Reconstructing Rome
By Indygodusk
Chapter 21
"If I'm in Rome for only 48 hours, I would consider it a sin against God to not eat cacio e pepe, the most uniquely Roman of pastas, in some crummy little joint where Romans eat. I'd much rather do that than go to the Vatican. That's Rome to me."
ANTHONY BOURDAIN
"The meeting's about to start," John said from her elbow.
"Hm?"
"Rome, shut it down and get moving. C'mon. We have a mission briefing."
"Just a moment," she mumbled, trying to type out her final idea before she forgot it.
"I have plans for after this mission. You and me plans, but you'll never get to see them if we don't get going now," John murmured cajolingly, shattering her focus and exiling her most recent thought into oblivion.
Blinking up at him, she took her hands from the keyboard. "What?"
Smiling a secretive smile, John put his hand under her elbow, pulled her up, and closed her laptop, putting it to sleep. "Mission briefing. Starting now. Remember?"
Keeping hold of her elbow, John dragged her away to the briefing room, refusing to answer any more questions. When Meredith followed John inside, she looked around to see that they were the last ones to arrive. Teyla, Ronon, McLean, Kindall, King, Rigo, and Lt. Cohen sat impatiently around the table. Meredith sent everyone a wave.
King was eating a handful of yellow and blue striped grape things, pulling them closer to her chest with a warning look when she saw Meredith looking. Kindall would always share his food but King was stingy and had to be in the right mood. Just in case, Meredith examined Cohen's skin to make sure she wasn't reacting badly to the alien fruit. Not seeing any hives or swelling, Meredith flopped down at the table.
"Why am I here for this? The reports said there wasn't any advanced tech. You've already visited Biva twice and now that it's been completely culled there's no people or supplies left. Why do we have to go back?" Meredith patted her empty belly sympathetically and stared longingly at King's striped grape things. "Except for that crashed jumper, there wasn't anything interesting. My presence is pointless. I skimmed over the reports a few minutes ago, even the boring religious stuff about the cult of the mother goddess and how they put red braids on everything to represent the blood of childbirth and transformative nature of blah blah blah."
John shrugged, his way of agreeing it was boring without actually agreeing and risking annoying Teyla or the soft-hearted types in the soft sciences like Rigo. "We did a cursory search, but we never checked out the route of their holy pilgrimage, which is a two- to four-day walk culminating at a sacred stone hiding their temple. It was early days then when Sumner was still in charge, so things were run differently. We hadn't yet seen how many Ancient structures had been co-opted into religious sites by the locals. Lt. Cohen went on both trips to Biva with me."
Lt. Cohen nodded as all eyes turned her way. "That's right. On our first visit, we bargained away a box of spices in exchange for redolla fruit and information. That's how we discovered the crashed jumper. The villagers kept bits of debris as religious relics and decorations in their local church. On our second visit, we came back for the promised redolla fruit and brought Dr. Forrester with us," Meredith barely kept herself from reacting at the mention of Troy, "but since we got there right after the culling, we didn't search much beyond the village itself and the focus was on finding survivors, not tech. I helped guard Dr. Forrester. He was only able to search the village and didn't notice anything of interest beyond a few pieces of the crashed jumper."
"Wait, you took Cohen to a planet full of redolla? Were you trying to kill her!" Incensed, Meredith glared at John."What were you thinking?!"
Turning red, Cohen looked down. "None of us knew about the allergy then. Biva is where I first discovered I had it. I'm fine."
Scrolling through the file on his tablet, Major McLean pursed his lips. "Mckay, if you'd read the file thoroughly before the meeting like you're supposed to, you should already know Biva's the place the expedition first encountered the redolla fruit. It says it right here." He looked over at John. "What makes you think there's something else there worth looking for?"
"One of Elizabeth's people just translated something in the database about there being a research lab on Biva," John told them, making Meredith start in her chair and thumb on her tablet to check the files again. She hadn't seen anything about that.
Scrolling down, she scowled. Of course it had been the last file on the list and appended in a secondary directory. She'd been busy today and hadn't skimmed more than the initial mission files. They should've put it first since it was the most interesting and relevant news. Meredith began reading the report.
