Chapter 7

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Rodney was falling. He had stepped off the edge of the world and all around him he could see the tiny pinpricks of the universe, each star so wondrous and beautiful and far. His stomach carried the tingling sensation of floating, like he was no longer held back by gravity but on par with it. He wasn't afraid. He'd done this many, many times and he knew that when he reached the bottom of this journey he would find nothing but safety. So he kept falling in stillness until slowly he began to float. His body fell back under his own control bit by bit until at last he could reach out, his hands grasping for the material below him and he dragged himself the rest of the way to the ground. The heaviness of gravity took over then, real weight coming back to his limbs and he snuggled into the soft, pliant, comfortable blanket that was always there to catch him. He smiled with lazy contentment and pulled his eyes from the stars, rolling over with little effort to become more comfortable.

That was when he saw that he hadn't fallen alone. Brendan was lying beside him, Brendan Gaul, with eyes wide open and staring. One of them drowned in the blood that was still leaking from his forehead, dripping down onto the pillow, turning the black satin red. Rodney jerked up, moving too slowly and no longer having complete control of his body. He had to get away from this horror, this terrible, terrible image of a man he had once known. It was then, as he struggled to sit up, that he saw an arm wrapped around Brendan's waist, clutching at him possessively. It belonged to Grodin. Grodin…Rodney stared. Behind him was Dumais, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, perfect trails of crimson trickling from her nose and ears and eyes. Clutching her was another and another and another and they kept going and going into the distance and becoming one giant horizontal conga line of the dead, their eyes open and closed, staring and hiding and he flailed to get away but his legs were caught in the juicy thick red blankets and he couldn't find his feet.

He kicked out, hard. He had to get away! He had to, and it was an impossible struggle as Brendan and Peter just stared at him, their dead lips curved in amusement, until Rodney finally fell sharply from the blanketed perch. Onto a cold cement slab. He looked down and no wonder he couldn't move properly! His arms and legs had been cuffed together. He pulled at the metal binding them and it bit painfully into his wrists, instantly drawing blood. He looked away, naseauted by the red. A small, dirty table stood in the centre of the room. Rodney's chair had been knocked over and he was on the ground, one metal leg digging into his back. On the other side of the room he saw Archie, standing with his arms free and still by his side, his pale face matching the pale walls. He wore no pain, no cuffs, no bruises, no blood. Archie had been his friend once, very long ago. A lifetime ago. The pale face looked down at him then, stared with his pale green eyes, but there was no fear in them, just the glitter of an idea. He whispered over to Rodney, cupping a hand beside his mouth to better direct his words to reach Rodney's ears. His voice was so loud Rodney cringed.

"They know you're a genius, Rodney. They know, and you're finally getting the attention you deserve." Then Archie left him, he left him there bleeding on the floor and a hand threaded through his hair, scratching at his scalp, and then it was pulling him up, up to his knees. The chair kicked aside roughly, and Rodney gasped and then he bolted straight up in his bed, rapidly leaving those people in that room of long ago. The lights in his room were as bright as they could be as he fully woke up; Atlantis had sensed his need to see where he was and had risen to the occasion.

Rodney rapidly blinked around the room, letting out a ragged breath as he looked around frantically, recognizing where he was. Several pairs of his pants draped over the back of his couch in his halfhearted attempt at keeping them unwrinkled without actually having to hang them up. The sight comforted him and he stared at the dark material until his breathing grew less forced and his limbs stopped shaking enough that he could untangle himself from his bed. He moved immediately for the shower. Scalding water didn't sooth his nerves, but it chased away the slight chill that had settled into his bones and he sighed in relief, bowing his neck into the spray.

Nightmares he was accustomed to. Waking up in a panic from them he was accustomed to. But actually waking up loudly and with movement was something he hadn't done in a long, very long time. He had worked hard to control his physical reactions to this nighttime torment that occasionally plagued him. When he woke up he liked to be in instant control and aware of his surroundings. This time though, this time he had dreamed about that place, and he hadn't done that for a few years. He had hoped, after a week of being around Greenwall with no reaction, that the nightmares would stay away. Damn-it! He slapped the wall of his shower, careful not to re-bruise his recently healed hand, and the water sputtered in indignation.

