Summer Pic-Fic Challenge: The Specimen Strikes Back (Chapter 2)
Originally posted by nacinom at SGA FanFic: The Specimen Strikes Back (Chapter 2)
Title: The Specimen Strikes Back
Author: nacinom
Rating: PG13
Characters: John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, drama
Spoilers: Set during Season 3, soon after "Sunday"
Chapter word count: 1602 (Chapter 2 of 10-ish)
Disclaimer: The SGA world is not mine. I wrote this story for fun not profit.
Summary: The team is split up by difficult circumstances. Her Wraith detector tingling, Teyla wakes up alone in a very strange place. The last thing she remembers was that Sheppard had been with her. Will anything stop her from finding out what the heck is going on?
Acknowledgements: Thank you to to coolbreeze1 for the very cool pic prompt. Another huge thanks to
amycat8733 and firedew1 for being my wonderful beta readers. Keep in mind that they haven't seen this version of this chapter. All mistakes are mine.
Written for: The sheppard_hc 2013 Summer Pic-Fic Challenge
Pic Prompt: Click here to see the original pic that coolbreeze1 sent me. I modified it a bit to create this story banner.
Chapter 2
One moment, John had been firing round after round at the Dart, becoming increasingly frustrated because it had flown nearly out of range. Then, out of nowhere, twin sharp pains had struck him at the back of the head, as if two nails were being rammed into his skull. Teyla had yelled something and pushed him to the ground. Disoriented by the pain, he had crashed down awkwardly. His tac vest did little to cushion the right side of his ribcage from the impact onto a tangle of deadwood and rocks.
Even though he hadn't hit it, the hammering in his head became excruciating and then his world dissolved into nothing.
The next moment, he woke up as something cut into the back of his left triceps. Instinctively aware that he wasn't in friendly territory, he stopped himself from crying out. Though he couldn't help but jerk away from the object that relentlessly burrowed into his arm.
His temporary loss of self-control didn't matter. He hadn't moved at all.
Tight rubbery bands restrained him at the forehead, chest, hips, wrists, elbows, thighs and ankles. He couldn't even turn his head. A contraption that he couldn't see held him face down, at an angle so that his head was lower than his feet.
Below him there was a pale grey floor made of large rectangular plates. The room was brightly lit from above; he could see his own shadow. He appeared to have been strapped into a sort of oblong frame, like a giant version of the fancy metal baskets Mrs. Danview-their family’s talented cook-used to grill whole fish for his father’s pretentious barbecue parties.
Four elongated shapes flanked his shadow. They moved like arms with extra joints. Robotic, he guessed. That had to be a better explanation than the other idea that popped into his head. Extra-creepy aliens.
No one spoke. The only noises he heard were a low persistent hum, like a spinning fan, and sporadic clicking noises. No sounds of breathing or other movements. An bitter chemical scent, reminiscent of formaldehyde and chlorine bleach, assaulted his nostrils.
All the information that he could gather with his admittedly restricted senses suggested that he was alone in the room.
At first he thought that this place wasn't anything Wraith-related. Then he second guessed himself. He couldn't rule out that it might be something concocted by Michael-he tended to be more creative than the others of his kind. John still felt guilty for his part in the genesis of that über-evil Wraith nemesis. He should have fought harder against the experiment. But why was he even thinking of this? Guilt was such a useless emotion to creep up on him at this time.
Despite the utter discomfort, his first truly coherent thought zoomed in on Teyla. Where and how was she? From his very limited range of sight, not a trace of her-he wanted to believe that her absence was a good thing. Wherever she was had to better than his current predicament. The other possibility was too awful to even think about. She had just gotten back off the injured list since that Sunday when they lost Carson and too many others.
Don’t go there, John told himself. And this was also not the time to think about Rodney and Ronon’s whereabouts. In this rather dicey situation, he had to focus on the here and now to maintain a solid grip on himself.
The scorching heat that wracked his injured arm, contrasted wildly with the cold that penetrated deep into the rest of his body. He was surprised not to see misty puffs coming out of his mouth as he panted through the agony.
Whatever kind of hell this was, it was freezing.
