The Baby Room (1/?)
Chapter One
Theodora Spinnet was not pleased as she walked though the hallways of Atlantis. When she had agreed to head up a new linguistics department in the City she hadn’t thought this is what her work basically would be. That the scientists would ignore her translations and do whatever they pleased.
Granted it wasn’t far to group all the scientists into one group like that. Dr. Zelenka tended to head her translations and Dr. McKay at least looked at them before going on to do something. It was mainly Drs. Kavenagh and Timov who ignored her. Hence her travel to Dr. Weir’s office to supersede them on this particular case.
They had found a room in the lower right quadrant of the city that had been sealed with a message stamped onto the seal. She had been able to translate only a few as it wasn’t as clear as she would have liked but pictures had been taken and she had put it though the computer program she had designed to bring out the letters. She wasn’t ready to say ‘go ahead and explore’. The words she had picked up were ‘child’ ‘nine’ and ‘stopped’. Kavengah and Timov had decided it must be a children’s room that had been sealed off for an unknown reason.
Dora wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. After all, there had to be a reason it was sealed. None of the other rooms had been sealed. So she was going to talk to Elizabeth about postponing the exploration of the room till she could get a more complete translation of the seal.
She arrived at the office and knocked on the door. Elizabeth looked up and motioned for her to enter the room.
“Can I help you, Dr. Spinnet?” She asked pushing aside the report she had been reading.
“I need to talk to you about a project I have been working on with Kavanagh and Timov,” she began. “They wish to explore a room which was sealed and I do not believe it is wise to investigate the room any further until I can make a more complete translation of the text placed on the seal.” Elizabeth frowned.
“They gave me the impression that you had already made a translation.”
“Only a few words were clear enough to translate on site. I’m running the photographs of the seal though my computer program right now to see if I can a better translation. I could only get a few words but not enough to tell me why the room had been sealed off.”
“Well, I had given them the ok on the exploration of the room with the information I was given. I can see what I can do to postpone it. They may have already started it.” Elizabeth and Dora walked out of the room and towards the area the room was located in. When they arrived they found the door of the room was open. Inside the room stood Rodney and Ronan Dex, while the other scientists mulled about the outside, preparing equipment to Dr. Kavanagh’s instructions.
The room appeared to be bare, with no furniture or windows. The walls were all a while color that seemed to glow including the floor. It was rectangular and there was nothing in the room besides the two men after a look around from the doorway.
Dora didn’t walk in, choosing to watch from outside the room, but Elizabeth and Teyla (who had just arrived) walked straight into the room to talk to Rodney and Ronan about it since they couldn’t get any information out of Kavanagh.
The four of them were talking when Dora saw one of the scientists had found a control panel near where the door was. He opened it up and found there to be two buttons. She walked over and started to read the inscriptions below each button.
The red button stated it was a start button for whatever procedure the room was supposed to have. The Blue button appeared to be the start button for another procedure. Obviously the buttons were meant to be used by someone who knew what the room was for.
She relayed this to the scientist in charge, and walked back to the doorway of the room, where the four were standing.
“Doesn’t appear to have anything to do with children as far as I can tell.” Rodney noted as she joined them. “That is what Kavanagh told me this was. Some kind of children’s play room. Atlantis Day Care I suppose.”
“Well, I haven’t gotten a complete translation yet.” Clearly Kavanagh, in his eagerness to show he wasn’t a complete failure (which no one really thought) had decided to take what she had said and blow it out of the water. She was about to comment on that when the formally mentioned scientist cried out.
“No! Don’t push that!” Dora turned around to face Kavanagh as the man rushed by her too late to stop the man who had decided to fiddle with the buttons. The walls and floors of the room began to glow a reddish hue and when it stopped, the four who had been actually in the room were now on the floor, unconscious.