"Why don't you just stay in that nice indestructible box I locked you in years ago!" He hissed into the spray and then groaned. "Oh my god, he's driven me to speaking to my own brain out loud in only a week. This couldn't possible get any worse," he complained and then realized that he had just unintentionally jinxed himself. Great.

It was an effort to crawl out from under the warm spray, the cooler air of his room sprouted goosebumps on his skin. He shuddered and dressed quickly, not caring that he had thrown on his off world cargo pants instead of his usual attire. It wasn't like he needed them to be clean and spiffy for missions anytime soon. With that cheerful thought to keep him company he headed off to his 'new' lab, which wasn't really his 'new' lab at all. After the Sheppard thing that involved the giant hickie-bug acquiring some personal necking time, and the whole being stuck in a puddle jumper that was stuck in a stargate day, Rodney had realized that he needed somewhere he could retreat to where nobody else would bother him. He hadn't even told Zelenka about this place, though he was fairly positive his second in command had at least zeroed in on the general location by now. It had quickly become his retreat, a place to go when he couldn't sleep because his brain was being it's usual overactive self, or when he was fed up with scientists that felt they needed constant supervision and wouldn't leave him alone. How was he ever expected to get work done with them constantly crying for his attention? Honestly, if he wasn't the type of guy that only needed four hours of sleep a night and one or two quick power naps throughout the day then he would never get his own projects done.

Now he grumbled to himself as he strolled down the semi-darkened halls of Atlantis, nodding distractedly to the patrols he passed. If they said anything to him he didn't pay enough attention to let it register. It was a relief when he finally slid through the narrow door and into his haven. He was angry with Greenwall for taking over his main lab, but he would have been beyond furious and quite possibly homicidal if the man had known about this place. There was no doubt in Rodney's mind that he would have liberated it from him as well; he had always wanted everything that Rodney had earned, and Rodney knew for a fact that he would do anything to get the better of him.

Stupid man.

"Hello beauties," he announced as he stepped through the door. "I apologize for keeping you waiting, but I've been a bit busy this week." And if he spoke to his technology, so what? Many scientists crooned at any given time to their projects, forming connections with their work as though it were alive. In many cases (especially in Atlantis) their machines and tools and programs sometimes felt alive, and Rodney personally believed that sometimes things responded better if you treated them with the respect they deserved, instead of as a means to an end. Besides, at least he didn't name any of them, unlike like some of the military contingent of Atlantis and their weapons of choice.

He scoffed at the thought.

Aside from sounding crazy he felt the tension ease slightly from his body as he pulled up a stool and looked at the wrench shaped object he had last been studying and picked it up. An hour later he huffed in annoyance and put the item back on the table to stare at some more. He had completed numerous scans and tried activating it several times with no effect. He didn't want to crack it open and start pulling apart its' internal systems just yet, but it looked as though he just might have to, seeing as he wasn't getting anywhere this way.

Needing something to do with his hands he picked up another item, one that had been puzzling him for months now, and started flipping it around absently with his thumb, middle and fore fingers, staring hard at the wrench. Maybe it was actually just a wrench. The Ancients must have had a need for some basic tools right? Or maybe it was an archaic museum piece from before they became so advanced. Or it could have been...

"You are not Hallien," a puzzled voice boomed over his shoulder and Rodney reared back, screaming. He promptly smashed his knee into the underside of the table and knocked his stool over dramatically as he leaped to his feet.

"What?!" He whirled around to stare at the man who stood close by, watching him, and then Rodney bent over and rubbed at his painfully throbbing knee. "Ow!" he declared, glaring disdainfully at the intruder before straightening up to his full height. "Who're you?" he demanded, staring in surprised suspicion at the man standing across from him. The man who had watched the entire spectacle calmly.

"I am Cadross." He introduced himself, his voice a pleasant, rich timbre and Rodney stared at him. He was dressed in a gold and cream coloured tunic that crossed and buttoned over his chest in an elaborate pattern Rodney had never quite seen before. He stared at him a long moment, waiting for more information but when it seemed that nothing else was forthcoming he decided to help the conversation along. He narrowed his eyes at the stranger.