And, to top it off, he had been liberated of every stitch of clothing. His time well spent at the US Air Force SERE school notwithstanding, it was damned hard to maintain confidence in oneself when that self was naked, restrained and undergoing some type of invasive surgery while wide awake. During those not so fun-filled training sessions, he had not been exposed (pardon the pun) to anything resembling this particular scenario.
His head throbbed, a lingering reminder of the last thing he had felt before waking up in this torture chamber. What the f-k had happened?
He didn't believe that anyone could have possibly managed to get past Teyla to bludgeon or shoot him at the back of his thick skull. Not unless they had gotten to her first.
But no, he remembered that this monster of a headache had come first, before Teyla had tackled him to the ground. She had ended up sprawled on top of him, frankly feeling heavier than she should. She had been yelling something. Maybe a warning of some kind. He could think of no reason for either of them to have been singled out for special attention. Whoever had taken him must have taken her too. She had to be alright. At least, she had to be alive.
The pain made it so hard to think straight.
The pressure in his arm relented for a few seconds as the drill withdrew. His sigh of relief became a yelp, or rather a squelched manly groan, when another instrument dug into his arm. It pulled and tugged, like forceps or a pitchfork. He gritted his teeth as he rode through the searing pain and the accompanying waves of nausea that threatened to make him spew his guts.
The forceps scraped bone. His eyes misted and he could no longer follow the movements of the shadows vivisecting him. He bit his lip to stop his urge to scream.
After what seemed forever, the forceps finally withdrew. Something clanged into a receptacle.
His transmitter, no doubt. So much for Carson’s-bless his departed soul-bright idea to implant it deeper to avoid detection by camouflaging it along the bone. Great in theory, but the repercussions, not so much. Note to self: recommend reinstituting the old-fashioned subcutaneous approach. Easy in, easy out.
Blood, his blood to be exact, dripped onto the floor. It wasn't an alarming amount yet, but still …
“Hey, at least put a bandage on it,” he said, not the cleverest of conversation starters but it was the most polite thing he could came up with. It wasn't the time to piss off his captors, yet.
No one replied.
Instead, a cold blunt probe pressed along the line of his spine starting at the base of his neck.
He definitely didn't like where it was going. “What are you doing? How about we talk about this?”
Silence, except for the steady clicking sounds he supposed were being made by the mechanisms of the robotic arms. Was he really alone? Someone had to be monitoring whatever was being done to him.
The probe stopped right above his tail bone. The clicks replaced by whirls. No longer blunt, the probe’s newly sharp tip began to drill. Slowly.
What he felt now made him completely forget his hurt arm and head.
He fought the restraints. Nothing budged.
“What … do … you want?” he asked, struggling to speak instead of screaming.
No one answered.
Another probe began its trek down his spine. This one stopped half way down his back before it too started to drill. In a tremendous shock wave, pain swept out to fire what had to be every single nerve ending in his body. He couldn’t breathe. This was worse than when the Wraith had fed on him.
His stomach flipped. At the first sounds of retching, a flexible hose, like the trunk of an elephant, reached over him and covered his mouth. It sucked up his vomit on the go.
Not a drop fell to the floor.
He coughed and gagged, unable to fill his lungs with enough oxygen. Some sort of tubing must have been strategically placed farther south along his body because, while he was sure that he had wet himself, no liquid other than blood splattered the floor. As if his helpless nudity wasn't humiliating enough.
The removal of his transmitter he could understand in a strategic way, but he couldn't figure out the reason for the other surgical stuff.
“Why are you doing this?” he said in a whisper before he passed out.
After that, time passed excruciatingly slowly and paradoxically quickly as the ministrations of new implements of pain jarred John into consciousness and the agony escalated until he plunged back into blissful oblivion.
When he managed to string a few thoughts together, he couldn't decide what was worse, being woken up by a thin tube snaking through his nostril down his throat, or to the sting of multiple simultaneous injections into his stomach, the side of his neck and-of all things-between his middle and pointer fingers. Though, maybe, he didn't have to choose. So far, his hosts had demonstrated the uncanny ability to outdo themselves in the nasty surprise department.
In another moment of lucidity, John figured out that while there had to be a point to these excruciating procedures, all the reasons he could conjure up were too absurd to be true. Which meant that at least one of them had to be on the mark.
Even more than the physical torment, what was driving him nuts was the unbroken silence that followed each of the questions he flung out in a progressively croakier voice. If his captors were going to dissect him to death, at the very least they should have the courtesy to tell him why.
