"What do you mean, it's gone?" Weir's palms pressed her anxiety into the table before her.

Johnson shook his head. "We've lost the signal." He turned in his chair. "At the rate they were descending, I doubt the sub will remain intact." His voice was direct, yet courteous.

Elizabeth shook her head. "Those things have amazing structural integrity, how could it just. . ."

"The depth and rate of descent would have destroyed a regular submarine much sooner than this. The sub showed signs of advanced design, yes, but even it would succumb to the pressure."

"Nothing is indestructible."

"No, Ma'am." Johnson's expression was difficult to read, something between disappointment and fear.

Oh god. Ohgodgodgod. . . "So, they drowned?" Her voice was small.

Johnson couldn't even bring himself to say it. He turned back to the screen.

Elizabeth straightened. Some personnel were looking at her, others pointedly looking away. All had sorrow written on their faces, and shock. One lady allowed herself to bury her head into the shoulder of Lt. Tyler. Weir surveyed the faces before her, and cursed herself for allowing her best team down there. Of course, it wasn't like they never encountered risks, but she felt personally responsible for this one. "Johnson," she said quietly, "keep scanning the waters. They may have had a way out, or maybe because of the depth, our readings are skewed."

"Yes Ma'am." That was Johnson's only reply, not 'you're crazy', or 'vain hope', because every person in that room was willing to entertain the possibility that their premier team survived.

She turned and called out above her. "Lt. Makers!" A soldier leaned over the balcony. "You were a part of the recon team that found the submarine, correct?"

"Yes Ma'am." Lt. Frank Makers' heavy voice rumbled soothingly. "We were exploring near the fifth tier."

"What are the chances of finding another one?"

Makers shrugged. "It might take some time, but surely this place didn't have just one sub."

"My thoughts exactly, Sgt. Get a team together and start your search. Consider this a search and rescue, I want every person you have available looking, is that clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" And he gave her a salute, which put her in mind of Ford, the only other one who bothered giving her the respect.

She choked back her sadness and faced Johnson. "Keep looking. They could be in an incapacitated sub, and if so, we need to get to them as quickly as possible."

"Yes, Dr. Weir."

Elizabeth nodded and stood idly. Slowly she allowed herself a few steps back, to hide within the shadows.

>

The room was pink. Or grey. Or glass. . . but very warm, very soothing, very dry. And so very not a part of the sub. John Sheppard groaned and pushed himself up onto his knees. His head was a lead weight, threatening to tip him forwards. The room spun like a tilt-a-whirl.

He fell over onto his side and grunted, his muscles tight, his breath harsh in his chest. Apparently his body wasn't ready to face the fact that he wasn't dead. He really wasn't dead, was he? He rolled onto his back to find a pair of large eyes looking down at him. The yell that burst forth proved he was suddenly very conscious, and he jolted to a sitting position while scurrying backwards, but nothing was there. Okay, he told himself, just an illusion, lack of oxygen. Breathe.

The simple concept of keeping one's breath seemed to be the recurring mantra of the day, but then again it seemed everything was determined to relieve him of it. His nausea mounted as he looked around, spying a familiar form curled in the far corner. "McKay?" John quickly skidded in his wet clothes over to the still body and leaned over him. Like John, he was soaked through, and pale, almost transparent in the odd light. Turning him onto his back was easy, the man was a limp rag. His arm flopped uselessly to the ground, his face slack. "McKay!" He placed his ear to the man's chest and listened, then put his palm just in front of Rodney's nose, feeling for air.

"Good man," he sighed with relief. He patted McKay's cheek, darting nervous glances around the room. "Now come on, wake up. Come on." The patting continued with increasing force. "Dammit McKay, come on! Wake up! Rodney!" He placed his hand on Rodney's and waited, then leaned forward again as he felt, rather than heard, the impending groan. "That's it, come on. Open your eyes. Come on, open your damn eyes!" And Rodney did, slowly, then blinked rapidly as he stared at the ceiling.

