Fic: Ulysses, Fallen (Cadman/McKay)
Title: Ulysses, Fallen
Author: threnodyjones
Pairing: McKay/Cadman
Rating: PG-13
Recipient: rodlox
Spoilers: Set in early season 4
Summary: "Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning at ten-thirty hours."
Author's Note: Merry Christmas, rodlox!
Rodney didn't bother with a scanner, quickly tapping his earpiece. "McKay to control, the-"
The glow was gone suddenly, pressure and light returning to normal in an instant.
"Doctor McKay, is there anything we can help you with?" The voice was cordial, quiet but alert. Rodney thought for a moment, looking around the empty workspace.
"Never mind. Everything's under control here." He paused; the silence on the other end of the radio sounded expectant. "Though someone should be fired in the morning."
"Understood, Sir. Have a good evening," the voice said with a subtle amusement.
Rodney tapped off the radio and looked around again. Everything was quiet. Good. He turned to the open laptop on the table and sat down in front of it. A simulation program was still running; he let it go as he started looking for the most recent mission reports on the network.
Morning came fast and bright - not that night was very dark on this planet with two bright moons - with Sheppard dropping in on Rodney unceremoniously.
"Figured I'd check here since you weren't at your quarters," he said. "Thought the four of us were doing breakfast this today."
Rodney looked at him over a cup of coffee. Sheppard may have been dressed in a semi-relaxed manner, but he was still armed with a sidearm in his tac holster. "Were we?"
Sheppard stared at him, eyes narrowing and head tilting a bit to the side. "Have you... not been to sleep yet? Because those clothes look awfully familiar. Say like, from yesterday."
"I'm sure I don't do it that often. I was working on things."
"I'm sure you were," Sheppard said to him. And my, hadn't that been patronizing, he thought.
Rodney stood, stretching as he did so. He hated spending that many hours hunched over a laptop for such a stupid, if necessary, reason. "Well. Let's swing by my quarters so I can change before we get breakfast."
They walked to the transporters, Sheppard slightly ahead of him the entire time, not-so-deftly trying to find out what he'd been up to all night.
"I was looking at reports all night. Mine. Others. Trying to figure out what to write for the IOA."
"I thought that's not due for another week."
It was, he'd seen it when he'd checked e-mail. "Mmm, yes. Doesn't hurt to get it out of the way though, does it?" He watched Sheppard touch the transporter screen, watched the flash, felt the subtle displacement of movement. Rodney waved Sheppard out first and they walked down the hall towards one of several doors. "Do you think I've got time to take a shower? I mean, I'd rath-" he cut himself off when the man started waving his hands.
"I think we'd all be grateful if you showered first." Rodney frowned at Sheppard as they stopped in front of a door, then waved his palm over the indicator and the door opened. "Seriously. Grab a shower, McKay. Nobody's going to mind."
"Great. I'll just go--" he pointed into the room. "Did you want to wait here or...?"
"I'll check my messages. Just hurry up. I don't really trust Ronon with today's menu."
"Right, right. I'll just. Shower. Good idea." He thought he could feel Sheppard's eyes on him even as he stood under the water.
Breakfast was actually fairly nonchalant. He got to witness Ronon gorging himself on sausage and bacon and a really tasty muffin, but other than that it was a light affair. Teyla spoke of the Athosians, of visiting them shortly, Sheppard made reference to an upcoming mission. Later, when Rodney was back in the labs, he had to deal with people sadly out of their depth in so many things, until close to lunchtime a chirp in his ear heralded a communication from Colonel Carter on a private channel.
"Rodney, could you please join Colonel Sheppard and myself in my office immediately?"
Rodney paused, looking at the document on his screen. He tapped his radio. "Is it important? I'm in the middle of something, here."
He felt his gut clench before she even responded. It wasn't good, whatever it was. "Right now, Rodney."
His fingers hesitated for just a moment before he shut down the survey records from the database and locked his computer. "On my way," he said.
Not only were Sheppard and Carter waiting for him, but so were two others. Well, not waiting per se.
"...and Dr. Biro has been scheduled for 4pm, so hopefully we'll have more conclusive results this evening."
"Thank you, Dr. Keller. John?" Carter's hair was pulled back in an oddly non-regulation style, Rodney noted.
"I'm going to have Spiro and Cadman reviewing the logs and security footage. Just to make sure."
Carter's head dropped for a moment, then she nodded and looked towards the other female in the room, her eyes glancing off Rodney for a moment. "Kate, do you have anything that might help Colonel Sheppard or Dr. Keller?"
"I'm sorry, Colonel Carter, I don't. I'd only seen Ambers on one occasion since she arrived, and spoken with her in passing aside from that. It's not very much to form an opinion."
"Okay. If you think of anything..."
"Absolutely. I'll contact Colonel Sheppard's team immediately."
"Thank you, Kate. I'll let you get back to your work. Rodney."
Rodney took a step forward, eyes hitting on Sheppard, Keller and Carter. Sheppard was standing, arms crossed, looking angry and unhappy. Keller was the same, though more lost than anything else. Carter didn't look much better., really, though she hid it well, sitting behind her desk. "What's going on?" he asked the room in general.
Rodney eyes were drawn to Carter as she fidgeted for a moment, before visibly squaring herself. "Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning at ten-thirty hours."
"What? And I'm just finding out about this now!" He paused, trying to think of who Melissa Ambers was, came up blank.
Carter apparently read his face, if not his mind. "Melissa was a technician under Keller."
Rodney stared at Keller, who was more interested in the ground than the conversation. "Oh. Well. I'm sorry," he said, addressing Keller, mostly. "That is, I'm sure she was a very good medical technician, who-"
Carter interrupted him with an exasperated, "Rodney!" thank goodness, and really, what was he supposed to say? It was obvious the woman wasn't under his control, and of course it was probably a great loss to their expedition, but...
"So," he asked hesitantly, knowing he was treading badly, "how are we... you know. Telling everybody?"
Carter's eyes touched on Sheppard, briefly, before looking back at him. "We obviously have to wait for the autopsy results, but for now the official line is Melissa Ambers died overnight and any other information is pending."
"Right. Right. I'll make sure the science department is informed. Do I need to..." Rodney stopped himself this time. "Is there anything I can do to help with the investigation?" he asked, watching Sheppard's reactions for some clue on how to proceed.
Sheppard just shook his head. "No, I think we've got it covered."
Rodney nodded and took his exit, disquieted. He transported to the labs section and touch his finger to his radio. "Zelenka, I need to talk to you about something. Where are you?"
"Lab Three, I'm going over the long range planetary readings we collected last week."
When Rodney arrived at Lab Three he saw Zelenka intently pecking his way through data of some sort on a laptop. Rodney didn't know what the man saw when he looked up at him, but it must have been interesting. And obviously wrong.
"I take it we did not get approval for the subspace matter tests?" Zelenka said, looking resigned, but unsurprised.
What? "What? No. It's not about that. Listen, Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning, apparently."
Zelenka blinked at him. "Who?" Well thank God, it wasn't only him.
"She was a tech under Keller."
"Oh." Zelenka looked liked he was feeling much like Rodney himself, which was to say nothing at all. Then again, it might have been the shock of learning a colleague was dead. "How did she die?"
"From what I gather she was found floating off the east pier," and really he should have been better at things like this by now - he hastily followed with, "Not that you should tell anyone that!"
Zelenka rolled his eyes at him, which was both irritating and a bit of a relief. At least Rodney knew the man wouldn't give anything important away. " Yes, yes. My God, do they think it was suicide? That would be an unwelcome first."
Rodney nodded, distracted. "They don't know yet. But an announcement should be made before any rumors start up."
"Yes. I'll call the everybody together. Say half and hour?"
"Yeah, that'll be fine." Zelenka turned away, scratching at his forehead. "Zelenka. Thanks."
He watched Zelenka head off around a corner, and within 5 minutes of sitting down at his computer a message flashed on his screen alerting him to a mandatory meeting in 25 minutes. Rodney had just enough time to type a search parameter into the database before people began congregating in the room, distracting him. He set the computer to run and closed the lid.
One of the women approached him. "Dr. McKay, may we get an idea on what this is regarding?" She had a light British accent, but her vowels were European.
"When everybody gets here." Rodney leaned against one of the counters, arms crossed and staring at the floor. No need to encourage others by looking open and inviting.
The room filled quickly; he saw Zelenka doing a quick glance over the crowd before nodding at him. Must be close to everybody they needed.
"Thanks for getting here so quickly," he said, trying to gage the faces looking at him. "We don't want a rumor mill starting up, so please take it as said that decorum would be appropriate. Medical technician Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning. We still don't know many details, so unfortunately I won't be able to answer any questions you might have. If any of you knew Ambers or might have insight into what happened please don't hesitate to talk to myself, Sheppard, or the people working on the investigation."
Short and sweet. A controlled clamor started as soon as they realized he was finished talking.
"Seriously, when I said we didn't know anything, what did you think I meant? Are we in danger? Not that I'm aware of. Do we know what killed her? No!" He refrained from demeaning them more than necessary; he'd let them claim stupidity by shock for the time being, but really, this group wasn't giving the best of impressions. "Obviously you'll be hearing more when there's more to tell. Now go away, you're all giving my brain a headache." And wasn't that the truth. He glared until almost everybody had dispersed. One woman was left, sitting in a chair sort of staring into space, and that, that was real shock. Rodney went over to her, and when she didn't take notice of him he knelt down beside her.
"Are you okay?"
She shook her head, not a negative, but not a positive, either. "Melissa and I were doing the yoga regimen together. Started about two months ago." She sighed and cursed under her breath.
"You should talk to someone," Rodney said. She scoffed and gave him a look that he really deserved, since, hello, he was talking to her. "You know what I mean. Take the next day or two to talk to somebody, go see Heightmeyer or God forbid, what's his name? The chaplain?" Every base had a chaplain, but really it was still only a guess.
"Perlstein," she supplied.
"Him. Just come back with your head screwed on straight."
She looked at him pityingly, but it wasn't shock, so there. "Jesus McKay, you really aced Compassion 1021, didn't you?"
"Stop showing your plebeian academic roots and get out of here," he said.
She didn't know the half of it.
When the call came to meet the rest of the senior staff in the autopsy room, rather than a nice, neat report dropping into his inbox, warning bells sounded in Rodney's brain. His primary research was almost finished, two others underway, but he automatically began rearranging the timetable when he was told 20:45 in Medical.
"Everything seemed fairly straightforward at first. Lungs were filled with ocean water consistent with samples taken at the time of recovery. Blood tests revealed a paralytic toxin in a dose which would have taken full effect after 10-15 minutes."
