Given the dreamlike pace at which the dots were moving, he'd have a good chance of intercepting Dot B at the station. John cut across the control center to the nearest transporter, which brought him out at a terminal within two hundred yards of the pier. The transporter door slid open on a blur of movement.
The round shattered the touch panel on the cabin wall, missing him by a hair. Instinct or a sixth sense had made him spin out of the way. Without stopping to think he dived out of the cabin-a dead end now that the panel was gone-hit the floor like a sack of cement, rolled over, and scrambled for the cover of a pillar.
So much for the dots ignoring the warning klaxons. Well, one dot anyway.
A second shot went wide, ripping stone shrapnel from the floor behind him. He heard a shout of frustration, thought he recognized the voice, and immediately discarded the notion, because it would have been ludicrous. Unless…
"Elizabeth! Don't shoot! It's me. John!"
The reply was another round, wide by a mile but pretty unambiguous.
He ducked reflexively, frowned. If anything the lousy marksmanship confirmed it. After all, Elizabeth hated guns. Though why she'd feel the need to shoot him remained a mystery. Admittedly he'd managed to piss her off big time on a few occasions, but this-
A third shot tore through the hallway. Light, unsteady footfalls told him she was on the move, closing in. Waiting probably wasn't a good idea. Even she couldn't miss at point blank range.
The footfalls stopped, then she fired again.
Staking his life on the fact that the recoil would mess up her aim even worse, John darted from cover and down the corridor at a hobbling run that made him sweat with pain. But pain wouldn't kill him, whereas Elizabeth just might. At the end of the corridor lay a spacious hall and a maze of rooms off several stories of galleries and metal stairways. It probably had been a storage area, though they'd never actually confirmed it. At any rate, it'd provide much better cover and a chance to lay low and get a fix on Dot B, who seemed to have done the smart thing and dropped below the radar.
His bum leg buckled under him and he almost fell. A quick slam into the wall helped him stay upright, but he couldn't run anymore. The storage hall was sixty feet ahead-it might as well have been sixty light years. Not a chance. Deciding he'd rather face her than be shot in the back, he pushed himself off the wall. Who knew, maybe he could talk some sense into her.
Hands raised, he turned around and instantly realized that talk wouldn't save him. She looked like something that had escaped from a medieval bedlam, wild-eyed, haggard, a Medusa's head of gray hair flaring around a skull-like face. Her arms were outstretched, elbows locked, fingers strangling a 9 mm Beretta. The barrel of the gun wavered unsteadily as she staggered toward him. Each time she forced it back on target with a frown of concentration. Itchy trigger finger didn't begin to describe it.
"Elizabeth-"
"I told you I didn't want you to leave!" she spat.
Since she'd never told him anything of the sort, it was a safe assumption that the original John Sheppard and Dot B were one and the same. "Elizabeth-"
"I don't want to hear it!"
The round struck the wall inches in front of him, smashing a light panel and showering him in a hail of splinters. Blinking furiously, John resisted the impulse to protect his face; if he was to achieve anything, he had to maintain eye contact with her. "Look at me, Elizabeth! Do I-"
"Get down!"
The bellow came from the storage area behind, the voice familiar enough for him to obey without hesitation-after all, if you couldn't trust yourself, whom could you trust? Wondering whether he'd ever get to finish a sentence, he hit the deck, heard something whiz overhead.
The something-a rubber ball? — hit Elizabeth squarely in the chest, toppling her. In falling, she lost her grip on the gun. The weapon sailed along the corridor, clattering to a halt within a few yards of John. He launched himself forward, starting to scrabble for it the same time as Elizabeth was recovering. His fingertips just about grazed the barrel. Another half inch and-
"I don't think so!"
A well-placed kick sent the gun spiraling down the corridor and way out of reach. John's alter ego flung himself atop Elizabeth, straddled her. An expert left hook cut off furious screams and flailing by knocking her out cold.
"I hate hitting women," Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard observed to no one in particular. Then he straightened up, flipped her over, and used the simple sling that had converted a piece of rubber into a missile to tie Elizabeth's hands securely behind her back. That done, he turned around. "And who the hell are y-" His jaw dropped.
"Please don't tell me I always look that stupid when I'm surprised."
To find somebody else unable to finish his thought proved unexpectedly satisfying. John had aimed for a grin, figured he didn't quite make it, and saw what had to be an identical half grimace on the face staring at him. Conversing with one's own mirror image was just a little on the disconcerting side. Though, admittedly, the mirror image looked nearly as bad as he felt, right down to the rough, homespun outfit. Unshaven and filthy and unsteady on his feet now, his reflection was pale as a sheet, his eyes a little unfocused. Together with a scabbed-over gash on his temple, calling to mind the bloodstained wrench in the jumper, it suggested a severe concussion. That aside, food must have been in extremely short supply around this version of Atlantis. John himself looked a tad less than well-fed-an inevitable result of the infamous tuttleroot soup diet-but the original was a hair shy of emaciation. So was Elizabeth, come to think of it.
They continued staring at each other for a moment, then the original-John felt a little inconsequential, like having a starathlete, four-point-zero-GPA older brother who was reaping all the glory-said, "I'm guessing this is another one of the numerous entertaining side-effects of Charybdis?"
"Oh yes "
"So, who… uh…" The implications were starting to sink in. One of the few things nobody had ever accused him of was being slow on the uptake. Looking less confident than a superior officer should, the Lieutenant Colonel cleared his throat. "Which one of us is-"
"The original?"
"Yeah."
.,you are.,
"How do you know?"
"You outrank me. Sir." John startled himself by sounding rather more acrimonious than he'd meant to sound and suppressed a wince. Things really didn't get any more idiotic than being jealous of yourself.
"I got lucky," offered John the Elder. "When we managed to return Earthside the brass informed Elizabeth that, while I'd been performing competently, the job of military leader of Atlantis was a colonel's billet. Elizabeth… Elizabeth refused to have Colonel Caldwell foisted on her and insisted they fix the problem the easy way."
John read the guilt and regret in his eyes-his eyes-and felt a flash of it churning in his own stomach. Casting a wry look at that hag-like figure muttering and writhing on the floor, he murmured, "You probably saved my life, and if it's any consolation, I very much doubt she's the original. Besides, you seem to have won the grand prize. You're the lucky guy who gets to fix it all."
"Says who?"
"Teyla."
"Teyla is alive?"
"A version of her. She may be your Teyla. At any rate, she assures me that all the originals survived."
It brought a first cautious smile-surprise, relief, and maybe brittle hope. "So, how about I pull rank and debrief you, Major?"
After the watery murmur of the event horizon had sucked back in on itself and told her that the wormhole had disengaged, Teyla sat on the stairs leading down to the Stargate for a long time, listening to the silence, conjuring up the many different voices that had once filled Atlantis. Funny how she'd suddenly hear people she hadn't thought of in years, decades even, simply because she'd never known them well enough. Which wasn't their fault, and they didn't deserve to be forgotten. John Sheppard's presence had brought them back to her.