Chapter 10

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They'd narrowed it down to four possible suspects. All four were engineers that had continuous access to the MALP, and all four of them had been off duty when Rodney slipped on the lubricant. Sheppard leaned back against the wall and watched as his suspects worked diligently on a prototype MALP that had been in the making for three months now. It was one of Rodney's new designs, half the size of a standard MALP and nearly twice as manoeuvrable. He'd thrown the schematics together while waiting for John to be released from the infirmary, grumbling non-stop the entire time because the original MALP had been effectively useless and they'd walked into an ambush. Rodney's tirade had included the questionable parentage of every scientist associated with the original design, and one or two pointed comments about dumb blondes that could only have been aimed at the esteemed Colonel Carter. Yet despite the empty insults and behind the bluster John had felt his friend's very real concern.

Ronon, standing silently at his side, crossed his arms and gazed at the group of engineers, sizing them up.

"Jennings and Kwong," Sheppard named quietly, though their targets were at the other end of the room, "have been with us from the beginning. Henderson and Sandburg came in to replace Kearney and Janson on the drop off before last. All four of them have been labelled as hardworking and dedicated."

"Greenwall said this?"

"Yeah, but Radek supported him. McKay's also made a note of praise in Jennings file, so if we were to eliminate a suspect, I would say it's probably her. There's no reason for her to strike out now when there've been so many opportunities that would have been less obvious in the past."

"Is there a connection between the other three and Greenwall?"

"They all crossed paths a few times at various projects back on Earth, but I haven't seen any evidence pointing to an association beyond that."

"Someone wiped up the lubricant after McKay's fall," Ronon reminded him and Sheppard folded his arms across his chest. It had been a few days since the incident, and the idea that someone had snuck up onto the platform and wiped away the evidence (obviously doing a bad job of it) while his friend had been trapped below, had him grinding his teeth. His gut was warning him that Greenwall was involved in the attack, and John had never been one to ignore his instinct. It's like he told Elizabeth: nobody was that nice. There was something wrong with Greenwall, an undercurrent of undecipherable emotion that had the hairs on the back of John's neck standing on edge the longer he was around.

And it was no longer just Rodney's immediate friends who had noticed this.

When they had cornered Rodney, a few days before, and forced him to have a meal with them it had been interesting to note that the people of Atlantis had actually seemed more relaxed and upbeat for about a day afterward. The almost unnoticeable tension in the city's walls had eased and there had been more smiles in the hallways. When they'd been unable to convince Rodney to join them for any more meals, the tension had slowly crept back in.

Without the constant energy that McKay produced the city seemed subdued. The man who had now been hiding from them for so long was finally being missed. A lot. It was a scenario that proved very interesting to witness, especially as there were still virtually no complaints to be made about Greenwall. In fact the man was still doing an excellent job and he had performed some fancy work on the bubble columns around the city recently that had some scientists loudly admiring his work. The problem that Sheppard had with that particular report was that Teyla had mentioned how Rodney had been working on just that project several days before.

An interesting pattern was forming and Elizabeth liked it about as much as he did, which was not at all. She'd ordered him to get to the bottom of this, discreetly, and John had no problem complying. He was going to be stopping by Greenwall's office in a few minutes to take a look at the new jumper specs that the man had been casually mentioning to people all over the city. He was very interested in this little pet project the new doctor was pushing, and besides, who was John to pass up anything to do with flying? With this in mind he slowly pushed away from the wall that had been supporting him for the better part of five minutes now. He wondered if he should stop glaring at the suspects across the way, lest they become suspicious of his attention.

"You're replacing Hathaway in stalking our ever elusive blue-shirt this afternoon, right?"

"Yeah," his ever verbose teammate grunted.

"Good. I'll take over in a few hours. I have some men keeping an eye on this bunch, but it wouldn't hurt if you joined in this afternoon. See if you can't intimidate our culprit into making a mistake."

