Reliquary

Chapter Ten

Rodney really, really didn’t see a way out of this. Watched carefully by the Koan, he was forced to follow Dorane, two Marines, and Ford to the naquadah generator that powered the lower center section of the city, including the medlab. Rodney had tried to steer Dorane toward one of the generators for the other sections, but Dorane hadn’t gone for that.

Part of him was wondering how much of the system Zelenka had trashed while sealing off the medlab. As Rodney knew very well, there was nothing like the threat of certain death to inspire speed and creativity. Between the damage Dorane and the Koan had caused, and the damage Zelenka and the others had done trying to stop them, it would probably take a month to repair everything. If they got out of this alive. Rodney groaned mentally, wishing an insane repair schedule was his only problem.

If the power was completely cut, the doors on the medlab level could be pried open manually. Rodney knew that was where Dorane had sent a large number of the Koan and several of the expedition’s military personnel that he had under his control, ready to move in.

In the lead, Ford took the last turn in the corridor, reaching the doorway to the generator room. A cardboard sign with the words “stay out” and a badly-drawn skull and crossbones had been stuck on the wall next to it with sticky tape. At the time Rodney had thought the symbolism was a nice touch; now it was all too appropriate. Even if some of the expedition members escaped into the unexplored sections and managed to evade Dorane, how were they going to survive with the city a dead powerless hulk? And Rodney didn’t suppose Dorane would be stupid enough to leave any jumpers behind.

The door slid open to reveal a dimly-lit five-sided room with antique gold walls and burnished copper trim, colors that suggested an upscale restaurant more than they did a main access point to the city’s power grid. Unless you were Ancient, apparently. There were three other sealed doors, all corridor accesses, and the naquadah generator sat near the center. It was small for something so powerful, positioned on a low pallet and connected into Atlantis’ system through the access points in the floor and wall panels. Dorane eyed it with an expression Rodney could only interpret as skepticism, asking Kavanagh, “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Kavanagh said, as bland as if they were discussing the weather. “That’s the generator.”

Rodney eyed him sharply. He told Dorane, “You shouldn’t have killed Kolesnikova. She knew more about naquadah power generation than Kavanagh could ever learn.”

“I could control Kavanagh,” Dorane replied easily, as if it was nothing. “She had your gene retrovirus.”

Rodney had wondered if Dorane had ordered Kavanagh to kill Irina. But that sounded as if he had done it himself.

Rodney remembered thinking once that it was bizarrely unfair that Sheppard and Carson and the others had come by the gene naturally, just because they had promiscuous ancestors who must have been lining up at the proverbial dock the day the Ancients had landed on Earth. And it had been a huge relief when the ATA therapy had worked for Rodney. Now it was going to get all of them killed in a horrible way, and that was just typical.

“You know why we’re here. Prepare it for transport.” Dorane looked at Kavanagh. “Bring the tools. Make sure he uses only the correct ones needed for the job at hand.”

Rodney looked down at the generator, grimacing. He had put so much work into getting these things to mesh with the city’s more advanced systems; taking it out was really going to hurt. At least he could do it slowly and blame the low emergency lighting. “I assume you want it intact, and not in burnt-out pieces, so it’s going to take some time since I can barely see what I’m doing.”

“That can be remedied,” Dorane told him, his expression bland.

Rodney threw him a wary look, not sure if he meant a flashlight or a little genetic adjustment. Except for the lights on the P-90s, which the men weren’t using because of the Koan, nobody seemed to be carrying a flashlight. He said stiffly, “I’ll make do.”

Kavanagh brought a tool case over and opened it. Rodney glared at him, but Kavanagh’s normally annoying face was blank, just like the Marines and Ford. Rodney selected the screwdriver needed to get the generator’s panels open, holding it out to Kavanagh for inspection. Kavanagh nodded, and Rodney sneered, saying, “I’m not quite insane enough to blow this thing up with me standing over it.” Not yet, anyway. If they got to the fifth generator and Sheppard still hadn’t shown up, Rodney knew he might rethink that position. For all he knew, Dorane’s genetic tampering had finally run its course and Sheppard was already lying dead in one of the corridors.

