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Chapter 7

For a moment, Beckett had… felt something. Just after the lights had gone out the third time, right before the agony had rushed in again.

It had almost been like words, like someone was speaking; only it was right in his head, as if the sound had somehow bypassed his hearing and registered directly in his brain.

Almost like words. But it was more than that--and also less. Like a child who didn't know how to speak yet, trying to communicate that something was wrong.

And something was terribly wrong.

The city was angry.

Beckett knew that, though he didn't know how he knew. It was in the words/non-words imprinted on his brain, the sudden, flaring shock of comprehension that had briefly flared behind his eyes.

The city was angry. Atlantis was angry at Rodney McKay, with all the desperate, anguished fury of a helpless child.

Atlantis thought that McKay had betrayed it.

Beckett understood it perfectly, what the city had told him. He knew it as well and as completely as he knew his profession, his own name. And he wanted to tell the city that it wasn't true, that McKay would never purposely hurt it, or any of them…

But then the pain came in like an explosion inside his skull, bright red and then black on black. And by the time he could even think again, Svetlana and Ford were helping him stand, and his connection to the city was gone.

He was sitting now, holding yet more gauze to his bleeding nose, watching as Weir talked to Sheppard, cradling her right hand. He wondered what Sheppard was telling her, though Beckett suspected that now he already knew. He just had no idea whatsoever what he could do about it.

Ask him. Sheppard would know, of course. Ford had said the major had known the city was angry right from the beginning.

Good Lord, he could barely think. It was like trying to swim through sand.

Beckett pressed his free hand to the tabletop, trying to lever himself upright. He really didn't like how much his arm shook--it gave him uncomfortable little qualms about nerve damage--but he gritted his teeth and stood.

His legs nearly gave out. He felt his knees giving way, and his arm collapsed, so that he was leaning his weight on his forearm and elbow. He dropped the gauze so he could use his other hand.

The world spun and dipped. He wasn't going to pass out again--

"Doc! Are you okay?" It was Ford, grabbing his arm, trying to steady him.

"No," Beckett snapped. He lifted his head with an effort, squinting at the lieutenant. "I need to talk to Sheppard."

Ford looked from him to where Weir was still standing with Sheppard. She had two fingers to the radio receiver in her ear now, in the midst of a conversation. She had her right hand tucked into her chest; Beckett wondered if she'd hurt it. The short distance between his lab table to the major's bed suddenly looked like half the length of the city.

"Weir was just talking to him," Ford said helpfully.

"Right." Beckett nodded slowly. He let Ford help him back into the chair, resisted the urge to lay his head on his folded arms.

Ford was still hovering. "Should I get the nurse?"

"Good lad," Beckett said, almost whispering. He'd have Svetlana give him something for the pain. Then he'd be all right.

"Carson."

It was Weir's voice. Which meant he had to turn his head to look at her. He managed it, but it wasn't pleasant.

"Daria Peterson just contacted the control room," Weir said. Her expression was guarded, but he could still see the renewed hope in her eyes. "She's with Rodney. Bates' team is helping them now."

"Thank God," Beckett murmured.

Weir licked her lips. "It's not good news yet," she said. "Peterson said Rodney's in bad shape. Very bad."

"Ach." He'd been hoping not to hear that, but after his… experience just now, his awareness of the city, he had feared that McKay would be hurt. He tapped his earpiece, told Wing to patch him through to Peterson as soon as the technician answered.

"Holy crap," he said quietly, after listening to Peterson describe McKay's symptoms. McKay wasn't just in 'bad shape.' This was terrible.

Weir was looking at him, her expression radiating concern.

Beckett swallowed, gathered his strength for the explanation. It was painful to speak. "She said he's been electrocuted, twice," he told Weir. "The second time Peterson was forced to use CPR to get his heart going again. Right now he's apparently feverish, and having trouble breathing."

Weir's face tightened. "At least they're bringing him back here now."

"Aye," Beckett whispered. But something Peterson had told him didn't make sense. "He shouldn't have a fever, though," he said, hoping Weir would understand.

He was grateful when Weir nodded. "I was wondering that myself. I mean, it's not a symptom of being electrocuted, is it?" She nodded again when Beckett shook his head in confirmation. "Could it be that whatever's causing the fever--could that be what's making the city think he's a Wraith?"

Beckett blinked at her.

"Oh! Sorry." Weir shook her head, rubbing her forehead with the fingers of her left hand.