John continued. "The lab wasn't located right next to the gate for security reasons. It supposedly focused on ascension research instead of weapons development, but that doesn't mean it won't be dangerous."
Meredith nodded absently as she read. "Yeah, the Ancients had some pretty twisted experiments. They treated ethics and morals as mere inconveniences in the pursuit of knowledge." She could sympathize with that urge but even she had limits.
Rigo cocked his head to the side. "So we're going because there's something interesting and relevant to us in the research they were conducting? Or because we hope they left a ZPM behind for us to take?" Rigo was an anthropologist and linguist trained by Daniel Jackson. He was gorgeous but just a little bit too slick and cocky for Meredith to trust. He couldn't help but flirt with every woman he met. Case in point. "And is the lovely Lt. Cohen joining us? Because I know I'd feel safer with her guarding my backside." He sent Cohen a wink and a dimpled smile.
Charmed, Cohen laughed but shook her head. "I'm just here to add any details the Colonel might've forgotten. I won't be going."
Leaning back in his chair, John nodded. "Our primary objective is the ZPM. Your job, Dr. Diaz, is to interpret anything we can't and help us figure out how the people who designed the place think so we can get in and out safely. We're going to take a jumper this time and two teams for the search. The facility is located in the mountains, so we could encounter cougar-crabs or other dangerous predators. We might also have to hike depending on where we end up landing."
"Please no hiking," Meredith begged the universe. She knew the people in this room would have no sympathy. They were all obsessed with exercise.
"You should bring extra socks," Kindall told her.
"And tampons in case Kindall wants a drink from a mountain stream," King added, making Kindall heave a beleaguered sigh as the rest of his team laughed—including the usually stern-faced McLean. Meredith had once boasted about how she and Kindall had survived getting stranded in a jungle together by drinking muddy water filtered through her tampons. The rest of his team found it hilarious and teased him about it ever since. She didn't think it silly. She was proud of her ingenuity.
Meredith decided to give them something else to focus on as she read the extra report. "So get this. The lab was built by a female scientist that—reading between the lines—wanted to help other women ascend but not necessarily her male counterparts."
"That's because Myshla, the scientist in question, felt that men were too ruled by their passions, especially her dirtbag ex-husband who spent all his time sleeping around with her nubile young research assistants before she divorced him," said Rigo, wagging his brows.
"That would do it." King's lips quirked.
Dimples out in full force, Rigo grinned back. "The entry about Myshla's lab is actually a letter to her sister boasting about her work and begging the sister to get rid of her own deadbeat husband and come and join her. It also mentions that all of the research assistants are young and childless, though she doesn't go quite as far as saying virginal, probably since her ex-husband took care of that for them." He wagged his brows again.
McLean snorted. "Something you're familiar with yourself."
Rigo shrugged unrepentantly and lifted his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. "There are so many lovely ladies out there, how can I deny them the pleasure?"
"Or yourself," Meredith sniffed. "Anyway, the details on the lab are vague, but the letter mentions a door that keeps the unblessed out—whatever unblessed means considering this is a scientist and not a religious leader—and recalls the minds of the blessed to a selfless state only a step away from ascension, so we might need to be on the lookout for some kind of shield or energy field."
"Any other questions or intel on the lab or Biva?" John looked around. "Teyla, Ronon?"
Teyla shook her head but Ronon looked up from where he'd been twirling one of his many knives across his knuckles. "My grandmother told me stories of Biva's mountain temple. Women who lost their children to the Wraith or sickness could go there to commune with the Ancestors and find peace in the memory of their lost little ones."
"Oh, yes," Teyla said. "I'd heard that story, but the location wasn't mentioned by name. By the time I knew the people of Biva, the tradition must've been lost or become a secret. It was never shared with me."
While everyone was distracted looking at Ronon and Teyla, Meredith managed to snag the final striped grape from King's plate. Popping it in her mouth with a juicy crunch, Meredith quickly chewed and swallowed. Yum.
"Here, have this too." King threw the stem at Meredith, hitting her right between the eyes and leaving a sticky residue down her nose.
"Yuck." Meredith wiped her nose on her sleeve. Picking up the stem, she tossed it at the trashcan. It missed and rolled to a stop by John's foot.