Dorane watched him get the panels off the generator’s access points, and it made the back of Rodney’s neck sweat. He flinched when Dorane said suddenly, “I am only just realizing how apt my earlier comment was about the city being fit only for scavengers. Your technology is cobbled together from many different sources, is it not? You weren’t lying about coming here from another galaxy.”

I’m only just realizing how apt my earlier comment was about you being a serial killer. Rodney said flatly, “No, we weren’t lying.” Dorane seemed to know the Ancient systems fairly well, but it was the interfaces with Earth-based computers and technology that baffled him. Considering how much of it was a hybrid mix of Terran, Goa’uld, Asgard, and Ancient, it probably wasn’t surprising that Dorane didn’t understand it. Or us.

“You did not know of the Wraith, when you came here to loot Atlantis? I suppose your Lantian ancestors did not bother to pass along the story of their defeat.”

Rodney set his jaw, barely managing to stifle his first knee-jerk reply. He knew Dorane wanted him to assert the expedition’s right to the city, based on Earth’s inheritance from the Ancients. Guess what? You’re the only person with an ATA gene handy, and he wants an excuse to torture you. He said only, “We didn’t know.”

Dorane continued to watch him from what Rodney thought was way too close a distance, but didn’t reply. Rodney tried to focus his attention on the delicate maze of circuitry inside the generator’s connection panel and ignore the lingering painful death that was in his immediate future.

In his more optimistic moments, of which there were few, Rodney had imagined what things would be like if they ended up staying here forever, or at least all lived long enough to die of natural causes. Somehow in that scenario, Sheppard had still been here too, though God knew after years of crash landings, head injuries, and Wraith stunner attacks he would probably have even more impulse-control issues than… Of course, Rodney thought with a sudden surge of hope. He leaned down over the connecting conduit to conceal his expression. Now he knew what the plan was.

He just hoped Sheppard was still alive to carry it out.

The climb was an intense few minutes, but John was able to make the other balcony without dying. From there he went to the corridor just above the one that approached the medlab from the outer wing of the city, then found the correct floor access panel. He pried it open and crawled through the floor to find the ceiling panel that would open inside the quarantine-sealed area, on the opposite side of the medlab from the booby-trapped corridor of death that led from the center stair shaft.

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.

From what John could figure, they had one asset that Dorane wouldn’t know about. “He’s got a group of our people locked in that meeting room at the end of the south hall on the lower operations level. I need you to take Audley and Ramirez and get the Wraith stunners out of the armory, then take out the men guarding the door and get our people the hell out of there. I’ll show you where the floor access is so you can get out of the medlab corridor without alerting the Koan. After that you’re on your own; I have to go back to Dorane before he gets any more suspicious than he already is.” It was there that the plan got really vague again, but he wasn’t going to mention that aloud.

Bates nodded sharply, his expression of concentrated suspicion changing briefly to relief. The Wraith used the stunners to render their prey helpless for capture and feeding; with the four stunners the expedition had managed to acquire, Bates and the others could take out the controlled Marines without harming them, and it would be quicker and far more efficient than trying to use tasers. It would still be risky, as the men under Dorane’s control would be shooting to kill, but it was the best chance they had to get out of this without a bloodbath. Bates said, “Then we take back the ’gate room.”

“That’s right.” By that point Bates would have help from the personnel liberated from the Koan, and the ’gate room was a straight shot right up the tower. Cutting off Dorane’s access to the Stargate would probably make him freaky and desperate as well as incredibly dangerous, but this was the only way they could play it. “They’re holding Grodin and Laroque in there, and there might be some others, so don’t give them time to shoot anybody. Grodin was the only one I saw who hadn’t been given the control drug. Then come after Dorane. We should be at one of the naquadah generator stations — he’s having McKay take them out for transport back to his planet. Don’t waste any shots on Dorane, he’s wearing a personal shield.”

