Part 4

For almost 24 hours straight, Rodney had been combing through any file that might have any hope of mentioning the strange Zed PM. He was reluctant to leave John's bedside, but had finally done so, hours after they had brought him in, when Elizabeth argued a few points. She had pointed out that the major had other friends who wanted to sit with him and that maybe Rodney would do better to eat something and get some sleep, so he'd have strength to sit with John again later. She had stopped short of making it an order for Rodney to 'take turns', trying to appeal to Rodney's better nature. When that didn't work, she and the scientist reached a compromise. Rodney would leave John's side for a while, but be allowed to work on finding something that might help before getting any sleep. Since he was leaving the infirmary anyway, Rodney didn't need to be convinced to eat.

Weir had stopped by the lab 12 hours later to find Rodney metaphorically elbows deep in files. Zelenka had stayed awake with him for most of that time but was slumped over his computer, sound asleep, when Elizabeth arrived. The Czech jumped at her suggestion that they both get some sleep. Rodney had bargained for another two hours, hoping that Elizabeth would be too busy by then to come back and check. That's exactly what had happened.

Dr. Weir didn't make it back to the lab until another four hours had passed, and refused to believe Rodney when he said he had taken a short nap. He didn't look in the least bit rested. In fact, he looked like shit and she told him so. He tried to bargain for more time but she was hearing none of it. She had him escorted to his quarters by security and threatened to have Carson sedate him if he was back in less than four hours.

The scientist waited until the security guard left (since the man was confident that the exhausted scientist would offer no flight-risk). Rodney was back in the lab inside a half an hour.

Currently, he felt he might finally be on to something. There was a locked file, hidden under layers of encryption, buried in an obscure folder that looked promising. It spoke of a few circumstances where the Lanteans had encountered negative reactions to their Zed PM's.

A few were just lab accidents of some sort, some involved Zed PM's that had been unknowingly damaged prior to installation, but this last file…this one looked promising.

It spoke of a planet whose magnetic field had interacted badly with the Zed PM installed in the central hall of a newly built outpost on an unnamed planet. There had been several other Zed PM's installed in more remote locations of the outpost to power the machinery the Lanteans had brought with them. When they plugged Zed PM's into their respective consoles, all hell broke loose. At the time, the Lanteans had no more idea what had happened than the Atlantis Expedition did now, but the more Rodney recovered of the file, the more it looked like the same phenomenon.

The people who plugged in the ZPM's were thrown against the walls and when they woke up, there was no indication that they had any connection with their surroundings. That is, the ones who did wake up. Many were killed instantly.

When the Lanteans realized that the accidents were caused by a surge of energy from the planet itself at the moment the ZPM was plugged in, they sent another team to retrieve the ZPM's and recover the rest of the machinery, preparing to abandon the outpost until a solution could be found. They theorized too late that the same power surge would also occur when the ZPM's were taken out. Apparently any change in energy output negatively affected the Planet's natural EM field. The last few ZPM's were abandoned and the file on the planet was buried in the hope that no future Lanteans would bother with that planet.

Rodney was pretty sure now that they were talking about the same planet, so he took special note of any data pertaining to the men and women who had been caught in the EM spikes. The description of each patient mirrored John's current condition. Over half of those not instantly killed, died later anyway. The ones who didn't, might as well have. The Lantean doctors noted (as Carson had) that the electrical output in their brains had increased across the board. They studied the patients for various amounts of time – the longest one for over 2 years – and while the electrical output slowly lessened, it never returned to anything approaching normal. The patients themselves never seemed to regain any ability to interact with their environment. Eventually, all the families of these patients asked for their 'suffering' to be terminated.

The opinions of the Lanteans had been split on the issue of just how 'aware' these patients might have been. One faction thought that they were totally cognitively aware, but that the extra electricity in their brains was preventing messages from their senses from getting in, as well as any message from their brain to their body from getting out, effectively trapping a healthy mind inside a useless body.

Another faction thought that the electricity had very nearly literally fried the patient's brain, and they were no longer self-aware at all – in other words, the patients were the equivalent of 'brain dead' even though the Lantean's version of an EEG still showed plenty – too much – electrical energy present.

Rodney downloaded the pertinent files to take to Carson, and seriously wished he had found this information – or even knew to look for it – before he had pushed for the mission to that God-forsaken planet. He couldn't help but think that he was personally responsible for the brain death or total entrapment of his best friend. McKay was beginning to hope for the 'brain dead' scenario. The thought of John being trapped inside a body that would never again be able to respond – in even the simplest of ways – to its environment, was just too much for Rodney to take.

John woke again, and this time could immediately feel the weight on his right hand. He consciously tried to return it, but couldn't tell if he was actually successful. The weight on his hand didn't change – as far as he could tell – so he figured he probably hadn't been able to move his hand at all.

He tried to call for someone – anyone – and noticed that he could feel a buzz in his throat even if he wasn't trying to scream.

Improvement! Okay, he could handle improvement – They weren't big enough or happening fast enough to really suit him, but they were there, so that was good.

The pessimistic side of him couldn't resist pointing out that these improvements – even small as they were – could stop at any time, and he'd be stuck like this forever.

"Great, John," he chided himself, "Way to stay positive."

TBC