Fic: A Road Traveled, More or Less (3/3)
Story info and warnings can be found in part 1.
"What the hell?"
Rodney stood on the platform, frozen in shock. He could see, and hear Sheppard and Radek talking about him like he wasn't present.
"Radek!" he yelled, stepping off the platform in front of the other man, waving his hand in his face. Suddenly, Radek moved to the console - walking right through Rodney to do it.
Rodney gasped, then patted down his chest and torso.
"That is so weird!"
"That's exactly what I thought the first time it happened to me."
Rodney whirled around to see - himself. And another Radek. And a Sheppard. He looked over his shoulder at his Radek and Sheppard, then back again.
"What the-" His mind switched gears from his own predicament to process what he was seeing. "You! You're from another reality, and you're here - watching me!"
Sheppard grimaced. "That sounds pretty skeevy when you say it like that."
"Yes, yes, so we are, and you were about to do the same to some other Rodney, so glass houses and all that, hmm?" McKay said brusquely. "So here's the thing. We need to borrow your AR device for a little while."
"And why don't you go use your own?" Rodney demanded. He crossed his arms, present predicament temporarily forgotten.
There was a heavy moment of silence before Sheppard spoke. "Just over 4 hours ago in real time, our Atlantis was overrun by the Wraith. We set off the self destruct just before we shifted."
He dropped his arms, studying each of their faces briefly, the nodded. "I'm sorry," he said. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Have you been here watching us this whole time?" he demanded.
"No," Sheppard replied. "We've been in one of the south east towers staying out of the way while McKay and Zelenka tried to figure out what happened."
"You need to reconfigure the long range sensors to account for the disruption caused by the AR device," Radek spoke urgently. "Or like us, you could be caught blind."
Rodney frowned. "What does the AR device have to do with the sensors?"
McKay gave him a bleak look. "It creates a probability bubble that encompasses the entire city. The sensors are inside the bubble."
He thought about it for a moment and realized with dread what that would mean - and that his reality was wide open and vulnerable to attack as well.
"I have to tell Sheppard!" he said, and tapped in the recall code. Nothing happened. He tried again, but there was still no result. "Why isn't this working? What the hell was I thinking?"
McKay gave him a guilty look. "I may have encouraged you along."
"What, exactly, does that mean?"
"I sort of suggested that you should do it when you were considering making a solo shift earlier."
"You did WHAT!?" Rodney was incensed. "I should have known those weren't my thoughts! They were insane!" he fumed. "Fine. How do I get back?"
"Uhm," McKay hedged. "Well. The thing is. We never used the device solo," he admitted. "Radek was manning the control console when I went."
"Oh, I cannot BELIEVE this! YOU tempted me like an evil siren and now I'm trapped!"
"Hey, I didn't know there would be a problem!" McKay protested. "And we were set to drop out of flux and try to manually override the control console when your Sheppard had to come barging in!"
"So what if he did?"
"Oh right! We should just pop out of nowhere in front of the military commander of Atlantis and say what? 'Don't mind us, we're from an alternate universe here trying to save your Rodney because something's gone wrong since no one was at the controls! Also, do you mind if we borrow your AR machine?' Right! We'd be lucky not to get shot.
"You could have explained!"
"Oh Please! You KNOW that Elizabeth would have us politely detained. We'd end up under observation while they tried to figure out if we were posed a risk, and there would be a million questions, and it would all take far too long. We just don't have the time!"
Sheppard nodded. "If alternate versions of us had suddenly turned up on our Atlantis, I'd have locked them down until I completed a thorough threat assessment, regardless of anything they might have to say." Especially if there had been a threat, real or perceived, to Rodney. He didn't say that part out loud.
"We could continue to waste time bickering, or we could try to work together and come up with a solution," Radek said mildly, earning a double McKay-Rodney glare which he weathered calmly.
"Okay, okay," McKay said. He looked at Rodney. "You set the auto-recall - maybe it'll just whisk you back at the end of the 5 minutes."
Radek shook his head. "I do not believe so. When his controller was disengaged, it became completely independent, and is no longer slaved to the main AR control console. This is why the manual override on the console did not shut it down."
"Oh this is bad, this is very, very bad."
"This might be a stupid question," Sheppard began, and the other three men all looked at him. "But why is he still here? I mean, I thought that this machine sent you somewhere else - a different reality. Why is he here, still in his own?"
"That's a very good question, actually," McKay replied, staring at Rodney. "And I think I know the answer." He pulled out his tablet and started typing. Radek and Rodney both came closer, each looking over a shoulder.
"That makes sense," Rodney muttered.
Radek nodded. "This is what we were missing," he said with a sigh. "When the traveller is controlling the shift, they must set the coordinates mentally."
"So, for the non-scientists in the crowd, again I ask - why is Rodney still here?"
"The field was created, putting him out of phase with his reality," McKay explained. "But he didn't set a destination, so he's in a holding pattern. The DSC is still waiting for coordinates. Think of it like starting a car - the engine is running, but if you don't drive it, you can sit there and idle until you run out of gas."
"So then he just has to wait until he 'runs out of gas'?"
"It is not that simple," Radek explained. "If the DSC runs out of power while the traveller is in flux, he may be trapped out of phase."
"Or, worse," Rodney said. "If the field collapses with someone still inside it, their atomic structure disintegrates with the field and they simply cease to exist. And in this case, that someone would be me."
***
Sheppard stood by helplessly as he watched as the lab fill with sleepy science staff, all pouring over the records to try and figure out what had happened to McKay. It was not a feeling he was accustomed to, and he didn't like it. He stalked around the room, peering over shoulders and generally making the scientists nervous. He didn't really care. He figured if a little pressure worked to motivate McKay from time to time, maybe it would work on his staff as well.
"Sakra!" He looked over at Radek who was standing at the console, swiping a hand over his forehead. "This is worse than useless! There is no log showing degree of displacement. There is no link between console and DSC which is why the override did not shut it down. But there should be something! Some indicator, some measurable sign of where he went, and there's nothing!"
"What I don't understand is what the hell was going through his head," Sheppard growled. "Wasn't he the one ranting about how it wasn't safe for gene carriers to operate?"
"I think perhaps he was making a point." At Sheppard's inquiring look, Radek continued. "He was insisting we move forward with live testing and I believed it was unwise. I brought up Doranda."