Raising her brows, she looked between John and the stem in a silent order. He raised his brow back and didn't pick it up. His look clearly stated - I'm not your maid.
John stood up and glanced around the room. "That's everything then. Cohen, you're dismissed. The rest of you, gear up and meet me in the jumper bay in twenty minutes." Arching his brow, John looked at Meredith and then down at the grape stem before turning to leave.
Heaving a sigh as everyone filed out, Meredith picked up the stem and dropped it in the trash before following. Just outside the doors, John waited for her. He fell into step by her side.
"You really think we'll find a ZPM?" she asked.
Shrugging, John put his hand on her lower back and guided her out of the way of a squad jogging through the corridors. He kept his hand in place even after they'd passed. She thought of saying something out of principle since friends didn't really touch like this, but the warmth and weight felt too good. Just like the other twenty times, she kept her questions to herself.
"It's the best lead we've had in a while. We're not as desperate as we were last year, but more power would still be better. Someone once teased me with the idea that Atlantis was originally made to fly. We have me to pilot, but she doesn't have enough power to run the stardrive, at least not yet."
Looking at the boyish glee on his face, the sarcastic retort on Meredith's lips died. "I suppose that if anyone could fly Atlantis, it would be you."
Green eyes creasing at the corners with his grin, John's hand tightened at her back. The expression lit up his entire face and made her feel a little stupid. Breathless, Meredith looked away. "When you say cougar-crabs, are we talking about cats the size of crabs? Because I like cats but not so much the crustaceans unless I'm eating them dipped in melted butter."
"Unfortunately not."
The thumb on Meredith's back slid up and down, back and forth in a maddening caress. Since when was that area of her back such a big erogenous zone? The tingles emanating from his touch made her forget what they were talking about. "Not what?" she asked breathily, about five seconds away from hip checking him into the nearest closet and wrenching his face down to her mouth for some serious makeout time.
"They're not housecat small. They're actually larger than an Earth cougar, about ten feet long tail to teeth and four feet high with large crab claws hidden in cheek pouches that shoot out when they attack to hold prey in place for feeding. They look like an ugly cousin to the Predator."
Mouth dry and knees wobbly for reasons no longer relating to lust, Meredith was grateful for John's hand at her back keeping her steady. "And you think we might run into some out there?"
John guided her through the doors into the locker room. "I hope not, but we've seen them on multiple worlds with mountain terrain like that found on Biva. That's why I'm bringing two teams even though we're flying for most of the trip." Seeing her expression, John gave her a small push and left for his locker. "We should be fine, don't worry. Everyone's got a gun and worse comes to worst, cats love you."
It would be more accurate to say that Meredith loved cats.
Most cats, that is.
She did not love cougar-crabs, especially when they jumped off of an overhanging ledge, made her drop the first redolla fruit she'd eaten in months, flattened both Teyla and Kindall while knocking everyone else out of the way like bowling pins, and dragged her away kicking and screaming into the bushes.
It might be love on the cat's part, but much more likely it was just hunger. She did not want to die as some animal's lunch. And what was it about Pegasus that made things want to eat her?
Meredith grabbed at a sapling and locked her arms around it as if her life depended on it, which it did. She jerked to a stop. She felt victorious for three to five seconds, taking into account skewed perception due to terror.
Then the cougar-crab's face pincers shot out from its cheek pouches and grabbed onto her tac vest, pulling the vest tight as the cougar-crab opened its maw and tried to gnaw through to her soft innards. Crying out, Meredith let go of the tree and tried to pry the pincers off but they were too slippery with spit. She was having trouble taking a full breath beneath the animal's massive weight.
If she got out of this she promised to never eat crab legs again. Or better yet, the next time she was on Earth she'd order tons and devour them viciously in celebration of outliving her foe.
Please let her outlive her foe.
Sobbing, Meredith fisted her hands and slammed them down on the cat's ears while kicking her steel-toed boots up into its underbelly and privates. The cougar-crab flinched, but it didn't let go. It snarled and shook her using teeth and pincers while the front claws dug furrows on either side of her body. She was barely narrow enough to avoid being turned into noodles.
She kicked again and tried punching the animal in the eyes. This time it didn't even seem to notice.
She was going to die.
Gunshots echoed through the trees. "Rome! Where are you? Rome!?" shouted John.
