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Can't say much without giving too much away too soon ;)

Double Trouble

The land was open and grassy and rather pleasant with rolling hills.

"There's nothing here," Rodney complained again as he checked his hand held padd. "Could anything be a bigger waste of my time ?"

"We're not leaving until we find that poppy for the botany lab," John said.

"Ah that answer would be yes."

"It is a pleasant walk," Teyla said.

"Putting pleasant and walk together is a contradiction of terms," Rodney said. "There aren't even any life signs," he continued.

"There might be one less here soon," Ronon said.

"Oh don't pretend you're not bored."

"At least I don't make so much noise about it."

John stopped and turned around to face them. "Look kiddies," he said. "I don't like getting stuck with this duty any more than you do. So the sooner we find the flower the sooner we can go home, OK ?"

Teyla was looking up the hill. "Who is that ?" she asked pointing.

A young man was walking towards them.

John turned to look. "I thought you said that there weren't any lifesigns McKay," he said.

"There aren't. He isn't..." Rodney said tapping the padd.

John put on his best smile as the man approached. "Put it away, Rodney," he said quietly. Stepping forward he held out his hand which the man took briefly and then released. "I'm Colonel John Sheppard," he said. "This is Doctor Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan."

"Telaim," he said. "Did you come through the Ancestral Ring ?"

"Yes," John said. "We call it a Stargate."

"I see," Telaim replied. "You carry weapons."

"Just a standard procedure," John said.

"We come in peace," Teyla said. "From Atlantis."

Telaim looked interested. "Atlantis ?" he said. "Would you like to meet the rest of my people ?"

"Are they androids too ?"

"Rodney."

Telaim smiled. "Not all of us, Doctor McKay. However our creator will be happy to show you our facility."

"At last," Rodney said. "Something interesting."

oOo

When they got to the town they noticed that the buildings were all square and concrete. Hardly any decorative features whatsoever. People were walking everywhere going about their business and completely ignoring them.

"Still no life signs," Rodney said checking his padd. "They're all artificial."

Telaim turned to them and smiled as they stopped in front of the biggest building. "Wait here," he said smiling. "And I will get Father."

As he entered the building John turned to Rodney. "They aren't er replicators are they ?" he asked.

"Oh no no no," Rodney replied. "Replicators have a life sign indication of sorts. These have nothing. They're totally robotic."

A tall, heavy set, man with short cropped hair came out of the building. He was dressed in the same kind of beige jumpsuit that the androids were wearing.

"Ah," Rodney said as the man emerged. "Now he's human. Or alive anyway. This building must be shielded."

"Good day," the man said smiling. "I am Matri. Welcome to my planet."

"Er yes," John said. "We are..."

"Telaim told me of you," Matri said. "May we show you around ?"

"Sure," John said eyeing some of the prettier females. He shook his head. Hard to believe that these were robots.

"Doctor McKay," Matri said. "Is that a Doctor of medicine or science ?"

"Science. Physics actually."

"Oh so you would be particularly interested in our manufacturing process. If you'd like I could show you our laboratory while..." he beckoned towards a pretty blonde female who immediately walked towards them. "Sal Lee here shows your companions around the rest of our little facility."

Rodney looked at John with an "ooh can I go?" look. John sighed and waved his hand in a go away gesture. "That sounds good," John said.

Matri headed back into the building with Rodney following him talking rapidly in what John referred to as "science-ese". John tuned them out and turned his attention to Sal Lee who was leading them across the compound.

"This is our learning center..." she said as she walked.

oOo

It was several hours later before Rodney reappeared. He seemed subdued and was concentrating on his larger data padd.

John, Teyla and Ronon were sitting on the steps of the "learning center" waiting for him.

"Did you learn a lot ?" John asked.

"Um. Yeah. Got a lot to think about. Interesting stuff."

John waited for Rodney to elaborate and when he didn't he got up. "Well," he said. "One of the er residents gathered the poppies for us," he gestured towards a basket of yellow flowers at Teyla's feet. "So we're good to go."

Rodney started to walk towards the gate in silence still studying his data padd.

John looked at Ronon and then at Teyla. "O...K..." he said.

"I don't know what's on that padd but we need more of it," Ronon said as they reached the gate.

Rodney stood by the gate still messing with the padd.