Bates’ expression took on a new level of grim. Ramirez asked quickly, “Sir? Personal shield?”

“That Ancient thing Dr. McKay was wearing the time I shot him and threw him off the control gallery,” John told him.

“Yes, sir.” Ramirez nodded his comprehension, then realized the implications. “Uh oh.”

“Yeah.” It had been funny when they were playing ‘Captain Invulnerable’ with McKay; now it was anything but. And if the Ancients were going to make those damn things, why so few? Why not one for everybody? Sometimes the Ancients were just annoying. John wasn’t thrilled with the people who hadn’t bothered to flush the plague-spreading nanites and the Darkness creature before leaving the city, either. “By the time you get there, I’ll think of a way to take care of Dorane.”

John could see Bates suppressing a comment on that piece of optimism. Instead he said, “What about Eliza—” He corrected himself stiffly. “Dr. Weir?”

John shook his head, though it ate at him to make this decision. “He can’t get into that room, so he can’t hold them hostage; we can get them out after we take out Dorane.”

John could tell Bates saw the sense in that, though he didn’t like it either. As Bates took Audley and Ramirez aside to work out a plan of attack for the level the prisoners were on, John turned to Beckett and Zelenka again. “Look, Dorane’s going to send the Koan in here, probably when he has Rodney take out the generator for this section of the city. You need to get everybody out, get them to the lower levels, split up and hide. It’s not Atlantis he’s really after. He wants us, to experiment on.”

Beckett grimaced. “I thought it might be something like that. We’ll pack the emergency supplies and go as soon as we can.”

“Oh, and he wants the memory core from that pillar thing — that’s why he let me come down here.” John asked Zelenka, “Do you have that?”

Zelenka nodded. “Yes, I took it out to work on further, and it came with me when we evacuated the labs. There’s information there he wants?”

“Yeah. I have no idea what, but — Can you make a copy of a part that’s really damaged, something he won’t be able to read? I just need something I can hand him, something that’ll seem convincing.”

Zelenka was already moving toward an array of laptops set up on the work tables at the back of the bay. “Yes, yes, we can do this.”

Beckett rubbed his forehead wearily. “This mind-control can’t be a completely organic process. If he really based this on the ATA gene, it just doesn’t work that way. There has to be a technological component somewhere.”

“I haven’t seen him use—” John frowned. He had seen Dorane with something, when he and Teyla had caught him with the Koan. “Oh, crap. I thought he was using a life sign detector. But that was when McKay was hiding in the area; if Dorane had had a detector, he would’ve been able to send the Koan right to him.” That was why Dorane had put the thing down and walked away from it so readily. If John had had the chance to follow through on his threat to shoot Dorane’s hand off with the device in it, this whole thing would have been over in that moment. There’s a lesson in that, he told himself grimly.

Zelenka had returned and was listening thoughtfully, tapping a memory stick against his chin. “We think life sign detector works by sensing a degree of electrical activity in nervous system — that is why it doesn’t show the presence of hibernating Wraith.” He lifted his brows. “If he has altered a unit so it also broadcasts to these infected individuals and can perhaps set it to inhibit any activity that is not directly provoked by some certain cue, such as his voice — But this is all hypothetical.”

“Could you jam the hypothetical signal from the hypothetical thing?” John asked, not hopefully.

Zelenka shook his head, grimacing. “I doubt it, certainly not in limited time before he decides to order our friends to kill us. We still have not isolated the exact element the Ancient technology uses to interact with the ATA gene, and that is happening all around us, all the time.” He handed the memory stick to John. “Here is partial copy of the damaged portion of the core. It’s nothing useful, but as you said, it may keep him busy for a few moments.”

