THE TRENCH
PART SEVEN: THE PRISONERS (Part One)
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Sheppard knew he and Ford were sitting ducks. They couldn't climb out. They couldn't hide. They were just royally and completely screwed.
He found a place where the now foot deep water was a little deeper in the center than along the edge of the trench, and got a little purchase, managing to get his legs out of the water. He could feel the irritated skin on his shins beneath the trousers, and thanked the military quietly for the waterproof boots protecting his feet.
He climbed, trying to get some purchase on the muddy slope, not really wanting to climb back up on the "bad guy" side of the Trench, but not really having a choice. The other side couldn't be climbed, but this side was at least sloped. Given enough time, he would make it out. And he had to get Ford out of there. McKay would do what he could, but if they didn't get out of this damn trench, that water would kill them both, one way or another, because he wouldn't leave Ford behind.
So he focused on his feet, digging his boots into the slick mud, trying to push down and lever himself and the man in his arms up.
It was worse than sand on a beach. He wasn't getting anywhere quickly. For every few inches he gained, he'd lost an almost equal amount sliding back down again.
Damn it! Where was McKay!
"Stop right there," a voice sneered.
Okay. Sheppard let loose an annoyed breath. That wasn't McKay's voice.
He closed his eyes for a moment in exasperation, then opened them slowly. Throwing on an air of unconcern, he lifted his head and looked up at the top of the trench.
Close to twenty men stood watching him, all with those ugly Genii revolvers pointed at his head. No machine guns, but then, at this range, they really didn't need them. Their clothes were rags, stitched together patches of all different sorts of materials. The faces were mottled, open sores in places, and starkly pale. Dark shadows rimmed their eyes, and madness infected every glassy eyed stare that focused on the major and the unconscious lieutenant in his arms.
"I just want to climb out," Sheppard announced calmly. "Please."
"Too late," the man roughly in the center of the group answered. "We're going to let the Trench take you." He looked to be about forty years old, with black hair tucked up inside a Genii army cap. Incredibly pale blue eyes sparkled in the harsh sunlight, over which two massive black brows joined in a single, dark line. His large nose had a sore on the tip, and when he smiled coldly at Sheppard, it stretched, leaking a little clear puss. The major couldn't hide the cringe.
"What's wrong with all of you?" Sheppard asked, his voice hitching a little, shifting to put one leg up on the slope, to rest Ford more on his knee. The men watching him all looked horribly diseased. The pale eyed man's single brow lifted, as if surprised to be asked the question, then furrowed.
"This place," he replied, his voice scratchy. "What else?"
"This place?" Sheppard swallowed, "And what exactly is this place?"
The man's pale, cracked lips lifted, the cold sores around the edges of his lips making the look even more garish. The eyes were narrowed to almost slits.
"Are you making fun of us, stranger?"
"No, no," Sheppard shook his head, "I'm not. I have no idea why you would want to stay here, if it does that to you." His eyes narrowed, "Or why you would want to kill complete strangers without meeting them first."
The man's eyebrows lifted, obviously amused. He looked at the others with him, his smile growing, his pale eyes widening.
"He doesn't know why we stay here," the man said to his companions, and his voice cracked with a laugh. The others all smiled, some showing almost toothless grins with bleeding gums. Sheppard unconsciously held Ford closer, and slipped down into the mud a little more.
At the same time, he heard McKay call him over the radio, asking for his status.
"McKay," he muttered softly in reply, trying not to let them see his lips move, hoping their laughter would hide his response. "Shut up a minute."
Pale Eyes looked back at him then suddenly, all traces of humor gone. The others stopped laughing, as if a director had just yelled for them to cut. Luckily, he gave no sign that he had heard Sheppard's communication to McKay. Instead, he growled at the major.
"Then you are an idiot, stranger. Don't you know a prison when you see one?" he sneered.
Sheppard's eyes widened, "Prison?"
"We can't leave, stranger. We were put in here by the Genii, left to rot. We're stuck here, no way out."