"Oh, that's very helpful: I now know your name, good for me. How about you tell me how you got in here, where you're from, why we didn't detect you on our city sensors and what you want," he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "And if you're planning on hurting or kidnapping me I should warn you I am highly trained in hand to hand combat and have an entire base of lethal soldiers standing just outside that door to protect me." He added, just in case. The man blinked at him a moment, thinking about what he said, and then nodded his head at him. Rodney didn't think potential killer/kidnappers were this polite, but it never hurt to be cautious.

"You activated me," Cadross announced. "I assume I do not appear on sensors because I am not a corporeal being. I was to deliver a message to Hallien, but it would appear she is no longer in the city or I would have spoken to her by now." Rodney stared at him suspiciously, his glare morphing into a frown.

"Hallien? Who's that? Was she an Atlantian?"

"She lived in the city of Atlantis, yes. I do not know much about her, only that I was to deliver her a message."

"And I activated you? Just now?"

"Yes." There was a slight twinge of annoyance in the man's voice that time, as if he was irritated that Rodney apparently hadn't understood that the first time he stated it. Rodney didn't care for the attitude and increased the wattage of his glare.

"How?" He demanded.

"How is it that you do not know?" Cadross looked slightly puzzled. "I am very basic technology, outdated in fact. Every child understands how to operate my functions."

"The Atlantians abandoned this city 10,000 years ago. My people have come back to help restore it. Now, answer my question," he snapped, and was fascinated when the man actually flickered, his entire body blinking out for a moment so fast that Rodney almost didn't see it, even though he was staring right at him. It was a good thing he was so observant. It seemed that he was conversing with a hologram of some sort, and he felt a surge of excitement as he looked upon the image with new interest, no longer afraid.

"The device you hold in you hand," Cadross replied, an arm waving elegantly in his direction and Rodney looked down at the small metallic disk he had been fidgeting with. "That is my unit. I am a model Esqar 12 communicator and I belonged to Koranee. He is no longer around to claim me. Am I to understand that you are therefore my new holder?"

"Yes," Rodney squared his shoulders self importantly. "Yes I am."

"Then may I please have your name?"

"Rodney...Dr. Rodney McKay, astrophysicist and head scientist of this expedition." The image nodded his head and Rodney looked back at the object in his hand. "You're telling me that the Atlantian's managed to compact an entire holographic mainframe and projector suite into a unit the size of a looney?" He spoke his thoughts out loud.

"What is a looney?"

"I wasn't talking to you," Rodney muttered, bringing the disk just far enough from his face so he wouldn't go cross-eyed while examining it. "How exactly did I activate you?" He was met with silence and he looked over at the being, who was staring back with a rather irritated look on his face. He blinked at Rodney's look.

"Oh, I apologize, were you speaking to me that time?" Okay, so apparently he wasn't just a hologram, he had basic emotional subroutines programmed into him. This was so...cool!

"Sorry," Rodney apologized instantly. "I was a bit rude there. I treat everyone that way, don't take it personally."

"Apology accepted. You activated my program by rubbing your thumb across my unit's face in a relatively circular motion from left to right."

"If I did that again would I shut you off?"

"Yes."

"And I can activate you whenever I want?"

"Yes." Rodney experimentally rubbed his thumb across the surface and the holographic image disappeared. He rubbed it again and he was back. He did this a few more times in utter fascination, completely overjoyed until the man/image held up a hand to stop him from deactivating him again.

"Please, turn me on or off, but make up your mind. It is very...unsettling to blink in and out of existence so quickly and repetitively." Rodney stopped and supposed it would be a bit of a strobe light effect for the thing.

"Right, sorry. So you deliver messages? You're like a recording device?"

"Yes."

"Does your image always activate when someone is recording?"

"My image activates to deliver the message or when the activator wishes. You may deliberately access the recording device without activating myself by rubbing your thumb in a circular motion from right to left." Rodney was about to do so when he thought he should be polite. He had always made it a point to respect his technology, and this one at least displayed feelings. And it talked back. Could it be an AI or was it simply meant to represent emotion for the sake of passing on accurate messages? Either way:

"Do you mind if I..." he held the unit up.

"You may." He shut the hologram down (Cadross was his name?) and then rubbed his thumb counter clockwise on the smooth surface.

"This message is to the President...you're an idiot. I don't care what dirt Greenwall has on you, arrest him or something, anything instead of just bending to his will like every other evolutionary defunct moron he's threatened in the past." Then, he rubbed his thumb counter clockwise again, wondering if that's how he stopped recording and he activated Cadross again. The guy looked amused.

