The Ghosts of the Atlantis
10: Solving the Mystery
The blue handprint on the cubed device did not last long, appearing only for a few seconds on the smooth black surface, before disappearing as if it had never been.
"That's it! I think we've found our culprit!" Rodney crowed in excitement. "Quick," Rodney snapped his fingers to Ronon and Zelenka, "One of you, carry it to that empty table over there!"
Both Zelenka and Ronon looked at each other then turned suspiciously back at Rodney. "Why?" Ronon asked.
"Because neither of you have the ATA gene, so it won't react to you! And I want to examine it more thoroughly without it accidentally reacting to all the other devices cluttered around here," Rodney explained impatiently. Ronon shrugged then picked up the black cube and placed it to where Rodney wanted it.
Once it was placed at the center of the table, Rodney carefully reached out a hand to touch it. The device immediately gave a strange low hum and a red handprint appeared. The reaction send the scientist and all the others scrambling backwards again.
"Er, what just happened there?" O'Neill asked, taking a peak back at the alien device a little nervously.
"Hmm, fascinating," Rodney commented. Excited blue eyes turned back to O'Neill and the others to provide an explanation. "I believe that the device reacted differently to me than it did to you, Jack. When you touched it, your handprint appeared blue. I think the colors indicate that you're no longer affected by these 'ghosts' or whatever they are. Didn't you say that the ghost Charlie left by itself after you spoke to it? That it didn't try to attack you afterwards?"
"Yep, what of it?" Jack replied.
"Well, how did you make it leave?" McKay asked curiously, before pausing to say, "Let me rephrase that, what did you do differently this time to make it leave?"
Jack thought back to what had happened, remembering how he felt, the words he had spoken and how the ghost Charlie had reacted to his words. He also remembered how it had reacted to his feelings and his inner thoughts. Being an intensively private man, he really didn't want to speak about something so personal and reveal it to McKay of all people. However, he knew what was at stake here; his information might help the scientist solve the problem the Atlanteans were having. It might help save lives and to Jack, that was all that mattered. His dislike for McKay and his own personal discomfort would have to take a back seat. Once he came to this conclusion, he took a deep breath, looked at McKay and told him what he had felt and thought in a cold emotionless tone. It was better to act stoic, he didn't want the scientist to see how hard it was for him to speak about it.
The others listened in silence until he had finished speaking. Rodney nodded, blue eyes stared intensively at him for a moment, then the scientist cleared his throat as if he was aware of how uncomfortable O'Neill felt. In a soft voice, he thanked Jack, saying nothing more.
The four men were soon back crowding around the table again, taking a closer look at the alien device.
"So? Now what are you intending to do about it?" Jack finally asked.
Rodney looked up and smirked. "What I always do, find a way to save the city, or at least our people in the city. After all, I'm genius aren't I? But if you must know, I'm going to figure out what the alien device does and hopefully find a way to deactivate it."
Jack frowned. "We already know what it does, it causes dead people to reappear and attack us, or did you just forget that?"
Rodney shook his head and sighed. "No, no, we need to figure out the reason why it's reacting this way, there must be a purpose for the device to do what it does. Hmmph, if there's someway for us to have a history or a bit of background to this device, it might help."
Rodney suddenly looked up and clicked his fingers. "I got it! Radek!" he turned to his assistant, "Who was the team who found the device?"
Zelenka quickly went to his laptop and typed in a query. "Major Lorne's team," he replied.
McKay smiled. "If I recall correctly, wouldn't Major Lorne's team carry a digital video recorder with them?" he asked.
Radek nodded. "I believe that's standard procedure for all off-world exploratory missions."
"Good, good." Rodney rubbed his hands together with glee. "See if you can track down the recording disc, Radek."
"Why not just question Lorne's team?" Ronon asked.
"No, I need to see the actual site where this device was found. It might give us a clue to its purpose, maybe there might be some kind of written text there or something that might be give us more clues. It'd also save us time of not having to make a gate trip there ourselves."
"Time that we are running out of," Jack observed.