"Rodney ?" John said.

"Hum. What ?" Rodney replied looking up.

"The gate ? ... Did you want to dial the gate ?"

"No that's fine. You can do it."

"Gee thanks," John said looking puzzled as he went over to the DHD and punched in the address. "What's in that thing anyway ?"

"Stuff," Rodney said as he stepped through the gate. "Lots of stuff."

As they entered the gateroom Rodney looked around briefly and then headed for the nearest computer terminal. He sat down at the machine without a word and started to type rapidly.

John walked across to where Rodney was sitting. "Come to the mess hall ?" he asked.

"Maybe later," Rodney said without looking up.

oOo

It was two days later before John saw Rodney again and that was only because he went to his room. He hit the door chime and waited outside the door.

Rodney opened the door. "Oh," he said looking surprised. "What are you doing here ?"

"We have an offworld mission," John said. "I need you dressed and in the gateroom in thirty minutes."

"Dressed ?"

"Yeah you know. BDU's. Equipment. Are you all right ?"

"I'm fine. Just distracted is all. I'll see you at seven," Rodney said closing the door.

John stood in the hallway for a minute before heading for the gateroom deep in thought.

oOo

It was a routine trade mission. Turn up. Let Teyla do the talking. Go home. What was not routine was how quiet Rodney was for the entire mission. Even Ronon commented on how nice it was to have some silence.

It was too quiet. John checked his LSD again as Rodney dialled the gate.

As soon as they'd stepped back into the gateroom and the event horizon shut down John pulled his sidearm from its holster.

With a final check of his Life Signs Detector John raised his weapon and shot Rodney twice in the back of his head.

There were immediate reactions from the soldiers in the room. John carefully put the gun down and raised his hands above his head as every marine in the room raised their weapon at him.

Elizabeth looked horrified and Carson came running down the stairs, his white lab coat flapping behind him as he moved.

"What the hell are ya doin' ?" he said as he rushed to Rodney's side.

"It's OK Doc," John said as Ronon held him. "He's not human. It's an android."

Carson checked the body. Instead of brain matter spilling out of the wound there were wires. Sparks flew and a small plume of smoke curled up from the hole. "He's right," Carson said standing up and facing John. "Let him go, this isn't Rodney. What's going on, Colonel ?"

"Rodney's been acting strange since he left with Matri," John said rubbing his arms where Ronon had gripped him and picking his gun up off the floor. "He wouldn't dial the gate back to Atlantis and I had Radek check on what he's been doing and it turns out that he'd spent the last two days checking out gate addresses in the database along with lots of data on the city. So I figured that the reason that he wouldn't dial Atlantis was that he didn't know the address at that time. A check with the LSD confirmed it."

"So did ya have ta shoot it like that ?" Carson said. "I nearly had a heart attack."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to take a chance on it returning to P47913 with all that information or finding a way to transmit the data back."

"So that is why Doctor McKay was so quiet," Teyla said.

"Knew it was too good to be true," Ronon said.

"Get ready to go, Carson," John said. "We've got a Physicist to rescue."

oOo

About an hour later John and the team approached the facilty on P47913. Everything seemed much the same as it had been two days earlier. Matri came out to meet them.

"Good day," he said. "Where is Doctor McKay ? I have some more information to share."

"That's a good question," John said his hand resting lightly on his P90. "Your Doctor McKay is er indisposed. We want our Doctor McKay back. The one that we came with last time and didn't leave with."

"I don't understand."

"Oh I think you do, Matri," John said looking serious. "I'm gonna make it real simple for you. This is Doctor Carson Beckett. Doctor Beckett is a medical Doctor. Doctor McKay had better not need the services of Doctor Beckett. Am I making myself clear ?"

"I assure you that he is not here."

"OK. Let me put it this way," John said as the androids stopped and stared. "There is a cloaked jumper hovering just above us. It contains a rather large EM generator that Doctor Radek Zalenka, he's another physicist by the way, assures me is powerful enough to fry the electronic brains of every one of your creations." John stepped forward. "So unless you want to go into the scrap metal business I suggest that you take us to Doctor McKay." John moved up until he was just inches from Matri. "So do you take us to him or do we set off an EM pulse and then go and find him ?"

Matri swallowed hard. He looked up above their heads and then back down at John.