They parted ways without another word, knowing nothing more needed to be said. This was one of the many things he had come to appreciate about his team, how easily they could sometimes understand each other and cut out language all together. John had always felt that connection, and he had thought that it had helped him to understand his friends. He used to think that Rodney was beginning to get the hang of it as well, despite the fact that silence was rarely his preferred form of communication. John snorted at the thought as he moved away. Lately McKay had apparently mastered the art of silence all together. He was going to get his friend back, no matter how long it took to convince the man to trust them again.

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A few minutes had transformed into a few hours before John finally stepped into the well lit lab that used to be Rodney's. He paused once through the door, politely thinking it shut as he looked around the large space for his intended target. Greenball was nowhere to be found.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Miko called for his attention, smiling politely at him from her lab bench across the room. "Can I help you with something?" He remembered how timid she had been when they'd first arrived in Atlantis, barely speaking to him unless addressed first, and look at her now: all grown up and taking initiative. He grinned at her, taking a moment to look at the gadget in her delicate, nimble hands before nodding his head in the direction of Rodney's old station.

"No, I'm good. I just came to badger your newest roomie, see what he's up too." It was immediately apparent that he had said the wrong thing as her eyes narrowed and she nodded coolly before turning her back on him, once again immersing herself in her work. He frowned at this but didn't comment, moving instead over to the nearest empty surface and hopping up to sit on the counter. On his left sat a box of what looked like the tiniest screwdrivers known to man, and on his right was a metal ball with a cacophony of multicolored wires spilling out of it. He was careful not to touch it as he lightly swung his heels back and forth.

He took the time to look around and tried not to feel uncomfortable by the stony silence coming from Miko. This was actually the first time he'd visited this lab since Greenwall had arrived in Atlantis, and he couldn't say he was overly impressed with the changes. Rodney had had his lab bench, the largest and most easily accessible one in the room, cluttered at all times with odds and ends that had seemed to be spilling over the edge. He'd crammed everything he could onto the available space, leaving several of the other benches untouched save for the occasional misplacement of his treasured coffee mug. It had always been amusing to watch him curse and try to carefully pile his clutter higher in an attempt at making extra room for any number of things, which included his staff's equipment as they tried to demonstrate their work or ask questions.

He wondered if Rodney had ever noticed how things were occasionally removed from the overcrowded surface, and set safely on a bench between Ashley and Miko's station, safe until he needed them again and began bitching about people touching his things. He'd never outright reprimanded anyone for it though. Besides, if Sheppard understood correctly, Rodney was rarely in this room, usually running around other labs or sections of the city in his eagerness to do as much as possible in as little time as possible.

"Where's Dr. Sauder?" He suddenly asked, breaking the silence. He was bored looking at the clean, well-organized bench that was currently not his friends. Miko didn't even grace him with a glance as she answered, head firmly bent over her work, which reaffirmed that she was definitely upset with him.

"She has moved her work across the hall. There was no longer room for her to continue in here."

"This place is huge, what was she doing, rebuilding a puddle jumper?"

"It was not her work that became too large," she informed him softly and then glanced pointedly at him. He looked around the lab once again. It looked like there was still plenty of room around for a couple other scientists in here, especially as it had so much of the important tools Rodney had been known to brag about being in charge of.

"You're saying Greenwall needs all this space?"

"He believes he does, and that is all that matters." She sounded bitter, which was completely out of character for her, and he realized that she probably spent too many hours in here alone and not enough time looking for excuses to visit her co-workers. He frowned, but he really had no idea what to say in response. So the room once again slid into silence, but this time he felt as though the irritation was not directed at him, which made a world of difference. He continued to swing his feet lightly and brushed a hand through his hair. There were quite a few items in here that he recognized, and one hell of a lot more that he'd never seen. He wanted to activate something to keep himself occupied, but after the riot act Rodney had read him (in the privacy of an Antarctica closet after he had first activated the chair with his ancient gene) he decided to heed his rather intelligent friend's advice and not play with toys that could potentially kill him, maim him, send him into a trans-dimensional reality or, worse, turn him into a women.