Rodney listened to Biro give her report, standing next to Sheppard and the draped body of Melissa Ambers. Carter and Major Lorne were on the other side. Biro was taking them through a series of scans and demonstrating a bit too much fondness for her trade, in his opinion.
"Not enough to kill you," she continued, "but definitely enough to make a drowning pretty certain. Ambers had access to the drug from the pharmacy stores, and according to your Capitan Spiro her access code was used to enter the storage 72 minutes before time of death. Supposition would lend to the thought that she grabbed the toxin, dosed herself, then jumped into the ocean and drowned."
"That's straightforward?" Lorne asked, but Rodney saw the same question in Sheppard's and Carter's eyes.
Biro blinked at them. "For me? Yes." Biro had apparently interned under the New York City Medical Examiner before managing to skyrocket into the CDC and WHO.
Carter broke the awkward pause. "You said 'at first', Doctor?"
"I did a full autopsy, and noticed some odd contusing of the fascia on her right hand. It didn't become very noticeable until after lividity had really set in. Even still, it's pretty faint. I'd guess it happened right before death. There are two pressure points here at the outside base of the left thumb around the abductor pollicis and the annular ligament. Scans also revealed minor pressure damage to her interior carotid and hypoglossal nerve. These would not be consistent with a drowning death. I would classify Melissa Ambers' death as more homicide than suicide."
Rodney felt chilled. "I don't get it. Why? What would cause damage like that?" he asked.
"If she'd held someone from behind and they resisted," Lorne responded. Rodney blinked at the quick answer. Voice of experience?
"Okay, but why wouldn't there be more evidence of a struggle?" Rodney asked, waving at Ambers' partially covered body. "She doesn't look like she was fighting for her life. There should be... bruising. Cuts and scrapes."
Sheppard's eyes hadn't left the body. He seemed to be paying particular attention to her neck. "Not if she'd already been dosed." He looked at Biro. "Do we know how she was drugged yet?"
"I didn't find any puncture marks, or anything conclusive in the esophageal track or stomach contents. She had dinner yesterday evening, and a snack a few hours later. Nothing that would indicate ingestion of the toxin. Nasal cavity and lungs were clear as well. I'll keep looking."
Everybody took it as the cue it was meant to be, and moved to the main medical wing to continue the conversation.
"We don't know it was murder," Carter started. Sheppard gave her an askance look that spoke of suppressed sarcasm.
"Pretty unlikely it was death by misadventure," he said.
"Yeah, I know." Carter had a touch of resignation in her voice that made Rodney pay attention. "Okay. Colonel, I want you and Lorne to reevaluate what you've got so far and start looking for possible suspects. Rodney, I need you to see if you can find any security footage, access logs that look out of place, anything along those lines. Also, check to see if anything unusual has happened in the last two days. Strange energy signatures, changes in atmospheric composition, anything that might indicate--"
"Aliens?" Rodney asked wryly.
"Or anything else that could have been a precipitating factor. Colonel, Major, keep that in mind while your investigating and look for the same. We'll meet tomorrow morning at ten hundred."
Rodney sighed and turned away, hoping Zelenka was still on his radio this late. No rest for the wicked.
Two days passed and the investigation hadn't progressed much further than it had when they'd met with Biro, aside from her insistence it was a homicide. They'd had a memorial service earlier in the day, Carter giving a eulogy in the gate room. No mention had been made about the lack of a casket or urn. Biro still had the body. Sheppard had insisted on recording the service, wanting to keep an eye on everyone attending in the hopes that someone might give something away. It was a stupid idea, but Rodney had programmed the cameras himself and installed extras with Lorne to capture everything. Personally he suspected that Sheppard had watched one too many crime dramas.
Sheppard's people were still questioning practically everybody and scouring the raw security footage, and Keller was working with Biro on developing a mechanism of injury for the death. Rodney had never been part of a murder investigation before, so he didn't know if this was slow going or not.
The door chimed, interrupting Rodney from the coding he was working on. As he pushed back from the desk a muscle in his shoulder twinged, a hateful reminder that slouching over a laptop for too many hours wasn't nearly as fun as it sounded. He waved the door open, hoping it would either be very good or so pointless as to deserve a vicious retort. Somehow he doubted both.
And then the door slid open, revealing a Lieutenant Laura Cadman, face twisted into that half-plotting smirk of hers that drove him up the wall at all the right/wrong moments.
Rodney folded his arms and stared at her. "So what kept you?"
Her eyes flicked over him, up and down, lingering just enough in just the right places that he couldn't stop biology. Sometimes he hated her.
"Good to see you too, Rodney." She leaned against the door jam and crossed her arms, mirroring him. Her hair feathered around her shoulders like it always did when it was freshly washed. "How've you been?"
Rodney reached out and ungently pulled her into his room, throwing off her balance. Laura was good, though; she almost didn't tumble into him. The door slid closed behind her with a quiet displacement of air and he locked it with a thought. She looked at him, blinking, just a bit of startlement in her eyes before he leaned in, hand skimming up her arm to wrap itself in her hair. He pressed his body forward, forcing her back until she was caught between him and the door. He settled heavily against her, her breath warm and humid on his neck. "How have I been?"
He leaned down to kiss her, licking at her lips, wanting her to respond, wanting her arms around him, scrappling and clawing something out of him.
"What, I didn't think you got bored that easily. Some genius you are," she said, laughing at him just a bit, but tilting her hips just enough, shimmying and pressing into him in the best way.
Bitch, and maybe he'd said it aloud or thought it too hard or maybe Laura could read his face so easily, but she knew it had been there and that grin was back, mocking and irritating and he hadn't seen it in so long. Her fingers were on his neck, pressing him back to her, combined lust intoxicating and wonderful with real flesh against his. Too long, and then she was kissing him. It was hard, and she didn't wait for him to slow or ease up, just kept fueling the fire.
Eventually he pulled back a little; they were both breathing unevenly. "So. What kept you?" he asked again.
Laura relaxed against the door, pulling him flush against her and holding him in place with her arms around his waist. "Something came up. And Sheppard's been running us ragged with the investigation."
"Mm." He burrowed into the crook of her neck, breathing her in. "Stay for long?" He didn't want to let her go.
"We've got five hours," she said. She moved her arms, grasping his shoulders and hauling herself up his body, legs wrapping around his waist. He quickly adjusted her weight. Her mouth was hot on his skin as she kissed his ear. "Take us to bed, Rodney."
"Hey. Guess what I have." Laura made a very disgruntled sound but Rodney was already tossing covers out of his way and walking towards the cabinet along the far wall. One thing they'd quickly agreed on, in long, dark hours of nothing but them talking to one another, was how much they missed the taste of a good wine. When Laura was younger she'd worked as a cook at a series of 3 and 4 star restaurants between NROTC requirements, and after shifts the staff had usually been able to quaff a few glasses of the good stuff from leftover bottles. He pulled out his prize and a corkpuller, brought them to Laura, who had twisted around, leaving bedsheets artistically draped around her torso, red hair a mess against the pillow. He set the bottle on the pillow next to her head and found two glasses.
Rodney's excuse was far more prosaic than hers when it came to wines. Lesser winemakers liked to cut corners and use citric acid to bolster inferior products.
"My God, McKay. Pichon Longueville? You've got taste."
"Your flagrant attempt at flattery and self-promotion notwithstanding: yes, I do."
Rodney watched her tongue skirt out along her lips, just before her teeth bit down as she worked the corkpuller into the neck and began easing the cork out. He felt her gaze drop down from his neck to his chest to his cock, and got a rather blatant image of what she was planning next. Laura was good at that. He lay down next to her, enjoying the view of unblemished skin on her torso as she poured the wine and swirled it for them.
Rodney stared into the glass for a long time, rolling the stem in his fingers and watching light play off the deep purple hues of the wine. He felt Laura observing him and looked up. He raised the glass a fraction. "Vivamus dum licet esse bene."
Laura's lips twitched into a small smile and she clinked her glass to his.
"Longer," she said, and it sounded like a promise.
He awoke gasping for air, visions and memories of violent waves and swirling water still pounding in his head. Damn. Damn it.
Beside him Laura made a fitful noise and he gently nudged her awake. He looked at his watch. Five hours, he thought, and hunched over, breathing deeply and trying to calm his nerves. "You should have told me," he said, quietly, not wanting her to wake too quickly, despite the fact that yes, they both really had to be awake right now.
"No," she whispered back. "No good." He felt her hand on his back, rubbing slow, oblong patterns into his muscles. "Rodney, you okay?"
"Yeah." He felt her lack of belief. "Yeah, I'm... I just... don't like the thought of you dying under any circumstance."
She tugged minutely on his shoulder and he sank back into her, felt her arms go around him, holding him tightly. Fingers carded his hair in a familiar way. "I'm right here."
"Stay that way." He let himself lay there for two moments longer before heaving himself up. "I've got to get to work on the Ambers' stuff. God knows how Sheppard and Carter will take it if this gets fucked up."
He briefly looked at Laura, but she declined to respond.
Rodney was in the lab again, multitasking between security feeds and 10,000 year old planetary survey data when Sheppard strode in, looking tense and unrested. Rodney didn't have to be psychic to know Sheppard hadn't slept yet. Probably wouldn't be, since breakfast was only scant hours away. He knew the feeling.
"Hey. Whatcha working on?"
Rodney paused, Sheppard was staring at the security feeds on laptop 1. "I thought I'd see if I could add any insight into what happened with Ambers' death. I wrote an algorithm, the basis of which I used to create a program which tracks a person based on when they appear in the security feeds." Who cared if his explanation was a little backwards? "It's not perfect, mostly because facial recognition software is, well, not really top priority here." Not to mention nothing similar had been found in the Ancient database. Yet.
"That's... Good." Sheppard was still attentively looking at the screen.
"It is?"
"Yeah. Listen," Sheppard drew his gaze away from the laptop and looked at Rodney, "We're going to start playing this investigation closer to our chests."
"We are?" Rodney didn't get it. Something had made Sheppard twitchy and he wanted to know what. "Why?"
"Because I think we need to."
"Right, of course... Why?"
Sheppard sighed and turned away from Rodney, resting his ass on the table. "The bruises Biro found on Ambers' body are... very reminiscent of... moves taught in advanced hand-to-hand courses."
"Wait a second. Are you implying one of the military had something to do with Ambers dying?"
"No, for now I'm saying we are going to limit the investigation to a few key personnel and go from there."
"But what caused the bruising?"
Sheppard half-heartedly glared at him. "Lorne said it. Someone trying to escape a choke hold. Possibly."