Sheppard closed his eyes and let out a sigh. It all made sense now. "And he was trying to prove that he isn't an arrogant prick who places results and discoveries above the lives of his staff." He left out a wry laugh and looked back at Radek. "Yeah, that sounds like Rodney."
Radek looked at him intently. "Colonel, tell me again exactly what you heard."
Sheppard dutifully reiterated, for what seemed like the twelfth time, what he'd heard and observed from the time he arrived at the lab till Rodney had vanished before his eyes. Radek 'hmmmed' and asked a few questions, but the information hadn't changed from the first time he'd told him.
"He didn't say anything about the settings on his controller? About visualizing a destination?"
Sheppard took a breath to explain, yet again, that Rodney had indicated clearly that he didn't know what was happening when one of the scientists gasped.
"Dr. McKay!"
He spun around to find McKay had re-appeared, and a grin split his face. He'd taken two strides toward Rodney before he faltered and stopped.
"You are not McKay," he stated, studying the man standing there. It looked like McKay, but his hair was a little longer, the way it often got when he was immersed in a project and neglected little things like personal grooming and eating balanced meals. He was also wearing a tac vest - and his Rodney had most certainly NOT been dressed for an away mission when he'd vanished from the platform. Sheppard's hand fall to his sidearm.
"Actually, I am," the man disagreed. "I'm just not your McKay. But he's here. Just stuck out of phase. I'm trying to help him get back."
"Can you talk to him?" Radek asked. "Is he alright?"
"No, I can't talk to him," otherMcKay said, the 'you idiot' implied by his tone. "I'm in phase with your universe. I'd have to go back out of phase to talk to him. But he can see you, and hear you - he just can't interact with you in any meaningful way at the moment."
"I think you need to have a little chat with Elizabeth," Sheppard began, lifting his hand to tap his communicator
"We don't have time for that! We've need to him back here as soon as possible because we don't know what will happen when his bubble collapses!" McKay shouted, waving a hand emphatically. "Plus, I kind of need to borrow your AR machine and make a few adjustments to it to get us back home a little earlier than we left."
"Us?" Sheppard asked as he wrapped his fingers around the butt of his glock.
"Earlier?" Radek asked, adjusting his glasses while leaning in eagerly.
OtherMcKay sighed and rolled his eyes. "You also need to get Kusanagi on recalibrating the long range sensors, and I mean right now at this very moment. Now listen carefully, because I only have time to explain this once."
****
Sheppard's mind was a-whirl as he watched OtherMcKay and Radek argue over the console. Elizabeth had come down while OtherMcKay had been explaining the situation. When he was done, there had been a brief argument about detaining him for more questions, but then OtherZelenka had suddenly appeared. He had politely informed them that he and Rodney were working very hard trying to get him home, and could they please stop being idiots and work on the problem at hand? Before anyone could say a word, he'd vanished again.
"Well," Radek had said as he'd polished his glasses furiously. "That is not something one has happen every day. It is heartening to know that I am the voice of reason in more than one universe."
And that had been that - Elizabeth had ordered that anything they required be made available to them and asked John to keep her updated. Kusanagi had got to work on the sensors and reported that they had indeed been getting false readings for several weeks. This almost gave Sheppard a heart attack until she'd advised that they were now correctly calibrated and gave an all clear.
He needed to do something, anything, but there was nothing he could help with. The math he got, but the rest was so far over his head it made his eyes cross trying to follow it. He was feeling anxious, and helpless and a little bored and it was making him extremely cranky. He sauntered to the back of the lab and looked around to make sure no one else was paying any attention to him, then leaned back against he wall and looked at the floor as he began to speak.
"Rodney?" he asked, feeling kind of silly. "I don't know if you're really busy with that Zelenka right now, but if you can hear me - " he stopped, words stuck tight. He took a deep breath and started again. "That thing you said, about being brave. Wishing you told me." He cleared his throat. "I, uhm. I wish that...well, it's not just you, okay?" He nodded. "Okay. So. Get your ass back here. And don't think we're not going to have a talk about doing stupid things to try and prove a point, buddy."
***
Rodney's mouth dropped open.
Sheppard cocked an eyebrow at him. "You didn't know?"
Rodney turned to him and mutely shook his head.
Radek tsked loudly. "Clearly you are not the genius you claim to be in this reality," he remarked.
"Hey!" Rodney protested. "How was I supposed to know? He's always kirking his way around-"
"It's not kirking!" Sheppard argued. "I don't go looking for attention, and I'm sure he doesn't either. Stop saying that."
Rodney gave him a sideways look. "So, you and... and McKay?"
Sheppard gave him a terse nod.
"Really? I mean, me? Him? I would have thought that-"
"You really don't pay attention, do you?" Sheppard cut him off.
"I am not good at people!" he whined. "And I'm terrible at interpersonal relationships!"
"But you are good at deciphering why Ancient technology is not functioning as it should, so you should get back to that, yes?" Radek said pointedly.
Rodney's gaze flicked back to study his Sheppard for a moment. He took in the tense set of the other man's shoulders, the tightness in his face. How was he have supposed to have known? He'd thought Sheppard was straight for god's sake!
With a sigh, he returned his attention to the DSC and tried yet again to figure out how to control it with his brain.
***
About an hour later, OtherMcKay stretched and let out a groan. "Okay, 5 minute break," he said. "I'll be right back." He tapped something on his DSC and promptly vanished.
"Dammit, McKay!" Sheppard snarled. "You could at least warn us!"
"He needs to check in with his Zelenka to see if they have made any progress," Radek said with a bemused expression. "I believe we have successfully managed to configure the AR device to modulate the shift with a 6 hour delay, but this will dangerously deplete the DSCs. Anything farther back and they may fail."
"What happens if they fail?"
"We lose molecular cohesion during the shift and our component atoms are spread out across the cosmos," OtherMcKay said as he and OtherZelenka both suddenly phased into view.
"That is most disturbing to witness," Radek said mildly as he shook his head. "What is Rodney's status?"
"We've been trying to ascertain how the mental controls work, but he's not getting anywhere," OtherZelenka said. "Unlike the jumpers, it seems that once the device is set for mental operation, the keypad is disabled."
"The power level on his DSC is getting dangerously low," added OtherMcKay. "By my estimate, he's got, at most, another 45 minutes."
OtherZelenka spoke again. "Our window for getting back is rapidly closing. The three of us must leave in the next ten minutes or there is no guarantee we will arrive in time to prevent the destruction of our Atlantis."