"You seem to have a few issues to deal with."

"What gave you that idea? Now, if I actually wanted to send that message, how would I?"

"There are thousands of access ports throughout the city that I could connect with to relay the message across our systems to a direct screen. Or I could locate the intended target myself and deliver the message as a hologram."

"How would you get to either of these things?" The disk, now held rather carefully between his fingers, suddenly sprung four very tiny, very spindly like legs that wrapped around to grip his index finger in a disturbing way. "Oh, you turn into a metallic spider. Huh." He brought the device closer to his face to see how the legs bent.

"What is a spider?"

"It's an Earth insect. So you're programmed to find anyone I instruct you to, and you just scuttle to your destination? That doesn't take a while?"

"I'm very fast, that is why they kept my model around for so long despite my limited functions." Limited functions? If this was limited then Rodney couldn't wait to find an advanced one! The legs unwrapped themselves, folding back in seamlessly and the disk lay in the palm of his hand once more, so innocuous and unassuming.

"Limited functions we'll deal with later," he announced. "Tell me, do you know anything about any other technology in this room? This item here for instance?" Rodney pointed at the wrench hopefully, but he sensed he would be disappointed by the response as the hologram stared blankly at it.

"No, I am a communicator only. I was not programmed with any information other than my basic functions. I was upgraded to having emotions however, so that my previous owner would have someone to speak with when he felt alone." Ah, so he was like a holographic bartender...or shrink. Well, Rodney could always use a sounding board.

"So tell me Cadross, what kind of information would you need to become functional with an entirely new population and how do you upgrade?" It was difficult to shut his new find down when it came time to go on shift, but he pocketed the tiny disk lovingly and headed out to start the day. His good mood lasted until he entered his newly assigned lab to find Greenwall sitting at his bench, going through his computer as if he had every right to examine Rodney's work. Rodney seethed, but when Greenwall noticed him he pulled his lips into a thin smile, and if it came across as more malicious than friendly it was completely done on purpose.

"Ah, Rodney. We need to have a little discussion." Greenwall declared, and had a look in his eyes that said Rodney's days were about to get busier. Life really, really sucked sometimes.

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"So basically they told you to suck it up," Sheppard surmised, and he was darkly amused by the anger simmering under her carefully neutral façade. It seemed everyone was mastering the look of neutral indifference these days, most importantly a scientist that still managed to escape his radar most of the time despite his earlier attempts to fix things between them. Elizabeth's neutral expression disappeared as soon as the windows to her office closed and they were alone.

"In much larger and more misleading words, yes." Oh yeah, she was angry. "Coming out here alone placed me in sole command of this operation and now that we have reestablished regular communications they are trying to uproot my authority."

"So stick it to them. Reinstate Rodney as the chief of science and send them a polite memo," he offered. She pursed her lips and for a moment he thought she might actually agree to his suggestion, before logic won out.

"As much as I would like to, I can't. As head of this city I should have the final say over the status of my personnel and command staff. I've had numerous apologies from several key people stating that it won't happen again, but at the moment the order still stands." She leaned back in her chair and looked directly at him with that focused no nonsense gaze that meant business. "I want to know what the hell is going on. All of my questions as to why this is happening are being skillfully avoided. They're running me in circles and I'm getting the impression that they don't even understand why the President issued this order."

"What I want to know," John leaned forward, "is whether Greenfall is directly involved in this decision process or if he's just the guy who was next in line for Rodney's job."

"That's another thing that's been bothering me. I'd heard of Greenwall before he joined us, but I don't recall anything spectacular that made him stand out besides a few papers. His credentials are outstanding, but-"

"But you think you would have heard something more about someone smart enough to be in charge of an entire science team dealing with completely foreign technology in another galaxy?" He supplied, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, that's exactly it." She instantly agreed.

"And he's too nice." He added.

"Now you're just searching for excuses."

"Nobody's that nice." He insisted.

"Carson is." Elizabeth rebutted.

"You obviously haven't been under his care enough, not that that's a bad thing," he hastily added, not wanting to imply that she should be injured or sick more often. His team alone was enough to keep Beckett busy thank you. She leaned forward again, and the light of the computer screen illuminated each of her tiny freckles.