"Yes, yes, so you keep reminding me, O'Neill, and something that I've very well aware of, thank-you very much," Rodney remarked bitingly. "But you do have a point, Ronon. Go see if you can track down the marine who took the video footage, I'll probably have questions for the man."
oOo
Three and a half hours later, everyone was back in the partitioned area of the infirmary turned into a makeshift conference room. By now Sheppard was awake again and looking much better after having rested. He was eager for news on what had been happening since the last meeting. Ever since waking up, which was an hour and a half ago, he had been bugging Elizabeth and Rodney continuously on his intercom about the latest news, so much so that Carson had to hobble across on his crutches to remove the intercom from his indignant patient by force.
"They need to work, lad! Will you leave them be?! I'm sure that once they find out anything important they'll inform us immediately," Carson reproached the Colonel. The Scottish doctor looked tired, and Sheppard, seeing the weary and pained look in Carson, had the grace not to argue any further.
So for the next hour or so, after having lunch, Sheppard had been restlessly sitting in his bed, trying to entertain himself and failing miserably. When Ronon came to keep him company for a while he had brightened. However, after telling him all that had happened in the lab, the conversation had ended in silence. After all, the former Runner was not much of a conversationalist, and as Ronon didn't fall for his jokes or his snark, unlike McKay, things got pretty boring after that. When Ronon left, Teyla dropped by to see how he was doing, it was another good distraction for Sheppard. She questioned him about his dream and told him that Rodney asked her to question others who had experienced similar attacks. Despite being uncomfortable to talk about it, he told her what was required as briefly as he could. Teyla nodded, took down notes and left soon after. With nothing else to do, Sheppard decided to take a short nap before the next scheduled meeting. He dropped off for a while and was woken up by a nurse fiddling with his IVs.
A little while later, his team started to wander back into the infirmary again. They greeted him cheerfully when they saw that he was up and looking better. Once everyone was seated at the conference table, the meeting started promptly. This time, Rodney brought along the alien black cubed device with him, which he managed to get connected to his tablet.
"Should that thing be here, Rodney? Is it safe?" Carson asked, looking nervously at it. He had heard from Ronon about the device when the Satedan was reporting back to Sheppard about what had happened.
"Huh? Oh yes, yes. It's already been activated four days ago, so whether it sits in Zelenka's lab or here, it makes no difference." Rodney replied.
"Well, Rodney, why don't you begin by telling us what you've discovered so far," Weir instructed.
Rodney looked up from his tablet and the alien device. "Yes," he cleared his throat. "As you all now know, this little device is the cause of all our problems lately. It was found four days ago and brought back to Atlantis by Major Lorne's team."
"The day the nightmares started," Sheppard noted from his infirmary bed.
"Exactly," Rodney beamed. "I got Teyla to do some questioning and it seems that everyone who was attacked on the first night, started having nightmares exactly at the same time too."
"But why start with nightmares first? Why didn't these phantoms, ghosts or whatever they were, start attacking people straight away?" Elizabeth asked, puzzled.
"Yes, yes, Elizabeth," Rodney noted a little impatiently, "I'm getting to that. According from what I managed to decipher, the artifact takes time to power up. The nightmares that our people have been experiencing are actually induced by our alien friend here. It builds upon the guilt of the human psyche to power the phantoms to make them more powerful and aggressive."
"Why? For what purpose?" Sheppard asked, frowning slightly as he recalled the guilt he experienced over the death of Sumner.
"Well, after questioning Sergeant Stilles, who was part of the team who retrieved the alien device, and looking at the recorded footage that was taken, I managed to conclude that the device actually came from a penal Colony. This was where the Ancients used to sent their most hardened criminals, and I'm talking about murderers here."
"I didn't know that the Ancestors had criminals," Teyla said, looking a little disturbed by this fact.
"Hmm, yes, well obviously all societies no matter how advanced they are, have their own group of undesirables."
"A prison world, that would explain quite a bit," Weir mused softly.
"Quite ingenious really as to how the device works. Once it's activated, it latches upon the subconscious of the prisoner and enhances their guilt towards a particular death they feel connected to. Unfortunately it doesn't really determine guilt, only partial guilt, whether the person is actually guilty of doing the deed is a different story. The reason all of us can see these phantoms is because the victims' families were allowed to watch the prisoners project out their own guilt and be killed by their own demons."