Go back to C hapter 1.
Title: The Specimen Strikes Back
Author: nacinom
Rating: PG13
Characters: John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, drama
Spoilers: Set during Season 3, soon after "Sunday"
Chapter word count: 1602 (Chapter 2 of 10-ish)
Disclaimer: The SGA world is not mine. I wrote this story for fun not profit.
Summary: The team is split up by difficult circumstances. Her Wraith detector tingling, Teyla wakes up alone in a very strange place. The last thing she remembers was that Sheppard had been with her. Will anything stop her from finding out what the heck is going on?
Acknowledgements: Thank you to to coolbreeze1 for the very cool pic prompt. Another huge thanks to
amycat8733 and firedew1 for being my wonderful beta readers. Keep in mind that they haven't seen this version of this chapter. All mistakes are mine.
Written for: The sheppard_hc 2013 Summer Pic-Fic Challenge
Pic Prompt: Click here to see the original pic that coolbreeze1 sent me. I modified it a bit to create this story banner.
Chapter 2
One moment, John had been firing round after round at the Dart, becoming increasingly frustrated because it had flown nearly out of range. Then, out of nowhere, twin sharp pains had struck him at the back of the head, as if two nails were being rammed into his skull. Teyla had yelled something and pushed him to the ground. Disoriented by the pain, he had crashed down awkwardly. His tac vest did little to cushion the right side of his ribcage from the impact onto a tangle of deadwood and rocks.
Even though he hadn't hit it, the hammering in his head became excruciating and then his world dissolved into nothing.
The next moment, he woke up as something cut into the back of his left triceps. Instinctively aware that he wasn't in friendly territory, he stopped himself from crying out. Though he couldn't help but jerk away from the object that relentlessly burrowed into his arm.
His temporary loss of self-control didn't matter. He hadn't moved at all.
Tight rubbery bands restrained him at the forehead, chest, hips, wrists, elbows, thighs and ankles. He couldn't even turn his head. A contraption that he couldn't see held him face down, at an angle so that his head was lower than his feet.
Below him there was a pale grey floor made of large rectangular plates. The room was brightly lit from above; he could see his own shadow. He appeared to have been strapped into a sort of oblong frame, like a giant version of the fancy metal baskets Mrs. Danview-their family’s talented cook-used to grill whole fish for his father’s pretentious barbecue parties.
Four elongated shapes flanked his shadow. They moved like arms with extra joints. Robotic, he guessed. That had to be a better explanation than the other idea that popped into his head. Extra-creepy aliens.
No one spoke. The only noises he heard were a low persistent hum, like a spinning fan, and sporadic clicking noises. No sounds of breathing or other movements. An bitter chemical scent, reminiscent of formaldehyde and chlorine bleach, assaulted his nostrils.
All the information that he could gather with his admittedly restricted senses suggested that he was alone in the room.
At first he thought that this place wasn't anything Wraith-related. Then he second guessed himself. He couldn't rule out that it might be something concocted by Michael-he tended to be more creative than the others of his kind. John still felt guilty for his part in the genesis of that über-evil Wraith nemesis. He should have fought harder against the experiment. But why was he even thinking of this? Guilt was such a useless emotion to creep up on him at this time.
Despite the utter discomfort, his first truly coherent thought zoomed in on Teyla. Where and how was she? From his very limited range of sight, not a trace of her-he wanted to believe that her absence was a good thing. Wherever she was had to better than his current predicament. The other possibility was too awful to even think about. She had just gotten back off the injured list since that Sunday when they lost Carson and too many others.
Don’t go there, John told himself. And this was also not the time to think about Rodney and Ronon’s whereabouts. In this rather dicey situation, he had to focus on the here and now to maintain a solid grip on himself.
The scorching heat that wracked his injured arm, contrasted wildly with the cold that penetrated deep into the rest of his body. He was surprised not to see misty puffs coming out of his mouth as he panted through the agony.
Whatever kind of hell this was, it was freezing.
And, to top it off, he had been liberated of every stitch of clothing. His time well spent at the US Air Force SERE school notwithstanding, it was damned hard to maintain confidence in oneself when that self was naked, restrained and undergoing some type of invasive surgery while wide awake. During those not so fun-filled training sessions, he had not been exposed (pardon the pun) to anything resembling this particular scenario.
