COULD BE WORSE - by NotTasha
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CHAPTER 13: THIS IS NOT HAPPENING
"Crap!" Sheppard shouted as the Osoyoos clumped away with Teyla slung over its shoulder. Teyla said nothing as she writhed in its grip, struggling to free herself from the machine.
John moved after it. "This is NOT happening!" he yelled as he sprinted.
The robot stomped toward the far end of the building, the top of its head clipping overhanging equipment. Teyla jounced on the metal shoulder as she tried to reach her weapon, frustrated by the robot's tight grip.
"Stop! Robot, stop!" Sheppard shouted, but the Osoyoos seemed unable to hear him. It seemed utterly confused as it staggered, as Sheppard and Ronon followed it.
"Deactivate! Turn off!" Sheppard tried, rushing to keep up. "Down! Off! Power down!" With a grimace, he even tried, "Klaatu Barata Nikto!"
He hoped McKay hadn't heard that. He'd never live it down.
The machine didn't stop. It lurched. One arm restrained Teyla, the other remained out in front of itself. The hand reached and grabbed, tearing at the equipment that surrounded it. It smashed. Equipment rained down, and Teyla ducked as something clipped her side.
"Stop! Stop, Osoyoos!" Sheppard kept trying, but the robot didn't respond. 'Robot, Stop!' he thought. 'Stop stop stop!' But nothing seemed to work. It was out of control, continuing to destroy every machine in its path. Bits and pieces of manufacturing equipment plummeted behind it. Teyla covered her head, trying to avoid the deadly-looking projectiles, and Ronon and Sheppard slowed in their pursuit as they avoided the missiles.
"Oh! Oh!" a voice called out – Winfield. "There it is! The Osoyoos!"
Sheppard turned sharply, finding the man standing just outside the factory, peering through a doorway. Two other Bankiers were beside him – an older woman and a withered old man, both wearing too much red.
"Get the hell out of here!" Sheppard shouted at them.
"My factory!" the woman shouted. "You're ruining everything! Get it out of here!"
"The vault," Winfield directed. "We should send it back to the vault!"
"It is a product of the Ancestors!" the old man cut in, sneering at Winfield. "We must study it! It is the Marvel! It's glorious to see it in action!" His voice rose joyfully.
Sheppard ignored the calls and continued to follow the Marvel, with Ronon beside him, hanging tightly to Rodney. Sheppard couldn't tell if McKay was conscious.
The robot rambled directly to a 'waist high' conveyor system. The Osoyoos didn't stop and the belt was ripped loose, partially wrapping around the robot for a moment. The flapping bits of belt just missed Teyla, and the Osoyoos kept moving. The conveyor system smashed to the floor.
The Osoyoos continued destroying anything in its way. Teyla had managed to pull her 9mm from her belt, but her attempts to fire it into the creature had been useless. Bullets deflected. It stamped onward.
"Off!" Sheppard tried again, and then 'thought' the word with every ounce of concentration. Turn off, he demanded internally. Osoyoos, Stop!
"It's not working!" Ronon growled. He stopped when they reached the smashed conveyer belt and he carefully slung the paralyzed man down from his shoulder. Machinery continued to crash as the Osoyoos moved onward.
Sheppard let out a sigh of relief to see McKay's eyes open, but turned to Ronon, snapping, "Now's not the time for a breather!"
The Satedan gently maneuvered McKay to the floor, placing him under the remainder of the conveyor belt and next to a support column. He settled Rodney on his side, and assured, "I'm coming back."
Rodney just stared, and blinked slowly.
Sheppard fumed, "We're not leaving Rodney!"
"You're not," Ronon told him. "You're staying here. I'm going after the big robot."
"I'm the one with the ring," Sheppard reminded. "I'm the one who controls it." He held up his hand to show off the piece of jewelry.
Quietly, they heard the labored voice of Rodney say, "That's…. working… so… well…"
"I'll get Teyla," Ronon promised. "And then we go home." And he lit off after her. Unhindered by McKay, Dex moved like a wild animal, leaping over the destruction to catch up to the Marvel and its captive.