"I'm dead. I'm dead, aren't I?" he croaked painfully. His eyes scanned the crystalline ceiling. "I'm in heaven."

John sighed. "Not heaven, Rodney."

The physicist turned his head. "Oh. . .oh no. . ." a mournful groan escaped his lips. "No. . . hell, I'm in hell. . ."

"What?"

"I mean, you're here. . .so we're in hell, right?"

"Fuck you!" John shoved him away. He sat back on his heels, disgruntled. "How are you?" he asked reluctantly.

Rodney sat up slowly, pressing his hands to his head. "Oh, great. I'm good. Just stuck somewhere between death warmed over and freezing like a homeless Eskimo." He teetered in his upright position for a moment, then squinted around him. His eyes widened as he took in the scene. "Wait. Wait, we're not really. . .where is everyone? Shouldn't we be surrounded by medical personnel?" He closed his eyes tightly, shaking his head, then opened them and sent a despairing glance to Sheppard. "I can't remember anything, what do you remember?"

Sheppard was still glaring. "I remember trying to save your sorry ass before we died!"

"But we're not dead, we can't be." Rodney was looking around in confusion. "No, this isn't right. Not unless heaven, or hell, is an exact duplicate of Atlantis."

John looked around again, and slowly stood. The room did look eerily like the control room of Atlantis, only there was no central Stargate for the upper level to look down upon. The color was wrong. And somehow this place was lit within, not by the usual light panels and such, but by a steady glow within the walls themselves. Not bright, just pleasant. Just enough to see. "McKay," John asked softly, "what happened to us?"

"You're asking me?" Rodney was standing now, bracing himself against one of the oddly lit walls.

"Don't you have all the answers?"

"As a matter of fact. . .look, where's Ford and Teyla?"

Sheppard snapped to attention, and his shock at being alive and in, well, not Atlantis, abated. "Lt. Ford! Can you hear me? Teyla?" He waited.

"Try your radio."

"What? Oh, right. . . Lt Ford, come in. Do you read, Lieutenant?" He paused, then tried again. "Teyla, can you hear me?" Static, and barely that.

Rodney tapped his earpiece. "Ford, this is McKay. Do you copy? Teyla? Helloooo, anyone receiving me?" His hand dropped listlessly to his side. "Nothing."

"I guess we go look for them."

"Unless they're still on the sunken sub, what's left of it."

But John shook his head. "No. Whatever brought us here must have brought them, too."

"And they just happen to get off the elevator at a different floor?" Rodney winced, then squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his mind to cooperate. "So. . .where do we start?"

"I don't know." John eyed the stairs that led to the second level. He took them three at a time and hurried over to a schematic display filled with pinks and blues. "This layout looks just like the one we're used to," he called down. "This really is a duplicate city."

Rodney found his balance and pushed away from the wall, joining John moments later at the controls. He gave the schematics a once over. "Huh. Who'd of thunk."

"My question is why." He looked around in puzzlement. "And where is everybody?"

"That question crossed my mind, and you know, I think I'll ponder a bit more on it once those eyes stop staring at me." He swallowed and John snapped his head up. Rodney's uncertain gaze was fixed on the spot below them where the Stargate should have been. And in its place were two very large, very black, very evil eyes. John realized the morbid stare he encountered when he woke wasn't a result of an oxygen-depraved imagination. Those eyes were very real.

John slowly backed away from the controls and walked to one side. The menacing eyes followed; huge and curved upward in a threatening arch, like a malicious smile. He almost expected to hear a predator's growl from somewhere deep within the shadows, but there was no sound. None at all. John felt a chill creep up his back. "Amazingly quiet here, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I noticed that." Rodney could barely be heard, his voice was so low, yet it sounded like a shot in the dark.

"You think maybe that's some kind of viewing device?"

"Eyes? Are you serious?"

