-1-
McKay leaned near. "Major?"
Sheppard woke up. Rodney's face was like the full moon.
"You all right?"
"Me?...you?"
"Of course not," McKay said. "I'm a wreck. The crash transformed us into projectiles with no means of egress. Dampeners were probably damaged."
Sheppard sat, expelled a long groan. He searched the room. "But the fog, it invaded you."
McKay seemed puzzled. "Doesn't ring a bell."
"Let me see your eyes," he ordered, and McKay came close so that he could check. "Sort of clear," he said, holding his head. "A little flicker here and there."
McKay drew back. "I found a door while you were asleep. We're going to need water, fast."
"I feel like crap," Sheppard said. "Especially since you practically die and don't know it." While they'd slept, and although he'd had his own discomfort to deal with, Sheppard had awakened frequently to make sure McKay was all right. Rodney was now behaving as if it had all been a dream. But it wasn't.
"Over here." McKay was at the far end of the chamber. "Right, help," he said, and went to get him. Together they examined the doorway, sealed tight, with a distinct triangular outline. "I've been tapping the walls. There's got to be a button or a panel or something."
Sheppard teetered with his weight on one leg and a hand on McKay. "Maybe it's not a button, maybe it's a noise or a touch, like the ATA."
"Maybe this, maybe that. We're getting nowhere." Rodney ran a thumb over the door. "Or light? Everything else in here appears naturally tuned to it."
"I have a feeling your fog friend could tell us. It zapped you like it knew what it wanted." Sheppard slumped down next to the door. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Fine." McKay attempted to stick a stubby fingernail into the joint. "I will figure this out." He arched his arm grandly. "Open Sesame," he said, then joined Sheppard, ripping the pant leg to expose the major's knee. "If only we had the first aid kit."
"If this, if that." Sheppard looked up. The fog had returned. "How'd you get in here?"
"Hello," McKay said.
Sheppard wondered why the Lumi-fog hung around. "Try talking to it."
"You first."
"It's your nose they explored."
"So say you." McKay cautiously approached the fog. As he did, it swerved to the right like candle smoke in a draft and trained itself on Sheppard. Expanding, it whisked around and encased the major from crown to foot.
Sheppard stiffened; the fog had imprisoned him. "Talk to it," he said.
"Can you breathe?" Rodney asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," he said. This tale was one to write home about. "Everything's purple. What's it doing?"
"I have no idea." McKay reached in. It felt like hundreds of pin-tips. "Does it hurt?"
Sheppard squinted. "No." In intermittent flickers, the fog's light shown bright as a strobe. "I hear humming."
"Maybe that's its language."
"Gibberish."
McKay removed his hand. "Can you move?"
Sheppard tried; he was paralyzed.
"Seems to be..." McKay said and with that, the fog released Sheppard and flew away. It passed through the wall, leaving an accumulation of glittering light on the surface.
Sheppard bent his limbs, excluding his knee. "Definitely intelligent."
McKay agreed. "More than the sum of their parts." He inspected the wall where the fog had passed. "Hold the presses, this opens up. Ingenious."
-2-
While Sheppard rested, McKay estimated a day had passed. Or two. Hard to tell. The major had developed a fever, was feeling sick. The Lumi-fog hadn't visited and McKay had given up on the blocked entryway, jammed with boulders that fell in three at a time for every one he removed, rolling into the room until he had a pile larger than the one he'd started with. All it did was sap his energy when Sheppard needed him. He couldn't do much to improve their situation. Certainly, in time, they would be tracked and rescued.
The door was locked. There was nothing on it, nothing to press, to turn or slip a key into except the image of a tiny triangle in the center. He'd shouted at it, sung, made inane noises, recited a few fractured phrases from other languages, rapped it, pushed and picked at it, finally kicked and cursed it.
At least they had light. In fact, they basked in it. The walls aglow, almost multi-dimensional. When he got bored, he traced his finger over it, playing with the shimmer, following it as it followed him. They had a constant, comfortable temperature, sufficient if stale air. Here they would wither a long time and watch each other die slowly of dehydration and infection.
He checked Sheppard, doing poorly as expected, and gave up on logic, decided to plead with their mysterious companion.
"Are you there?" he asked, turning circles in the middle of the room, anticipating that it might come through any wall. He stomped on the floor, thinking better of it when Sheppard stirred and moved, sensing pain it seemed. "I said, are you there because if you are why don't you come out?" He kept turning. "At least open that door."