He sat there for a few more minutes, before the silence once again became too much for him.

"So…" he swung his head around to watch Miko. "What are you doing? Anything I can help with?"

"No, thank you," she quickly replied, looking at him as though she was worried he'd insist on helping anyway. What had Rodney been telling his scientists about him? He grinned charmingly at her and kept kicking his legs. She blinked, and then smiled very faintly before going back to work. He watched her hands as she deftly worked the casing off of what could have been an artistic coffee can for all he knew. Her fingers were long, delicate and well manicured, which was quite different from the hands he usually watched as they fiddled with one piece of technology or another. Rodney's hands were obviously larger, and thicker, with calluses that belonged to a scientist and a soldier, but they worked just as deftly, just as artistically, when he needed to. John's own hands had nails that were always trimmed back and calluses built from years of handling weapons and the controls of various flight craft. They all had their own specialties.

He watched Miko work, and wondered if he should have recruited her as one of the people to keep an eye on Rodney. She obviously had some level of infatuation with him, which was really too bad because Rodney had never shown any interest in her. She was extremely intelligent, which was a given since she was with them in Atlantis, but even more so because Rodney occasionally mentioned her name specifically when explaining various projects during command staff briefings. That by itself was enough for John to trust her, and if the disgruntlement he felt coming from her in regards to Greenwall was anything to go by, then he knew she would help without question.

Regardless of those positive attributes, however, John knew he had made the right decision to keep her out of 'Rodney's guard.' She wasn't very good at hiding her emotions, and she would have probably broken under a simple, well worded question from McKay. The small list of people, both soldiers and scientists alike, that Sheppard had recruited to help keep an eye on the increasingly elusive Dr. McKay had come to him first. They hadn't said anything indicating they understood what was really going on, but they had, very pointedly, asked how Rodney was doing. That had been enough for John to recruit their help, but he had still been careful of who he selected. He needed people who wouldn't make their actions obvious to Rodney or anyone else, especially Greenwall. So far he couldn't have asked for a better group of stalkers.

The door to the lab suddenly slid open, a bit more sluggish than John was used to seeing, and Dr. Greenwall stepped through, heading directly to the tidy bench he claimed to do work at. John eyed him from his perch speculatively. He was a tall man, and very athletic. John was aware that he had instigated a few games of basketball at the makeshift gym, and that he ran every morning. It was disconcerting to have a scientist on his team that he didn't have to order to exercise. Greenwall noticed John as he rounded his bench, and grinned pleasantly at him. John had the impression that if he had been closer to the man he would have received a friendly knock to the arm. John smiled back, hoping it didn't come across as forced as it felt.

"Colonel, I wasn't expecting to see you here," he exclaimed and John slid off his seat to walk over and casually lean against the table where Greenwall had set up shop.

"Surprise."

"It is, indeed. What can I do for you?" He asked, sincerity lacing his words and John's skin itched in unexplained irritation. The guy just made him want to break things, mainly his face, but John refused to give in to the temptation. He had always prided his ability to mislead others when he wanted to, and right now he would play ball with Greenwall until he had a firm point advantage.

"Actually, this might be a bit out of left field, but Teyla mentioned that you had some new shuttle specs drawn up and I have a bit of a weakness when it comes to anything that can fly." He hedged and Greenwall laughed sharply in delight, standing from the seat he'd just taken.

"I actually thought you would have been here a few days ago."

"You never invited me," John put on a mock pout, to which Greenwall shrugged apologetically.

"I never had a chance to; you're a busy man to track down John. Just let me just get the blue prints here." He turned his back to open a laptop that had been sitting on the bench behind them, and John noticed that Miko had stopped working for a moment, her right hand balling into a fist around the tool she was holding before she relaxed and went back to fiddling with her doohicky. Interesting.