Sheppard let out a sigh, wishing he could follow. Wishing that …
"What's…happen…ing?" Rodney asked anxiously. His head was turned where Ronon had settled him, and he was staring into the blank side of the column.
Letting out a breath, Sheppard squatted beside Rodney. It was good to hear him talk, but God, he looked horrible. The last thing they needed to do was delay their return to Atlantis any longer. He considered picking up Rodney and starting off on his own. Ronon could take care of the Giant Killer Robot.
Teyla cried out in pain, and John's head lifted.
"What… was… that?" Rodney asked slowly.
"Teyla," Sheppard started, feeling torn. "Ronon's helping her. He's going to stop the robot," Sheppard explained. "Hopefully his blaster has recharged. The damn robot just picked up Teyla and made off with her like King Kong. How goddamn ridiculous is that?"
Things smashed. They could hear machinery falling, and then a burst of weapons fire - but no blaster. More bashing followed. Sheppard was too low to see and he fought the urge to stand up when Rodney spoke again.
"Teyla… she…" the words were quiet, garbled, thick, and Rodney seemed to be using every ounce of strength just to say them. "Okay?"
"Yeah, she's okay," Sheppard told him. "So far…" He stared in the direction of the noise. "We have to get home, now! This is just so messed up. I TOLD you that activating that robot was a bad idea! A very very bad idea."
Rodney just breathed for a few moments. Wrapped up in Ronon's long jacket, he looked strangely vulnerable. "Got to… get her…" he stated.
Sheppard responded with, "Yeah, we're working on it." He gritted his teeth and then growled, "What the hell happened? The thing was listening to my every word? Why'd it go haywire?"
Rodney panted for a moment as the clattering continued. They could hear Ronon shouting, and Teyla's tight responses. Weapons fired, and the robot still smashed.
"Ring…" Rodney said with effort.
Sheppard scowled as he sat down beside Rodney. "It's about as useful as a Cracker Jack toy right now."
"Twelve…" the word was difficult for Rodney to say.
"What? Twelve?" Sheppard pondered a moment before he remembered, "The twelve rings? And this one is number thirteen. Lots of luck there."
"Too many…" Rodney struggled, his eyes still fixed on a spot before him on the support beam.
Sheppard considered the thought and then nodded. "I got it," he stated. "We have thirteen people wearing rings out here. So, the Giant Killer Telepathic Robot is getting all sorts of conflicting messages. It's overloaded! Great. Fucking great!"
Underground, the radios didn't work. Underground, the Osoyoos had only one voice to obey. Now, the three Bankiers, all members of the Kaleden, were crying out with different demands. And there were nine others like them in the city, wearing the Signet of the Kaleden, sending out ideas, thoughts, wants.
"Damn it!" Sheppard cursed. "Who the hell thought that a telepathic robot was a good idea?"
If he could just shut up the rest of the Kaleden. If he could just shut them all up! But how the hell was he going to do that? Sure, he could take out the three Bankier's by the door, but where were the rest of the Kaleden? And would he ever be able to control the Osoyoos while others still wore the rings?
"We got all the damn luck, don't we?" Sheppard sighed. He watched Rodney carefully. His face was so still – his eyes blinked so slowly. He seemed to be building up his strength again – drawing in a deep breath. Another loud crash shook the room. People were shouting.
"How…" Rodney stated, his voice little more than a distorted wheeze. "How'd you…" And then he paused again, just breathing.
"How'd I what?" Sheppard demanded when nothing else followed.
Eyes still fixed on nothing, Rodney forced out, "Turn… it… on."
"How'd I turn on the robot?" Sheppard stopped and stared at the ring again. He squinted, remembering the trick.
Quickly he stood, sighting the Giant Killer Robot as it flailed at some sort of machine on the far side of the room with Teyla still clenched to its shoulder. Ronon had a big metal pipe. Apparently the blaster wasn't recharged yet.
Teyla shouted in pain as something struck her.
"Go," Rodney whispered.
"I'll be back!" John promised. "Rodney, I'll be right back, okay?"
John ran, following the robot that continued to smash. Ronon lifted the pipe, and Teyla screamed.
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She fought. She struggled. She tried for all she was worth to free herself from the grip of the Osoyoos. One metal hand was clamped tightly over her and no matter now hard she worked against it, the grip would not loosen.