"That is would explain why when I questioned those affected in Atlantis, almost everyone said that the ghosts screamed that the reason they were there was because it was the fault of the victims themselves," Teyla commented.
"Yes, so I've noted too. Gall blamed me for him being there," Rodney observed.
"So did Sumner," John added, looking a little disturbed. "He kept screaming out 'I am here because of you.'"
"Aye," Carson agreed. "Perna kept on saying 'It's all your fault that I'm here.'"
"And in essence, they were," Rodney explained, "All our ghosts are the result of the projection of our own minds. The device enables the appearance of a physical manifestation of whomever the prisoner feels responsible in some way for their death. Once the 'ghost', for want of a better word, manifests itself and targets its victim, these phantoms act on the prisoners' subconscious and bombards them with increased feelings of guilt and despair to the point of wanting death at the hands of whomever they feel they responsible for. After all, let's think about it, what better retribution than for the victim's family to watch their killer being killed by their own victim's hands? You could perhaps see it as some kind of ironic justice."
"In very a sick kind of way," Weir observed softly, with a disgusted look on her face.
"But if these ghosts are the figments of our own subconscious or imagination, how come they can hurt us?" Carson wondered. "All the injuries we suffered were real, Rodney. And these things almost killed Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne."
Radek who was feeling left out of the conversation, took this opportunity to answer Beckett's question. "It stimulates the brain's synapses into believing that injury is real. Therefore, any injury given to prisoners by these phantoms will physically manifest themselves on their bodies."
"However," Rodney interjected, overriding Zelenka when he was about to continue, ignoring the evil look shot his way. "...Only the phantom of each individual can harm the person whom it latches on to. Like I said, quite ingenious how it works." He looked at the cubed alien device sitting on the table before him.
"So, the device manipulates the power of its victim's mind, if you believe that something is real enough, it can cause the body to react to the perceived injury?" Weir asked as a small frown formed in between her brows.
"Yes," Zelenka hurriedly answered again, wanting his moment in the light. "That's exactly what we're saying, Dr. Weir. There are still many mysterious to the human mind that we don't know about. For example..."
Rodney cut in, "There have been medical reports about certain patients suffering from multiple personality disorders experiencing a reactive change in eye color when a different persona overtook them. Scientifically speaking this isn't possible, but the power of the human mind is still a mystery to many of us. That's why I call medical science, voodoo science, things are not tangible enough to call it science."
At that statement, it was Carson's turn to shoot Rodney an evil look, which the scientist brazenly ignored.
"Like the Matrix," Sheppard stated loudly.
Rodney crossed his arms together, jutted his lower chin forward and gave John a small frown which soon turned into a tentative lop-sided smile as he thought about it. "Hmmph... why is it that you always have to use metaphorical examples from the movies? But yes, if you want to put it in simple terms, Sheppard, it's exactly like the Matrix. When people were killed in the Matrix's holographic world their minds believed that they were dead, therefore in the real world, their physical bodies also died."
"I think therefore I am?" Elizabeth said, lifting an amused eyebrow.
Rodney smiled smugly. "In a manner of speaking, you could say that."
"Except for Neo," Sheppard said again. "He didn't die, he could control his environment."
"Yes," Rodney agreed, "That's because his mind was powerful enough to reject the computer generated reality and create one of his own."
"So basically what you're saying is that our own minds are creating these illusions which are physically manifesting themselves, allowing them hurt no one else but us?" Carson clarified.
"Huh... Didn't I already say that? Or weren't you listening?" Rodney finally snapped impatiently.
"Gentlemen...," Elizabeth warned.
Rodney turned to face Elizabeth, his features now looking irritated. "It's not me, it's Dr. Voodoo-science over there."
"Now, look here you arrogant, little man..." Carson retorted back.
"Rodney! Carson! Focus please!" Elizabeth's pointed glare directed at the two of them, shut both men up.