"Once you leave, we lose all contact with Rodney!" Sheppard objected.
"There is also the concern that if you re-initialize the AR device for a temporal shift before we are able to retrieve Rodney, it may interfere with ability of his DSC to lock into the command console," Radek added.
Sheppard took a step toward the other man, hands clenched at his sides. "You are not using that device and leaving our McKay stranded in limbo!"
"If we don't go, over a hundred people on Atlantis will die!" argued OtherMcKay. "And we lose the city!" He looked from Radek to Sheppard. "Colonel. John. I wouldn't want to be responsible for that. I promise you, he wouldn't want to be either."
"Rodney." A new voice cut across the tense silence, and they all looked over to where OtherSheppard had appeared. "We're not leaving until either they get their McKay back or his DSC completely runs out of power."
"John, if we don't go in the next few minutes, it will be too late!"
"No," he said, stepping close to McKay to put a hand on his shoulder. "This isn't our universe. I wouldn't let them talk me into leaving you stranded if the situation were reversed. We have no right to dictate to them what they must do."
Sheppard studied the two men. He saw the anguish written on OtherMcKay's face and realized, to his shame, he'd suspected the man of being more motivated by saving himself than saving his Atlantis. Just like his Rodney, McKay was an open book, and he was clearly suffering the loss of his city and his friends. His own doppelganger appeared to have a stoic facade, except it was his face, and he knew what every twitch and every tense muscle meant. It was killing the other man to make this choice, to respect his orders - to not go for his gun and try to commandeer the AR console by force. He swallowed.
"What did Rodney say to you?" he asked quietly. The other Sheppard gave him a hooded look.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "We're not leaving him stranded."
"What. Did. He. Say?"
OtherSheppard sighed. "He said we should go, and that he didn't really want to have that conversation with you anyway."
Sheppard swore and looked away, trying to get a lid on the feelings raging through him. His eyes landed on the three DSCs sitting in a pile on the counter and he had a sudden thought.
"What if I went after him?" he asked, thoughts flying as he tried to piece together what they'd been explaining about the shifts and the displacement field and controlling all with your mind. "I mean, you guys are always telling me I have the strongest expression of the gene, and McKay always complains that Ancient tech just rolls over and begs when I ask nicely - maybe I can figure it out."
"Colonel, we have no way of knowing that you will be any more successful at manipulating it that Rodney has been," Radek said. "We could end up losing both of you!"
"But you might be able to make it work," his counterpart said. "If anyone could, I'd bet on me - so, I'd bet on you."
"We may be able to learn something if we observed the results of a DSC initialization," added OtherZelenka. "But we might not. There is no guarantee. Radek is right to warn you against this. You could be lost as well."
Sheppard grabbed a DSC and snapped it closed around his wrist. "Fire it up, Radek. I'm not just sitting here and waiting for him to run out of time. I have to at least try!" He looked over at the other Sheppard. "As soon as I'm gone, you three haul ass home."
"You sure about this?" he asked. "You heard what the geek squad said."
Sheppard shrugged. "We'll get home or we won't. If this thing is really supposed to be controlled by the DSC, it shouldn't matter what changes you make to the settings on the base unit, right? Besides, I have to go after him. It's what we do. And I think it's my turn anyway."
"It is, actually," OtherMcKay announced, and Sheppard gave a soft huff of laughter.
He stepped up on the platform while Radek made some adjustments. "Colonel, you must input the following code."
He carefully entered the sequence as Radek instructed, and as he finished, a soft chime began to sound. Radek and OtherZelenka were studying the console. "It is as we thought," Radek said. "Initializing the platform through the DSC locks out the main console and keypad. The chime seems to be an indicator that the DSC is ready for the input of a location."
*Take me to Rodney,* Sheppard thought, but the chiming was joined by a second, jarring tone.
"That's the sound I heard when I came in," he informed them. A flurry of activity followed while the two Radeks and the OtherMcKay had a rapid fire conversation consisting of the strange shorthand that only they could understand - "No, no, the other - " and "Yes, now just, what if-" followed by, "No - yes -that, if we... yes, exactly!"
OtherMcKay's head snapped up. "Colonel, I want you to think about going into a holding pattern."
Sheppard dutifully imagined hovering above the gateroom floor with a jumper. The alarm halted unexpectedly and the AI spoke, startling them all. "Trans-dimensional shift in progress - disengaging controller from matrix. Displacement Field will engage in 10 seconds."
Radek took over. "Colonel, listen carefully. You should be able to link your controller with Rodney's. Once you are in physical contact, the field generated by your DSC will extend to him as well. You must override the safety mechanism on Rodney's DSC and remove it. His device has, essentially, crashed because there was no destination input before he shifted. If it fails while he is still wearing it, it will kill him. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, Radek, I got that part."
"Make very sure Rodney is touching you when this happens when you remove the DSC, or he will be lost in flux. Once you have done this, you only need to initiate the recall sequence. Do you have any ques-"
"Field Engaged - commencing shift."
Sheppard vanished.
"Well," OtherMcKay spoke after several seconds of silence. "I hate to be the one who ruins the moment, but we really need to get going."
Radek and OtherZelenka nodded at the same time and set to work making the necessary adjustments while OtherMcKay and OtherSheppard stepped up on the platform. About 30 seconds later, the discordant chime was back.
"Temporal anomaly detected. Time slip imminent with this shift."
OtherZelenka joined them on the platform and the three of them synched their DSCs.
OtherSheppard looked at them. "Ready?"
The two men nodded. He turned to Radek. "Send us home, Dr. Zee."
"At Buh te chránit," he whispered as he hit the control and watched them disappear.
***
"What is wrong with you?" Rodney yelled as soon as he realized Sheppard could see him. "It's bad enough I'm trapped here! Then you have to go rushing headlong where Angels fear to tread and take a chance on getting stuck here too!"
Sheppard took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "McKay," he said as he walked toward him, "It's time for you and I to have a chat. Now shut up and give me your wrist."
Rodney cringed. "Look, can't we just forget what I said?" he asked. "Chalk it up to crazy things that come pouring out of my mouth when I am afraid for my life and we'll never speak of it again?"
"No," he said deliberately, grabbing Rodney's wrist when he didn't offer it willingly. There was a brief flare as the two displacement fields meshed. Sheppard studied the DSC, noting the seam where it closed. He pressed the release, but unsurprisingly, nothing happened.