John tapped his radio. "Decloak please, Major," he said.

"Yes, sir," Major Lorne replied.

The jumper materialized over their heads.

"I don't bluff," John said.

Without a word Matri turned and walked into the building. "Give us ten minutes," John said as he and Carson followed. Ronon nodded and waited outside with Teyla.

Matri led them to an elevator and wordlessly took them down to a large basement. At the far end was a prison cell guarded by a force field. Rodney lay unconscious on a cot in the cell. Matri punched a code into the door control and the force field switched off. Carson ran in to check on Rodney.

"What was your plan ?" John asked. "To steal the information and then switch them back without anyone realizing ?"

Matri nodded. "The duplicate was to return and then we would change them back. He is asleep is all."

"How is he, Carson ?"

"It's just as well we got here when we did," Carson said rolling up the sleeve of the jumpsuit that Rodney was now wearing and giving him a shot. "He's been sedated for so long that his blood sugar is way too low. He was comatose."

"Will he be OK ?"

"Aye. He'll be awake in just a few moments. One thing with hypoglycemia it's really easy to treat as long as ya get to the patient in time. Just give him glucose and wait a couple of minutes. Like putting fuel in a car."

Rodney opened his eyes and looked around, confused. "Carson ?" he said as Carson helped him to sit up. "What happened ?"

"It's a long story, Rodney," John said. "And I'm sorry I had to kill you."

"What ?"

"Come on," Carson said. "I'll explain later."

oOo

A couple of days later they sat in the conference room waiting for Elizabeth. Rodney was sitting holding a large mug of black coffee and looking thoughtful.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen, Teyla," Elizabeth said as she came in and sat down at the head of the table. "How are you doing, Rodney ?" she added smiling.

Rodney looked up. "Well apart from having no memory of the last few days I'm good," he said. "Thanks to the team and Carson."

"You're welcome, Rodney," Carson said.

"So I understand," Elizabeth said seriously. "That when Matri found out that you were from Atlantis he decided to switch one of his creations with Rodney for the purposes of securing information from our database."

"And that after a few days the android was to return and then they'd release Doctor McKay who'd have no memory of what happened." Teyla said.

"It almost worked too," Rodney said.

"But he wasn't you, Rodney," John said.

"Too quiet for one thing," Ronon said.

"Oh...zing," Rodney said.

"That wasn't the only giveaway," John said.

"Anyhow," Rodney said. "We have one of their machines to study. Of course thanks to a couple of nine milimeter shells there isn't much left of the CPU. What was with that whole shoot him in the head bit anyway ? I watched it on the security feed. Jeeze."

"I wanted to put the thing out of commission quickly so that it couldn't transmit any of the data."

"Well you did that all right. You must've been taking lessons from Ronon. Typical military solution. A localized EM pulse would've had the same effect you know. Of course it wouldn't have been as dramatic..."

"I didn't think of that at the time. I'm sorry..."

"And it wouldn't have done as much damage..."

Elizabeth cleared her throat loudly and John and Rodney stopped and looked at her. "Thank you," she said. "What happened with Matri ?"

"Well I had Rodney disable their DHD since we could use the one on the jumper," John said.

"And I've updated the database so that we stay away from there. Not that I'll forget it in a hurry."

"I am not sure that he was that bad," Teyla said. "He did not intentionally harm Doctor McKay."

"That depends on what he intended to do with the information," Elizabeth said.

"Hum, Well we're getting quite a bit of information from the machine. Not as much as we might have mind you."

"Will you quit it Rodney."

"I hear that you took the face off it," Elizabeth said.

"Yeah well it kinda wigged me out seeing it lying on a table in the lab like that. Not to mention that the thing's anatomically correct."

"Really ?" John said. "You checked ?"

"No !" Rodney said indignantly. "Kusanagi did," he said quietly. "Without my permission I may add."

"Well you don't have to take it personally," Ronon said.

"It's kinda hard not to."

"So if the males are..." John said thoughtfully.

"Oh please," Rodney said rolling his eyes.

Elizabeth smiled as she watched them. "Oh yeah," she thought. "It's good to have our Rodney back again."

oOo

Couldn't resist a bit of fun at Rodney's expense.
I bet every lab tech in the city went by for a look at that thing don't you ?
(I would have ;) )

love some reviews
debbie