As McKay clomped up the stairs towards their room, Ronon flicked his arm.
"What?"
"Sheppard's probably sleeping."
"And?" McKay didn't attempt to lower his voice.
"And you are being very loud Rodney," Teyla admonished from behind him.
"I'm just walking up the stairs."
Ronon shot him a look and McKay sighed.
When they reached the room, McKay noticed that the door was left ajar and he immediately got an unsettled feeling in his stomach. Sheppard, in any state, wouldn't have just left the door open.
"Something's wrong," McKay said quietly.
He could actually feel Ronon and Teyla tensing beside him. Ronon already had his weapon out and Teyla was pushing the door open to reveal an empty room.
"Sheppard?" Ronon went in first, surveying the beds and then checking the adjoining washroom. He re-appeared and shrugged, "He's not here."
"Well he was here," Mckay said indicating to the rustled sheets and his thigh holster lying on the floor.
"Maybe he went for a walk," Teyla suggested, but the expression on her face showed that she didn't believe that either.
None of them did. Sheppard didn't pull stunts like that.
"He wouldn't have left his gear," Ronon noted, walking over to the window and staring out into the night, "Something's wrong."
McKay crouched, something glistened in the light, and his stomach churned again.
"What is that?" Teyla asked.
"It looks like blood."
"That's it!" Ronon pushed his weapon into his holster and made a bee-line for the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Someone must know something."
And then he was gone and McKay and Teyla were taking off after him.
--
He hit the ground hard; falling limply like that, crushed the air from his lungs and jarred his knee. Sensation. It was returning slowly and Sheppard was beginning to wish he was still numb, because the headache that was making itself known and the sickness in his stomach seemed to point to one thing.
He'd been drugged.
He would have protested if he could find his voice. But instead, he lay on the floor and watched as people bustled around him, preparing some kind of contraption.
He tried to move. His hand twitched but it felt detached. He could hear the scrape of his boot against concrete as he drew his leg up. The dull thrum in his knee intensified. If he had to run……maybe it wasn't too bad. Maybe it was just bruised.
"Is this the one?"
Someone was speaking over him but he couldn't quite focus, couldn't see their face to burn it into his memory. If there was one thing hated, it was being helpless.
"Yeah."
"And you saw him? Activate the device that is?"
Sheppard tried to move, tried to make a sound and somebody grabbed him by the back of his tac vest and hauled him onto his side.
"I saw him," the man crouching beside him smiled, baring yellowed teeth.
"And you think I will simply take your word?"
The man let go and Sheppard toppled back onto his front, feeling saliva drip from his mouth, unable to move, unable to fight.
"Careful, careful!" the other man said.
"You want proof?"
Sheppard's hand was grabbed and he couldn't stop his captor planting his hand down onto something. The device from the bar. It hummed and glowed – Sheppard could almost feel his fingers. He could twitch them, maybe he could use this device for-
It was ripped away, "See? He's got the Ancestors blood."
"Wonderful. We'll need to take samples just to be sure," the man, his buyer perhaps, looked him over critically, "You've damaged him."
Sheppard thought he could taste blood.
"You can wipe that away."
"Still….he's not pristine……" The buyer ran his hands through his hair, down his jaw and took a long look into his eyes, "Good enough though. Good work."
And then they were moving away and he couldn't hear their voices as clearly.
"Sheppard!"
His radio! He heard it through the din in his head.
"Sheppard!"
I'm here! He tried to move, tried to get his hand around to the front of his vest but he was frustratingly uncoordinated.
"I'm…" his voice still wouldn't work.
"Are you there? Sheppard!?"
It drew one of his captors attention and they rolled him onto his back like he was a sack of potatoes.
"Did I not tell you to be careful?"
The radio was pulled from his vest and then slammed into the floor next to his head. He felt shards of plastic hit his arm and any hope of getting help was firmly destroyed.
He started to cough. Whatever they'd given him seemed to have a paralytic effect and he couldn't quite clear his throat. Without care or particular attention somebody dug their boot into his side and kicked him back onto his front.
--
"He's not answering!" McKay informed the others in a panicked voice, "Oh god, something awful's happened. Hasn't it? Teyla? Ronon?"