His head throbbed, a lingering reminder of the last thing he had felt before waking up in this torture chamber. What the f-k had happened?
He didn't believe that anyone could have possibly managed to get past Teyla to bludgeon or shoot him at the back of his thick skull. Not unless they had gotten to her first.
But no, he remembered that this monster of a headache had come first, before Teyla had tackled him to the ground. She had ended up sprawled on top of him, frankly feeling heavier than she should. She had been yelling something. Maybe a warning of some kind. He could think of no reason for either of them to have been singled out for special attention. Whoever had taken him must have taken her too. She had to be alright. At least, she had to be alive.
The pain made it so hard to think straight.
The pressure in his arm relented for a few seconds as the drill withdrew. His sigh of relief became a yelp, or rather a squelched manly groan, when another instrument dug into his arm. It pulled and tugged, like forceps or a pitchfork. He gritted his teeth as he rode through the searing pain and the accompanying waves of nausea that threatened to make him spew his guts.
The forceps scraped bone. His eyes misted and he could no longer follow the movements of the shadows vivisecting him. He bit his lip to stop his urge to scream.
After what seemed forever, the forceps finally withdrew. Something clanged into a receptacle.
His transmitter, no doubt. So much for Carson’s-bless his departed soul-bright idea to implant it deeper to avoid detection by camouflaging it along the bone. Great in theory, but the repercussions, not so much. Note to self: recommend reinstituting the old-fashioned subcutaneous approach. Easy in, easy out.
Blood, his blood to be exact, dripped onto the floor. It wasn't an alarming amount yet, but still …
“Hey, at least put a bandage on it,” he said, not the cleverest of conversation starters but it was the most polite thing he could came up with. It wasn't the time to piss off his captors, yet.
No one replied.
Instead, a cold blunt probe pressed along the line of his spine starting at the base of his neck.
He definitely didn't like where it was going. “What are you doing? How about we talk about this?”
Silence, except for the steady clicking sounds he supposed were being made by the mechanisms of the robotic arms. Was he really alone? Someone had to be monitoring whatever was being done to him.
The probe stopped right above his tail bone. The clicks replaced by whirls. No longer blunt, the probe’s newly sharp tip began to drill. Slowly.
What he felt now made him completely forget his hurt arm and head.
He fought the restraints. Nothing budged.
“What … do … you want?” he asked, struggling to speak instead of screaming.
No one answered.
Another probe began its trek down his spine. This one stopped half way down his back before it too started to drill. In a tremendous shock wave, pain swept out to fire what had to be every single nerve ending in his body. He couldn’t breathe. This was worse than when the Wraith had fed on him.
His stomach flipped. At the first sounds of retching, a flexible hose, like the trunk of an elephant, reached over him and covered his mouth. It sucked up his vomit on the go.
Not a drop fell to the floor.
He coughed and gagged, unable to fill his lungs with enough oxygen. Some sort of tubing must have been strategically placed farther south along his body because, while he was sure that he had wet himself, no liquid other than blood splattered the floor. As if his helpless nudity wasn't humiliating enough.
The removal of his transmitter he could understand in a strategic way, but he couldn't figure out the reason for the other surgical stuff.
“Why are you doing this?” he said in a whisper before he passed out.
After that, time passed excruciatingly slowly and paradoxically quickly as the ministrations of new implements of pain jarred John into consciousness and the agony escalated until he plunged back into blissful oblivion.
When he managed to string a few thoughts together, he couldn't decide what was worse, being woken up by a thin tube snaking through his nostril down his throat, or to the sting of multiple simultaneous injections into his stomach, the side of his neck and-of all things-between his middle and pointer fingers. Though, maybe, he didn't have to choose. So far, his hosts had demonstrated the uncanny ability to outdo themselves in the nasty surprise department.
In another moment of lucidity, John figured out that while there had to be a point to these excruciating procedures, all the reasons he could conjure up were too absurd to be true. Which meant that at least one of them had to be on the mark.
Even more than the physical torment, what was driving him nuts was the unbroken silence that followed each of the questions he flung out in a progressively croakier voice. If his captors were going to dissect him to death, at the very least they should have the courtesy to tell him why.
Go back to C hapter 1.