Rodney finally sighed, took a deep breath and continued with his explanation. "Look, what I'm saying is the stronger the ATA gene ingrained in the individual is, the more real the physical manifestation would be. After all, it's Ancient technology that we are talking about here."
"And also the more violent too?" Sheppard commented.
For the first time since the meeting began, Rodney looked a little uncertain. "Perhaps, I'm not sure about that, but I think it actually depends on the individual involved, how much guilt one has over the death of someone else. I think for you, Colonel, the ghost of Sumner was particularly violent because, well, while I hate to admit it, Colonel, but you did after all pull the trigger that killed the man."
"Rodney, you know that Colonel Sheppard had no choice in the matter!" Elizabeth chided, coming to Sheppard's defense.
"Yes, yes, of course I do," Rodney spoke up, "I'm not saying that what the Colonel did was wrong, it was the right thing to do, after all, even Gall killed himself after he was partially fed upon by the Wraith. No, what I'm saying is that subconsciously, I don't think Sheppard has forgiven himself for what he did, and until he does so, this phantom will have power over him."
"He is sitting right here," John said a little irritated and very much uncomfortable that his friends were having a discussion over how much guilt he felt over Sumner's death.
"But what about General O'Neill? He only arrived a day ago on board Daedalus, he wouldn't have been affected by the dreams. How come he was affected by the first attack?" Teyla wondered.
Rodney turned to look at Jack, just to clarify the fact. "Did you dream about your son before you came to Atlantis?"
"Nope, slept like a baby."
Rodney nodded. "Well then, first off, O'Neill has the ATA gene and by default the most powerful among us except for Sheppard. Secondly, in the first encounter, the phantom of Charlie didn't really injure him seriously now, did it? Not unlike Sheppard whom we found almost bleeding to death in his quarters. So, with the device not being able to work on his subconscious three nights before, it allowed O'Neill to retain enough cognitive rational ability to be in their presence and suspect that something wasn't quite right."
"It did?" O'Neill lifted his eyebrows as if surprised to hear Rodney's statement.
"Well, think about it General, at the infirmary you asked me whether these were real ghosts. Also, I believe you pointed out that the longer we were in their presence, the more guilt we felt over their deaths."
"I did?" O'Neill asked.
"Yes, I believe you did," Rodney replied.
"I heard it," Ronon said as he leaned back against his chair.
"Not me..., I didn't hear it," Sheppard said, frowning slightly and wondering when all this had happened.
"That was because you were in surgery being operated on by Dr. Beckett, John," Teyla helpfully explained.
"Oh," Sheppard said, then grimaced at the thought.
"So that explains how Jack managed to 'defeat' his ghost?" Weir asked.
"Yes, even though he bore some guilt over his son's death, er..." Rodney paused, as he suddenly realized that he was now stepping upon a sensitive topic. "I'm sorry to say this, General..."
Jack however waved his hand dismissively, "Say what's needed to be said, McKay."
Rodney turned back towards the others. "Yes, well, while he still bore some guilt enough for the phantom to hurt him slightly, inwardly he knew that Charlie would never really be able to harm him. After all, as we discussed in our last meeting, love is the most powerful human emotion, the love a father has for a son and vise versa would be enough to overcome even emotions of artificially enhanced guilt."
"Perhaps, General O'Neill also had enough time to make peace with himself over his son's death," Teyla added calmly. "After all, I do recall O'Neill saying that the accident occurred more than ten years ago?"
Jack nodded and then said loudly, "Right!"
Everybody turned to look at him. "What?" he said. "I was just stating a fact. I had enough time to put Charlie's ghost to rest. I know my son well enough to know that if it were him, he wouldn't harm me, and I told 'it' so."
"What about Major Lorne?" Carson asked suddenly. "I took the liberty to check up his records. According to his file the young lass that our people saw was actually his kid sister who drowned a couple of years ago. It was an accident, he had nothing to do with it, although he certainly feels guilty enough as he was at the beach when the drowning occurred. Yet, somehow, the ghost of that wee child harmed him as badly as Colonel Sheppard. Do you have an answer for that Rodney?"