He followed them down the stairs and to the innkeeper's desk where Ronon simultaneously pulled out his gun and rammed the man behind the desk into his chair, "Where is he?"
The man looked from each of them, a flash of something in his eyes.
"Where is he?"
"I do not know what you're talking about…." The man stammered, hands pressed into the arm rest.
Teyla leaned in, "The man we arrived with. Colonel Sheppard. He has gone missing."
"I didn't see……."
McKay hung around at the back, feeling uncomfortable and useless. So much for welcoming town people. He looked to the floor again and could see the smear of rubber on the hard floor. Scuff marks…..blood. Somebody had been dragged through here.
"Okay," the old man said, hands raised, "I saw him come back. He looked a little….unwell. I let him into the room and then I came straight back down."
"And then?" Ronon's voice was deep and gravely. Fuelled with anger. Unmistakable. McKay was momentarily relieved that he was a friend and not an enemy.
"I had to tend to a little……business. Nature," the man smiled embarrassedly.
Ronon let the man go, "If I find out that you're lying to us-"
"I would never-"
Ronon continued, "-I will come back here and I will make you sorry."
"Maybe he went back to the bar?" McKay tried hopefully in an attempt to break the tension in the room.
"We just came from there," Ronon told him, "I knew this place felt off."
"Well what do we do?" McKay paced back and forth, "Do we go back and get reinforcements?"
"That'll take hours," Ronon said, "You can leave if you want but I'm going to find him."
"We don't know that anything's happened," McKay said. Of course. Nothing had happened, they were over-reacting. "Maybe he's just gone walk about….you know what he's like. If he can't sleep he walks until he's tired and-"
Teyla placed her hand on his shoulder, "He would not leave his weapon and he would tell us first before leaving."
"And the blood," Ronon said, "Don't forget the blood."
He hadn't forgot the blood.
"His Subcutaneous transmitter!" McKay snapped his fingers and started back up the stairs before Ronon and Teyla could follow.
--
Sheppard couldn't seem to remember the bit in between lying on the floor unable to move and suddenly being upright.
He was in a bright room that hurt his eyes with rows of……pods. There were people behind them, frozen in perfect stillness. Not all of them looked human. None of them looked alive.
His container was small; barely enough room for him to move and his shoulders touched the sides. He stood there frozen in place.
His thoughts were cut off. The man from the street grabbed him by his chin and tilted his head up. He stared and smiled, eyes blood shot and his breath was foul. He couldn't help but notice his eyes; dark and swirling with menace. That sick feeling came back with a vengeance as the man started to wipe his face with a cloth.
"That's it. Clean him up."
The man from earlier came to stand in front of him. He was wearing a white robe; old and wrinkly; as if he should belong in one of the pods with the others. He clasped his hands together and bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet, much like Rodney did, when he was excited by a new find.
"You are a piece of history now Colonel. One of a kind."
Sheppard tried to pull back, spit; but his mouth was dry and he was stuck. Whatever they had given him was dulling everything.
"Wh-"
"Why?" the man let go and Sheppard's head dropped.
Sheppard watched the man out of the corner of his eye, pacing back and forth.
"We have been collecting for many cycles, but we have never found a specimen as interesting as yourself." He stepped forward and patted his chest, "Strong, pleasing to the eye and you have the ancestors blood. You'll make my customers happy."
Sheppard didn't know what that meant exactly. He was having a hard time thinking linearly let alone working out what this crazy man was talking about.
His buyer stared for a second and snapped his fingers at his friend, "His hair…..it is-"
Suddenly his head was being tilted up and the friend was pushing his hands through his hair and attempting to tidy it up. If he could make his hair stay down then Sheppard would volunteer to stay in the pod forever – knowing that was an impossibility however, he vowed to do these men serious damage when he did get out. Nobody touched his hair.
"Ah, that will have to do."
"Very happy," the man finished before disappearing from his view.
--
"I've found him!" McKay announced as he ran down the stairs of the Inn.
Both Ronon and Teyla waited for him to continue.
"Picked up an energy source on the edge of town……and that," he pointed to a blinking dot, "-is Sheppard."