"Do you have any tools on you?" he asked. Rodney started patting down his tac vest with his free hand, then shook his head.
"Okay then," Sheppard said and bent over to retrieve a small knife from his boot.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Rodney protested, trying to wrench his hand free from Sheppard's grip.
"Rodney, stop it," Sheppard growled, yanking him closer. Rodney stumbled forward and Sheppard caught him, arms automatically wrapping around the other man to keep him from falling. Rodney's hands flailed briefly, finally coming to rest on Sheppard's shoulders, eyes wide as he looked up into his face. They stood like that for a long moment until Sheppard finally pulled his arms away. McKay went to pull back and Sheppard grabbed his wrist again.
"Leave your other hand on my shoulder," he ordered. "Didn't you hear what Zelenka said? We have to be in physical contact while I get this off you."
McKay's fingers tightened around his shoulder in a wordless reply as Sheppard pulled the wrist with the DSC on it close and began to wiggle the knife point into the seam.
"You were stuck on that platform," Sheppard spoke as he worked. "Then you say - things, and then you vanish." There was a snick. He put the knife in his teeth and tried to pry it open with his fingers but it didn't budge. He went back to work on removing the device.
"I thought we lost you. That I lost you." The words were like sandpaper in his throat, but he forced them out. "Right after you tell me-" he trailed off for a moment, hands stilled as he tried to find the words. He looked up into Rodney's stunned expression. "It's not just you, okay?"
They heard the AI announce the temporal displacement, heard Radek say something quietly in Czech, and then their three visitors were gone.
"I hope they make it back in time," Rodney said quietly.
"Me too," Sheppard replied. He tried working the knife in from the end, and had a little more success. The lights on McKay's DSC suddenly all flashed red.
"Oh crap," McKay said, fingers clenched at the fabric of Sheppard's BDUs. Sheppard gave up on careful and jammed the knife in - if he sliced Rodney's wrist and earned an earful about trying to kill him, well at least he'd still be here to give him an earful. He twisted as hard as he could and with an audible snap, the device popped free. The lights turned to a solid red at that moment. They watched it fall, it faded away to nothing before it hit the floor.
He felt a shudder go through Rodney. In one smooth motion, he tucked away his knife, then slipped an arm around his waist to pul him in close. He lifted his other hand to caress Rodney's face, running a thumb over his bottom lip before leaning in to kiss him. It was soft and achingly sweet, and he only let it last a few seconds before pulling away.
"Oh," said Rodney, looking a bit dazed and Sheppard smiled.
"Yes, oh," he agreed. "Time to go home, buddy," he said as he moved back a bit. "Don't let go." He pulled his arm from around Rodney and tapped in the recall code.
***
"You are back!" Radek shouted. He tapped his comm. "Yes, Dr. Weir, they are both back, safe and sound," he said.
Sheppard hit the release on his DSC. "I think that I'll stick with the puddle jumpers if it's all the same to you, Dr. Zee," he said, dropping the device on the table.
"I think that would be quite acceptable, Colonel," Radek said with a smile. He turned to McKay. "And you, Rodney?" he asked, his expression turning solemn. "You frightened us all, my friend. I am glad you are safe. But I am even gladder that it is not I who must explain my actions."
"This was so not my fault!" McKay exclaimed. "That - that *me* from another reality, he admitted that he was egging me along!"
"Yes, but you were the one who was considering it in the first place, Rodney!"
"I wasn't going to do it! He seduced me into it!"
Sheppard cocked an eyebrow at him. "I can't wait to see you try to sell that to Elizabeth."
Rodney glared at him, but suddenly all he could think of was the feel of Sheppard's lips on his own. He felt heat flood his face and he looked away. A moment later, Sheppard was right there, bumping his shoulder, a funny little smile on his face.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
Rodney nodded. "Yeah. I guess there's no point in putting it off - better go face the music."
Rodney knew he went red right to the tips of his ears when Sheppard leaned in and whispered, "After that, we can get back to our chat. I've got more to say, but none of it involves words."
Wednesday, 15:27 Atlantis Standard Time
Atlantis, Pegasus Galaxy
"On the third shift, there was an interesting item in the lab," Rodney said, recounting a description of an interesting piece of tech he'd seen. "It looked like... like..." he suddenly stopped, a blank look on his face.
"Rodney?" Weir asked, leaning forward in her chair. "Rodney, are you okay?"
He didn't respond. After a moment, he slumped back in his chair, expression going slack.
She looked over at Dr. Zelenka to find that he wore the same expression. She tapped her ear bud. "Medical emergency. Dr. Beckett, Radek and Rodney are in my office and both seem to be suffering from some kind of absence seizure," she reported. "Please send a team to my office immediately," she said.
"On my way, love," he responded.
She stepped out from behind her desk and came around to kneel beside Radek and check his pulse. Rapid, but steady. She checked Rodney's and found the same.
"Unscheduled offworld activation!" came Chuck's unwelcome announcement from the gateroom. This was the last thing she needed. Just then, the medical team arrived. She cleared out to give them room to work and strode into the command centre.
"Report."
"It's SA3, ma'am. They say they have a medical situation- something's wrong with Colonel Sheppard."
Elizabeth felt a prickle of dread up her spine. Three of her executive suddenly out of commission? There was no way this was coincidence.
"Drop the shield. Medical team to the gate room."
"Elizabeth, McKay's awake!" Beckett called from her office. She hurried back to find Rodney struggling to push away the nurse who was trying to check his responses to a penlight.
"Rodney," she exclaimed in relief. "Just relax. We're going to get you down to medical."
"Cloak the city," he rasped.
"What? But why?"
"Do it!" he insisted in a tone that brooked no argument.
"You heard the man," she said to Chuck who had been listening to the whole exchange. "Get the cloak up."
"Yes, Ma'am," he said and seconds later, the city was invisible.
"Time! What time is it?" he demanded.
"It's almost 3:30," she replied, puzzled.
"We made it," came Radek's thready voice from behind her.
She glanced back and forth between them. "What are you talking about?"
McKay waved her off and tapped his own ear bud. "Kusanagi, I want you to re-calibrate the long range sensors. No, do it now, right now! Pay specific attention to the waveforms in the same range as what the AR device puts out. Move!"
He slumped back in his chair with a sigh. "Someone get me a cup of coffee." He looked up at Elizabeth. "When he gets back, Sheppard, Radek and I have one hell of a story to tell you."