"What's the word from the science staff? How're they dealing with this switch?"

"Well, it's been two weeks..." He trailed off as he slumped into a chair of his own, shifting slightly to make his side holster more comfortable. "And for the most part they seem okay with the situation. Some of the older crew are still looking twitchy, I think they're suffering from McKay withdrawal, but for the most part there's only been the typical complaints as far as I know, and Radek's been dealing with those."

"And Radek?"

"He's been remarkably tight lipped about the entire situation, except when he's speaking in Czech. I can now tell people they're stupider than a flying fish in a different language," she frowned at him. "Apparently they dry dock themselves and suffocate a lot..." he explained and then shrugged. "I thought it was funny."

"So in other words, he doesn't like Greenwall."

"That's the impression I'm getting, but he hasn't officially complained yet."

"Kavanagh has."

"It took him this long to find something wrong with the man?"

"He issued a report this morning outlining several reasons why Dr. Greenwall shouldn't be at his post, but the gist of it was that he didn't think him capable of handling the leadership necessities by way of intelligence and on the bureaucratic and interpersonal level."

"But it's just Kavanagh complaining?"

"At the moment, it's just Kavanagh, and that's not enough." John understood that. With contact being re-established with Earth it was possible, though it would take something rather severe, for them to be replaced. Elizabeth lived with that fear as much as he did, and this whole thing with Rodney proved it despite the many reassurances from the top dogs that nothing like this would happen again. The damage had already been done.

"How's Rodney doing?" She asked, her eyes taking on that sincere and guilty expression at the same time.

"He's been avoiding me. The only reason he spent any time with me this week is because I visited him with a concussion and he had to help me back to my quarters," he admitted, hoping he didn't look too sheepish as he said this.

"He's shut us out."

"No more then we did to him after Doranda," he defended without thought, even though it was a slap to both of them. Elizabeth's eyes flashed with that guilty look again but she didn't seem satisfied.

"It's not just us though. Carson mentioned that he literally hasn't seen him in two weeks, and they were getting along just fine before this happened. There have actually been several unofficial complaints that he hasn't been around to consult with." And that revelation, though it was slight, felt like a triumph to John. Good, they'd better miss him, because that was the first step in remembering exactly how much Rodney did for them. Personally Sheppard was missing him something fierce, and it was quite depressing to realize how much he had come to depend on the man as both friend and team mate. Rodney never tried to dumb things down to him until Sheppard asked; Greenwall was stuck in a permanent 'I will explain as though you are a child' mode. He missed getting lost in the complex scientific explanations that stunned the science staff and completely boggled John's own people. Rodney kept everyone on his or her toes, that was certain.

"Do you think there's an ulterior motive for him becoming so recluse all of a sudden?" She asked, concern lacing her words.

"After the way we treated him for a while there, I wouldn't blame him," they both averted their eyes. "But for him to bow out so easily, without a hint at a fight...I don't think it matters how emotionally affected by this he is, I don't see him giving up his place so easily. In fact, I was expecting something more on the level of an atomic explosion."

"You think there may be some external factors influencing his silence?" And this was suddenly becoming a very serious discussion as he began to think about the security implications and the threat to his city and people. Within the space of a few uttered words his mind was spinning off scenario after scenario of how something he didn't even know about yet could threaten his friend and his city.

"I honestly couldn't say, but with the run around from the President and Stargate Command and with Rodney," the most vocal and bull headed man in Atlantis "completely withdrawing I think there is reasonable room for concern," Elizabeth carefully spoke, and that was all the permission he needed to start a more thorough investigation.

He didn't know quite what he was looking for, but he had a gut feeling that there was more to McKay and Greenwall than he knew about, and those suspicions stemmed from his conversation with Rodney almost a week ago, outside his quarters.

"Right, well, I know Teyla and Ronon are looking for something to do, and Radek, while being tight lipped about Greenhall, has been rather vocal in defending Rodney. Carson isn't too happy with being shut out either. I think it's time we got together for a little poker night and some good old fashioned gossip."

"Just make sure there are no actual wagers and I'll wholeheartedly agree. The last thing I need is for you to have to bring yourself up on gambling charges." He nodded in agreement and left her office, heading straight to Atlantis's medical facility. He had arrangements to make.

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