"The one you wanted to investigate tomorrow morning?" Ronon asked, an air of impatience surrounding him.
"Yes, yes the one that Sheppard told me I couldn't have a look at until we got permission off the town's people……well he's there!" And if he'd gone for a poke around on his own, he'd kill him.
"What are we waiting for?" Ronon snapped.
Teyla was already out the door and McKay followed, taking their six, "Shouldn't we…..you know….get help?"
"For all we know everyone's in on this," Ronon said, storming across the square.
McKay caught sight of a few people hanging back in the shadows, eyes glistening like cats. Who did that? He thought. Who stood around in the dead of night just staring at people like that?
Ronon had sped ahead and he quickened his pace to catch up and continue their conversation.
"That's my point! We don't know what this is! We could be walking into a trap!"
"At least we know we're walking into one."
"Ronon! A trap is still a trap and I don't want to end up like Sheppard………"
"Sheppard's not dead!" Ronon told him, turning on his heel and burning a vitriolic look into him.
"Well no……I wasn't saying he was dead……but he could be a prisoner…..he could be getting tortured or…..i just think we should be a little more cautious."
Teyla hadn't spoken, but the look she gave him told her that Ronon wasn't going to listen.
They didn't need words these days. Somewhere along the line it was as if their thoughts had become synchronous. They knew what the other was thinking without question, they gravitated to the same places, formulated the same plans and from one word, one line over a comm, they would know what was being said. Even if it wasn't really being said.
Teyla's look said so many things.
But most of all, it said that he had to trust Ronon.
--
The chamber had been sealed shut; a force field which glowed and rippled with his every breath had trapped him. He hadn't noticed it at first, but it was getting difficult to breathe. It was if the air was slowly being sucked out.
And it was cold too. His flesh was goose bumped and even if he couldn't move, he was vibrating; mentally shivering. Or maybe that was the anger. He was pretty angry.
He couldn't speak either; not much anyway.
He could just make out the other pods through the force field. He could see four opposite him; and there were probably others out of sight too. There were people in all of them. Frozen; lifeless. The first pod contained a woman with shocking red hair, the second was an old man with blue skin, the third was some kind of alien with tentacles for fingers and the fourth was a child; clutching a teddy bear and staring straight at him.
If he had to stare at those four dead sets of eyes for the rest of his life then he wanted out now. It was downright creepy.
Most noticeably, none of them were the same. They were all different; unique.
His role was becoming clearer.
--
They had to leave town and traverse a slippery hill to get to the source of the energy spike. The facility was smaller than McKay had initially anticipated – but whatever it was, was drawing a lot of power. It was circular, with only one door in. It stood out against the sky-line, a menace on the horizon and not in keeping with the town at all. It was if it had just landed here one day. Dropped onto the landscape.
It wasn't guarded either and that had McKay disquietly nervous. Nothing they ever did was that easy.
"Too easy," Ronon said, testing the door with his palm.
"I tend to agree," Teyla said, scanning the scenery around them for anything untoward, "I do not have a good feeling about this place."
"Maybe it isn't an evil facility like we first thought," McKay said in a hopeful voice.
Ronon laughed and patted him on the back a little too hard, "Good one McKay."
"Fine…well open the door then. Let's go in and walk straight into a trap."
"You got a better idea?"
"Well……we could………..there's the possibility that…" he looked down at the scanner and then back up at the building. He wasn't used to not having an answer. Usually Sheppard called the shots and then he would fix his mistakes as they went along, "…...on this occasion……no."
"You can't think of a better idea?"
McKay shook his head. He couldn't.
"Then we go in," Ronon went to kick the door.
McKay shouted "Wait!"
"What is it?" Teyla asked.
"Life signs heading our way."
"How many?"
"Two, maybe three," McKay pointed in the direction they had come, "That way."
"Take cover," Ronon told them, assuming command as was often the case when Sheppard wasn't around.
They parked behind a bush and kept low, watching as a few of the town's people emerged from the tree-line, moving fluidly across the ground as if they were gliding. Ronon pulled McKay lower when one of them looked in their direction.
"I'm getting a bad feeling about this place," McKay whispered.
Ronon nodded for him to move. They'd entered the building.