"What the hell?"
Rodney stood on the platform, frozen in shock. He could see, and hear Sheppard and Radek talking about him like he wasn't present.
"Radek!" he yelled, stepping off the platform in front of the other man, waving his hand in his face. Suddenly, Radek moved to the console - walking right through Rodney to do it.
Rodney gasped, then patted down his chest and torso.
"That is so weird!"
"That's exactly what I thought the first time it happened to me."
Rodney whirled around to see - himself. And another Radek. And a Sheppard. He looked over his shoulder at his Radek and Sheppard, then back again.
"What the-" His mind switched gears from his own predicament to process what he was seeing. "You! You're from another reality, and you're here - watching me!"
Sheppard grimaced. "That sounds pretty skeevy when you say it like that."
"Yes, yes, so we are, and you were about to do the same to some other Rodney, so glass houses and all that, hmm?" McKay said brusquely. "So here's the thing. We need to borrow your AR device for a little while."
"And why don't you go use your own?" Rodney demanded. He crossed his arms, present predicament temporarily forgotten.
There was a heavy moment of silence before Sheppard spoke. "Just over 4 hours ago in real time, our Atlantis was overrun by the Wraith. We set off the self destruct just before we shifted."
He dropped his arms, studying each of their faces briefly, the nodded. "I'm sorry," he said. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Have you been here watching us this whole time?" he demanded.
"No," Sheppard replied. "We've been in one of the south east towers staying out of the way while McKay and Zelenka tried to figure out what happened."
"You need to reconfigure the long range sensors to account for the disruption caused by the AR device," Radek spoke urgently. "Or like us, you could be caught blind."
Rodney frowned. "What does the AR device have to do with the sensors?"
McKay gave him a bleak look. "It creates a probability bubble that encompasses the entire city. The sensors are inside the bubble."
He thought about it for a moment and realized with dread what that would mean - and that his reality was wide open and vulnerable to attack as well.
"I have to tell Sheppard!" he said, and tapped in the recall code. Nothing happened. He tried again, but there was still no result. "Why isn't this working? What the hell was I thinking?"
McKay gave him a guilty look. "I may have encouraged you along."
"What, exactly, does that mean?"
"I sort of suggested that you should do it when you were considering making a solo shift earlier."
"You did WHAT!?" Rodney was incensed. "I should have known those weren't my thoughts! They were insane!" he fumed. "Fine. How do I get back?"
"Uhm," McKay hedged. "Well. The thing is. We never used the device solo," he admitted. "Radek was manning the control console when I went."
"Oh, I cannot BELIEVE this! YOU tempted me like an evil siren and now I'm trapped!"
"Hey, I didn't know there would be a problem!" McKay protested. "And we were set to drop out of flux and try to manually override the control console when your Sheppard had to come barging in!"
"So what if he did?"
"Oh right! We should just pop out of nowhere in front of the military commander of Atlantis and say what? 'Don't mind us, we're from an alternate universe here trying to save your Rodney because something's gone wrong since no one was at the controls! Also, do you mind if we borrow your AR machine?' Right! We'd be lucky not to get shot.
"You could have explained!"
"Oh Please! You KNOW that Elizabeth would have us politely detained. We'd end up under observation while they tried to figure out if we were posed a risk, and there would be a million questions, and it would all take far too long. We just don't have the time!"
Sheppard nodded. "If alternate versions of us had suddenly turned up on our Atlantis, I'd have locked them down until I completed a thorough threat assessment, regardless of anything they might have to say." Especially if there had been a threat, real or perceived, to Rodney. He didn't say that part out loud.
"We could continue to waste time bickering, or we could try to work together and come up with a solution," Radek said mildly, earning a double McKay-Rodney glare which he weathered calmly.
"Okay, okay," McKay said. He looked at Rodney. "You set the auto-recall - maybe it'll just whisk you back at the end of the 5 minutes."
Radek shook his head. "I do not believe so. When his controller was disengaged, it became completely independent, and is no longer slaved to the main AR control console. This is why the manual override on the console did not shut it down."
"Oh this is bad, this is very, very bad."
"This might be a stupid question," Sheppard began, and the other three men all looked at him. "But why is he still here? I mean, I thought that this machine sent you somewhere else - a different reality. Why is he here, still in his own?"
"That's a very good question, actually," McKay replied, staring at Rodney. "And I think I know the answer." He pulled out his tablet and started typing. Radek and Rodney both came closer, each looking over a shoulder.
"That makes sense," Rodney muttered.
Radek nodded. "This is what we were missing," he said with a sigh. "When the traveller is controlling the shift, they must set the coordinates mentally."
"So, for the non-scientists in the crowd, again I ask - why is Rodney still here?"
"The field was created, putting him out of phase with his reality," McKay explained. "But he didn't set a destination, so he's in a holding pattern. The DSC is still waiting for coordinates. Think of it like starting a car - the engine is running, but if you don't drive it, you can sit there and idle until you run out of gas."
"So then he just has to wait until he 'runs out of gas'?"
"It is not that simple," Radek explained. "If the DSC runs out of power while the traveller is in flux, he may be trapped out of phase."
"Or, worse," Rodney said. "If the field collapses with someone still inside it, their atomic structure disintegrates with the field and they simply cease to exist. And in this case, that someone would be me."
***
Sheppard stood by helplessly as he watched as the lab fill with sleepy science staff, all pouring over the records to try and figure out what had happened to McKay. It was not a feeling he was accustomed to, and he didn't like it. He stalked around the room, peering over shoulders and generally making the scientists nervous. He didn't really care. He figured if a little pressure worked to motivate McKay from time to time, maybe it would work on his staff as well.
"Sakra!" He looked over at Radek who was standing at the console, swiping a hand over his forehead. "This is worse than useless! There is no log showing degree of displacement. There is no link between console and DSC which is why the override did not shut it down. But there should be something! Some indicator, some measurable sign of where he went, and there's nothing!"
"What I don't understand is what the hell was going through his head," Sheppard growled. "Wasn't he the one ranting about how it wasn't safe for gene carriers to operate?"
"I think perhaps he was making a point." At Sheppard's inquiring look, Radek continued. "He was insisting we move forward with live testing and I believed it was unwise. I brought up Doranda."