"They're still in the earlier stages of design of course, I haven't had nearly enough time to do anything more than a few preliminary sketches." The Ancient computer screen that sat on a large chunk of the wall to their left suddenly illuminated with a solid white background.

"Just scribbles on napkins, huh?" John commented, and smirked at Greenwall when the man looked at him.

"Pretty much," he agreed readily enough. The first design that popped up had a basic frame, indicated by black lines and measurements crammed into the screens top left corner. The rest of the page was littered with diagrams of different parts of the ship. It was a very small design.

"This one," Greenwall explained as Sheppard's gaze was drawn back to the sleek outline of the basic frame, "is more of an individual transport than anything. It's not meant for more than two people, and I was thinking that its size would come in extremely handy if someone ever needed to navigate through tight places."

"Is it going to be space worthy?"

"Of course. Space and planetary, though there's obviously a lot of work that needs to be done." John could tell that was the truth.

"It's going to be difficult to develop a propulsion system small enough to fit on a ship that size and strong enough to work against a gravitational field," he theorized, rubbing at his chin.

"And that is where the main problem lies. Of course, I was thinking of removing its weapons to give it more room," he commented and Sheppard cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him. "It might be more valuable as a scouting ship," Greenwall defended.

"It might, as long as whoever's flying it isn't getting shot at." He gazed at the screen for another long minute, eyes scanning everything carefully. It was a simplistic design, but that was generally how all designs started, and John could definitely see the merit of having a small, highly maneuverable ship. He had actually mentioned that several times at the weekly staff meetings over the last year and a half, hoping to get permission to search for more ships. So far they hadn't found any.

The screen before them changed to a new design and he was looking at something that was twice, maybe even three times, the size of the puddle jumpers. Greenwall practically preened as he began pointing out different design aspects. John only half listened though, as he looked over the blueprint and came to some conclusions that had his eyes narrowing in suspicion. The ship wasn't anything special to look at, the only sleekness that lay in it was the fact that it was very long. In essence it was a puddle jumper that had been stretched.

He was dimly aware of Greenwall explaining the changes that would have to be developed to compensate for the extra length and weight. The environmental controls (the page turned and there was a schematic of the oxygen processing bubble columns and how it could be built into the walls of the ship) would have to be adapted for a large number of people. The shields would need a higher energy output (there was a note about the merits of a mini ZPM and how it would solve all idiotic problems in the bottom corner, neatly typed up). Propulsion systems would have to stretch the ships entire length and, squished off to one side in very small font, was a splurb that enthused over the merits of very large guns and unbreakable invisibility cloaks. It had Rodney's signature all over it, and if the side notes hadn't been enough of a give away John could easily see it in the way it was presented. Sheppard crossed his arms to hide his clenched hands as he examined the work that had obviously had untold hours poured into it.

"It's a cargo ship," he said, interrupting Greenwall's spiel and the man looked at John with a hint of annoyance.

"Yes, in essence." Rodney had often complained that a bigger ship would mean a lot less wasted time, as they wouldn't have to travel back and forth to their trade partners and could just obtain their 'booty' in one round trip. The Canadian had been very enthusiastic about that idea. Greenwall was still talking. "Of course it's too long to fit into the gate room, and will have to be assembled and maintained at our Beta site. This'll only mean that the goods traded for will have to be carried from the gate room to storage as opposed to being carried from the jumper bay. It also has the merits of making evacuation of a large population much easier than the tiny jumpers." The image changed again, and now it was obviously a ship designed for battle. The list off to one side entitled 'Big Ass Guns' was enough of a give away for anyone who didn't understand what they were looking at.

John understood exactly what he was looking at.

"You've done an awful lot of work on this in the amount of time you've been here," he commented, and was unable to keep the dry, sarcastic tinge from his voice. The change in Greenwall's stance was subtle as he shifted from friendly to defensive without outwardly showing it, but John had grown up in the cutthroat corporate environment, and the military, and he understood how to read people. Working with Elizabeth for over a year also gave him a distinct advantage; that woman could switch her emotions without any outward indication better than anyone John had ever known, and he had known a lot of people.

