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And for my next trick…
T Minus Ten
The man sat in a darkened room monitoring the video feed from the Gateroom. He let the annoying and high-pitched voice wash over him and narrowed his eyes in fury.
"We have to go back. The energy reading was so high it must be a charged ZedPM."
"McKay, they had spears and arrows and didn't seem to be afraid to use them. We're lucky we got away at all. I'm not sending anyone back, even if there are ten fully charged and unused ZPMs."
Teyla said calmly, "We could ask the Daedalus to investigate next time it is in this galaxy."
The man let his features twist into an evil grin, "This is just perfect," he muttered and began rocking with laughter.
Rodney huffed, "What about taking a Puddle Jumper?"
"I said no, McKay. Anyway there are trees too close to the gate. It would be very difficult to get through."
Rodney folded his arms across his chest, "Difficult, yes, but not impossible."
Ronon just stood by them all impassively.
The man watched as Dr Weir came down the stairs in the Gateroom, "Is there a problem gentlemen?"
Rodney gave Sheppard a petulant look and then sighed, "The Colonel just passed up on a potentially massive power source."
Sheppard frowned, "We're lucky we weren't killed or seriously injured. They attacked us when we'd only gone a few hundred metres from the gate."
Weir raised her eyebrows, "I want you all to drop off your gear and meet up in the briefing room in ten minutes."
The man shut down the feed and began adjusting his plan for the new information he had just gleaned. He pulled a laptop over and began entering some more code on the program he had spent the last month working on.
It took a lot of work for Weir to stop the bickering between Sheppard and McKay in the briefing. She agreed to send the Daedalus by the planet next time, if only to stop the arguing for now.
"I'm not sending people to that planet to die," Sheppard said after a long pause.
"Even if it means we could protect ourselves against a Wraith fleet for a month?"
Sheppard frowned, "There's no guarantee it was a ZPM anyway. For all we know it was a radioactive rock pool in the middle of their village."
Ronon chuckled, "Might explain why they were so crazy, before we even said anything to them."
McKay opened his mouth to protest, but Weir cut across him, "I agree with both of you. I do not wish to send anyone back through the gate, but it's too much of an opportunity to pass up. The Daedalus will be here in a week. They can go and have a look."
Rodney folded his arms across his chest and sighed. He decided not to continue with his case. If a fleet of Wraith Hive ships turned up on their doorstep within the next week he was sure Weir and Sheppard would change their minds.
Dr Weir thought that the silence in the room meant that she could feel confident that her final decision had been accepted. She was just about to start discussing their next mission, when her radio buzzed, "Dr Weir to the Control Room."
"Excuse me please," she said standing up and leaving the room. The rest of the team followed her.
A technician working at one of the panels beckoned her over, "Ma'am, we have just received a message on the citywide comm system."
He pointed down at the screen, where a message was flashing in red.
"There is a bomb in Atlantis. It will detonate in ten hours."
The team stood in silence watching the screen.
After a few seconds McKay spoke, "Have you been able to trace the source?"
The technician looked guilty, "No Sir."
Rodney roughly pushed him aside and began working on the laptop. The message disappeared as he worked through some lines of code.
Dr Weir turned to the technician, "Was there anything else in the message? Any demands or reason."
"No Ma'am. That's all we've got. Also you may like to know that this message has been sent to every terminal in the city."
Weir looked slightly horrified; it would not be long before panic set in. She turned to Sheppard, "I want you to organise some search parties to fan out and look for the device. Also lock down all non-essential personnel in their quarters."
Sheppard tapped his radio and began sorting out parties to do as Weir had asked. He requested Teyla and Ronon to head up a couple of the teams.
After they all left, Weir was left with Rodney. He was frantically typing on the laptop, his eyes unblinking as he tried to find the elusive data. He sighed in exasperation.
Weir put a hand on his back and gazed at the screen where he was working, "Do you have anything?"
He stopped typing for a second and turned sideways to look at her, "Whoever did this is really good. I've got nothing so far. It looks like they sent the signal through several terminals before broadcasting it out to every computer in the city. If I go down to my lab I may be able to backtrack through all the computers and find the origin of the message."
Weir straightened up, "Okay, but be careful."
"Hmm," Rodney grimaced and unplugged the laptop, tucking it under his arm as he quickly walked over to the transporter.
The man laughed and rocked as he watched the monitor in darkened room.
He had the military crawling around the city like ants. People were in panic and now he had McKay wrapped around his finger. Everything was perfect. The bomb in the city idea was a stroke of genius and it would take McKay too long to trace the source of the signal, which was a public terminal anyway.
Now for the next stage of the plan; he got up from his seat and headed out into the corridor. He was considered an essential member of the expedition, so was not stopped as he walked past marines running in the opposite direction and headed up to the Jumper Bay.
Rodney sat alone in his lab; several cups of half drunk coffee littered the desk. He put his head in his hands for a second and rubbed his tired eyes, willing them to focus as he worked through the decoy terminals he had found while he tried to trace the source of the signal.
The rest of his team were working in the main lab, but Rodney preferred the silence so that he could concentrate.