Rodney thought about what to say for a brief moment. "Are you kidding me? I mean, one: not something I really want to contemplate, marines going bad, and two: if I'm understanding correctly, with the exception of the admittedly completely out of place bruising, absolutely everything points to a suicide. Now you're saying Ambers might have attacked a probably military someone and then thrown herself off the East Pier? In what? I fit of pique? I don't get it."
"Which is the reason I'm not accusing anybody or putting together scenarios like that, McKay. Jesus. All I'm saying is that it might be possible somebody here on base interacted with Ambers in the timeline of her death. Now if that's the case, whoever it is is lying by omission, at the very least."
"And after that it starts getting more sinister," Rodney filled in.
"Exactly," Sheppard nodded.
"What about the drug?"
Sheppard sighed, ran his hands over his face, scrubbing at his eyes. "Biro thinks it was used like an eye drop."
"Ocular administration? Are you kidding me?" It bore repeating.
"Something's going on, Rodney. We've got a body that shows two completely different scenarios. Everybody we've spoken with said Ambers wasn't suicidal. She'd been here for only two months, we're in contact with Earth, and she hadn't come in contact with something alien. Nothing your people or my people have found shows anything odd going on. And yet, one night she walks into the pharmacy, doses her eyes with a paralyzer, puts someone in a choke hold and then ends up off the east pier with help."
He had to give Sheppard credit, not many people would put a scenario together like this and actually believe it. "It couldn't have happened another way around?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Biro.
Sheppard shook his head, squinting at the lights overhead. "Not according to the timeline Biro worked out. The toxin had definitely taken full effect by the time she hit the water."
Rodney mulled that for a moment. "So no throwing herself off the East Pier."
"No, not so much."
"What do you need from me?"
"Find me the crime scene."
Rodney gaped for a moment. One of the reasons Sheppard's people had been having such difficulty was that shortly after leaving the infirmary Ambers had gone off the grid. In real time they could have tracked her, but with 16 transporters and only 30% security feed coverage of corridors she hadn't been found again. They'd obviously been trawling the feeds, but hadn't found anything yet. Sheppard cutting back personnel would hinder discovery even more.
"Listen, you're obviously already ahead on me on this, since you're already running stuff to do what we need. Just keep doing it. I've still got people out there looking, but I'd rather have you working the tapes than others who can either be stuck in front of computer looking for something we haven't found in three days, or pounding the pavement. Zelenka's already provided us a log of all the doors accessed during Biro's time frame. They're doing room-by-room sweeps, but if you can find something quicker with a program, it would be better."
"This is... Listen, you know this is not a quick process, right? I mean, the variables, even for Ancient computers, that's a lot of processing power. It's going to take time."
"I know that, Rodney. Just try to get me something we can work with, here. The city is just too big for random shots in the dark."
Sheppard left shortly after that, leaving Rodney to work a miracle for him. One thing the visit did make clear to Rodney: he was going to need sleep. He radioed Sheppard and told him to e-mail Biro's timeline. When it pinged in his inbox a few minutes later, he looked it over. Ending up off the east pier took quite a bit of time given the location of the closest transporter.
Before turning in Rodney e-mailed Sheppard back a preliminary list and possible time tables, mostly transporters less public foot traffic. It wasn't perfect, probably irritated Sheppard more than aided him because Sheppard would have put something like this together already, Rodney was sure of it. He'd given the addendum that his program was still running and would probably take another 20 to 26 hours.
Then he hit the sack.
When Rodney had woken, grabbed a brunchy sort of meal and seated himself back in the labs his inbox had messages from Sheppard and Lorne keeping him abreast of the investigation. They'd already discarded two more areas, and did Sheppard put every single Marine and Airman on the search?
Around noon they'd eliminated two more areas.
"How are you guys doing that?" he radioed Lorne to ask.
"Keller remembered reading about a DNA scanner Dr. Beckett had found a few years back. It could be calibrated to search for a specific person's DNA," Lorne returned.
"We have that?" Rodney didn't remember reading anything about that, not that he'd been looking. But obviously they did.
A couple more hours passed. He skipped lunch, staying at his computer. Just after 2pm Laura walked into his lab.
"How's it going?" she asked, and Rodney took a good look at her. She was tense. Still confident and calm, though.
He nodded slowly, answering her real question. "Good. Very good." He swung back to his computer, angling it a bit so she could see it. "I've finished-"
"It's got to go down like this, Rodney."
Rodney glanced at her sharply, but Laura took a step back from him and before he could do or say anything the doors opened and Sheppard came in with three others, all armed. From one blink to another the Colonel's gun was trained on her, the others following suit.
"Colonel-"
"Sheppard, what the hell!" Rodney shouted.
"McKay, get away from her. Lieutenant, down on the ground, right now," Sheppard ordered. Laura complied and Sheppard jerked his chin at the Sergeant to his left. "Secure her and get her to a cell."
"Are you alright, McKay?" Sheppard didn't relax until Laura was escorted out of the room.
"Am I alright? How about you? You just arrested Cadman of all people!"
"We found the room where it happened and her DNA was there right along with Amber's. Keller matched it 15 minutes ago. What were you two discussing?"
"What?" Rodney brain was going a million miles an hour, still seeing Laura forced to the ground and dragged out.
"I want to know what she was talking to you about," Sheppard repeated, slower.
"We were discussing the rendering of the program, how it was coming." Sheppard looked constipated, but waves of grim satisfaction were coming off of him. "So now what?"
"Now we talk to her," Sheppard replied, and walked out.
"So talk to me, Lieutenant. What happened? Why did it happen?"
"I think I'd like my lawyer, Sir."
"Well JAG Corps has a bit of a hike to get out here, so why don't we talk in the meantime."
The feed continued in the same vein for a good 40 minutes. Not once did Laura say anything of use to them. Carter and Rodney sat in front of a monitor a room off of the cells while Sheppard continued to ask and Laura continued to evade.
"I don't get it," Carter said. She was staring intently at the screen. "I've read Lieutenant Cadman's file. There's nothing in there which would give any indication of these actions. She has always served with distinction and every service review has given her high marks."
Sheppard walked off camera, towards the door. Carter got up, met him in the doorway. Rodney heard Sheppard telling a marine to take her to Keller. He shut down the feed and followed them out. They headed to the control tower, but when they started in on the UCMJ Rodney excused himself. He went back to his lab and waited.
Rodney's hack into the medical mainframe was hurried and inelegant and pretty much nothing but raw data flowing across the screen. But it was enough for him to find, yes, brain scans undoubtedly showing a flurry of brightly glowing red spots. He recognized some of those numbers from his own testing.
The senior staff channel beeped in his ear and then Keller was telling Carter and Sheppard they should get to the infirmary immediately. She also helpfully informed him that Laura was being escorted back to her cell. Rodney paused for a moment and timed things out in his head while Carter acknowledged and said they were on their way. Which meant Sheppard was obviously still with Carter at the moment. Keller had left the scanning screen active, meaning he couldn't do what he wanted to do without alerting everyone prematurely. He called to Keller's screen what he hoped was a fairly innocuous test result, deleted everything else from the past five hours and set the system to shutdown automatically when antone tried to change the screen.
Rodney extricated himself from the system, getting rid of any overt fingerprints he'd left. He was about to shut down when something beeped at him. Frowning, he checked his running programs and found the search he'd done for Atlantis' internal video feed reminding him it had found what he'd been looking for, did he wish to delete retrieved items?
He pressed play and watched as Ambers came up on Cadman from behind, throwing her arm around her neck. Cadman reacted to the sudden attack, but not in time to stop Ambers from pressing her palm flat to Cadman's temple. There was a tiny flash of light and the tableau froze for an instant before reversing itself - Cadman's hand gripped the arm trying to pull away from her throat, held it there as Ambers' thrashing slowed and she fell limp to the floor. Rodney watched Laura pull up the sleeve of the arm she'd been restraining, probably checking it for damage.
Suddenly she was looking right at him, staring not just up at the ceiling corner which was recording the tableau, but right at him. She held up three fingers, then knelt back down next to Ambers.
Three? Three what? What the hell did three mean?
Looking back up, her expression was fast becoming irritated. She stood up, moving closer, held out her wrist and rapped her fingers against it, then emphatically signaled three again.
Time. Three. Three minutes. Startled he checked his watched. Just under three minutes to get to the brig. Sometimes Laura creeped even him out.
He swore he saw her roll her eyes at him as he purged the file.
Getting to the brig wasn't an issue, but not being able to break into the armory to lift a stunner left him one convenient shot short of being in and out. The brig entrance was being watched on the outside by a stoic looking corporal. From around the corner Rodney closed his eyes, concentrating hard on the corporal's heart, making it slow just enough to drop his blood pressure and make him pass out. He stopped when he heard the satisfying sound of someone hitting the ground. Moving closer to the door, he grabbed the guard's sidearm and pictured the controls for the cell, waiting until the interior guard was distracted and then brought down the cell grid. A few moments later he heard a muffled thump and the door opened. Laura stood there, armed with the guard's pistol, rifle and radio.
"Should you have done that?" she asked, and listening to her voice he couldn't tell if she was chastising or worried.
"I'm still in control." Rodney started leading the way to the transporter.
"How far along are we?"
"Everything we need is still in the jumper bay. And I still need to upload and activate the final coding for the gate." The transporter doors opened for them and closed as soon as Laura touched the screen. They reopened at the corridor leading to auxiliary control, and Rodney jogged towards the computer banks.
"I'm going to wait out here," Laura said, and Rodney only paid semi-attention, taking out his flash drive and loading it to the notebook slaved to the database. He typed the command lines as fast as he could, trying not to be impatient as the machine code rewrote itself. He was three keystrokes away when he thought he heard something. Sheppard. He finished typing, but didn't depress enter, pulling his sidearm out instead.
"Stand down, Cadman." Sheppard's voice echoed throughout the room, distracting Rodney's concentration. "Stand down, and tell me where McKay is."
"McKay?" and Laura did a plausible job of sounding incredulous. This had to have been why Laura insisted on waiting across the hall.
"Cadman, stand down!"
Rodney stepped out, aiming his gun at Sheppard, chest-center.
"Drop the gun, Sheppard." Sheppard hesitated, scenarios running through his mind involving shooting Laura versus threatening to shoot her. Rodney shook his head. Laura's pistol moved to aim at Sheppard's head with his distraction. "I owe you. So please don't make me kill you.
Sheppard didn't so much as twitch. "You aren't going to kill her, John."
"And what makes you say that, Rodney?" He was cocky and playing for time; more people were coming.