Dora walked into the room, despite the protests of the others and knelt near the four. All of them had pulses and simply seemed to have passed out. She could hear Kavanagh calling for medical personal and then talking to the scientist who had figured he could play. She concentrated on checking each of the unconscious for other signs of what may have gone wrong that she could recognize and didn’t see John Sheppard came in.
“What exactly happened here?” She looked up at him, surprised to see him.
“What happened here is someone didn’t listen to me, and another person didn’t listen to him.” She could see that Elizabeth, whom she was kneeling next to appeared to be breathing ok. She tried not to sound annoyed when she spoke but the Colonel had always managed to bring that side of her out. It hadn’t helped that the moment she saw him she was attracted. That particular factoid annoyed her the most, that she had an attraction for the guy who ran the place. Half the staff did and frankly she rather not join the masses in their adulation of Lt. Colonel John Sheppard. “These four were exploring the room. After the initial opening it appeared to be safe but one of the lower ranking scientist decided to play buttons and now is answering to the Rath of Kav,” she continued.
At that moment, Carson Beckett and his crew burst into the scene and swooped down on the injured. They quickly assessed the damage and put the four on stretchers. They were carried off and Dora went to follow him but the Colonel held her back.
“Can you give me something more then ‘Dr. Spinnet abridged’,” he asked with a tone that made her realize he was as annoyed with her as she was with him at the moment.
“What exactly do you want, Colonel? A synopsis of my day? I told you what happened.”
“You do told me the basic facts but I know there is more to this story. I wasn’t aware there was going to be exploration in this part of the city.” He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed across his chest. “Begin at the start. I’m sure Carson would just kick us out anyway if we tried to follow him into the infirmary.” She had to agree with him there. Carson was getting stricter about visiting hours due to a case where people had interfered by being there.
“Well, we found this room early this morning while mapping out this part of the city. I was assigned to translate anything we came across that needed to be translated,” she started knowing full well he already knew this. However he had asked for the complete and unabridged story and so she was going to give it to him. She leaned against the wall beside him, watching as the various scientist began sending sensors into the room to investigate what had happened. “Dr. Kavanagh and Dr. Timov decided that even though I could only make out a few words the room seemed to be harmless and some exploration could be done. They conveniently forgot to mention I hadn’t made a complete translation when the got the permission to remove the seal on the door.”
She began to tap the wall with her hands as she normally did when not busy. “I went to discuss this with Elizabeth when they went in with Rodney and Mr. Dex. When we arrived Teyla Emmagen and Elizabeth walked into the room as well. We found a button. Some assistant for Kavanagh decided to ignore our instructions to not touch them and pushed the button. And then hell broke lose and you arrived.” He seemed satisfied with that and walked off.
She sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. When she woke up she had thought it was going to be a good day.
~*~
Carson couldn’t explain it. By all accounts the four of them were in perfect health and sleeping. The women were showing slight variations but for the most part appeared to be the same as their latest physical.
They had the four patients laying on the beds away from the main part of the infirmary so no one could bother them. Dr. Frohike was running all tests on them and was working with Dr. Biro to complete them as soon as they could.
What had happened in that room?
“Are they alright?” Carson jumped slightly at the sound of John’s voice but quickly recovered and turned to face him.
“As far as I can tell right now, they seem healthy. I just can’t figure out why they were unconscious like that.” He shook his head. “There are a few more tests to be done and Dr. Spinnet needs to get to me with her translation of this seal. It may show us what exactly is wrong.
John nodded. “She said she hadn’t finished when they had began to open the room.”
“Aye. That is what Dr. Kavanagh told me when I asked him about what happened when we arrived. But she’s still working on it. Can I ask a question…What is it with you two.” Carson had noticed the slight animosity between the two the last six months. Not enough to really concern him about their working together but as a friend he had wondered about it.
“I’m not exactly sure. She just sets me on edge somehow. She’s made a point of not liking me from the moment we met.” John shook his head. “She seems to be friends with everyone else, but has something against me and of course it doesn’t help me like her any better.”