“Right, thanks.” John pocketed the little device, still thinking about the mind control. “The control box isn’t going to be Ancient tech, it’s going to be something with Dorane’s version of the gene. If we’re lucky.”

Beckett frowned. “You can hear that also?”

“It’s what made the Koan crazy. That repository sounds like…I can’t describe what it sounds like.” The constant whisper of alien noise was getting pretty loud in here now, with all the Ancient medical equipment that Beckett had managed to activate stored in this area, the devices he had figured out well enough to use safely and those he hadn’t. “I should be able to tell if he has it on him or hidden somewhere else. Maybe Atlantis’ ATA just drowned out whatever noise it was making.”

Beckett took a sharp breath. “We have to get our hands on that device, because there’s no telling how long it would take to create a counteragent to the biological side.” He lifted his brows. “Unless you could get me blood samples from a variety of victims—”

“Blood samples. Right.” John nodded earnestly. “Want me to pick up anything else while I’m out? Some groceries, your dry cleaning—”

Beckett took his arm. “I can at least take a sample from you right now.”

“Look, I don’t have a lot of time—”

“If you’d be still for two seconds I’ll have it done,” Beckett told him briskly, steering him toward a chair. Dr. Biro already had a drawer open in the nearest storage cabinet, scrambling for a hypo and collection vials. “And if I could take a sample of one of those spines—”

“Uh, no.” John sat down reluctantly, leaning away from Beckett. “What if they’re attached to my brain or something?”

“Well, then we’d best find that out, shouldn’t we?”

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.

Dorane finally took the stick from Kavanagh, his lips thin with distaste. “And I assume this will only display on one of your devices. Which one of you will have to operate for me.”

John shrugged, as if he didn’t care. “I guess.” He took a couple of distracted paces to the left, so his back was to the Koan, Kavanagh, Ford, and the others.

Dorane watched him, eyes narrowing. “Surely you know.”

“He doesn’t know,” McKay sneered, looking up from where he was crouched beside the generator. He had obviously reached the overly aggressive stage of his blood sugar crash. “He can barely check his email.”

Dorane turned to regard him, probably with a great deal of skepticism. Rodney glared up at him, and John took the opportunity to mouth the words “big distraction, soon”.

Rodney twitched in alarm, but he looked so flustered and annoyed, it would have been hard for someone who didn’t know him to tell. He told Dorane, “You’ll need a laptop to read it. That’s one of the computers in the silver cases.”

Dorane turned back toward Kavanagh, who said, “Yes, that’s true.” Something in the way Dorane was holding the memory stick suggested a great deal of frustration. Whatever was on the memory core, Dorane didn’t want anyone else to see it, apparently not even one of the people he had under control.

John made an idle circuit of the room, still listening hard for the control device. He was fairly certain now it wasn’t on Dorane, but surely it was nearby. If it was up in the ’gate room… No, it had to be closer than that. If it isn’t, we may be seriously screwed. But would Dorane just stick it on a shelf somewhere and leave it? The naquadah generators were spaced out widely over the center portion of the city; did this thing have the kind of range that it could… Or he gave it to someone else to carry.

“Is there one of these laptops nearby?” Dorane was asking Kavanagh.

Kavanagh shook his head; his attention was on Dorane and not what Rodney was doing with the generator. “I don’t know. They would be in the ’gate room, the labs, the living quarters and offices—”

John wandered past Kavanagh, the two Marines, Ford, and caught the first hint of a tiny disruption in the ATA’s ongoing cacophony. It wasn’t insistent enough to be coming from one of them. The nearest Koan growled nervously as John went to the wall and leaned back against it. Dorane, still questioning Kavanagh about nearby labs, threw him a cold look, but he obviously wasn’t much interested in however John wanted to occupy his last moments. John closed his eyes, tipped his head back against the metal, and tried to shut everything else out.

And there it was, somewhere on the other side of this wall, a thread of discordant sound, moving away. Yeah, he gave it to someone who’s been following-him around the city. And I bet I know who.