"You're too good a person." He just wasn't willing to take the chance that his Cadman wasn't still in there somewhere. "And also..." Rodney concentrated and initialized the sequence he'd programmed, and almost immediately the lights throughout the city flickered and came back on. A warning alarm began sounding.
Laura struck at Sheppard with the viperish intensity she'd had to hone, and before Rodney could blink Sheppard was disarmed and bleeding above his eyebrow. She was checking the magazine of Sheppard's pistol while Rodney kept him in place with the gun.
"What the hell did you do?"
Laura stuffed the gun in Rodney's tactical holster. "Go," he said, looking at her quickly before coming back to Sheppard. Laura was halfway down the hall before he answered. "Programmed the city to pump nacelene gas into the control tower, and lock it down when life signs were gone. Don't look at me like that, there would have been ample time for everybody to get out."
"Since you're in such a talkative mood, how about telling me why."
"To get the control tower cleared," Rodney said, implying with his tone that it should have been patently obvious.
"Funny," came the flat reply.
"Come on. Transporter."
"Where are we going, Rodney?"
"You're comm isn't functional anymore, Colonel. They'll be able to track us vis the life sign detectors, they just won't be able to get to us in time." He let Sheppard lead them in and manually overrode the destination lockout. The world flashed and they stood outside the sealed control room door. With Sheppard standing there, Rodney didn't bother with theatrics, just opened it with a thought and relocked it once they were inside. He waved Sheppard to the open space across the room. "Over there, please."
Sheppard reluctantly, oh was he pissed, moved. Rodney watched him take in the abandoned room, caught him looking quickly at the door and away again. Sitting down at the main control console, he began calling up the program he needed.
"What are you doing to the computers?" Sheppard was at a bad angle to see what he was doing.
"I'm activating a code that will wipe the data of the past 30 hours from the database. And as a courtesy, just so you know, once we go through, the gate will be unaccessible for the next day. Both ways, so you won't need to worry about incoming traffic, either. Call it a favor." Time was starting to feel pressed.
"Aren't you going to ask how we found out, McKay?"
"No." Because it was all right there, at the front of Sheppard's mind, screaming it in technicolor glory: the deletions and edits to the security network were just a little too smooth. The Cadman Sheppard knew was good, very good, but not that good. She had to have had help, which made for a very short shortlist. Rodney could see that Sheppard had included a few others - Zelenka, Hydal, Masanugi - but whether it was from overestimation or just giving him the benefit of the doubt he couldn't really tell. Maybe Sheppard couldn't either. Sheppard didn't have all the data yet regarding Laura's medical scans, but when he didn't it would be the final nail.
"What's going on, Rodney! Why are you doing this? She killed Melissa Ambers. She killed her and she covered it up. You don't even like Cadman; I thought you couldn't stand her! So tell me what the hell is going on right now!"
"You want a reveal?" The Marines were coming, and while Sheppard was playing for time, it also wasn't going to be enough. Barring the Daedalus magically appearing and beaming them into a cell, they were going to pull this off. Rodney tapped the final coding sequence into the computer and executed it. Just as the program started running, the shuttle bay doors opened and a jumper elegantly descended level to the gate. Laura was at the helm. He looked at her and she nodded, getting up and then she was there, training a pistol on Sheppard. Rodney closed his eyes. The Marines were getting closer, but they were almost there.
He opened his eyes, and the room was dark. It felt sudden, the door opening and a flurry of movement that made his senses go haywire - four, five, maybe six people on him at once and before he could react he felt a sharp sting, a needle, and then the cold/hot of something foreign flowing through his veins. He tried to fight, tried to scream out, but then his world was going fuzzy and gray and black.
He woke strapped to a table, not just strapped, bound. Ankles, shins, knees and thighs, up his torso, chest, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders. Head. He couldn't turn his neck, but his eyes showed him he was in an infirmary, not that that told him much. He heard the high pitched whines of machines working, a soft murmur of presence spoke to others being in the room with him, out of his line of sight. Footsteps and then a stoic-faced man stepped barely into view and Rodney felt another sting creepy up his veins. Relaxant, this time. His mind went somewhere hazy and his muscles started to melt. His bed was moved to another room and he felt it like a drunk being rolled over unexpectedly.
Wherever they deposited him, it was pleasantly dim, a soft colored glow being given off by something. He slid into a comfortable doze and when he woke again there were several people in the room - deep voices, higher, feminine tones all talking in a jumble he couldn't understand. He was still tied down, unable to see anyone. It took a horribly long time to focus his eyes, but there was something above him, a faintly greenish-purple incandescence. A loud hum began, becoming protracted in both intensity and frequency and soon the soothing purple-green intensified to a brilliant white-blue and he felt a icy fire hit him, like he was being burned inside-out and outside-in.
He wakes ill, in a room full of other people, also ill. He didn't remember passing out, or being unchained or covered with a pathetic excuse for a blanket. He tries to push himself up. He wanting to see what was happening, and only succeeds in curling back into a fetal ball, desperately trying not to suffer the indignity of throwing up all over himself. The sound of someone retching nearby doesn't help matters any. It takes most of a day for Rodney to realize there's a device attached to his temple. It's light, barely noticeable, but once he knows it's there he can't stop thinking about it. He sometimes sees flashes of them on the others around him.
Three days later he's escorted from the room, still ill enough to not give much resistance. Then it starts again.
It's months into the tests when Rodney realizes, in a stark and chillingly rare fit of comprehension, that the number of people in the room is shrinking. He thinks it's then that an impression of strawberry blonde imprints, but really, it might have been a few more weeks later when he's dropped back into the room like a rat in a cage. She's dropped next to him shortly after, curled into a ball so tight Rodney feels the pain just watching. He crawls over to her, but can't do much except touch her hand.
Their numbers dwindle rapidly, insanity strongly favoring the majority. Rodney understands and thinks he's now on the fast track along the same path, until one day Laura whispers to him. It's dark, been dark for a while, and the air is so dry the skin on his hands has cracked. Laura's eyes have black, black circles bruising them. Her sleep is never uninterrupted; she dreams of death and explosions, of poison lacing the atmosphere and lightless pits where she and he are the only ones left.
"Ascension," she says, and Rodney's perfect, startling clarity is back, returned from some distant land where it had been hiding for just this moment. And of course, it made so very, very much sense. Both sides had been studying the phenomena before everything had gone to hell. Rodney had only been on the periphery, but he'd read the reports coming out of Area 51. It gives him something to focus on, and for a while the sessions stop for him, even though Laura is still subjected to them at least once a month.
They're interested in him, in the progress he's making with not going insane like every other person they've subjected to the treatments. Their little device works overtime until Rodney manages to short it out. With his brain. He's both in love and horrified, but he does the same to Laura's a week later, and every time they get new ones it's the same, makes them think it's because the devices can't handle the data. For a while he and Laura are left to their own devices. Laura wonders one day if it's because they want the effects to age for a while, like wine or scotch. At least it gives them something new to talk about.
Testing becomes more common than treatments, like they're trying to figure out what Rodney's brain is doing with all that activity. Rodney tries not to give them any conclusive results, while at the same time belatedly realizing that he's been reading their minds for some time. Actually, he's been reading everybody's mind for a long time, but it had been white noise and migraine inducing, nothing at all coherent.
It's at least two years since Laura arrived when they march in a drag her out, and when she's brought back days later she's inconsolable, hyperventilating until she's sick.
The treatments begin in earnest again after that, and Rodney and Laura are punished over and over when they refuse to cooperate the way they're supposed to, like good little lab rats. They're thrown into a hole in between, with no comforts, barest of sanitation, the scientists trying to break them, or maybe the guards. Finally, finally they get the opportunity to escape, and when the guards come for one of them Rodney gives one an aneurysm and Laura kills the other while he's momentarily distracted by his friend keeling over.
Laura leads them to another level. She's dreamed this, seen it play out like a movie already and suddenly they're in the labs with all the research on quantum universes. Rodney grabs the calibration device twists it and they touch the mirror together. Laura takes the device and turns it off, shutting off the direct gateway between their world and this new one.
They settle down, adapt for a while, decompressing and learning to live again. When the Ashrak finds them, they run. Then he finds them again and Rodney realizes he needs to find a more permanent solution and that's when the idea of switching consciousnesses comes to him.
A soothing thrum greeted Rodney when he came to. He was on board the jumper, Laura piloting in the seat beside him. The control screen flickered and the notation signaling autopilot glowed in the lower corner while data continued to flow.
"You okay?" he asked her. Her hand raked back his hair, feeling his forehead. She nodded, looking serious and slightly concerned.
"Yeah. Sheppard went down like a box of rocks when you started. Of course, so did you. How about you?"
"Tired. Exhausted," he amended. "Where are we?"
"Second planet. There's going to be trouble on the 3rd, so I figured we should rest and recover while we can."
"How bad?"
"We get out. Get what we need to. You get scratched up though and I sprain my wrist." Laura paused and he could feel her gaging him. "You do what you needed to?"
"We're here, aren't we?"
Laura grinned suddenly, leaned over and kissed him gently. "Yes, we are.
Rodney woke, feeling chilled fingers gently carding through his hair. The ground beneath his legs was cold, frigid, but he was partially warm, lying in Laura's lap. His throat was burning, and there was the awful, bitter aftertaste of sickness crawling into his mouth.
"You okay?" she asked, quietly, so quietly and still too loud for his head. A spike of pain hit behind his eyes; Laura's fingers began to tread slowly, with a breath's pressure along his temples.
"Maybe," he whispered back.
"You threw up about 2 hours ago." Rodney just laid there.
Footfalls sounded above them, Jaffa patrolling. Laura wrapped her arms around his shoulders, securing him to her, like they were going to take him back out at any moment. He stared at her stomach, clothed covered, slightly exposed and showing no signs of the damage the scientists had inflicted when they'd sterilized her. No sign of the baby they'd ripped out of her when they'd found out she'd been pregnant.
The experiments weren't at the stage of testing zygotes, let along the progeny of two test subjects. Rodney petted weakly at Laura's belly, wishing. "I think, I think I know how to get us out of here."
Laura's curiousityhopedisbeliefhopehopehope nearly repelled him. He lay still, panting, trying to quell more nausea.
"Sorry, I'm sorry," she said, or maybe thought, and suddenly she was a cool wash of water again. Briefly he thought that she still hadn't been able to tell him how she managed that. But he didn't really care, and she knew it. He felt her lips on the back of his head and he would have crawled right into her if he'd been able. So?
That time she hadn't spoken.
"Yeah. I think they went too far this time. Kept me in longer than they should have." He rolled over, sitting up and grasped Laura's shoulders. "We can get out of here. I know how we can get out."
