The floor space was just as cramped as he remembered it, and much warmer. Not to mention airless, he thought, wriggling past the layers of conduit. When they had had people working down here, McKay had managed to deflect the return air for the circulating system through this passage, and John hadn’t realized what a difference it made. It was also much noisier this time, with the sounds from the ATA growing into a painfully incessant clamor. By the time he reached the ceiling panel, John was gritting his teeth and having unpleasant flashbacks to the repository.
He hung upside down out of the ceiling for a moment, just glad to be able to take a full breath, checking the copper-colored floor for suspicious objects and substances. He had been hoping this corridor would be clear, that Beckett’s group had planned to retreat down it if the medlab was compromised. Not seeing anything indicative of traps, he unfolded himself out of the narrow panel and dropped to the floor. The door to the rear area of the medlab area was around the next corner, and it was sealed tight.
John listened at it for a moment and heard muffled voices. He pounded on the door and called, “Hey, can anybody hear me in there? It’s Sheppard.”
After a moment he heard, “Major Sheppard?” It was Beckett’s voice, incredulous and so relieved John could barely understand him through the slurring vowels. “Radek, get over here and open this thing, it’s Sheppard!”
“Wait, wait,” John said hastily. This could be awkward. “Guys, listen to me. When you open the door, I want you to remember that it’s me. Don’t freak out and most importantly, don’t shoot me. Okay?”
There was silence from the other side of the door. John could practically feel Zelenka and Beckett exchanging a look. Then Zelenka’s voice said, warily, “Okay.”
The door slid open, revealing one of the main medlab bays. It was as dimly lit as the rest of Atlantis, with storage cases and wire-framed supply racks standing against the soft copper and silver metallic walls. Then Beckett cautiously peered around one side of the door. He stared, blinked, and said, “Oh, dear.”
“What?” Zelenka peered around the other side of the door, holding a 9mm. His eyes widened, and he gasped, “Kurva drat!” He grabbed John by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the room.
John hit the wall console to seal the door again, and Zelenka stepped back, staring at him, gesturing helplessly. “What — What—?”
“What—?” Beckett echoed, then took John’s wrist, turning his hand over so the claws were visible. “Holy crap. What in the hell did they do to you, boy?”
Covering the door were Ramirez and Audley, members of Bates’ security detail, both carrying P-90s. Ramirez managed to keep his face blank, but Audley looked like he was having one of those Pegasus Galaxy moments where you had to keep doing your job but all you really wanted was a little time to freak out. John sympathized; he had been having one for the past day and a half. John said, “Dorane did this. It’s a genetic retrovirus mutation thing. Rodney thinks—”
“Rodney’s alive too?” Beckett demanded.
“Oh yeah, Rodney’s fine. Sort of. He—” In the center section of the medical area where the diagnostic tables and beds were, he caught sight of Dr. Biro and several of the other medical personnel, as well as Dr. Sharpe, Miko, and a dozen or so others from the science team. Everybody was staring at John in consternation. Then a familiar figure shouldered a way through the crowd and John forgot about anything else. “Bates, what the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, furious. “Who’s with Elizabeth?”
Bates had had his mouth open, probably to say something about how John should be held at gunpoint until they could find out why he looked like that, but John’s irate question derailed that completely. “I don’t know, Major,” he said, his jaw set. “When they took the ’gate room, I was down on this level and I got cut off.” He hadn’t been patrolling or getting ready to go off world, so the only weapon he had was his sidearm.
“Oh, that’s just fantastic!” John pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, trying for calm. “So she’s up there holding off a bunch of Koan and our guys with what, three techs and a laptop?”
Bates controlled a wince. “Dr. Simpson is with her—”
Simpson was another expert on Ancient technology, and she must be the one keeping the door sealed against Dorane. But that didn’t make John feel any better. “Oh good, Elizabeth is being defended by another one of the civilians we’re supposed to be protecting. Does something seem wrong with that picture, Bates? It’s children, scientists, and diplomats first, did you not get the memo on that?”
Zelenka gestured impatiently. “Shout at Bates later! Tell us what happened now! Where is Rodney?”
John took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. Coming unglued at Bates didn’t help, though it had made John feel better for about a minute. Bates’ dark face was suffused with anger, Ramirez looked guilty, and Audley looked relieved, but then John had probably seemed a lot more like his normal self yelling at Bates than he had when he had first come into the room. “Rodney’s with Dorane. The only way we could get back here from the repository was for me to pretend this retrovirus worked better on me than Dorane thought it would, that I wanted to help him take over the city.”
Zelenka put his pistol down on a shelf to rub his eyes under his glasses. His face set grimly, Beckett explained, “When the bastard first got here, he told us you were both gone, that you’d been taken by Wraith. We thought — Well, you know what we thought.”
Zelenka looked up, his eyes hard. “It was very affecting story, lots of detail. Rodney trapped by the Wraith and you going after him, only to be caught yourself.”
“Later, when everything went to hell, we figured he had killed you both,” Beckett added. “And just what is he up to? What has he done to Ford and Kavanagh and the others?”
John explained, “He used a drug, something that works on people like the ATA works on Ancient tech. Or at least that’s what he said; he lies a lot. Teyla said he was in her head, and she had to do what he told her, and we don’t think Kavanagh even knew he was infected until Dorane started giving him orders. It doesn’t work so well on people who have the Ancient gene or the ATA therapy — that’s why he killed Kolesnikova and Boerne.” John flexed the set of claws Beckett was still examining, adding grimly, “I got the special.”
Beckett swore. “I knew that damn gene would cause no end of trouble.”
His face drawn, Zelenka shook his head. “That is… interesting problem. Interesting in the ‘oh God’ way.” He gestured vaguely. “Does Rodney have little silver things too?”
“No, Rodney’s normal — well, he’s Rodney.”
Beckett shook his head, his incredulous expression turning thoughtful. He took John’s chin and turned his head so he could look at his ear. “What are these spines for? Antennae?”
John pulled away. “I have no idea, except it makes the Ancient technology seem a lot more interactive.” Deciding it would be quicker to demonstrate than to try to explain, he nodded to a set of utilitarian metal shelves, incongruous against the smooth copper Atlantean wall panel. “That box there, on the bottom. In it there’s five of those little portable medical scanners. No, wait, there’s six. One…has a cracked control crystal.” He had almost said “one says it has a cracked control crystal” but he didn’t want to look that deranged, at least not in front of Bates.
Beckett and Zelenka stared at him. Zelenka muttered, “God, this would happen in middle of emergency.”
“Oh yeah, it would have been so much fun if this happened without the invasion of the city and the whole helpless mind-controlled slaves bit.” John conquered his irritation and continued, “Look, you guys have to figure out a way to stop the mind-control, because I’m stumped.” He turned to Bates.