He stopped, scrutinized the radiant walls. "We could use some help here." This is a waste of time, thought McKay; good I've got plenty. "Listen, I don't know what or who you are but I'm sure we can meet on common ground. I'm Dr. McKay. Call me Rodney. This is Major Sheppard over there. He's not up to conversation but he's a decent guy although he is somewhat unfocused at times. Distracted. He's American. I'm from Canada...that's north. I had a little place on...never mind. I know all that doesn't mean anything to you but...we're from Atlantis...that wouldn't mean anything either. I suppose there's no use mentioning Earth. What I want to say is both of us are going to die, cease to exist, if we don't get food and water soon."
He scanned the room, listened, and waited a reasonable amount of time. When he got tired of standing, he returned to Sheppard, made sure he was breathing normally. Eventually, he dozed off, enclosed by three silent walls, a floor as hospitable as cold kitchen tiles, and an ominous sense of futility.
-3-
"Oh my God," Sheppard said, lifting his shoulders. "It's me."
McKay sat up. "What, what is it? It's all right, calm down, calm down." Sheppard pointed at an apparition standing boldly in the center. "Oh my God," McKay said. "It is you."
Sheppard slapped his forehead. "I've lost my mind. The fever's too high."
"Ditto," said McKay. "It heard me."
"Why is it me?"
"It's not really you, more an approximation," McKay said. The figure sparkled, fuzzy around the edges, as if Sheppard's image were projected on to a textured wall.
"You requested it be me?" asked Sheppard.
"Of course not. I asked for help." McKay met with it, feeling a tad ridiculous. "Hello."
"Hello," it repeated. "We are welcoming."
"We? There's more than one of you?"
"Billions."
Sheppard said, "Ask a few hundred to open the door."
"Shhhh...You'll scare them off." McKay circled the figure. "You know our language."
Its Sheppard-lips moved, occasionally out of sync. "We accessed it, inscribed in your left frontal lobe, where a body of knowledge resides, including this method of communication."
"When you went into my nose."
"I told you," Sheppard said. "Don't waste time. The door."
"We have assumed this form," it said, "so that we may speak as equals. We can not open the door. You will be consumed by our enemy."
"Who's this enemy?" asked Sheppard.
"They attempted to overpower you when your vehicle fell to the surface. The quake consumed you before they could do so."
"Of course, the golden curtain. They were headed for us." McKay casually walked to the left. Its gaze followed him like a portrait. "You were there, too, weren't you?"
"Yes. We secured the gap," it said, "after you plunged in. Our enemy is similar to us, but exist by the power of the solar star."
"How do you exist?" McKay said.
"By an underground source. There is no correlation in your language. The enemy above seeks to destroy us to gain strength and domain, to multiply and colonize. Long ago, the Architect fashioned us to build this complex. When some discovered their usefulness had expired, they usurped the Architect and fled. Once upon the surface, they were exposed to higher levels of radiation. The resulting mutagenesis has damaged them."
McKay noticed it hadn't replicated Sheppard's injuries. "You're inorganic?"
It brightened, its shape wavering. "Yes."
McKay spoke to Sheppard. "Nanites. It's a nanite utility fog. Designed to build, tear down."
Sheppard said, "Get in your brain?"
"And replicate you. Fascinating." McKay continued: "We're organic beings, we need food and, specifically, water. Can you remove the debris from the opening?"
"We recently discovered this emergency."
McKay said, "When you surveyed my brain."
"We will attempt." With that, it dissipated and regrouped as the fog, engulfing the boulders. They shifted and shook, but what had happened to McKay happened to them: the rocks began to tumble in.
"There are too few of us present to clear the entire passageway," it said, reforming as Sheppard. "The obstruction extends for many meters. We can provide the H2O."
Leaving, it slid through the spaces between the boulders, returning in minutes. It split in two, one large cloud and one small, the smaller forming into a bowl that floated four meters high, the larger floating over it. The bowl resembled a coruscating gel.
McKay cupped his hands beneath the bowl. It was almost weightless and felt as if it might dribble right through his skin. The larger cloud began to glisten and the water flowed, dripping into the bowl. When it was full, McKay gave Sheppard a drink, taking the leftover for himself. When done, the bowl vanished into a cloud, rejoined the larger one and withdrew.
"That's the weirdest thing," Sheppard said, lying back. He was pale, with bruises under his eyes, his knee swollen twice its usual size. "They'll never believe it. What're you staring at?"