She kissed his forehead like a benediction.
Author: threnodyjones
Pairing: McKay/Cadman
Rating: PG-13
Recipient: rodlox
Spoilers: Set in early season 4
Summary: "Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning at ten-thirty hours."
Author's Note: Merry Christmas, rodlox!
Rodney didn't bother with a scanner, quickly tapping his earpiece. "McKay to control, the-"
The glow was gone suddenly, pressure and light returning to normal in an instant.
"Doctor McKay, is there anything we can help you with?" The voice was cordial, quiet but alert. Rodney thought for a moment, looking around the empty workspace.
"Never mind. Everything's under control here." He paused; the silence on the other end of the radio sounded expectant. "Though someone should be fired in the morning."
"Understood, Sir. Have a good evening," the voice said with a subtle amusement.
Rodney tapped off the radio and looked around again. Everything was quiet. Good. He turned to the open laptop on the table and sat down in front of it. A simulation program was still running; he let it go as he started looking for the most recent mission reports on the network.
Morning came fast and bright - not that night was very dark on this planet with two bright moons - with Sheppard dropping in on Rodney unceremoniously.
"Figured I'd check here since you weren't at your quarters," he said. "Thought the four of us were doing breakfast this today."
Rodney looked at him over a cup of coffee. Sheppard may have been dressed in a semi-relaxed manner, but he was still armed with a sidearm in his tac holster. "Were we?"
Sheppard stared at him, eyes narrowing and head tilting a bit to the side. "Have you... not been to sleep yet? Because those clothes look awfully familiar. Say like, from yesterday."
"I'm sure I don't do it that often. I was working on things."
"I'm sure you were," Sheppard said to him. And my, hadn't that been patronizing, he thought.
Rodney stood, stretching as he did so. He hated spending that many hours hunched over a laptop for such a stupid, if necessary, reason. "Well. Let's swing by my quarters so I can change before we get breakfast."
They walked to the transporters, Sheppard slightly ahead of him the entire time, not-so-deftly trying to find out what he'd been up to all night.
"I was looking at reports all night. Mine. Others. Trying to figure out what to write for the IOA."
"I thought that's not due for another week."
It was, he'd seen it when he'd checked e-mail. "Mmm, yes. Doesn't hurt to get it out of the way though, does it?" He watched Sheppard touch the transporter screen, watched the flash, felt the subtle displacement of movement. Rodney waved Sheppard out first and they walked down the hall towards one of several doors. "Do you think I've got time to take a shower? I mean, I'd rath-" he cut himself off when the man started waving his hands.
"I think we'd all be grateful if you showered first." Rodney frowned at Sheppard as they stopped in front of a door, then waved his palm over the indicator and the door opened. "Seriously. Grab a shower, McKay. Nobody's going to mind."
"Great. I'll just go--" he pointed into the room. "Did you want to wait here or...?"
"I'll check my messages. Just hurry up. I don't really trust Ronon with today's menu."
"Right, right. I'll just. Shower. Good idea." He thought he could feel Sheppard's eyes on him even as he stood under the water.
Breakfast was actually fairly nonchalant. He got to witness Ronon gorging himself on sausage and bacon and a really tasty muffin, but other than that it was a light affair. Teyla spoke of the Athosians, of visiting them shortly, Sheppard made reference to an upcoming mission. Later, when Rodney was back in the labs, he had to deal with people sadly out of their depth in so many things, until close to lunchtime a chirp in his ear heralded a communication from Colonel Carter on a private channel.
"Rodney, could you please join Colonel Sheppard and myself in my office immediately?"
Rodney paused, looking at the document on his screen. He tapped his radio. "Is it important? I'm in the middle of something, here."
He felt his gut clench before she even responded. It wasn't good, whatever it was. "Right now, Rodney."
His fingers hesitated for just a moment before he shut down the survey records from the database and locked his computer. "On my way," he said.
Not only were Sheppard and Carter waiting for him, but so were two others. Well, not waiting per se.
"...and Dr. Biro has been scheduled for 4pm, so hopefully we'll have more conclusive results this evening."
"Thank you, Dr. Keller. John?" Carter's hair was pulled back in an oddly non-regulation style, Rodney noted.
"I'm going to have Spiro and Cadman reviewing the logs and security footage. Just to make sure."
Carter's head dropped for a moment, then she nodded and looked towards the other female in the room, her eyes glancing off Rodney for a moment. "Kate, do you have anything that might help Colonel Sheppard or Dr. Keller?"
"I'm sorry, Colonel Carter, I don't. I'd only seen Ambers on one occasion since she arrived, and spoken with her in passing aside from that. It's not very much to form an opinion."
"Okay. If you think of anything..."
"Absolutely. I'll contact Colonel Sheppard's team immediately."
"Thank you, Kate. I'll let you get back to your work. Rodney."
Rodney took a step forward, eyes hitting on Sheppard, Keller and Carter. Sheppard was standing, arms crossed, looking angry and unhappy. Keller was the same, though more lost than anything else. Carter didn't look much better., really, though she hid it well, sitting behind her desk. "What's going on?" he asked the room in general.
Rodney eyes were drawn to Carter as she fidgeted for a moment, before visibly squaring herself. "Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning at ten-thirty hours."
"What? And I'm just finding out about this now!" He paused, trying to think of who Melissa Ambers was, came up blank.
Carter apparently read his face, if not his mind. "Melissa was a technician under Keller."
Rodney stared at Keller, who was more interested in the ground than the conversation. "Oh. Well. I'm sorry," he said, addressing Keller, mostly. "That is, I'm sure she was a very good medical technician, who-"
Carter interrupted him with an exasperated, "Rodney!" thank goodness, and really, what was he supposed to say? It was obvious the woman wasn't under his control, and of course it was probably a great loss to their expedition, but...
"So," he asked hesitantly, knowing he was treading badly, "how are we... you know. Telling everybody?"
Carter's eyes touched on Sheppard, briefly, before looking back at him. "We obviously have to wait for the autopsy results, but for now the official line is Melissa Ambers died overnight and any other information is pending."
"Right. Right. I'll make sure the science department is informed. Do I need to..." Rodney stopped himself this time. "Is there anything I can do to help with the investigation?" he asked, watching Sheppard's reactions for some clue on how to proceed.
Sheppard just shook his head. "No, I think we've got it covered."
Rodney nodded and took his exit, disquieted. He transported to the labs section and touch his finger to his radio. "Zelenka, I need to talk to you about something. Where are you?"
"Lab Three, I'm going over the long range planetary readings we collected last week."
When Rodney arrived at Lab Three he saw Zelenka intently pecking his way through data of some sort on a laptop. Rodney didn't know what the man saw when he looked up at him, but it must have been interesting. And obviously wrong.
"I take it we did not get approval for the subspace matter tests?" Zelenka said, looking resigned, but unsurprised.
What? "What? No. It's not about that. Listen, Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning, apparently."
Zelenka blinked at him. "Who?" Well thank God, it wasn't only him.
"She was a tech under Keller."
"Oh." Zelenka looked liked he was feeling much like Rodney himself, which was to say nothing at all. Then again, it might have been the shock of learning a colleague was dead. "How did she die?"
"From what I gather she was found floating off the east pier," and really he should have been better at things like this by now - he hastily followed with, "Not that you should tell anyone that!"
Zelenka rolled his eyes at him, which was both irritating and a bit of a relief. At least Rodney knew the man wouldn't give anything important away. " Yes, yes. My God, do they think it was suicide? That would be an unwelcome first."
Rodney nodded, distracted. "They don't know yet. But an announcement should be made before any rumors start up."
"Yes. I'll call the everybody together. Say half and hour?"
"Yeah, that'll be fine." Zelenka turned away, scratching at his forehead. "Zelenka. Thanks."
He watched Zelenka head off around a corner, and within 5 minutes of sitting down at his computer a message flashed on his screen alerting him to a mandatory meeting in 25 minutes. Rodney had just enough time to type a search parameter into the database before people began congregating in the room, distracting him. He set the computer to run and closed the lid.
One of the women approached him. "Dr. McKay, may we get an idea on what this is regarding?" She had a light British accent, but her vowels were European.
"When everybody gets here." Rodney leaned against one of the counters, arms crossed and staring at the floor. No need to encourage others by looking open and inviting.
The room filled quickly; he saw Zelenka doing a quick glance over the crowd before nodding at him. Must be close to everybody they needed.
"Thanks for getting here so quickly," he said, trying to gage the faces looking at him. "We don't want a rumor mill starting up, so please take it as said that decorum would be appropriate. Medical technician Melissa Ambers was found dead this morning. We still don't know many details, so unfortunately I won't be able to answer any questions you might have. If any of you knew Ambers or might have insight into what happened please don't hesitate to talk to myself, Sheppard, or the people working on the investigation."
Short and sweet. A controlled clamor started as soon as they realized he was finished talking.
"Seriously, when I said we didn't know anything, what did you think I meant? Are we in danger? Not that I'm aware of. Do we know what killed her? No!" He refrained from demeaning them more than necessary; he'd let them claim stupidity by shock for the time being, but really, this group wasn't giving the best of impressions. "Obviously you'll be hearing more when there's more to tell. Now go away, you're all giving my brain a headache." And wasn't that the truth. He glared until almost everybody had dispersed. One woman was left, sitting in a chair sort of staring into space, and that, that was real shock. Rodney went over to her, and when she didn't take notice of him he knelt down beside her.
"Are you okay?"
She shook her head, not a negative, but not a positive, either. "Melissa and I were doing the yoga regimen together. Started about two months ago." She sighed and cursed under her breath.
"You should talk to someone," Rodney said. She scoffed and gave him a look that he really deserved, since, hello, he was talking to her. "You know what I mean. Take the next day or two to talk to somebody, go see Heightmeyer or God forbid, what's his name? The chaplain?" Every base had a chaplain, but really it was still only a guess.
"Perlstein," she supplied.
"Him. Just come back with your head screwed on straight."
She looked at him pityingly, but it wasn't shock, so there. "Jesus McKay, you really aced Compassion 1021, didn't you?"
"Stop showing your plebeian academic roots and get out of here," he said.
She didn't know the half of it.
When the call came to meet the rest of the senior staff in the autopsy room, rather than a nice, neat report dropping into his inbox, warning bells sounded in Rodney's brain. His primary research was almost finished, two others underway, but he automatically began rearranging the timetable when he was told 20:45 in Medical.
"Everything seemed fairly straightforward at first. Lungs were filled with ocean water consistent with samples taken at the time of recovery. Blood tests revealed a paralytic toxin in a dose which would have taken full effect after 10-15 minutes."