It stomped, it raged, it tore and savaged the machinery around it. It seemed aimless, constantly changing directions and intents.
Another large piece of equipment fell and she cried out involuntarily as it struck her hard on the shoulders.
Ronon was behind her. He'd given up on firing on the thing, and was now trying smash it across the knees with a metal bar that was as thick as his arm. He swung, hard.
The bar impacted with a WANG, and Ronon shouted as the action resulted in nothing outside of vibrating his shoulders down to his spine. The robot didn't stop.
There were other people in the factory now. Teyla caught sight of them as the Osoyoos spun around. She saw Keremeos shouting angrily and throwing things. A metal tool smacked the robot's head and she ducked again, trying to save her own cranium.
She felt dizzy and sick. She knew she'd been hit far too often. One of her arms was probably broken, a victim of a falling beam. She struggled against the nausea as the machine continued to move.
She saw Solly who looked enraptured as he watched the berserk Osoyoos. There were others, but she did not see Winfield.
The Bankiers were shouting to each other as they tried to block the robot, to herd it one way or another.
They failed.
Teyla twisted, trying to see where they were going. One Bankier stood in front of the Osoyoos, waving hands shouting at the thing – he wore red. "Osoyoos! I command thee!" he shouted. "Stop! In the name of the Kaleden, stop!"
The robot did not listen. She yelled at the man to get back, to get away, but he did not move and the big robot just smashed over the unfortunate man. Teyla gasped, not wanting to be horrified.
"This must end!" she demanded. The Osoyoos stormed onward, tossing machinery hither and yon as people scrambled.
Ronon was beside her, doing what he could to stop the machine. But everything failed. The machine was unstoppable. It wouldn't cease until everything in the factory was torn to pieces.
And then where would it go?
Suddenly, Sheppard was sprinting toward her. She called out his name as the thing spun her about. John stopped, and yelled something about the ring.
"The ring?" she called back, wanting to understand, but the cacophony was impenetrable, her head hurt too badly, one arm wouldn't move without sending out electric bolts of pain.
"We need to turn it off with the ring!" Sheppard shouted as he tried to get around the mishmash of damaged machines.
He could not get close.
"John!" she shouted. "Toss it to me!"
Sheppard had the jewelry off his finger in an instant and drew back, waiting until the right moment, when the Osoyoos had paused at the base of what looked like a massive water tank.
He flung the ring just as the robot stepped forward. It reached toward the huge tank as Teyla strained, her one good arm reaching.
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Rodney tried, but it was too hard to keep his eyes open. He struggled, but there was nothing to see, and his eyelids were leaden. Defeated, he let them close. He could feel nothing. It was as if his body was gone.
All he had left was sound. He could still hear.
Things still smashed, still crashed. The Osoyoos was moving further away. Ronon and Teyla were shouting to each other, and then Sheppard's voice joined in.
They would stop the robot, he told himself. They would succeed.
They'd save Teyla.
There were other voices, and he wondered where they'd come from.
Breathing was getting difficult. He found that he had to consciously draw each breath. It was as if his lungs had forgotten how to work. He couldn't feel his chest and the act of breathing felt alien to him.
The voices were getting garbled, the sounds fainter and he strained to hear – to hear anything. What were they saying? Why were they so far away?
He could hardly distinguish one noise from another. In the distance, it was all slipping into white noise.
Even the crashing of the marauding robot seemed to fade. Everything was fading.
And then a sound became distinct to him. It was soft, so it must have been very close. What was it? - a slithery, slickery sound - the padding of feet.
He tried to understand. What could that be?
A quiet hiss. A little 'thunk'. Another. Something was hitting another surface. Perhaps, something was jumping? Landing?
It bustled. They hustled, very near. There were many of them. Getting closer all the time.
Thunk and thunk and thunk. Very quietly.
He listened, hearing the quiet smacking, a ripping, a tearing – little teeth – little mouths working – biting –
Eating.
Oh my God, he thought, and no… no… no…
And then even his hearing went away. He was left senseless, in the dark, alone, with the thought that tiny creatures were eating him alive.
And he had to keep breathing.
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TBC - okay, this is kinda bad