"Mckay!?" someone else bellowed.
"Here! John, I'm here, help!" she cried as loudly as she could with a ton of kitty-crab pressing her down. "Help!" She wanted to get to her gun but was scared she'd lose a finger or even the entire hand reaching past the head and claws to get to the straps on her thigh. Meredith's torso was one big throbbing zone of pain but, miracle of miracles, the tac vest was still intact.
The cougar-crab began dragging her away from the noise and down the mountainside. Movement meant she could finally take a full breath of air. "Help!" Meredith shrieked. She sucked in another lungful of air. "John!" Something tore at her waist. Her head cracked into a rock and made her eyes water.
Gunfire abruptly tore into the side of the cougar-cat. It jerked and spasmed over her legs, wringing another shriek out of Meredith.
"Don't shoot me!"
Someone leaped down from overhead. Ronon. His boot slammed into the cat's face, snapping one of the pincers off with a sound she'd heard at countless seafood buffets and ruining her enjoyment of such buffets forever. The boot kicked again and the cougar-cat's other pincer and teeth finally detached from Meredith's vest in a spray of saliva and blood.
Please let it not be her blood. Stomach wounds had high rates of infection and pain. She was afraid to look down.
The cougar-cat screamed and rolled sideways, knocking Ronon down on top of Meredith and expelling all of the recently-regained breath from her body in a pained wheeze. Multiple guns fired. A knife flashed. Voices shouted, followed by a lot of creative swearing as the animal bolted into the trees. Gun leading, Ronon rolled off of her and disappeared into the trees.
Meredith stayed flat on the ground and tried to remember how to breathe. She was in too much pain to really be dead. Her fingers bravely probed the spot over her belly. She felt torn fabric and globs of saliva and other gross things. She didn't feel her own skin or intestines, so that had to mean no sepsis, right? However, everything hurt.
Meredith's fingers drifted sideways along the vest and she brushed against a blood-slick pincer. "Ew ew ew!" Screwing up her face, she pried it loose and tossed it away.
"Rome!" Wild-eyed, John crouched by her side and cupped her face in one hand. He checked both her eyes before sweeping his hand down her body to check for injuries. "What's your status?"
Pulling in a ragged breath, she knuckled her eyes and squinted up at him. "What's your status? Well that's nice considering I just almost—almost died!" She hiccuped. "I'm one massive bruise with a side of road rash. I just almost died, that's my status."
Despite her crabby—er—irritated response, she couldn't help the way her hand grabbed convulsively at John's wrist and refused to let go. John rubbed his thumb across her chin and over her lower lip like a secondhand kiss. Her heartbeat kicked, despite barely starting to go down after the attack.
John shifted on his heels, shielding her eyes from the sun. "If you can complain, you're fine. You're safe now. Calm down."
Snatching her hand off his wrist, she hit him in the chest and grumbled, "You calm down."
Snorting, John ran his hands over her face, tucking stray bits of hair sticky with sap back behind her ears and palpitating her skull. He moved down, gently examining and straightening her shredded tac vest with a hitch in his breathing but otherwise keeping his expression calm. His hands slid over her hips and down each leg, flexing them to check for injury while caressing her at the same time. Meredith appreciated the help and the touching, but it wasn't helping her calm down or slow her breathing any.
Finally done with his inspection, John slid his arm under her shoulder. "Let's try sitting up. You said bruising, but does anything feel broken or do you have any organ pain?"
Meredith whimpered as John raised her up. "My entire torso is in pain and I just almost got eaten by a cat that belongs in the movie Predator. Since we've been searching for hours on this cursed mountainside and not found anything, I think we should, in the words of Arnold, 'Get to the choppa!' Or the jumper. You know what I mean. Let's go."
Cocking one eyebrow silently, John asked if she was ready to move. She grimaced but nodded, taking John's hand and letting him pull her to her feet. She swayed but didn't go down again. Her body throbbed with scrapes and bruises. "When we get back I want drugs, all the drugs."
John kept one hand on his gun while wrapping the other around Meredith. She might be a proudly independent woman, but right now she was not complaining. John made her feel safe.