Rodney listened to Biro give her report, standing next to Sheppard and the draped body of Melissa Ambers. Carter and Major Lorne were on the other side. Biro was taking them through a series of scans and demonstrating a bit too much fondness for her trade, in his opinion.
"Not enough to kill you," she continued, "but definitely enough to make a drowning pretty certain. Ambers had access to the drug from the pharmacy stores, and according to your Capitan Spiro her access code was used to enter the storage 72 minutes before time of death. Supposition would lend to the thought that she grabbed the toxin, dosed herself, then jumped into the ocean and drowned."
"That's straightforward?" Lorne asked, but Rodney saw the same question in Sheppard's and Carter's eyes.
Biro blinked at them. "For me? Yes." Biro had apparently interned under the New York City Medical Examiner before managing to skyrocket into the CDC and WHO.
Carter broke the awkward pause. "You said 'at first', Doctor?"
"I did a full autopsy, and noticed some odd contusing of the fascia on her right hand. It didn't become very noticeable until after lividity had really set in. Even still, it's pretty faint. I'd guess it happened right before death. There are two pressure points here at the outside base of the left thumb around the abductor pollicis and the annular ligament. Scans also revealed minor pressure damage to her interior carotid and hypoglossal nerve. These would not be consistent with a drowning death. I would classify Melissa Ambers' death as more homicide than suicide."
Rodney felt chilled. "I don't get it. Why? What would cause damage like that?" he asked.
"If she'd held someone from behind and they resisted," Lorne responded. Rodney blinked at the quick answer. Voice of experience?
"Okay, but why wouldn't there be more evidence of a struggle?" Rodney asked, waving at Ambers' partially covered body. "She doesn't look like she was fighting for her life. There should be... bruising. Cuts and scrapes."
Sheppard's eyes hadn't left the body. He seemed to be paying particular attention to her neck. "Not if she'd already been dosed." He looked at Biro. "Do we know how she was drugged yet?"
"I didn't find any puncture marks, or anything conclusive in the esophageal track or stomach contents. She had dinner yesterday evening, and a snack a few hours later. Nothing that would indicate ingestion of the toxin. Nasal cavity and lungs were clear as well. I'll keep looking."
Everybody took it as the cue it was meant to be, and moved to the main medical wing to continue the conversation.
"We don't know it was murder," Carter started. Sheppard gave her an askance look that spoke of suppressed sarcasm.
"Pretty unlikely it was death by misadventure," he said.
"Yeah, I know." Carter had a touch of resignation in her voice that made Rodney pay attention. "Okay. Colonel, I want you and Lorne to reevaluate what you've got so far and start looking for possible suspects. Rodney, I need you to see if you can find any security footage, access logs that look out of place, anything along those lines. Also, check to see if anything unusual has happened in the last two days. Strange energy signatures, changes in atmospheric composition, anything that might indicate--"
"Aliens?" Rodney asked wryly.
"Or anything else that could have been a precipitating factor. Colonel, Major, keep that in mind while your investigating and look for the same. We'll meet tomorrow morning at ten hundred."
Rodney sighed and turned away, hoping Zelenka was still on his radio this late. No rest for the wicked.
Two days passed and the investigation hadn't progressed much further than it had when they'd met with Biro, aside from her insistence it was a homicide. They'd had a memorial service earlier in the day, Carter giving a eulogy in the gate room. No mention had been made about the lack of a casket or urn. Biro still had the body. Sheppard had insisted on recording the service, wanting to keep an eye on everyone attending in the hopes that someone might give something away. It was a stupid idea, but Rodney had programmed the cameras himself and installed extras with Lorne to capture everything. Personally he suspected that Sheppard had watched one too many crime dramas.
Sheppard's people were still questioning practically everybody and scouring the raw security footage, and Keller was working with Biro on developing a mechanism of injury for the death. Rodney had never been part of a murder investigation before, so he didn't know if this was slow going or not.
The door chimed, interrupting Rodney from the coding he was working on. As he pushed back from the desk a muscle in his shoulder twinged, a hateful reminder that slouching over a laptop for too many hours wasn't nearly as fun as it sounded. He waved the door open, hoping it would either be very good or so pointless as to deserve a vicious retort. Somehow he doubted both.
And then the door slid open, revealing a Lieutenant Laura Cadman, face twisted into that half-plotting smirk of hers that drove him up the wall at all the right/wrong moments.
Rodney folded his arms and stared at her. "So what kept you?"
Her eyes flicked over him, up and down, lingering just enough in just the right places that he couldn't stop biology. Sometimes he hated her.
"Good to see you too, Rodney." She leaned against the door jam and crossed her arms, mirroring him. Her hair feathered around her shoulders like it always did when it was freshly washed. "How've you been?"
Rodney reached out and ungently pulled her into his room, throwing off her balance. Laura was good, though; she almost didn't tumble into him. The door slid closed behind her with a quiet displacement of air and he locked it with a thought. She looked at him, blinking, just a bit of startlement in her eyes before he leaned in, hand skimming up her arm to wrap itself in her hair. He pressed his body forward, forcing her back until she was caught between him and the door. He settled heavily against her, her breath warm and humid on his neck. "How have I been?"
He leaned down to kiss her, licking at her lips, wanting her to respond, wanting her arms around him, scrappling and clawing something out of him.
"What, I didn't think you got bored that easily. Some genius you are," she said, laughing at him just a bit, but tilting her hips just enough, shimmying and pressing into him in the best way.
Bitch, and maybe he'd said it aloud or thought it too hard or maybe Laura could read his face so easily, but she knew it had been there and that grin was back, mocking and irritating and he hadn't seen it in so long. Her fingers were on his neck, pressing him back to her, combined lust intoxicating and wonderful with real flesh against his. Too long, and then she was kissing him. It was hard, and she didn't wait for him to slow or ease up, just kept fueling the fire.
Eventually he pulled back a little; they were both breathing unevenly. "So. What kept you?" he asked again.
Laura relaxed against the door, pulling him flush against her and holding him in place with her arms around his waist. "Something came up. And Sheppard's been running us ragged with the investigation."
"Mm." He burrowed into the crook of her neck, breathing her in. "Stay for long?" He didn't want to let her go.
"We've got five hours," she said. She moved her arms, grasping his shoulders and hauling herself up his body, legs wrapping around his waist. He quickly adjusted her weight. Her mouth was hot on his skin as she kissed his ear. "Take us to bed, Rodney."
"Hey. Guess what I have." Laura made a very disgruntled sound but Rodney was already tossing covers out of his way and walking towards the cabinet along the far wall. One thing they'd quickly agreed on, in long, dark hours of nothing but them talking to one another, was how much they missed the taste of a good wine. When Laura was younger she'd worked as a cook at a series of 3 and 4 star restaurants between NROTC requirements, and after shifts the staff had usually been able to quaff a few glasses of the good stuff from leftover bottles. He pulled out his prize and a corkpuller, brought them to Laura, who had twisted around, leaving bedsheets artistically draped around her torso, red hair a mess against the pillow. He set the bottle on the pillow next to her head and found two glasses.
Rodney's excuse was far more prosaic than hers when it came to wines. Lesser winemakers liked to cut corners and use citric acid to bolster inferior products.
"My God, McKay. Pichon Longueville? You've got taste."
"Your flagrant attempt at flattery and self-promotion notwithstanding: yes, I do."
Rodney watched her tongue skirt out along her lips, just before her teeth bit down as she worked the corkpuller into the neck and began easing the cork out. He felt her gaze drop down from his neck to his chest to his cock, and got a rather blatant image of what she was planning next. Laura was good at that. He lay down next to her, enjoying the view of unblemished skin on her torso as she poured the wine and swirled it for them.
Rodney stared into the glass for a long time, rolling the stem in his fingers and watching light play off the deep purple hues of the wine. He felt Laura observing him and looked up. He raised the glass a fraction. "Vivamus dum licet esse bene."
Laura's lips twitched into a small smile and she clinked her glass to his.
"Longer," she said, and it sounded like a promise.
He awoke gasping for air, visions and memories of violent waves and swirling water still pounding in his head. Damn. Damn it.
Beside him Laura made a fitful noise and he gently nudged her awake. He looked at his watch. Five hours, he thought, and hunched over, breathing deeply and trying to calm his nerves. "You should have told me," he said, quietly, not wanting her to wake too quickly, despite the fact that yes, they both really had to be awake right now.
"No," she whispered back. "No good." He felt her hand on his back, rubbing slow, oblong patterns into his muscles. "Rodney, you okay?"
"Yeah." He felt her lack of belief. "Yeah, I'm... I just... don't like the thought of you dying under any circumstance."
She tugged minutely on his shoulder and he sank back into her, felt her arms go around him, holding him tightly. Fingers carded his hair in a familiar way. "I'm right here."
"Stay that way." He let himself lay there for two moments longer before heaving himself up. "I've got to get to work on the Ambers' stuff. God knows how Sheppard and Carter will take it if this gets fucked up."
He briefly looked at Laura, but she declined to respond.
Rodney was in the lab again, multitasking between security feeds and 10,000 year old planetary survey data when Sheppard strode in, looking tense and unrested. Rodney didn't have to be psychic to know Sheppard hadn't slept yet. Probably wouldn't be, since breakfast was only scant hours away. He knew the feeling.
"Hey. Whatcha working on?"
Rodney paused, Sheppard was staring at the security feeds on laptop 1. "I thought I'd see if I could add any insight into what happened with Ambers' death. I wrote an algorithm, the basis of which I used to create a program which tracks a person based on when they appear in the security feeds." Who cared if his explanation was a little backwards? "It's not perfect, mostly because facial recognition software is, well, not really top priority here." Not to mention nothing similar had been found in the Ancient database. Yet.
"That's... Good." Sheppard was still attentively looking at the screen.
"It is?"
"Yeah. Listen," Sheppard drew his gaze away from the laptop and looked at Rodney, "We're going to start playing this investigation closer to our chests."
"We are?" Rodney didn't get it. Something had made Sheppard twitchy and he wanted to know what. "Why?"
"Because I think we need to."
"Right, of course... Why?"
Sheppard sighed and turned away from Rodney, resting his ass on the table. "The bruises Biro found on Ambers' body are... very reminiscent of... moves taught in advanced hand-to-hand courses."
"Wait a second. Are you implying one of the military had something to do with Ambers dying?"
"No, for now I'm saying we are going to limit the investigation to a few key personnel and go from there."
"But what caused the bruising?"
Sheppard half-heartedly glared at him. "Lorne said it. Someone trying to escape a choke hold. Possibly."