Sheppard's brow furrowed, "But…why?"
"Because only the Genii wardens have the remotes to work the Ancestor's Bridge, stranger."
Remotes? Ah, that was an interesting bit of informative but unhelpful knowledge. Sheppard licked his lips, "Okay, say that's true. Couldn't you just make a bridge?"
That caused the men around Pale Eyes to laugh coldly again, but Pale Eyes didn't even crack a smile.
"No, stranger. The shield lining the Trench's edge on the far side prevents anyone from leaving."
"Shield?"
The man looked at him like a science experiment, "You really don't know, do you? Did you seriously think that you could just climb out of the trench onto the other side? The shield allows nothing to pass out of it, except at the bridge. You honestly didn't know?"
In response, Sheppard twisted looking behind him at the other side of the Trench. He shifted Ford up a little higher in his arms in order to do so, but it was really a pointless effort. He couldn't see anything there at all. Oh sure, McKay had said there was a dampening field there, but a shield?
He frowned, "But, I don't see—"
A gunshot rang out, and Sheppard flinched at the same time that a flash of light spread out from the point where the bullet hit the invisible shield about three feet above the edge of the Trench. It had disintegrated the bullet on impact. His eyes really wide now, he turned back to the man who had been talking to him…saw him lower his gun and point it back at the major.
"That answer your question, stranger?"
"Well…yeah…one of them," Sheppard replied hoarsely. Oh this sucked. "But not the other."
"What other?"
"Why you want my friend and I dead. Why you tried to kill us before we even saw you. What if we were…are…prisoners just like you? What was that for? Do you, you," he shook his head in bewilderment, "just kill everyone new who the Genii put in here?"
"No," the man knelt down so that he could see Sheppard's face more clearly. "Just those who bring the boiling rains."
Sheppard blinked a few times at that insane sounding answer, then tilted his head. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Every so often, though not too often, when they put someone new in here, that person's presence brings what we call the boiling rains. We don't know why, and we don't really care, except that the rains make us sick." He leaned forward, unblinking pale eyes focused right on Sheppard. "In my eight years here, it has happened only three times. But we know…we know, it is because that new person has caused it. And the only way to stop it," he smiled that horrific grim smile again, "is to kill that person."
Sheppard swallowed nervously. Were they serious? No one can control the weather! "But…but, how do you know it's me causing it? Or my friend here? There were two others with us. It might have been them, don't you think?"
Pale Eyes blinked, the smiled unwavering, "Maybe. Maybe not. Can't take that chance. The rains are too deadly."
"Clay?" one of the other men interrupted, a strange note in his voice. Pale Eyes looked away, at a man with straw-colored hair. This one had dark eyes and a ferret nose, which seemed to twitch as he spoke. He was staring at the trench nervously. "Clay…the Trench should have flushed them by now. Why hasn't the flood come? Where's the flood?"
That got Pale Eyes', a.k.a Clay's, attention, and he stood up, looking past Sheppard to the still rising, but slowly, water in the trench. The jaw gritted closed, and Clay focused back on Sheppard.
"Marrew's right. You should be drowned by now."
Sheppard could only smile weakly at that. "Well, I can't say I'm disappointed, but," he swallowed, and somehow managed a shrug, even with Ford pressed against him, "it's nothing I did."
Pale Eyes just continued to stare, then the eyes narrowed further. "You're lying."
"How could I have done anything?" Sheppard gasped. "Look at me! I'm stuck down here, with my friend in my arms…dying. What the hell could I have done?"
Clay's eyes were dark now, and growing darker. He didn't understand it. It never took more than five minutes for the traps inside the Trench to activate, to swallow up anyone who tried to climb down into it. Marrew was right. Something was wrong.
"You did something. You did something." His face flushed with anger, and he aimed the gun more squarely at Sheppard's head, "What did you do!"
"He didn't do anything!" McKay's voice rang out from somewhere behind the prisoners. "I did!"
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TBC