Ronon appeared silently out of the trees, making Meredith jump and almost pull one of the few muscles that wasn't already screaming at her. "It got away," he told them briskly. "I'm glad you weren't eaten, Mckay." Ronon clapped her on the back, making her gasp and stagger. She sent him a dirty look which he ignored. "But we should get back to the others. They're too quiet."
"Trouble?" John's support turned into shoving as they pushed back up the mountainside to the trail they'd been following. Scraggly bushes and trees fought their climb. It had gone much faster when she'd been dragged down this same mountainside on her back.
Had it really only been a few minutes ago that everyone had stopped at an excited shout from Rigo? He'd supposedly found something interesting at the front of the group and crouched down to examine the cliff face. It could've been evidence of Myshla's Ancient lab or it could've been some useless primitive tool mark. Rigo was an anthropologist after all.
It was while everyone had been distracted watching Rigo that they'd gotten ambushed by the cougar-crab.
As they finally broke free of the bush and regained the trail, Teyla appeared out of the trees only a few feet away and moved onto the trail to meet them. Her hair stuck out untidily on one side and she had a rapidly forming bruise across her jaw. The gun in her hand lowered in relief. "Thank the ancestors you got to Meredith in time. The cougar-crab?"
"Escaped," John growled.
Teyla frowned and Ronon grunted.
Meredith scoffed. "It got shot a bunch of times and Ronon kicked it in the face twice with his mammoth feet, breaking off a crab claw and causing who knows what kind of brain damage. If it's not dead yet it should be soon."
"They're tough. I've seen one survive worse," Ronon said.
Meredith stared at him for a moment before fumbling for the snaps holding her gun in place, finally getting them open so she could pull the pistol and hold it down by her leg. "Great, that's just great. If it comes back, I'm going to shoot it."
John grunted and squeezed Meredith's shoulder. He moved up to Teyla, saying over his shoulder, "Good idea, just don't shoot any of us in the process, Mckay."
She stuck her tongue out but he'd already turned away.
"Where's McLean's team?" John's eyes roved across the landscape suspiciously, rocky trail, cliff face, cloudy blue sky, and dark green forest.
The air smelled of dirt and pollen and distant rain. Right now Meredith would welcome a hint of smog. The only animals who attacked from above in smog-filled streets were pigeons.
John activated his radio. "Major, this is the Colonel. Report, over." Jaw clenching when there was no response, John tried again. "Is anyone there? Over." Covering his mike, he released it and tapped it in a 3-1-2-1 pattern in case they couldn't risk talking. He waited and then tried the tapping again.
Only silence answered him.
John reached for his LSD and then scowled at finding it gone. He'd passed it over to McLean to show him how to read some of the more unusual settings just before they'd been ambushed. The other Marine still had it.
Meredith looked around too but didn't see anything. "Their radios could've been damaged in the attack. Maybe they're around the bend in the trail? Though they should've come running to rescue me with the rest of you. I almost died!" Crossing her arms, careful to keep her gun aimed away from her teammates and her feet, she scowled.
Teyla cast her eyes around cautiously as she spoke. "When I got to my feet after the attack, Kindall lay unmoving on the ground. He was unconscious and bleeding. Captain King rushed over to him so I ran into the trees to help rescue Meredith. I shot off my gun in hope that the sound would distract it from the two of you. Cougar-cats don't like loud noises."
"Smart."
Meredith jumped at Ronon's voice directly over her shoulder and sidled sideways with a silent ouch as muscles and bruises twinged in protest. Despite being a big man, Ronon moved so quietly that she sometimes forgot he was even there. She'd actually gone to pee behind a tree a few times only to look up and find him standing right next to her about to whip it out. So awkward.
"I heard the others open fire and assumed, perhaps wrongly, that they were doing the same thing I was. I couldn't see as I'd moved farther down the trail," Teyla said.
John gestured at Meredith to stay close to Ronon as he stalked forward, the creases around his mouth deepening. "Something's wrong. I could see the attack knocking out one or even two radios, but not all four."
Frowning, Teyla pointed to something on the ground and John gave a curt nod. "I see it."
"See what?" Meredith demanded, trying to keep her voice low.
Coming up next to her, Ronon pointed to two parallel lines in the ground. "A big man was dragged away, probably Kindall based on what Teyla said, and there are Earth-made boot prints on either side, so it was his team dragging him. The real question is, who has his team and why aren't they responding to the radio?"