His radio buzzed, "Dr McKay to the Jumper Bay."
Rodney did not recognize the voice, "I'm kind of busy at the moment," he snapped.
"It's very important. We've found something."
"Can't you call Sheppard or something?"
"No Sir, you need to see this. I think we've found the source of the signal."
Rodney brightened up; at last his search would be over, "Okay, I'll see you in a minute."
"Hurry," came the reply.
Rodney picked up the laptop and headed out of his lab to the transporter.
Rodney walked across the Jumper Bay.
"Over here Doctor," a voice called from one of the Jumpers.
Rodney sighed and went towards the voice. When he stepped through the hatch he saw the Jumper had been modified in some way. There were tangles of wires hanging down from the ceiling and snaking around the cockpit. He saw a man lying on the floor under the pilot's control panel.
"Oh, thank God," he said when he saw Rodney ducking down to get past the wires. Standing up he went over to McKay and smiled.
Rodney did not like the look he was getting. It seemed to be a grin, but there was no happiness in the man's eyes.
"Aren't you just a technician? Uh…" McKay thought for a moment, "Paulines?"
"Pollins, Sergeant Pollins," his smile spread further at Rodney's mistake.
"Why would they have you searching for the bomb?" Rodney said frowning as the evil smile stayed frozen on the man's face.
"Well, you know, the more people searching the better. Anyway I think this is the source of the signal sent around the base earlier. Come and check it out."
Pollins pointed towards the pilot's chair and Rodney sighed as he sat down and brought up the HUD.
After a second he raised his eyebrows in surprise, "You're absolutely right. The signal was sent from here, but…oh no."
Rodney got up from the chair and tried to move past Pollins, who was now not troubling to hide the madness in his eyes and face.
"Hey! Move it!" McKay said in alarm.
Pollins brought back his fist and punched Rodney hard in the stomach.
McKay coughed and spluttered as he doubled over in pain. Pollins responded by pushing the backs of Rodney's shoulders down and lifting his knee up to connect with McKay's face.
Rodney gasped and fell onto the floor, blood streaming from his nose and split lip.
The man crouched down and grabbed McKay's jaw. Rodney cried out in pain as he was forced to look up into the insane face of his attacker.
"Why?" Rodney asked in a choked whisper.
"You, Dr McKay, are the only one who stands between my masters and the conquest of Atlantis. Many times now you have evaded the Wraith and prevented them from gaining control of this facility. With you out of the picture there will be nothing to stop them."
McKay said thickly, as his nose was now blocked with blood, "Wraith worshipper." He frowned, "But what about the bomb?"
Pollins laughed and let go of McKay's face. He reached behind his back and when his hand returned to the front he was holding a couple of ropes. "There's no bomb on Atlantis, Dr McKay. This was all about you. As soon as you're gone, I shall be sending another message that it was all a hoax. They will think you ran away and went back to that planet to gather your precious ZPMs."
Rodney tried to roll away and stand up, so Pollins backhanded him across the side of his face and he passed out.
He dragged Rodney over and sat him in the pilot's seat of the Jumper. He tied McKay's hands behind his back and removed his radio. Just to be sure he tied a gag around McKay's mouth and then pulled the unconscious scientist's short hair to make it look like he was sitting upright in the seat.
Sergeant Pollins typed a command into the program he created and set the timer for ten minutes. That should be enough time for the Jumper to get through the gate and be a long way away before the time ran out and the engines overloaded.
He walked over to the hatch and smiled at his handiwork. He looked over the trailing wires he had just pulled down to make sure even if Rodney woke up there would be no way for him to prevent the overload.
He pressed the final command on his tablet and retreated to a safe distance to watch the fun. He had rigged the Control Room to record the same address for the planet the team had returned from earlier. By the time they figured out what he had done, Rodney would be long gone and dead.
His features stretched out into a smile as he watched the countdown timer in the corner of his tablet.
09.23…09.22…09.21…
He chuckled as he heard voices over the video feed he monitored, "Rodney what are you doing? You have to help us find the bomb. We already told you that planet was too dangerous!" Dr Weir was standing on the balcony looking at the back of the Jumper, which was lowering into the Gateroom.
"Shut it down," she said to the technician.
"I'm sorry Ma'am. I can't."
Then the Jumper flew through the gate and disappeared.
Pollins rocked with more laughter and checked the clock again.
08.48…08.47…08.46…
"Not long now," he muttered and got up to walk back to his quarters. He did not care if he was caught. Rodney had less than nine minutes to live and by the time they figured out who had done it he would already have been blown to tiny pieces. Pollins had found a delightful desolate wasteland to send him in the Ancient Database.
The Jumper left the gate on the planet and flew away on autopilot across the landscape. Surrounded by mountains and rocks with a scattering of trees; onward it flew at high speed.
Rodney slumped forward in his seat and fell out onto the floor when his precarious balance failed. His face was streaked with drying blood, which had recently been flowing from his nose and mouth. Bound and gagged he lay there, unconscious and unaware that he only had a few more minutes to live. All the time the clock ticked down.
06.37…06.36…06.35…
TBC
Oh dear, that was a bit evil of me…
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