McKay studied the place where the Lumi-fog had exited. "These walls," he said, running his hand over it, "are made up of nanites, or a portion of it is. The fog gets through because they provide a way for it. Who would've thought?"
Sheppard let out a sigh. "The Architect."
-4-
With the hem of his shirt, McKay patted Sheppard's forehead. "How can I make them understand?"
Sheppard raised his hand to answer, dropped it back.
"I wonder if we have anything they want."
"That could backfire." Sheppard slurred his words.
McKay wished they'd salvaged a blanket, something to make the major comfortable. "Mind if they pick your brains?"
He rubbed his neck, folded in his good leg.
"Your military know-how," McKay said, speaking faster. "Strategy, tactics, logistics. From my conversations with it...them...I gather their primary defense consists of run and hide, like mice from a hawk. The surface nanobots have the place to themselves up there. The Lumi-fog doesn't retaliate. If they had your knowledge, maybe they could use it to get us out."
Sheppard said, "Teach them to kill."
"To save our lives."
"Long shot."
"Calculated risk." McKay said. "It wouldn't hurt. You won't feel anything. I didn't, except the initial entry-"
"You said you didn't remember."
"It's coming back to me." McKay had a solid vision of violet fireworks spraying over him.
"Crazy," Sheppard said. "I can hold off a little longer."
"If you could see yourself like I do, you wouldn't say that. Let's face it, major, the Lumi-fog is obviously our best bet. If it's going to keep coming back, we may as well put it to good use. Otherwise, it may as well stay away, because I don't particularly care to build up..."
While Rodney chattered on, Sheppard considered it. The skin over his knee seemed ready to burst. He had a headache, his vision was blurry and McKay's talking was as irritating as 100 wool in hundred-degree heat. They were speeding towards the finish line, and if they didn't get out soon, he would be the unlucky winner. He reached up, set two fingers on McKay's mouth. "Invite them over," he said. "And don't forget the good china."
-5-
McKay summoned them, but the Lumi-fog maintained its own schedule. Hours later it appeared, in the likeness of Sheppard, improved but for the misty hair. McKay explained his plan, and they indulged him.
Sheppard remained prone, inert, while the fog dispersed and wavered over his head, swooped down and divided, slithering into his facial orifices. His eyes rolled up, back slightly arched. McKay was distressed. If this is what he'd looked like during the transfer, it was obvious why Sheppard believed he'd been near death.
He staged a tense watch, worried something could go wrong. He supposed that it could cause a stroke, brain damage, or a seizure. Dr. Beckett would never have allowed this to take place. Carson was so cautious at times that McKay wondered how he ever made it through medical school. Surviving life meant the element of risk, a breaking of the rules. You couldn't always go by the book. You had to be flexible, especially off-Earth.
Sheppard was waxen, and though his eyes were restored to normal, they were void of his spirit, violet lights twinkling behind the cornea. His body was rigid, palms against the floor, fingers splayed. He spoke.
It startled McKay. The voice was raspy, whispered. "I can't hear you," McKay said, listening.
A puff of violet popped from Sheppard's mouth. His lips parted stiffly. "Do you prefer him mended?"
"Major?"
"We speak," the fog said. "His leg can be restored."
"You can do that?"
"The damage to the skull."
"I don't know," McKay said. He didn't feel right about deciding for Sheppard. "We should ask."
"McKay." Sheppard turned toward him and the freckled lights glided across his irises, distinct and thriving. "Let them."
It sounded like John-unique, a spirit all his own. "We may be here a long time." McKay touched Sheppard's forehead. He was burning. "Go ahead," he told the fog. "Do it."
Sheppard's eyes shut and the Lumi-fog dove into the task. Like the Wraith, if McKay hadn't seen it, he wouldn't have believed it. The region around Sheppard's head injury began to gleam, hair swirling as though a breeze were blowing past. Simultaneously, they worked on his knee, rebuilding the tissue by increments, until scar tissue extended over the kneecap, the swelling reduced. McKay peeked at the process, lifting Sheppard's injured hand.
After a time, the violet light faded and the fog emerged, momentarily in human form. "We go," it said, and glided off.
McKay released the hand; the cut had been sutured. Sheppard breathed regularly, brows less constricted. What could the Lumi-fog learn from one man's, well, two men's, minds? No matter, it'd been worth a try. If he didn't remember what had happened to him, Sheppard would have a pleasant surprise: He'd be able to walk.