Scalp prickling, Meredith wiped a sweaty palm down her thigh and took her gun in a two-handed grip. "Maybe it has to do with whatever Rigo found just before the attack. Did you see?"
Ronon shook his head.
As they moved around the bend in the trail, they came across a scene of violence and a second, even larger cougar-crab laying on the trail facing away from them. Meredith squeaked and jumped behind Ronon. Blood spattered the ground. Claws and gunfire had gouged the dirt of the trail. The cougar-crab wasn't moving. In fact, it looked dead, as if it had tried to drag itself off but died before it could get very far. A puddle of dark blood muddied the earth beneath its body. It was probably still warm, but she was not touching it to check. Remembering her gun, she flushed and brought it around, realizing that if it had actually been alive she probably should have tried to shoot it instead of just staring at it in fear.
Gun extended, John nudged the cougar-crab with his boot to make sure it was really dead before stepping past and gesturing to the rest of them to follow him.
Only a few feet away from the dead cougar-crab was the place where Rigo had been examining something on the rocky wall bordering the trail. The tracks led straight into the cliff face. John poked at the wall with his finger. "This bit isn't rock. It's some sort of metal. The scratches on the left edge look like they could be Ancient runes that've been plastered over. Some of the plaster has flaked away. Rome?"
Skirting around the cougar-crab's body, huge and scary even in death, Meredith tucked away her gun and pulled out her tool kit. Teyla and Ronon fanned out on guard.
"Well? Can you open it? What does the secret door say," John asked before she'd even finished kneeling down.
"Speak friend and enter," she snapped crankily. "I just got here. Give me a minute to figure it out."
"You're not Gandalf and I don't have that much patience, especially if our people are in trouble. Hurry."
Cleaning dirt and plaster off the panel with a file and a stiff brush to make sure she was seeing all of the symbols, Meredith hummed thoughtfully. "Your ears are strangely pointed, Legolas. I've always thought so."
John snorted. "I'm more of an Aragorn. You'd probably be one of the hobbits."
"Except I'm not sweet, silly, or foolish."
"In the right circumstances you can be very sweet," John said, voice dropping to a rumble that made tingles slide down her skin.
Maybe he was right about the foolish thing too because she'd just almost died and it made her think that being cautious was silly. She should just jump John Sheppard, take whatever promises he had to offer, and let the future take care of itself.
But right now really wasn't the time to be thinking about that.
Clearing her throat, she mentally ran through the translation again before sitting back and looking up at him. "It starts with a greeting to the blessed mother seeker. That could mean a seeker of mothers, a mother of seekers, or a seeker who is a mother. That last one fits what Ronon said about this place. You'd have to ask a linguist for a better translation. It then asks for the blessed one to show the beginning of the never-ending path to ascension."
John pointed to two symbols. "Zero and infinity?"
Shrugging, Meredith used her finger to trace the Ancient symbols on the panel. "That's the most obvious answer, but it isn't very clever."
The cliff face shimmered and made a buzzing sound more felt in the bones than heard before it disappeared, revealing a dimly lit anteroom of polished stone. She didn't see Major McLean's team but that didn't mean it was time to start worrying. She was pretty sure they were just somewhere deeper inside. Meredith felt the faint tug of Ancient technology at the edges of her thoughts. "I expected more from a scientist like Myshla. Let's just hope she's not as crazy as what I've heard about Janus."
"Is it safe to enter?" John swept his gun around the room.
"Of course not." At his look, she sighed and rephrased. "Probably?" she shrugged. "I mean, I don't see anything obviously bad like the mangled bodies of our friends and you're like a cat with nine lives who always lands on his feet, but not a crab-cat because we hate those now, so sure, go ahead."
Opening his mouth to answer, John stopped, huffed, and stepped forward into the room. Nothing happened.
Meredith's shoulders unclenched even as a drop of sweat slid down her temple. "See? It's fine. Why don't you try and turn on the lights?"
"Why don't you come in here and turn them on for me?"
Swallowing hard, Meredith licked her lips and moved a single foot into the room. When nothing happened she moved the other inside. Walking over to the central pedestal, she circled it. "The light switch button has to be on here somewhere."