"You'll need that x-rayed," Beckett said. He moved his head just enough to gesture at her hand with his chin, then instantly regretted it.

Weir blinked, as if she'd forgotten, then seemed almost embarrassed. "I think it's broken," she said apologetically.

"It looks it," Beckett agreed. It was badly bruised, and beginning to swell. Beckett guessed that she had probably taken Sheppard's hand when the lights went out. Sometimes that wasn't always a good idea. "I can have Dr. Jackson take care of you before he joins Dr. Olivares off-world."

"Thank you," Weir said. She'd started cradling it again, probably not even aware of it. She glanced back at Sheppard while Beckett was radioing Jackson, but it looked like the major was unconscious. Beckett knew he had to check on his patients, especially Sergeant Markham, and help finish getting them ready for transport. But right now he really didn't have the strength. He was just glad he had assistants with him, who didn't have the ATA gene.

"John told me," Weir said when he'd clicked off his radio, "that the city is trying to protect us from Rodney. It thinks that Rodney's a Wraith."

"Oh," Beckett said, very softly. The anger he'd felt, that deep feeling of betrayal--it made sense now, or it almost did, at least. Beckett remembered the sense he'd had of trying to communicate with a child, that very real feeling of anger. Was the city somehow truly sentient?

He put that thought aside, since it was irrelevant. All that mattered was getting McKay to the infirmary, and getting the other patients off-world where they would be safe. And then figuring out what was going on inside McKay so that the city was reacting to him as if his entire physiology had changed…

"What? What is it?" Weir asked him. She was leaning forward across the table, her eyes intent on his face.

"Sorry," he rasped. "Thinking."

Her impeccable eyebrows shot up. "Do you know what's causing this?"

"No," he said. "Not yet. But I might." He put his palms on the table again. This time when he pushed himself to his feet his legs supported him. He guessed it was the sudden rush of adrenaline. "I need someone to bring one of the sample bottles of that wine."

Bates tapped his radio earpiece. "Bates here. We're ready to get moving. Dr. Jackson says he's got Dr. McKay stabilized."

"A medical team will be waiting for you," Wing's voice answered him from the main control room. "What's your ETA?"

Bates glanced at Zelenka. The Czech engineer was tapping furiously into the laptop he had brought with him. "Doc?"

Zelenka looked up, his frizzy hair swinging down onto his forehead. "Yes?"

"How long do you estimate it will take us to get back to the main level?"

The man typed for a few more seconds and then stated. "Half hour to forty-five minutes."

Bates shook his head and relayed the message.

Bates looked over at Peterson as she was helping the doctor, a young black man by the name of Jackson. Bates grimaced at how bad McKay looked. They had him strapped to the backboard for transit. Bandages covered both hands and an oxygen mask covered most of his face. Bruises mottled the chalky white skin under the mask. Doc Beckett was not going to be a happy man. That was if Doc Beckett hadn't also been taken out. Whatever was happening was affected everyone with the ATA gene pretty badly. Sheppard and Markham seemed to be hit the worst. Bates might not see eye to eye with Sheppard all the time, but the man had proven to be a good CO. He hoped the major would be able to get through this. Hell, he hoped all of them would.

"Sergeant, we're ready," Peterson told him, getting to her feet. She brushed the dirt staining her knees and frowned. "Let's get the heck out of here. This place is giving me the creeps."

"I agree," Zelenka added, shoving his laptop back into his bag and shouldering it quickly.

"Let's go," Bates said, moving to one side of McKay. Jackson positioned himself across from him, the two of them taking the front of the backboard and the bulk of McKay's weight, while Peterson and Zelenka took his feet. "On a three count," Bates told them. One… two… three!"

In unison, they lifted McKay and started off in the direction Zelenka indicated.

Bates glanced back at Peterson as they walked. She was a bit of an enigma. He had gotten a look at her personnel file when he had been putting together his gate team. She had been a member of SG4 several years before, but then transferred out after a mission went south. He had tried to talk her into joining his team, since she had more gate experience than most of them combined, but she had turned him down flatly, stating she didn't go into the field anymore.

He frowned. There had to be more to it than that.

She caught him looking at her. "What?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. Nothing."

She glared at him, but didn't push it. Instead, she glanced over at Zelenka. "Where did you say the stairwell was?"

The Czech glanced back at the doorways they had passed, counting quietly to himself. "Two more, then the one on the left of the corridor." His gaze wandered down to McKay's unconscious form, and worry lines settled in a bit deeper behind his glasses.

