"With fewer interruptions, perhaps so." Radek's unexpected glower nearly made Rodney wish once more for his winter coat. "The unique gene sequences Carson had found during his ATA research caught his attention again some time later, when he was developing the retrovirus for the Michael experiment."
Everyone in the vehicle, with the exception of Dr. Jackson, looked hardened by the reminder. Amid the incredible strides made as a result of the Atlantis expedition over the past three years, there had been episodes of which the expedition was less than proud. Ethical questions aside, the attempt to reengineer Wraith DNA into human hadn't resulted in the absolute worst catastrophe Rodney had ever witnessed, but it had been a very near thing.
It took a moment for that unpleasant memory to pass before he realized just what Radek had implied. "Wait-are you saying that Carson found a link between actual human DNA and the iratus virus?"
Rodney hoped irrationally for a rapid denial, or at least an assurance that he was on the wrong track, as unlikely as that might be. Instead he got only a solemn, silent glance.
"Oh, God," he murmured, horrified. "That's it, isn't it'? Humans have the virus. We've always had it. Oh, God."
"Rodney, calm down," Elizabeth advised, "and let Radek finish."
"Research shows that the virus was introduced to the human population at the same time and geographical location as the ATA gene," said Radek. "Not all humans possess it, of course-not even all humans with the ATA gene-but about half the population has fragments of the base code. Under certain conditions, gene therapy being one such condition, mutated versions of the iratus virus can become active."
"And something has suddenly triggered the virus in people here, like a kind of iratus time bomb?" Elizabeth started to twist around in the driver's seat.
"Eyes on the road!" Rodney barked, turning to face the front. Suddenly the cramped interior of the SUV was too warm, too constricting. He put his head down and tried to breathe deeply, but his lungs didn't seem interested in complying. Wide open fields…clear blue skies…
Rodney heard his name dimly, over the hammering of his heart, and couldn't have cared less. "Pull over," he panted. "Dammit, pull over!"
One of Elizabeth's many admirable traits was her willingness to act without hesitation when it mattered. No sooner had Rodney made his plea than the SUV made a swift right turn and came to a halt.
Barely lifting his head, Rodney shoved the door open and flung himself out of the vehicle. He sucked in a lungful of cold air and, ignoring the splashes of half-frozen mud, sat down hard on the rear bumper, trying to get himself back under control.
Other doors opened and closed, and before long he found himself surrounded by his colleagues. He noticed that the faux CDC truck had pulled up behind them. A hand came down to rest on his shoulder. "Dr. Lam's gone to get you something to drink," Elizabeth said calmly, as if this sort of thing happened every day. "Just take it easy for a minute."
"Take it easy?" Rodney offered a harsh laugh, still bent low and examining the cracked pavement and dirty slush piled in the gutter. The bracing chill and random snowflakes barely registered when compared with the icy tendrils that gripped his stomach. "That gene therapy worked on me, remember'? I probably have some variant of this damned bug. We created a whole group of iratus carriers ourselves, and any number of them must be hidden in the human population, just waiting to be switched on!"
Seeing Sheppard's polished shoes approach the huddle, he was about to add something further, but the Colonel, who must have received a similar briefing from Lam, got in first. "I need Ronon and Teyla here," he said, his tone matter of fact. "If there's some sort of clue on M1M-316 as to the Ancient who let this gene loose on Earth, then Rodney and Radek should have been the ones to go there with Lorne. Meanwhile, if we've got Wraith, or Wraith wannabes, on the loose on Earth, I can't track them down without Teyla and Ronon. No offense, Rodney. It's just that Teyla can sense them coming, and Ronon's been taking them on longer than anyone we've got."
"Oh, is that your grand strategy?" Rodney drew another frigid breath, quashing a vague twinge of guilt for not paying more attention to the activities of his other two teammates. "Do you really think you can contain this with a couple of hunting trips'? You can't simply round up a few pasty-looking people and call it a day. The virus is in our DNA. It's part of us!"
When Elizabeth's fingers tightened, digging into his shoulder, Rodney glanced up and identified their stopping point as a gas station, complete with a line of snowboard-topped SUVs and various travelers. Several were looking in the direction of the `CDC' van and the cluster of people hovering around him.
"Let's maybe talk about this somewhere less public, shall we?" Jackson suggested.
You're not dead yet, Rodney told himself. And you 're not a Wraith. Deal with everything else one step at a time.
Lam held out a bottle of some kind of sports drink without comment. Rodney accepted it despite its strong resemblance to antifreeze. After a couple of swallows, he felt marginally human again-although apparently that was a relative concept now.
"Claustrophobia," he mumbled weakly. "Uh, please continue, Radek."
"I have told you all I know at this point," Radek replied, standing there with an infuriatingly masked expression.
Rearing up off the bumper, Rodney insisted, "That can't be all."
The other scientist unfolded his arms and, raising his gloved hands in surrender. "The research was, as you said, one of many projects, and not terribly high on the priority list."
"Not a priority'? You went far enough to identify the problem and decided to take a lunch break before investigating a solution?"
"Rodney!" Elizabeth's admonishment was less effective than Sheppard's abrupt grip on his arm, hauling him upright and into the backseat of the SUV, then shutting the door behind him.
Once everyone had belted in, this time with Jackson in front, and they were in motion again, Elizabeth finally spoke. "Rodney, try to remember that not everyone in Colorado Springs has the same level of security as you. Carson notified me of his findings and submitted a report to the SGC last year. At that point we had no reason to think there was a problem. Until these killings, nothing had happened on Earth to suggest that any Wraith traits were present in humans. I did recognize some similarities to the succubus myths and possibly some old vampire tales, but that's all. To be honest, based on the manner in which many other myths have played out, including the existence of Merlin and even Atlantis itself, it seemed reasonable to assume that such legendary creatures existed only in the Pegasus Galaxy."
Rubbing his arm, which was certain to bruise, Rodney asked, "And what are those myths-besides the Hollywood version, I mean?"
Jackson turned around to face him. "Dr. Beckett's report traced the first occurrences of the iratus virus to the E'din Valley, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in ancient Persia, the area fabled to be the location of the Garden of Eden-what's now Iraq."
"Still nothing I'd call surprising." Couldn't anyone process or disseminate information as quickly as Rodney? "We've already discussed the Ancients' evacuation to Earth ten millennia ago. They made that return through the Egyptian gate. And?"
As the SUV coasted to a stop at a traffic light, Jackson slouched back in his seat. "You can't imagine how I've missed working with you, McKay," he remarked under his breath, the words still perfectly audible. More loudly, he continued, "The Ancients' presence in that region explains the appearance of the ATA gene, but not the appearance of the iratus virus. Based on the mythology and what we saw on the tape Woolsey discovered, though, I think I have an idea what might have happened."