"It's easy when everything is so fascinating, and, like I mentioned to Teyla, it's a bit of a passion of mine."

"I'm sure it is," Sheppard looked at Greenwall, noting that his pale green eyes lacked true emotion, only being generous with false sincerity. "Nice work," he complimented, trying to stay in form, knowing that he wasn't doing a very good job of it. He waited to see if Greenwall was going to call him on it, and when he didn't John turned away from the screen. He passed the laptop and, with a quick glance, picked out three more files entitled: luxury line, science boat, and long haul. He couldn't be sure that they were other designs, but if they weren't he'd be surprised. He didn't pause to make it obvious that he'd looked. "Thanks for the show Doc," he called, and paused by the door to look over his shoulder. He caught the fleeting edge of a frown as it disappeared into a friendly smile and Greenwall waved.

"Anytime, I have no doubt that you would have some excellent suggestions. Perhaps we could discuss it over a meal one night."

"Sounds like a date." Not a chance in hell, Sheppard thought, and left with a wave. Greenwall would be leaving on a mission with SGA-3 within the hour and John thought he might just drop in to visit Miko some time in the near future. Maybe they could take a closer look at the designs together and he could ask her what she thought about them.

At the gate room he watched as SGA-3 arrived half an hour before their departure time and began the first of what would be three thorough checks of their equipment; Jamul, the teams lead, was a bit fastidious when it came to his team checking their equipment. Fastidious to the point of grumbling by many personnel all around, however, his was the only team that had never forgotten a single piece of equipment that might have come in handy during a mission. That included a comparison to Sheppard's own team, and that was saying something. John pulled them aside for a quick conversation, doing his part to make sure they were ready for their latest foray off base, and he resisted the urge to say that if there was any sign of danger it was okay to leave Greenwall behind. Then he went in search of Rodney.

A quick confirmation with Ronon told John that Rodney had just left lab 32 and was heading towards the location he currently shared with some of the newer, slightly less than tolerable, scientists of Atlantis. John relieved the Satedan of his guard duties, stepping in to follow after McKay himself while Ronon went off to do whatever it was he did while on stand down. He wanted to talk to Rodney, maybe ask him about the jumper specs directly to see what the guy said. There was a reason he was bowing down to Greenwall, allowing the man to step into his position within the city with barely a breath of argument. If John could just get Rodney to tell him what was really going on maybe he could finally get to the bottom of all this. Hopefully before Rodney was attacked again.

Sheppard ducked into what had probably once been used as a storage closet and waited for his friend. Okay, so maybe he wanted to hold off on his conversation with Rodney for a few more minutes and give himself a game plan before confronting the guy. It wasn't cowardly to hide like this, it was practical.

He pressed his ear to the door and listened as Rodney's familiar, fast footfalls passed him by without pause. John stepped out and quietly followed, wondering if he should just catch up to the guy now, or wait until he got wherever he was going before making his appearance. The decision was taken out of his hands however, when only a minute later McKay's footsteps stopped and he heard the unmistakable murmur of voices. John softened his own footsteps and slowed to listen, hiding in plain site around the next corner. It was Greenwall that had stopped, loudly stating that he had things to discuss before he went on his mission, but their voices had dropped in volume, forcing John to edge closer to the corner to listen, when Rodney suddenly, and very angrily, hissed:

"No, I don't think so!"

John fought the urge to immediately launch himself around the corner and go to his friend's aid. His hand settled on his sidearm instinctively, but he needed to hear this conversation, and the longer he listened the more he realized that Rodney needed him to hear it too. The urge to pull his sidearm increased with each heatedly exchanged word, until he was forced, once again, to reassess his opinion of Dr. Rodney McKay.

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