Bates counted the doors as they passed and then paused outside the one that Zelenka said lead to the stairs. All thirty-four freaking levels. He sighed and shifted his grip on the backboard. He had been a bit surprised when they had hefted McKay up. The scientist wasn't nearly as heavy as he had assumed, but then the Doc had probably thinned down some since he had joined Sheppard's team.

Bates glanced around at the small group and then reached out his hand and tapped the panel beside the door, letting out a grateful sigh when it opened. They moved through the opening cautiously. Thankfully, there were no nasty surprises, just stairs. He looked up. Lots and lots of stairs.

They started up, shifting their grips to try to keep McKay as flat as they could. The first floor passed quickly as they fell into a rhythm. At first they would go two landings before pausing for a break, but soon they were stopping at each landing to catch their breath. McKay was no lightweight, and Jackson had stowed his medical gear on the backboard with the man.

Bates glanced down the center of the stairwell and did a quick count, and then called a break when they got to the next landing. Jackson checked McKay over once they had stopped. Zelenka moved to look at a display panel inset in the wall.

Suddenly, below them, there was a loud metallic clank. Zelenka jumped. "I didn't touch anything!" he stated in a panicked voice.

The panel flashed a series of symbols, and then something started into what looked for all the world like a countdown to Bates.

"Oh, crap," Peterson said in a hushed voice.

"What?" Bates asked.

Peterson didn't answer him, but went over beside Zelenka, who had started jabbing at the panel.

"That didn't say what I thought it said, did it?" Peterson asked him.

Zelenka stared at the panel as the display changed. "Oh, no," he said softly.

"What's going on?" Bated demanded.

"We've triggered some kind of automated defense subroutine," Zelenka said.

"I told you the city is trying to kill him!" Peterson said, her eyes darting back to McKay. "I wasn't kidding about that. It's already tried to electrocute him twice. Why not try to drown him now?" she added in a sarcastic tone that would have done McKay proud, had he been conscious.

"Drown him?" Jackson gaped, looking up from where he was kneeling beside McKay.

"That's what the system we activated does," Zelenka stated in an annoyingly calm, clinical manner. "It fills stairwell up with water."

Bates frowned, but then a scene from an old movie he had once watched flitted through his mind. "We can use that. We can float McKay up."

"Not so simple, Sergeant," Peterson said, shooting Zelenka a dark look. "We could if that was all it did. It isn't. It fills this stairway up with water," she said, raising her hand slowly to demonstrate, "and then--whoosh!" She slapped her hand down quickly. "We get flushed out of the city and into the ocean, just like a wad of toilet paper down the commode."

"Oh," Bates said, glancing down the center of the stairwell, at the level upon level of stairs below them. "Then we better get out of here before that happens. He glanced up, doing a rough count, and then he looked at the door across from them. "Can we get out here and then find another way up?"

Peterson moved to the door, pressing her hand against the panel to open it. It let out a strange discordant sound and she jumped, visibly paling. "Oh, crap."

"What?" Zelenka shot back quickly.

"That's the noise things made before they tried to kill Dr. McKay."

There was a grating sound below them and the gurgling sound of water.

"Oh, double crap," Peterson said, hurrying to the railing to look down.

Forget this. Bates grabbed hold of the backboard with McKay on it, and Jackson grabbed the other side. "Come on, people. Move!" he ordered. "We need to put as much distance between us and that," he jerked his head toward the railing, "as possible!"

Zelenka and Peterson grabbed the other handholds on the backboard and they started back up the stairs. Bates had made sure Zelenka and Peterson took the lead, with him and Jackson shouldering McKay's weight as they ran up the stairs. He could hear Zelenka barking orders into his radio earpiece about getting the door open.

The rush of the water grew as they pushed on, lungs burning and legs on fire. They could feel the stairs shifting under their feet with the rising tide of the water, and Peterson stumbled a couple of times, nearly throwing them all off balance, but they managed to keep going. Above them, a light spilled into the dim stairwell and it took Bates several moments to realize it was an open door. He pushed his team the last two flights, yelling and cajoling them to keep moving, water licking his and Jackson's heels, making the steps under their feet treacherously slippery. They reached the door and the weight of the backboard abruptly disappeared as a waiting medical team snatched it from them. The door slammed shut.

Bates slumped to the floor, gasping for breath, when he heard a rushing, roaring sound from the other side of the door that sounded like… like… for lack of a better term… someone flushing a toilet.