"Isn't that the symbol for light?" John pointed from just over her shoulder.
Meredith jumped, flinching down and scuttling away, not expecting him to be there. Her heart pounded in her throat and cotton filled her mouth, making it hard to breathe. Her arms tingled.
Wincing an apology, John moved to the side of the room where she could see him clearly.
Sucking in a trembling breath, Meredith tapped the light symbol with shaking fingers and pretended to be fine.
The ceiling lit in slow motion as if experiencing a sunrise. Like many Ancient structures, the room seemed unnaturally pristine after being abandoned for millennia. It was made of polished brown stone and about twenty feet in diameter, the size of a large master bedroom. The only structure in the room was a central pedestal. Columns of horizontal stripe lights lined the walls, similar to the labs in Atlantis. They always made her think of the PCR gels used by the chemistry and biology departments. As the light brightened she noticed that the brown floor was covered in bronze circles, triangles, and swooping lines in a pattern that led to the brightening archway across the room. The archway was made of stained glass in gold, copper, and cream. Instead of doors, the archway was filled by an energy field that reflected onto the floor like a shimmering puddle of honey.
Head tilting, John stepped forward to examine the energy field over the door. "Can you get this down?"
That's when Meredith realized that the shimmering puddle on the floor wasn't reflected from the door. It was actually shifting and glowing by itself and John was about to step right on top of it.
Hands shooting out, she grabbed the back of John's tac vest and yanked. He choked and fell back on top of her, slamming her between his body and the central console before they dropped to the floor. Meredith wheezed.
Being pressed that hard against John's body was painful, not sexy. There went those daydreams. A barely scabbed over scratch on her thigh broke open with a stinging rush of pain. Adding insult to injury, as John rolled off his bony knee dug painfully into her calf. As if she didn't have enough scrapes and bruises already today. "Ouch!" she cried.
"What was that?" John snapped.
"Me saving you, so how about a thank you? The floor isn't solid. Aren't pilots supposed to have 20/20 vision?" Meredith pushed herself upright with a whimper of abused muscles and pointed. "See the shimmer?"
Understanding dawned on John's face. Taking her arm, he helped her up. "Thanks. Can you disarm it? Maybe McLean's team ran in here to hide from the cougar-cat and fell into a trap."
"Let me take a look." Limping around the console to the side away from the shifting floor, Meredith popped a panel, pulled out her tablet, and connected it to the console before hitting the power button. The screen stayed dark. Shaking her tablet, she heard a rattling sound and noticed a fine crack along the edge of the screen. "Great, getting dragged through the forest and almost eaten broke my tablet."
"Maybe I should try out the floor and the field on the door," John said, eyes examining the other side of the room with laser focus. "My stronger Ancient genes might keep me safe."
"Or the field might vaporize you into goo. Don't you dare! I've got a secondary." She pulled out another tablet, in the process discovering more broken and bent tools in her pack and vest pockets. Lips tight and unhappy, she laid them out next to her on the floor. She might have to try and use them anyway, depending on what happened next.
"This tablet is smaller and lacking some functionality, but it should still interface and give me a look at the directory and base code." Meredith pushed the power button and tried to hide how she held her breath until the screen lit up. She connected it to the Ancient console and began working her way in. She'd found that using the Ancient consoles directly was a lot slower and less intuitive than interfacing with an Earth-made tablet.
While she worked, John moved to the door to consult with Teyla and Ronon and then searched the room for more clues. At one point he crouched down, brows beetled, and dragged his fingers across the floor, drawing her attention. Looking down at his fingertips, he frowned.
"Did you find something?" she asked.
"Blood. They definitely came in here at some point." Dark emotions churning behind his eyes, he stood and wiped his fingers off on his pants. "Hurry."
Gulping, she returned to her screen.
AN: Thanks for reading! I'm finding that everything is taking me a lot longer to do with my kids home and me having to teach them and provide constant snacks. Nothing new is getting written and even editing these chapters takes a zillion starts and stops. But I shall persevere! I want to hear your theories about Mckay's time on Manudia. What do you think happened? I've tried to sprinkle in a lot of clues. The answers are coming soon. Very soon. *cue evil laugh*
