorb the truth of the city's existence at her own speed. It was something they had discussed, when they were younger, before all of the things that had come between them. Neither of them could afford a telescope at the time, but they'd climb to the roof in the summer, cling to the edges of it and marvel at the stars while they speculated what those stars might look like and the planets revolving around them.

And here both of them were, not only far away from those summertime stars that kept them company at night, but in a different galaxy entirely, one far enough away even the best of household telescopes a child could get their hands on couldn't see. He ducked his head down, focusing on the figures his computer was telling him from the latest round of testing on the device, instead of listening to Jeannie marvel with Radek about how the city stayed afloat.

Wherever the other Rodney was, he at least wasn't soaking up all the attention of Jeannie and everyone else. Probably the other him was schmoozing his way through an untold amount of expedition members, shredding whatever reputability he had scrummaged up here - which wasn't much, but he had become accustomed to living here, and the idea of going back to Earth because everyone decided they liked an alternate universe version of him sucked.

Jeannie was listening intently to Radek as he described something to her. Whatever was in his hands was obscured by all the crap they left on the work tables, but it was probably a scanner because that was one of Radek's favourite things to show off to the new scientists. And, yeah, he could understand it, the way Radek was thrilled and Jeannie marvelling.

She was the first, and perhaps – at least in his lifetime – the only, person outside the program to know any of this existed. It left him with some complicated feelings he was sure their resident psychiatrist would love to chew on, chiefly of which was the spark of generosity he felt. If they had time, he would have loved to show his sister everything from their internal publishing house for their research, to meeting the Athosians, to seeing the wreckage of the hive ship they found so early in their time here.

But merely being on the Daedalus had terrified Jeannie, before the tentative curiosity had overlaid the edges of her fear, buffering it into awe. To meet a wraith, or at least the database holograms of it? The dangers that they still found within Atlantis, merely exploring storage areas or deserted labs, was enough for his throat to tighten in anxiety.

That was his only baby sister standing there on the other side of the lab. He had to get her out of the city as quickly as possible. Looking at his computer, and the figures that needed dissecting for analysis, he transferred it to his portable computer, intent on finding his alternate self.

Everyone needed a solution to this problem, and quickly.

Notes:

Fractal (Wikipedia):

In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illustrated in successive magnifications of the Mandelbrot set.[1][2][3][4] This exhibition of similar patterns at increasingly smaller scales is called self-similarity, also known as expanding symmetry or unfolding symmetry; if this replication is exactly the same at every scale, as in the Menger sponge, the shape is called affine self-similar.[5] Fractal geometry lies within the mathematical branch of measure theory.

Recursion (Wikipedia):

Recursion occurs when the definition of a concept or process depends on a simpler or previous version of itself.[1] Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics and computer science, where a function being defined is applied within its own definition. While this apparently defines an infinite number of instances (function values), it is often done in such a way that no infinite loop or infinite chain of references can occur.A process that exhibits recursion is recursive. Video feedback displays recursive images, as does an infinity mirror.

For ficwip's Genuary event! The minimum was 500 words, so I tried to stick to that for some short-form fic practice. Title drawn from the concept of fractals, and recursion.