Rodney thought about what to say for a brief moment. "Are you kidding me? I mean, one: not something I really want to contemplate, marines going bad, and two: if I'm understanding correctly, with the exception of the admittedly completely out of place bruising, absolutely everything points to a suicide. Now you're saying Ambers might have attacked a probably military someone and then thrown herself off the East Pier? In what? I fit of pique? I don't get it."
"Which is the reason I'm not accusing anybody or putting together scenarios like that, McKay. Jesus. All I'm saying is that it might be possible somebody here on base interacted with Ambers in the timeline of her death. Now if that's the case, whoever it is is lying by omission, at the very least."
"And after that it starts getting more sinister," Rodney filled in.
"Exactly," Sheppard nodded.
"What about the drug?"
Sheppard sighed, ran his hands over his face, scrubbing at his eyes. "Biro thinks it was used like an eye drop."
"Ocular administration? Are you kidding me?" It bore repeating.
"Something's going on, Rodney. We've got a body that shows two completely different scenarios. Everybody we've spoken with said Ambers wasn't suicidal. She'd been here for only two months, we're in contact with Earth, and she hadn't come in contact with something alien. Nothing your people or my people have found shows anything odd going on. And yet, one night she walks into the pharmacy, doses her eyes with a paralyzer, puts someone in a choke hold and then ends up off the east pier with help."
He had to give Sheppard credit, not many people would put a scenario together like this and actually believe it. "It couldn't have happened another way around?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Biro.
Sheppard shook his head, squinting at the lights overhead. "Not according to the timeline Biro worked out. The toxin had definitely taken full effect by the time she hit the water."
Rodney mulled that for a moment. "So no throwing herself off the East Pier."
"No, not so much."
"What do you need from me?"
"Find me the crime scene."
Rodney gaped for a moment. One of the reasons Sheppard's people had been having such difficulty was that shortly after leaving the infirmary Ambers had gone off the grid. In real time they could have tracked her, but with 16 transporters and only 30% security feed coverage of corridors she hadn't been found again. They'd obviously been trawling the feeds, but hadn't found anything yet. Sheppard cutting back personnel would hinder discovery even more.
"Listen, you're obviously already ahead on me on this, since you're already running stuff to do what we need. Just keep doing it. I've still got people out there looking, but I'd rather have you working the tapes than others who can either be stuck in front of computer looking for something we haven't found in three days, or pounding the pavement. Zelenka's already provided us a log of all the doors accessed during Biro's time frame. They're doing room-by-room sweeps, but if you can find something quicker with a program, it would be better."
"This is... Listen, you know this is not a quick process, right? I mean, the variables, even for Ancient computers, that's a lot of processing power. It's going to take time."
"I know that, Rodney. Just try to get me something we can work with, here. The city is just too big for random shots in the dark."
Sheppard left shortly after that, leaving Rodney to work a miracle for him. One thing the visit did make clear to Rodney: he was going to need sleep. He radioed Sheppard and told him to e-mail Biro's timeline. When it pinged in his inbox a few minutes later, he looked it over. Ending up off the east pier took quite a bit of time given the location of the closest transporter.
Before turning in Rodney e-mailed Sheppard back a preliminary list and possible time tables, mostly transporters less public foot traffic. It wasn't perfect, probably irritated Sheppard more than aided him because Sheppard would have put something like this together already, Rodney was sure of it. He'd given the addendum that his program was still running and would probably take another 20 to 26 hours.
Then he hit the sack.
When Rodney had woken, grabbed a brunchy sort of meal and seated himself back in the labs his inbox had messages from Sheppard and Lorne keeping him abreast of the investigation. They'd already discarded two more areas, and did Sheppard put every single Marine and Airman on the search?
Around noon they'd eliminated two more areas.
"How are you guys doing that?" he radioed Lorne to ask.
"Keller remembered reading about a DNA scanner Dr. Beckett had found a few years back. It could be calibrated to search for a specific person's DNA," Lorne returned.
"We have that?" Rodney didn't remember reading anything about that, not that he'd been looking. But obviously they did.
A couple more hours passed. He skipped lunch, staying at his computer. Just after 2pm Laura walked into his lab.
"How's it going?" she asked, and Rodney took a good look at her. She was tense. Still confident and calm, though.
He nodded slowly, answering her real question. "Good. Very good." He swung back to his computer, angling it a bit so she could see it. "I've finished-"
"It's got to go down like this, Rodney."
Rodney glanced at her sharply, but Laura took a step back from him and before he could do or say anything the doors opened and Sheppard came in with three others, all armed. From one blink to another the Colonel's gun was trained on her, the others following suit.
"Colonel-"
"Sheppard, what the hell!" Rodney shouted.
"McKay, get away from her. Lieutenant, down on the ground, right now," Sheppard ordered. Laura complied and Sheppard jerked his chin at the Sergeant to his left. "Secure her and get her to a cell."
"Are you alright, McKay?" Sheppard didn't relax until Laura was escorted out of the room.
"Am I alright? How about you? You just arrested Cadman of all people!"
"We found the room where it happened and her DNA was there right along with Amber's. Keller matched it 15 minutes ago. What were you two discussing?"
"What?" Rodney brain was going a million miles an hour, still seeing Laura forced to the ground and dragged out.
"I want to know what she was talking to you about," Sheppard repeated, slower.
"We were discussing the rendering of the program, how it was coming." Sheppard looked constipated, but waves of grim satisfaction were coming off of him. "So now what?"
"Now we talk to her," Sheppard replied, and walked out.
"So talk to me, Lieutenant. What happened? Why did it happen?"
"I think I'd like my lawyer, Sir."
"Well JAG Corps has a bit of a hike to get out here, so why don't we talk in the meantime."
The feed continued in the same vein for a good 40 minutes. Not once did Laura say anything of use to them. Carter and Rodney sat in front of a monitor a room off of the cells while Sheppard continued to ask and Laura continued to evade.
"I don't get it," Carter said. She was staring intently at the screen. "I've read Lieutenant Cadman's file. There's nothing in there which would give any indication of these actions. She has always served with distinction and every service review has given her high marks."
Sheppard walked off camera, towards the door. Carter got up, met him in the doorway. Rodney heard Sheppard telling a marine to take her to Keller. He shut down the feed and followed them out. They headed to the control tower, but when they started in on the UCMJ Rodney excused himself. He went back to his lab and waited.
Rodney's hack into the medical mainframe was hurried and inelegant and pretty much nothing but raw data flowing across the screen. But it was enough for him to find, yes, brain scans undoubtedly showing a flurry of brightly glowing red spots. He recognized some of those numbers from his own testing.
The senior staff channel beeped in his ear and then Keller was telling Carter and Sheppard they should get to the infirmary immediately. She also helpfully informed him that Laura was being escorted back to her cell. Rodney paused for a moment and timed things out in his head while Carter acknowledged and said they were on their way. Which meant Sheppard was obviously still with Carter at the moment. Keller had left the scanning screen active, meaning he couldn't do what he wanted to do without alerting everyone prematurely. He called to Keller's screen what he hoped was a fairly innocuous test result, deleted everything else from the past five hours and set the system to shutdown automatically when antone tried to change the screen.
Rodney extricated himself from the system, getting rid of any overt fingerprints he'd left. He was about to shut down when something beeped at him. Frowning, he checked his running programs and found the search he'd done for Atlantis' internal video feed reminding him it had found what he'd been looking for, did he wish to delete retrieved items?
He pressed play and watched as Ambers came up on Cadman from behind, throwing her arm around her neck. Cadman reacted to the sudden attack, but not in time to stop Ambers from pressing her palm flat to Cadman's temple. There was a tiny flash of light and the tableau froze for an instant before reversing itself - Cadman's hand gripped the arm trying to pull away from her throat, held it there as Ambers' thrashing slowed and she fell limp to the floor. Rodney watched Laura pull up the sleeve of the arm she'd been restraining, probably checking it for damage.
Suddenly she was looking right at him, staring not just up at the ceiling corner which was recording the tableau, but right at him. She held up three fingers, then knelt back down next to Ambers.
Three? Three what? What the hell did three mean?
Looking back up, her expression was fast becoming irritated. She stood up, moving closer, held out her wrist and rapped her fingers against it, then emphatically signaled three again.
Time. Three. Three minutes. Startled he checked his watched. Just under three minutes to get to the brig. Sometimes Laura creeped even him out.
He swore he saw her roll her eyes at him as he purged the file.
Getting to the brig wasn't an issue, but not being able to break into the armory to lift a stunner left him one convenient shot short of being in and out. The brig entrance was being watched on the outside by a stoic looking corporal. From around the corner Rodney closed his eyes, concentrating hard on the corporal's heart, making it slow just enough to drop his blood pressure and make him pass out. He stopped when he heard the satisfying sound of someone hitting the ground. Moving closer to the door, he grabbed the guard's sidearm and pictured the controls for the cell, waiting until the interior guard was distracted and then brought down the cell grid. A few moments later he heard a muffled thump and the door opened. Laura stood there, armed with the guard's pistol, rifle and radio.
"Should you have done that?" she asked, and listening to her voice he couldn't tell if she was chastising or worried.
"I'm still in control." Rodney started leading the way to the transporter.
"How far along are we?"
"Everything we need is still in the jumper bay. And I still need to upload and activate the final coding for the gate." The transporter doors opened for them and closed as soon as Laura touched the screen. They reopened at the corridor leading to auxiliary control, and Rodney jogged towards the computer banks.
"I'm going to wait out here," Laura said, and Rodney only paid semi-attention, taking out his flash drive and loading it to the notebook slaved to the database. He typed the command lines as fast as he could, trying not to be impatient as the machine code rewrote itself. He was three keystrokes away when he thought he heard something. Sheppard. He finished typing, but didn't depress enter, pulling his sidearm out instead.
"Stand down, Cadman." Sheppard's voice echoed throughout the room, distracting Rodney's concentration. "Stand down, and tell me where McKay is."
"McKay?" and Laura did a plausible job of sounding incredulous. This had to have been why Laura insisted on waiting across the hall.
"Cadman, stand down!"
Rodney stepped out, aiming his gun at Sheppard, chest-center.
"Drop the gun, Sheppard." Sheppard hesitated, scenarios running through his mind involving shooting Laura versus threatening to shoot her. Rodney shook his head. Laura's pistol moved to aim at Sheppard's head with his distraction. "I owe you. So please don't make me kill you.
Sheppard didn't so much as twitch. "You aren't going to kill her, John."
"And what makes you say that, Rodney?" He was cocky and playing for time; more people were coming.