Sheppard closed his eyes and let out a sigh. It all made sense now. "And he was trying to prove that he isn't an arrogant prick who places results and discoveries above the lives of his staff." He left out a wry laugh and looked back at Radek. "Yeah, that sounds like Rodney."
Radek looked at him intently. "Colonel, tell me again exactly what you heard."
Sheppard dutifully reiterated, for what seemed like the twelfth time, what he'd heard and observed from the time he arrived at the lab till Rodney had vanished before his eyes. Radek 'hmmmed' and asked a few questions, but the information hadn't changed from the first time he'd told him.
"He didn't say anything about the settings on his controller? About visualizing a destination?"
Sheppard took a breath to explain, yet again, that Rodney had indicated clearly that he didn't know what was happening when one of the scientists gasped.
"Dr. McKay!"
He spun around to find McKay had re-appeared, and a grin split his face. He'd taken two strides toward Rodney before he faltered and stopped.
"You are not McKay," he stated, studying the man standing there. It looked like McKay, but his hair was a little longer, the way it often got when he was immersed in a project and neglected little things like personal grooming and eating balanced meals. He was also wearing a tac vest - and his Rodney had most certainly NOT been dressed for an away mission when he'd vanished from the platform. Sheppard's hand fall to his sidearm.
"Actually, I am," the man disagreed. "I'm just not your McKay. But he's here. Just stuck out of phase. I'm trying to help him get back."
"Can you talk to him?" Radek asked. "Is he alright?"
"No, I can't talk to him," otherMcKay said, the 'you idiot' implied by his tone. "I'm in phase with your universe. I'd have to go back out of phase to talk to him. But he can see you, and hear you - he just can't interact with you in any meaningful way at the moment."
"I think you need to have a little chat with Elizabeth," Sheppard began, lifting his hand to tap his communicator
"We don't have time for that! We've need to him back here as soon as possible because we don't know what will happen when his bubble collapses!" McKay shouted, waving a hand emphatically. "Plus, I kind of need to borrow your AR machine and make a few adjustments to it to get us back home a little earlier than we left."
"Us?" Sheppard asked as he wrapped his fingers around the butt of his glock.
"Earlier?" Radek asked, adjusting his glasses while leaning in eagerly.
OtherMcKay sighed and rolled his eyes. "You also need to get Kusanagi on recalibrating the long range sensors, and I mean right now at this very moment. Now listen carefully, because I only have time to explain this once."
****
Sheppard's mind was a-whirl as he watched OtherMcKay and Radek argue over the console. Elizabeth had come down while OtherMcKay had been explaining the situation. When he was done, there had been a brief argument about detaining him for more questions, but then OtherZelenka had suddenly appeared. He had politely informed them that he and Rodney were working very hard trying to get him home, and could they please stop being idiots and work on the problem at hand? Before anyone could say a word, he'd vanished again.
"Well," Radek had said as he'd polished his glasses furiously. "That is not something one has happen every day. It is heartening to know that I am the voice of reason in more than one universe."
And that had been that - Elizabeth had ordered that anything they required be made available to them and asked John to keep her updated. Kusanagi had got to work on the sensors and reported that they had indeed been getting false readings for several weeks. This almost gave Sheppard a heart attack until she'd advised that they were now correctly calibrated and gave an all clear.
He needed to do something, anything, but there was nothing he could help with. The math he got, but the rest was so far over his head it made his eyes cross trying to follow it. He was feeling anxious, and helpless and a little bored and it was making him extremely cranky. He sauntered to the back of the lab and looked around to make sure no one else was paying any attention to him, then leaned back against he wall and looked at the floor as he began to speak.
"Rodney?" he asked, feeling kind of silly. "I don't know if you're really busy with that Zelenka right now, but if you can hear me - " he stopped, words stuck tight. He took a deep breath and started again. "That thing you said, about being brave. Wishing you told me." He cleared his throat. "I, uhm. I wish that...well, it's not just you, okay?" He nodded. "Okay. So. Get your ass back here. And don't think we're not going to have a talk about doing stupid things to try and prove a point, buddy."
***
Rodney's mouth dropped open.
Sheppard cocked an eyebrow at him. "You didn't know?"
Rodney turned to him and mutely shook his head.
Radek tsked loudly. "Clearly you are not the genius you claim to be in this reality," he remarked.
"Hey!" Rodney protested. "How was I supposed to know? He's always kirking his way around-"
"It's not kirking!" Sheppard argued. "I don't go looking for attention, and I'm sure he doesn't either. Stop saying that."
Rodney gave him a sideways look. "So, you and... and McKay?"
Sheppard gave him a terse nod.
"Really? I mean, me? Him? I would have thought that-"
"You really don't pay attention, do you?" Sheppard cut him off.
"I am not good at people!" he whined. "And I'm terrible at interpersonal relationships!"
"But you are good at deciphering why Ancient technology is not functioning as it should, so you should get back to that, yes?" Radek said pointedly.
Rodney's gaze flicked back to study his Sheppard for a moment. He took in the tense set of the other man's shoulders, the tightness in his face. How was he have supposed to have known? He'd thought Sheppard was straight for god's sake!
With a sigh, he returned his attention to the DSC and tried yet again to figure out how to control it with his brain.
***
About an hour later, OtherMcKay stretched and let out a groan. "Okay, 5 minute break," he said. "I'll be right back." He tapped something on his DSC and promptly vanished.
"Dammit, McKay!" Sheppard snarled. "You could at least warn us!"
"He needs to check in with his Zelenka to see if they have made any progress," Radek said with a bemused expression. "I believe we have successfully managed to configure the AR device to modulate the shift with a 6 hour delay, but this will dangerously deplete the DSCs. Anything farther back and they may fail."
"What happens if they fail?"
"We lose molecular cohesion during the shift and our component atoms are spread out across the cosmos," OtherMcKay said as he and OtherZelenka both suddenly phased into view.
"That is most disturbing to witness," Radek said mildly as he shook his head. "What is Rodney's status?"
"We've been trying to ascertain how the mental controls work, but he's not getting anywhere," OtherZelenka said. "Unlike the jumpers, it seems that once the device is set for mental operation, the keypad is disabled."
"The power level on his DSC is getting dangerously low," added OtherMcKay. "By my estimate, he's got, at most, another 45 minutes."
OtherZelenka spoke again. "Our window for getting back is rapidly closing. The three of us must leave in the next ten minutes or there is no guarantee we will arrive in time to prevent the destruction of our Atlantis."