Rodney thought about it for a moment, looking at the data on his tablet. "Well actually I do, and I must say that it's all rhetorical at the moment, so I can't say for sure say how accurate I am at this."
"Spit it out McKay," Sheppard said a little impatiently.
"Actually, it relates to you Sheppard," Rodney turned towards John and looking a little uncomfortable now.
"Me?" John said, suddenly feeling that he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.
"Yes, remember how you told us that Lorne got in the way of the Summer's knife that stabbed through his back? Well, I compared the records that Carson gave me earlier regarding Lorne's wound. From the description of what you told me had happened, Sheppard, there's a very strong possibility that where the glass splinter had stabbed him was in the same region where Sumner's knife had gone through him earlier. And from the data of what I've managed to analyze on the alien device, there can sometimes be an overflow of psychic energies, especially if someone is within close proximity of the person being bombarded by feelings of phantom guilt. Because Lorne was standing so close to you at the time, Sheppard, even though Sumner's knife didn't harm him at the moment of entry, there was actually some later repercussions which resulted in the glass splinter hitting him close or perhaps at the exact same spot where the Sumner's knife entered."
Sheppard looked grim. "So it's mine fault that Lorne was hurt as badly as he was," he stated softly, his hazel eyes flitting towards his hands.
"No John, you're not to be blamed for this," Elizabeth said sternly as she turned to look at her second in command.
"Dr. Weir's right, Sheppard, if it's anyone to blame, it's that damn alien device," O'Neill added.
Sheppard didn't say anything else, but continued to look grim. Rodney felt like kicking himself knowing that inadvertently, he had just made his friend feel worse. "Actually, by the same default, Lorne was also responsible for your own close call, Sheppard."
John looked up puzzled by the scientist's statement.
"Say again?" It was Carson who asked the question, while rubbing at the cast of his wounded leg. The limb was aching quite a bit.
"Well, when the glass splinter went through Sheppard's back, he said that he felt a coldness in his chest. You mentioned in your report Carson that you had to fix some internal bleeding and injuries that you found in Sheppard the second time you took him to surgery. I think that the phantom glass splinter caused it, which possibly led to Sheppard's heart stopping later. Although he didn't feel it at the time, there were repercussions, it only took a while for the damage to make itself known. At least that's my theory anyway," Rodney said, folding his arms together and looked at the rest of them.
"So have you found a way to switch it off?" Weir asked as she leaned forward and crossed her arms, echoing McKay's actions.
Rodney now looked down and frowned. "No, not yet, there's a lot of data all written in Ancient which I could use some help in translating, Elizabeth."
"I'll come over to your lab and see what I can do to help, Rodney, but we might not have enough time to decipher it all. We only have until midnight, that's when the next apparitions will start attacking again." Elizabeth stated.
"Actually, that's something that I do not understand. Why do the ghosts only appear at night? Particularly midnight and just before dawn? Sounds like some kind of creepy Dracula story if you ask me," said Sheppard.
Rodney looked down once again at his tablet, reading the data there. "I might be able to answer that. According to what I managed to decipher from the device, the Ancients believed that the mind was most susceptible to outside influences during these hours, that is, midnight and pre-dawn. Also, you've got to understand that even though they were Ancients, they were human in many ways, which meant that they're fallible. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that they had their own beliefs or superstitious of their own concerning ghosts and all that other mumbo-jumbo that went along with it."
"While this is all very interesting, we're running out of time. As you haven't found a way yet to switch off the alien device, any other suggestions on our course of action?" Weir asked.
"I say we destroy it." This suggestion came from Ronon.
"Oh, you would say that, wouldn't you?" Rodney replied, "Do you know how much valuable Ancient data we would be destroying if we did that? No, we can't do that. What we have here is a rare opportunity to study something that practically uses the power of the human mind, imagine the possibilities if we could learn from it, tap into it and use it correctly?"
Weir nodded before looking up at Rodney, "I'll give you two hours more to try to figure it out Rodney. If you can't turn it off by then, we're going to destroy it."
oOo
TBC
AN: OK, I know I'm writing 'In the Mind's Eye', but I'm going to concentrate on getting this one done first, so my other story will resume once this is completed.