"You're too good a person." He just wasn't willing to take the chance that his Cadman wasn't still in there somewhere. "And also..." Rodney concentrated and initialized the sequence he'd programmed, and almost immediately the lights throughout the city flickered and came back on. A warning alarm began sounding.
Laura struck at Sheppard with the viperish intensity she'd had to hone, and before Rodney could blink Sheppard was disarmed and bleeding above his eyebrow. She was checking the magazine of Sheppard's pistol while Rodney kept him in place with the gun.
"What the hell did you do?"
Laura stuffed the gun in Rodney's tactical holster. "Go," he said, looking at her quickly before coming back to Sheppard. Laura was halfway down the hall before he answered. "Programmed the city to pump nacelene gas into the control tower, and lock it down when life signs were gone. Don't look at me like that, there would have been ample time for everybody to get out."
"Since you're in such a talkative mood, how about telling me why."
"To get the control tower cleared," Rodney said, implying with his tone that it should have been patently obvious.
"Funny," came the flat reply.
"Come on. Transporter."
"Where are we going, Rodney?"
"You're comm isn't functional anymore, Colonel. They'll be able to track us vis the life sign detectors, they just won't be able to get to us in time." He let Sheppard lead them in and manually overrode the destination lockout. The world flashed and they stood outside the sealed control room door. With Sheppard standing there, Rodney didn't bother with theatrics, just opened it with a thought and relocked it once they were inside. He waved Sheppard to the open space across the room. "Over there, please."
Sheppard reluctantly, oh was he pissed, moved. Rodney watched him take in the abandoned room, caught him looking quickly at the door and away again. Sitting down at the main control console, he began calling up the program he needed.
"What are you doing to the computers?" Sheppard was at a bad angle to see what he was doing.
"I'm activating a code that will wipe the data of the past 30 hours from the database. And as a courtesy, just so you know, once we go through, the gate will be unaccessible for the next day. Both ways, so you won't need to worry about incoming traffic, either. Call it a favor." Time was starting to feel pressed.
"Aren't you going to ask how we found out, McKay?"
"No." Because it was all right there, at the front of Sheppard's mind, screaming it in technicolor glory: the deletions and edits to the security network were just a little too smooth. The Cadman Sheppard knew was good, very good, but not that good. She had to have had help, which made for a very short shortlist. Rodney could see that Sheppard had included a few others - Zelenka, Hydal, Masanugi - but whether it was from overestimation or just giving him the benefit of the doubt he couldn't really tell. Maybe Sheppard couldn't either. Sheppard didn't have all the data yet regarding Laura's medical scans, but when he didn't it would be the final nail.
"What's going on, Rodney! Why are you doing this? She killed Melissa Ambers. She killed her and she covered it up. You don't even like Cadman; I thought you couldn't stand her! So tell me what the hell is going on right now!"
"You want a reveal?" The Marines were coming, and while Sheppard was playing for time, it also wasn't going to be enough. Barring the Daedalus magically appearing and beaming them into a cell, they were going to pull this off. Rodney tapped the final coding sequence into the computer and executed it. Just as the program started running, the shuttle bay doors opened and a jumper elegantly descended level to the gate. Laura was at the helm. He looked at her and she nodded, getting up and then she was there, training a pistol on Sheppard. Rodney closed his eyes. The Marines were getting closer, but they were almost there.
He opened his eyes, and the room was dark. It felt sudden, the door opening and a flurry of movement that made his senses go haywire - four, five, maybe six people on him at once and before he could react he felt a sharp sting, a needle, and then the cold/hot of something foreign flowing through his veins. He tried to fight, tried to scream out, but then his world was going fuzzy and gray and black.
He woke strapped to a table, not just strapped, bound. Ankles, shins, knees and thighs, up his torso, chest, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders. Head. He couldn't turn his neck, but his eyes showed him he was in an infirmary, not that that told him much. He heard the high pitched whines of machines working, a soft murmur of presence spoke to others being in the room with him, out of his line of sight. Footsteps and then a stoic-faced man stepped barely into view and Rodney felt another sting creepy up his veins. Relaxant, this time. His mind went somewhere hazy and his muscles started to melt. His bed was moved to another room and he felt it like a drunk being rolled over unexpectedly.
Wherever they deposited him, it was pleasantly dim, a soft colored glow being given off by something. He slid into a comfortable doze and when he woke again there were several people in the room - deep voices, higher, feminine tones all talking in a jumble he couldn't understand. He was still tied down, unable to see anyone. It took a horribly long time to focus his eyes, but there was something above him, a faintly greenish-purple incandescence. A loud hum began, becoming protracted in both intensity and frequency and soon the soothing purple-green intensified to a brilliant white-blue and he felt a icy fire hit him, like he was being burned inside-out and outside-in.
He wakes ill, in a room full of other people, also ill. He didn't remember passing out, or being unchained or covered with a pathetic excuse for a blanket. He tries to push himself up. He wanting to see what was happening, and only succeeds in curling back into a fetal ball, desperately trying not to suffer the indignity of throwing up all over himself. The sound of someone retching nearby doesn't help matters any. It takes most of a day for Rodney to realize there's a device attached to his temple. It's light, barely noticeable, but once he knows it's there he can't stop thinking about it. He sometimes sees flashes of them on the others around him.
Three days later he's escorted from the room, still ill enough to not give much resistance. Then it starts again.
It's months into the tests when Rodney realizes, in a stark and chillingly rare fit of comprehension, that the number of people in the room is shrinking. He thinks it's then that an impression of strawberry blonde imprints, but really, it might have been a few more weeks later when he's dropped back into the room like a rat in a cage. She's dropped next to him shortly after, curled into a ball so tight Rodney feels the pain just watching. He crawls over to her, but can't do much except touch her hand.
Their numbers dwindle rapidly, insanity strongly favoring the majority. Rodney understands and thinks he's now on the fast track along the same path, until one day Laura whispers to him. It's dark, been dark for a while, and the air is so dry the skin on his hands has cracked. Laura's eyes have black, black circles bruising them. Her sleep is never uninterrupted; she dreams of death and explosions, of poison lacing the atmosphere and lightless pits where she and he are the only ones left.
"Ascension," she says, and Rodney's perfect, startling clarity is back, returned from some distant land where it had been hiding for just this moment. And of course, it made so very, very much sense. Both sides had been studying the phenomena before everything had gone to hell. Rodney had only been on the periphery, but he'd read the reports coming out of Area 51. It gives him something to focus on, and for a while the sessions stop for him, even though Laura is still subjected to them at least once a month.
They're interested in him, in the progress he's making with not going insane like every other person they've subjected to the treatments. Their little device works overtime until Rodney manages to short it out. With his brain. He's both in love and horrified, but he does the same to Laura's a week later, and every time they get new ones it's the same, makes them think it's because the devices can't handle the data. For a while he and Laura are left to their own devices. Laura wonders one day if it's because they want the effects to age for a while, like wine or scotch. At least it gives them something new to talk about.
Testing becomes more common than treatments, like they're trying to figure out what Rodney's brain is doing with all that activity. Rodney tries not to give them any conclusive results, while at the same time belatedly realizing that he's been reading their minds for some time. Actually, he's been reading everybody's mind for a long time, but it had been white noise and migraine inducing, nothing at all coherent.
It's at least two years since Laura arrived when they march in a drag her out, and when she's brought back days later she's inconsolable, hyperventilating until she's sick.
The treatments begin in earnest again after that, and Rodney and Laura are punished over and over when they refuse to cooperate the way they're supposed to, like good little lab rats. They're thrown into a hole in between, with no comforts, barest of sanitation, the scientists trying to break them, or maybe the guards. Finally, finally they get the opportunity to escape, and when the guards come for one of them Rodney gives one an aneurysm and Laura kills the other while he's momentarily distracted by his friend keeling over.
Laura leads them to another level. She's dreamed this, seen it play out like a movie already and suddenly they're in the labs with all the research on quantum universes. Rodney grabs the calibration device twists it and they touch the mirror together. Laura takes the device and turns it off, shutting off the direct gateway between their world and this new one.
They settle down, adapt for a while, decompressing and learning to live again. When the Ashrak finds them, they run. Then he finds them again and Rodney realizes he needs to find a more permanent solution and that's when the idea of switching consciousnesses comes to him.
A soothing thrum greeted Rodney when he came to. He was on board the jumper, Laura piloting in the seat beside him. The control screen flickered and the notation signaling autopilot glowed in the lower corner while data continued to flow.
"You okay?" he asked her. Her hand raked back his hair, feeling his forehead. She nodded, looking serious and slightly concerned.
"Yeah. Sheppard went down like a box of rocks when you started. Of course, so did you. How about you?"
"Tired. Exhausted," he amended. "Where are we?"
"Second planet. There's going to be trouble on the 3rd, so I figured we should rest and recover while we can."
"How bad?"
"We get out. Get what we need to. You get scratched up though and I sprain my wrist." Laura paused and he could feel her gaging him. "You do what you needed to?"
"We're here, aren't we?"
Laura grinned suddenly, leaned over and kissed him gently. "Yes, we are.
Rodney woke, feeling chilled fingers gently carding through his hair. The ground beneath his legs was cold, frigid, but he was partially warm, lying in Laura's lap. His throat was burning, and there was the awful, bitter aftertaste of sickness crawling into his mouth.
"You okay?" she asked, quietly, so quietly and still too loud for his head. A spike of pain hit behind his eyes; Laura's fingers began to tread slowly, with a breath's pressure along his temples.
"Maybe," he whispered back.
"You threw up about 2 hours ago." Rodney just laid there.
Footfalls sounded above them, Jaffa patrolling. Laura wrapped her arms around his shoulders, securing him to her, like they were going to take him back out at any moment. He stared at her stomach, clothed covered, slightly exposed and showing no signs of the damage the scientists had inflicted when they'd sterilized her. No sign of the baby they'd ripped out of her when they'd found out she'd been pregnant.
The experiments weren't at the stage of testing zygotes, let along the progeny of two test subjects. Rodney petted weakly at Laura's belly, wishing. "I think, I think I know how to get us out of here."
Laura's curiousityhopedisbeliefhopehopehope nearly repelled him. He lay still, panting, trying to quell more nausea.
"Sorry, I'm sorry," she said, or maybe thought, and suddenly she was a cool wash of water again. Briefly he thought that she still hadn't been able to tell him how she managed that. But he didn't really care, and she knew it. He felt her lips on the back of his head and he would have crawled right into her if he'd been able. So?
That time she hadn't spoken.
"Yeah. I think they went too far this time. Kept me in longer than they should have." He rolled over, sitting up and grasped Laura's shoulders. "We can get out of here. I know how we can get out."
She kissed his forehead like a benediction.