"Once you leave, we lose all contact with Rodney!" Sheppard objected.
"There is also the concern that if you re-initialize the AR device for a temporal shift before we are able to retrieve Rodney, it may interfere with ability of his DSC to lock into the command console," Radek added.
Sheppard took a step toward the other man, hands clenched at his sides. "You are not using that device and leaving our McKay stranded in limbo!"
"If we don't go, over a hundred people on Atlantis will die!" argued OtherMcKay. "And we lose the city!" He looked from Radek to Sheppard. "Colonel. John. I wouldn't want to be responsible for that. I promise you, he wouldn't want to be either."
"Rodney." A new voice cut across the tense silence, and they all looked over to where OtherSheppard had appeared. "We're not leaving until either they get their McKay back or his DSC completely runs out of power."
"John, if we don't go in the next few minutes, it will be too late!"
"No," he said, stepping close to McKay to put a hand on his shoulder. "This isn't our universe. I wouldn't let them talk me into leaving you stranded if the situation were reversed. We have no right to dictate to them what they must do."
Sheppard studied the two men. He saw the anguish written on OtherMcKay's face and realized, to his shame, he'd suspected the man of being more motivated by saving himself than saving his Atlantis. Just like his Rodney, McKay was an open book, and he was clearly suffering the loss of his city and his friends. His own doppelganger appeared to have a stoic facade, except it was his face, and he knew what every twitch and every tense muscle meant. It was killing the other man to make this choice, to respect his orders - to not go for his gun and try to commandeer the AR console by force. He swallowed.
"What did Rodney say to you?" he asked quietly. The other Sheppard gave him a hooded look.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "We're not leaving him stranded."
"What. Did. He. Say?"
OtherSheppard sighed. "He said we should go, and that he didn't really want to have that conversation with you anyway."
Sheppard swore and looked away, trying to get a lid on the feelings raging through him. His eyes landed on the three DSCs sitting in a pile on the counter and he had a sudden thought.
"What if I went after him?" he asked, thoughts flying as he tried to piece together what they'd been explaining about the shifts and the displacement field and controlling all with your mind. "I mean, you guys are always telling me I have the strongest expression of the gene, and McKay always complains that Ancient tech just rolls over and begs when I ask nicely - maybe I can figure it out."
"Colonel, we have no way of knowing that you will be any more successful at manipulating it that Rodney has been," Radek said. "We could end up losing both of you!"
"But you might be able to make it work," his counterpart said. "If anyone could, I'd bet on me - so, I'd bet on you."
"We may be able to learn something if we observed the results of a DSC initialization," added OtherZelenka. "But we might not. There is no guarantee. Radek is right to warn you against this. You could be lost as well."
Sheppard grabbed a DSC and snapped it closed around his wrist. "Fire it up, Radek. I'm not just sitting here and waiting for him to run out of time. I have to at least try!" He looked over at the other Sheppard. "As soon as I'm gone, you three haul ass home."
"You sure about this?" he asked. "You heard what the geek squad said."
Sheppard shrugged. "We'll get home or we won't. If this thing is really supposed to be controlled by the DSC, it shouldn't matter what changes you make to the settings on the base unit, right? Besides, I have to go after him. It's what we do. And I think it's my turn anyway."
"It is, actually," OtherMcKay announced, and Sheppard gave a soft huff of laughter.
He stepped up on the platform while Radek made some adjustments. "Colonel, you must input the following code."
He carefully entered the sequence as Radek instructed, and as he finished, a soft chime began to sound. Radek and OtherZelenka were studying the console. "It is as we thought," Radek said. "Initializing the platform through the DSC locks out the main console and keypad. The chime seems to be an indicator that the DSC is ready for the input of a location."
*Take me to Rodney,* Sheppard thought, but the chiming was joined by a second, jarring tone.
"That's the sound I heard when I came in," he informed them. A flurry of activity followed while the two Radeks and the OtherMcKay had a rapid fire conversation consisting of the strange shorthand that only they could understand - "No, no, the other - " and "Yes, now just, what if-" followed by, "No - yes -that, if we... yes, exactly!"
OtherMcKay's head snapped up. "Colonel, I want you to think about going into a holding pattern."
Sheppard dutifully imagined hovering above the gateroom floor with a jumper. The alarm halted unexpectedly and the AI spoke, startling them all. "Trans-dimensional shift in progress - disengaging controller from matrix. Displacement Field will engage in 10 seconds."
Radek took over. "Colonel, listen carefully. You should be able to link your controller with Rodney's. Once you are in physical contact, the field generated by your DSC will extend to him as well. You must override the safety mechanism on Rodney's DSC and remove it. His device has, essentially, crashed because there was no destination input before he shifted. If it fails while he is still wearing it, it will kill him. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, Radek, I got that part."
"Make very sure Rodney is touching you when this happens when you remove the DSC, or he will be lost in flux. Once you have done this, you only need to initiate the recall sequence. Do you have any ques-"
"Field Engaged - commencing shift."
Sheppard vanished.
"Well," OtherMcKay spoke after several seconds of silence. "I hate to be the one who ruins the moment, but we really need to get going."
Radek and OtherZelenka nodded at the same time and set to work making the necessary adjustments while OtherMcKay and OtherSheppard stepped up on the platform. About 30 seconds later, the discordant chime was back.
"Temporal anomaly detected. Time slip imminent with this shift."
OtherZelenka joined them on the platform and the three of them synched their DSCs.
OtherSheppard looked at them. "Ready?"
The two men nodded. He turned to Radek. "Send us home, Dr. Zee."
"At Buh te chránit," he whispered as he hit the control and watched them disappear.
***
"What is wrong with you?" Rodney yelled as soon as he realized Sheppard could see him. "It's bad enough I'm trapped here! Then you have to go rushing headlong where Angels fear to tread and take a chance on getting stuck here too!"
Sheppard took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "McKay," he said as he walked toward him, "It's time for you and I to have a chat. Now shut up and give me your wrist."
Rodney cringed. "Look, can't we just forget what I said?" he asked. "Chalk it up to crazy things that come pouring out of my mouth when I am afraid for my life and we'll never speak of it again?"
"No," he said deliberately, grabbing Rodney's wrist when he didn't offer it willingly. There was a brief flare as the two displacement fields meshed. Sheppard studied the DSC, noting the seam where it closed. He pressed the release, but unsurprisingly, nothing happened.
