"Please…" The whimper barely squeezed past Ronon's chokehold. "She's right. I was lying. Please… here. It's the red button," he croaked, flopping his arm until the sleeve of his robe slipped to reveal a wristband like the one the ST officer had worn.
Sliding a glance at Teyla, Ronon saw her nod. Must be his lucky day. "Take it off. Nice and easy."
Nice and easy no longer was in the guy's vocabulary. With all the signs of panic, he ripped off the device and held it up. "Red button," he stammered again.
Ronon snatched the wristband, spun him around, landed an uppercut on the technician's chin before the man had come to a standstill, dropping him cold. "Right. Let's get the hell out of here." Stepping over the crumpled body, he sheathed his sword, held his breath and pushed the red button, hoping that Teyla had read the man right.
Seemed as though she had.
The wall behind the computer banks twisted out of focus, and for a moment Ronon thought that he'd been wrong, that the Behemoth was reasserting its presence, and braced himself for an onslaught of agony. It never happened. Instead, he watched the whole side of the room burst into a rainbow of colors as the force field, and with it the illusion it had generated, dissolved. Behind lay another hallway, descending into the bowels of the Defense Command Center.
It was wide enough to accommodate the standard marching formation of six men to a line, with a low ceiling that, like the walls, was soundproofed. Inset into the floor at regular intervals were light panels, glowing in a dull red and providing just enough illumination to see where you were going. Best of all, there wasn't a soul waiting in the tunnel.
"Ronon? What's going on?"
For a few seconds there, he'd clean forgotten Teyla's presence. He whirled around guiltily, and as he turned his gaze caught on that huge, gross jar of McKay preserve. Something she'd mentioned earlier popped into his mind. "You said you found me because you had my finger?"
"Yes, but-"
"How?"
"It has your DNA,so the Stargate took me to you. It's something to-"
Ronon no longer listened. Three swift strides brought him in front of the preserve jar. There probably was a release mechanism somewhere, but he didn't have the time to look for it. This would have to be done the old-fashioned way… He drew his sword, aimed at the middle of the glass tube and swung. The impact almost broke his wrist. Not glass, then. Great.
But then there was the faintest of whispers, and he saw a hairline crack running out from where he'd struck the tube. Two more blows finished the job. The tube exploded in a fountain of shards and stench and liquid, drenching him to the skin, and he barely jumped out of the way of the corpse toppling toward him. Gross!
"What are you doing?" Teyla was starting to sound pissed off. Not that he could blame her. "And what's that smell?"
"Whatever they use around here to pickle dead people."
McKay's body lay on the floor like something about to melt, and Ronon fought back the urge to gag-substantially helped by loud banging from the door.
"You in there! Open up!" The STs had arrived.
"If we're going anywhere, now would be a good time!" advised Teyla.
Then a new voice from outside. "Ronon, you don't want to do this!" Marcon yelled through the door, a tremor of fear in his voice. Yes, resistance definitely would scare him. "Surrender! You won't survive it if you don't."
And he wouldn't survive if he did.
He raised his sword one last time, brought it down with barely a glance and snatched whatever body part he'd just sliced off… an ear? If nothing else, it was easy to stow. Fighting that urge to hurl again, he stuffed the ear into his back pocket, wiped his hand, and grabbed Teyla's arm. "Let's go!"
As they bolted through the opening, Ronon activated the wristband again, and the force field reestablished behind them. It wouldn't keep them safe, not by a long shot. As soon as the STs broke down the lab door and realized that the fugitives were gone, Marcon would know and have the tunnel opened. They had maybe ten minutes, if that, to get a comfortable head start. It would have to be enough.
Still holding on to Teyla, he set off at steady jog. "You okay?" he asked as he ran.
"Yes. What kept you in there?"
The embalming fluid dripping from his booty had soaked through Ronon's back pocket. It felt sticky on his skin and made him want to squirm. Never mind. "I got us a ticket to meet the one guy who's able to fix this mess"
Chapter thirteen
At some point before the lights went out, Brother Maniac had told John-that would be Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard-that they were living in the Age of Aquarius. Or something. His head disagreed. Capricorn came closer, especially as Capricorn was butting its horns against the inside of his skull. Persistently and with the kind of vengeance that could be achieved only through years of determined malevolence.
He groaned.
In response, somebody removed something warm and wet from his forehead, replaced it with something cold and wet, and said, "Thank God!"
"Elizabeth?" That couldn't be his voice, could it? It sounded like somebody had run it through a veggie grinder. He tried again, with moderate success. "Elizabeth?"
The answer came in stereo. "I'm here, John."
Followed by, "About time."
His voice, with vastly improved smoothness, probably because he hadn't actually said anything.
Then a female solo, "Don't get your hopes up. He is waking up, but it might take awhile yet."
John figured he had two options; either assume he was hearing things and leave it at that, or open his eyes and check it out. He knew which option he preferred, but he also had a nasty suspicion that this particular option wasn't really an option. As if to confirm his hunch, there was a low rumble and the ground shook.
"Damn," said his voice-the smooth version. "That's the third in the last hour. We had the same thing happening in my timeline. Teyla thought that Charybdis was causing it."
"I don't like it here. It's dirty," complained one of the Elizabeths. "And damp."
The other one soothed, "We won't have to stay here much longer. Just until John comes round." In a whisper, obviously not meant for her alter ego to hear, she added, "We've got to get out. It's not safe."
"I know," the smooth voice hissed back.
Okay. Time to take that option, which was easier thought than done. Next to extracting a team of injured Rangers from deep within Taliban territory in Afghanistan, opening his eyes was the trickiest thing he'd ever tried to do. His eyelids weighed a ton, for starters, and he was constantly scrambling for a foothold on that greased slope back into oblivion. The other senses were more accessible.
Wherever he was, it was cold. Clammy. John could feel the ground under his fingertips-rock-and it was moist and covered in something slick, algae or moss or sediment. The place also smelled funny, musty, dank, as though it hadn't seen sunlight in… ever. There was a constant, slow drip-drip-drip coming from his left, and the sound, just like the voices, had that hollow, echo-y quality. Belowground then, a tunnel or a cave.
And they'd just had a seismic tremor. Oh goodie.
"Why the hell didn't you wake me?" he groaned.
"We tried, believe me."
"Should have tried harder, Junior."
There was no reply other than a soft scraping of metal. The next thing John knew was a cascade of ice water exploding in his face. He gasped, spluttered, and finally yanked his eyes open, only to be rewarded by a new attack from the Capricorn as the dim flicker of a torch hit his retinas.