John ended up successfully resisting having a spine ripped out of his skull, but Beckett stood over him with one of the Ancient medical scanning devices while Biro took the blood sample. It took her a couple of minutes to get it, since John’s veins apparently heard her coming and tried to hide. “You’re badly dehydrated, Major,” she told him, her expression severe.
“And you know, that’s really the least of my problems right now,” John said, and then had to convince her that he barely had time for the bottle of water she forced on him and that an IV was out of the question.
Beckett was still studying the Ancient diagnostic scanner, a faint professional frown creasing his brow. John started to ask something and saw Beckett’s face change, caught the unguarded moment when the scanner showed Beckett something he must have suspected but had been hoping not to see. Well, crap, John thought, cold settling in the pit of his stomach. The ATA was getting louder and more intrusive; it wasn’t just his imagination, or that there was less ambient noise here to drown it out, or that there was so much active Ancient technology in the medlab. Something was changing in his body and brain chemistry again, and from Beckett’s expression, it wasn’t good.
Beckett cleared his throat; his professional mask was back in place, but the lines on his face were etched a little deeper. “Major Sheppard, I need to talk to you in private.”
“Carson, I don’t have time, and I don’t want to know,” John said. Dr. Biro had finished with the blood sample, and he pulled away from her automatic attempt to put a bandage over the puncture; without one it was just one more bloody scratch on his arm and he didn’t want anything to draw Dorane’s attention to it. Watching Beckett worriedly, Biro barely noticed. Though she hadn’t seen the scanner, she must have caught the same implication from Beckett’s expression. “Not unless it’s going to happen in the next five minutes.”
Beckett winced. He said, “I haven’t even looked at your blood sample yet. We don’t know—”
John avoided his eyes. Okay, that means I’ve got more than five minutes. He didn’t want sympathy right now. Actually he did want it, a lot of it, he just didn’t have time for it. And he wasn’t sure he wanted it from the two people who, in a best case scenario, would be doing his autopsy. He shoved to his feet, suppressing the urge to ask them not to put him in the same freezer as the parts that were left of Steve the Wraith. “I’ve got to get back up there. Make sure Zelenka keeps that memory core safe. It’s the only thing Dorane seems to want more than us.”
As the others scrambled to gather emergency gear, Beckett followed as John led Bates, Audley, and Ramirez to the floor access panel that would take them down to the section below where they could reach the armory. It would be easier and faster for John to go back that way instead of going up and out again.
Waiting impatiently for Audley to pry up the panel, John felt something change in the direction of the central stairwell. It was that same weird tickly feeling in the back of his brain that had warned him about the Koan in the forest. He could tell there were a lot of them, and he could tell they were close but not too close, somewhere towards the inner portion of this section. He said, “There’s some Koan nearby; they’re probably gathering at the stairwell access to the main medlab corridor. Dorane must be getting ready to cut the power to this section.” He looked up to find all of them staring at him a little warily, except for Beckett, who looked like he was making mental notes. John told him, “Remember, let them take the medlab, just get everybody out through here and further down into the city.”
Beckett nodded sharply. “Right. Don’t worry about us.” He shook his head suddenly, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Look, just don’t — Don’t give up. Give me a chance to fight this. I’ll have my headset on. As soon as you can call us back, do it.”
That was the sympathy thing again. John just nodded, and followed the others down into the access.
When John strolled up the central stairs, he found the large group of Koan waiting at the door to the medlab corridor. “So where have you guys been?” John asked them. “I was looking all over the place for you.” He was starting to feel warm, though he wasn’t sweating. He knew it was him; he could tell the circulation system in this section was still running, drawing in cool outside air.
Before leading him to Dorane, the Koan searched him again, making him glad for resisting the temptation to take a side trip with Bates to the armory for some grenades. Explosives were one thing that might be effective against the personal shield, since they didn’t have to work against the body inside the forcefield, just the structural integrity of whatever building that person was standing in. But despite the difficulty of smuggling any kind of weapon into the same room with Dorane, the man would be too close to the naquadah generators, and the naquadah generators were too close to the operations tower and the Stargate, which was made from naquadah, and from what John understood, that could add up to losing a much larger chunk of the city than he was willing to part with. But if it came down to it… He would rather lie down in an open field on a Wraith planet with a “get it here” sign than let Dorane take any people back to the repository. And John didn’t think Dorane was the type to cut his losses and make a run for the Stargate before the last possible moment. If he couldn’t take the expedition members back with him, he would kill as many as he could.
The door to the generator room was open, and the Koan led John inside. Dorane was standing with several Koan, Ford, and two Marines. Dorane looked even worse than he had in the ’gate room; his eyes were yellow and bloodshot and his skin was gray. Maybe when he said the atmosphere of Atlantis was inimical to him, he hadn’t been exaggerating.
McKay, crouched on the floor beside the generator, looked up warily. He was surrounded by open access panels and disconnected crystal conduit. Kavanagh, his expression blank, stood nearby holding a toolkit. “I’m back,” John announced unnecessarily. He was listening hard for a faint thread of discord among Atlantis’ whispery harmonics, and the ATA was relatively quiet in here. The naquadah generator was Earth manufacture, not Ancient, and the only other tech he could hear was the door control panels and Dorane’s personal shield. So where the hell is he keeping this thing? It had to be nearby. Even if it didn’t have to be physically close to work, John figured Dorane was too cautious to let it out of his control. Unless he has it on him somewhere, and the shield is just so loud it’s covering up any noise from the control device.
“You didn’t go to the sealed area through the main corridor,” Dorane said, watching him carefully.
“Well, no, since I’d be dead if I had. I knew another way in.” John lifted a brow. “Isn’t that what you were counting on?”
Dorane didn’t bother to answer. “But you found the memory core.”
John fished the stick out of his pocket and held it out. McKay stared, winced, and ducked behind the generator. John knew the stick probably didn’t hold a tenth of what the actual Ancient core held, but Dorane wouldn’t know that. He just hoped it didn’t occur to the man to ask Kavanagh.
Dorane’s expression was impossible to read. He didn’t reach out to take the stick. “What is that?”
“It’s a data storage device for our computers,” John told him. “I couldn’t get the core itself.”
Dorane looked at Kavanagh, who put the toolkit down and came forward. Kavanagh took the memory stick from John, glanced at it briefly, and held it out to Dorane, saying, “That’s correct, it’s a data storage device.”
John knew Dorane was still wearing the personal shield. But he really doesn’t trust me, and it obviously occurred to him that I might hand him something that would blow up or even short out the shield. Too bad John didn’t have anything like that. But Dorane obviously knew nothing about their technology; maybe he had seen just enough to realize there were elements of it he didn’t understand.