"Do you have any tools on you?" he asked. Rodney started patting down his tac vest with his free hand, then shook his head.
"Okay then," Sheppard said and bent over to retrieve a small knife from his boot.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Rodney protested, trying to wrench his hand free from Sheppard's grip.
"Rodney, stop it," Sheppard growled, yanking him closer. Rodney stumbled forward and Sheppard caught him, arms automatically wrapping around the other man to keep him from falling. Rodney's hands flailed briefly, finally coming to rest on Sheppard's shoulders, eyes wide as he looked up into his face. They stood like that for a long moment until Sheppard finally pulled his arms away. McKay went to pull back and Sheppard grabbed his wrist again.
"Leave your other hand on my shoulder," he ordered. "Didn't you hear what Zelenka said? We have to be in physical contact while I get this off you."
McKay's fingers tightened around his shoulder in a wordless reply as Sheppard pulled the wrist with the DSC on it close and began to wiggle the knife point into the seam.
"You were stuck on that platform," Sheppard spoke as he worked. "Then you say - things, and then you vanish." There was a snick. He put the knife in his teeth and tried to pry it open with his fingers but it didn't budge. He went back to work on removing the device.
"I thought we lost you. That I lost you." The words were like sandpaper in his throat, but he forced them out. "Right after you tell me-" he trailed off for a moment, hands stilled as he tried to find the words. He looked up into Rodney's stunned expression. "It's not just you, okay?"
They heard the AI announce the temporal displacement, heard Radek say something quietly in Czech, and then their three visitors were gone.
"I hope they make it back in time," Rodney said quietly.
"Me too," Sheppard replied. He tried working the knife in from the end, and had a little more success. The lights on McKay's DSC suddenly all flashed red.
"Oh crap," McKay said, fingers clenched at the fabric of Sheppard's BDUs. Sheppard gave up on careful and jammed the knife in - if he sliced Rodney's wrist and earned an earful about trying to kill him, well at least he'd still be here to give him an earful. He twisted as hard as he could and with an audible snap, the device popped free. The lights turned to a solid red at that moment. They watched it fall, it faded away to nothing before it hit the floor.
He felt a shudder go through Rodney. In one smooth motion, he tucked away his knife, then slipped an arm around his waist to pul him in close. He lifted his other hand to caress Rodney's face, running a thumb over his bottom lip before leaning in to kiss him. It was soft and achingly sweet, and he only let it last a few seconds before pulling away.
"Oh," said Rodney, looking a bit dazed and Sheppard smiled.
"Yes, oh," he agreed. "Time to go home, buddy," he said as he moved back a bit. "Don't let go." He pulled his arm from around Rodney and tapped in the recall code.
***
"You are back!" Radek shouted. He tapped his comm. "Yes, Dr. Weir, they are both back, safe and sound," he said.
Sheppard hit the release on his DSC. "I think that I'll stick with the puddle jumpers if it's all the same to you, Dr. Zee," he said, dropping the device on the table.
"I think that would be quite acceptable, Colonel," Radek said with a smile. He turned to McKay. "And you, Rodney?" he asked, his expression turning solemn. "You frightened us all, my friend. I am glad you are safe. But I am even gladder that it is not I who must explain my actions."
"This was so not my fault!" McKay exclaimed. "That - that *me* from another reality, he admitted that he was egging me along!"
"Yes, but you were the one who was considering it in the first place, Rodney!"
"I wasn't going to do it! He seduced me into it!"
Sheppard cocked an eyebrow at him. "I can't wait to see you try to sell that to Elizabeth."
Rodney glared at him, but suddenly all he could think of was the feel of Sheppard's lips on his own. He felt heat flood his face and he looked away. A moment later, Sheppard was right there, bumping his shoulder, a funny little smile on his face.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
Rodney nodded. "Yeah. I guess there's no point in putting it off - better go face the music."
Rodney knew he went red right to the tips of his ears when Sheppard leaned in and whispered, "After that, we can get back to our chat. I've got more to say, but none of it involves words."
Wednesday, 15:27 Atlantis Standard Time
Atlantis, Pegasus Galaxy
"On the third shift, there was an interesting item in the lab," Rodney said, recounting a description of an interesting piece of tech he'd seen. "It looked like... like..." he suddenly stopped, a blank look on his face.
"Rodney?" Weir asked, leaning forward in her chair. "Rodney, are you okay?"
He didn't respond. After a moment, he slumped back in his chair, expression going slack.
She looked over at Dr. Zelenka to find that he wore the same expression. She tapped her ear bud. "Medical emergency. Dr. Beckett, Radek and Rodney are in my office and both seem to be suffering from some kind of absence seizure," she reported. "Please send a team to my office immediately," she said.
"On my way, love," he responded.
She stepped out from behind her desk and came around to kneel beside Radek and check his pulse. Rapid, but steady. She checked Rodney's and found the same.
"Unscheduled offworld activation!" came Chuck's unwelcome announcement from the gateroom. This was the last thing she needed. Just then, the medical team arrived. She cleared out to give them room to work and strode into the command centre.
"Report."
"It's SA3, ma'am. They say they have a medical situation- something's wrong with Colonel Sheppard."
Elizabeth felt a prickle of dread up her spine. Three of her executive suddenly out of commission? There was no way this was coincidence.
"Drop the shield. Medical team to the gate room."
"Elizabeth, McKay's awake!" Beckett called from her office. She hurried back to find Rodney struggling to push away the nurse who was trying to check his responses to a penlight.
"Rodney," she exclaimed in relief. "Just relax. We're going to get you down to medical."
"Cloak the city," he rasped.
"What? But why?"
"Do it!" he insisted in a tone that brooked no argument.
"You heard the man," she said to Chuck who had been listening to the whole exchange. "Get the cloak up."
"Yes, Ma'am," he said and seconds later, the city was invisible.
"Time! What time is it?" he demanded.
"It's almost 3:30," she replied, puzzled.
"We made it," came Radek's thready voice from behind her.
She glanced back and forth between them. "What are you talking about?"
McKay waved her off and tapped his own ear bud. "Kusanagi, I want you to re-calibrate the long range sensors. No, do it now, right now! Pay specific attention to the waveforms in the same range as what the AR device puts out. Move!"
He slumped back in his chair with a sigh. "Someone get me a cup of coffee." He looked up at Elizabeth. "When he gets back, Sheppard, Radek and I have one hell of a story to tell you."