"Yeah, yeah, I meant a viewing device for someone else, someone who is very conspicuously not here."

"Could be, I suppose." Rodney was walking in the other direction, and the eyes followed him. "It's still looking at me."

"It's looking at me too."

"How can it be, we're on opposite ends of – waitwait, I know. I know what this is."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Care to share?"

"You remember those statues that are carved in a sort of reverse relief, where if you walked from one side to another the eyes always seemed to follow you?"

Sheppard had stopped moving, and his eyes darted from the evil ones to those of McKay. "Yeah, I guess. I mean I've heard of it."

"It's real, believe me, my Aunt Clara had one of Jesus that would scare your dinner out of you. She kept it on the mantle, I always hated going in that room. I couldn't touch anything, and then this morbid representation of Jesus would be staring at me, just waiting for me to do something wrong so he could damn me for eternity. . ."

"Rodney. . ."

". . .I think. . .I think this is a relief carving."

"You think?"

Rodney's arms dropped in frustration. "Well, I'm kinda far away, so it's hard to tell the specific detailing from here."

"Care to go down, then?"

"Care to come with me?" The question was asked with a remaining hint of uncertainty.

John joined Rodney, his eyes warily watching those that watched him, and together they slowly walked down the stairs to the main level. The eyes grew larger as they approached, taking up the entire back wall. They glared down at the men, almost glowing in angry intensity. The two men hesitated, until Rodney braved a few steps forward.

The eyes stared down at him. He took another step. The eyes continued to stare. And they stared as Rodney walked right beneath them and tapped on the wall. "I was right," he said as he studied the wall. "It's carved right into the surface. Not sure if this is meant to be a deterrent or maybe some sort of iconic figure, but either way we aren't being watched." He turned with a smile, which dropped at the sight of John's panicked face.

"McKAY!"

Rodney looked up just as a heavy mass swooped down for him. He slammed himself back against the wall, the force knocking him to the floor. It swooped again, lower and more loosely, knocking sideways into the wall above him, raining debris over the body that was yelling while trying desperately to fold in on itself, and hide.

John looked about for a weapon, for anything, but found nothing. He ran to a panel that controlled the auxiliary power in the Atlantis he knew, and pressed the lit panels. The swinging soon stopped to reveal a large claw-looking rail which had dipped from the ceiling above. John waited to make certain it was still before running to Rodney.

The man was buried under a good portion of the wall. John cursed and started shoving large chunks of – was it plaster– aside, and bent down. "Rodney?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm okay. . ." the man gasped as he rolled, and lay there, stunned. John couldn't blame him. He cleared off the rest of the debris. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know. Can you stand?"

Rodney was staring upwards. "Hey, the wall stopped glowing." He winced and gave his head a shake.

"Come on, get up. . ." John grabbed McKay's arm and looped it over his shoulder. McKay stepped down gingerly. It was obvious that whatever his injury was, it wouldn't incapacitate him. They hurried towards one of the doors, stopping once to look back as it slid open. The eyes still watched menacingly, the metallic claw bent at an odd angle, reaching for them. They rushed into the nearest corridor.

"Okay, we're out, stopstopstop." Rodney detached himself from Sheppard's grip and slid to the floor.

John bent over him. "Sure you're okay?"

"Major, while I'm sure this level of excitement is standard practice for uniformed adrenaline junkies, it isn't for me. I've narrowly avoided death twice in the space of ten minutes. Just give me a second, will you?"

John gave a nod. "So what was that thing?"

"An intergalactic representative from Wells Fargo. How the hell should I know?"

"I mean, was it just a statue of some kind? Did it break, or is that meant to scare people away?"

"I neither know, nor care. I just want to find the others and get the hell out of here."

John nodded his agreement. "You good to go?"

He could see a coarse remark trying to surface, but instead McKay stifled it with an effort and pushed away from the floor. "Yeah, let's go."