Chapter 9- Revelations
Elana was walking through the halls of an unexplored part of the city heading directly where she felt the least comfortable, hoping Garin wouldn't think of the possibility of her even thinking of going there.
It was downright creepy in that part of the city, to her only a few days ago it was bustling with people, people she knew and cared about, many had passed through the doors of her office at least once, and now… now it was dark, barren, and the walls felt as if they wanted to talk to her, breathe on her.
She turned the corner, her shoes splashing in water that still must have been left over from the massive storm. Where she was going was the lowest part of the city, it needed to be. She paused at the massive hanger doors, and finally opened them with bated breath. There were double doors, like an airlock. She opened the second set. The bay was huge, as large as a Jumper Bay, but with one distinct difference, the circular opening in the floor, and one on the far side, both were closed now. She was still standing by the door in the remnants of a puddle and finally stepped in.
She hated water, was deathly afraid of it. Strange, being as she lived and worked in a city that was floating, and then submerged under several hundred feet of ocean. So it stemmed from reason that a submarine bay would be the last place she would go for comfort. There were holes in the floor and wall that led out to the water, and by the looks of it, some had seeped in.
Elana eyed the dozen or so vessels that lined the sides of the bay and walked over to one. They were designed mostly like a Puddle Jumper, but narrower to better cut through the water and had other systems, which she didn't know too much about, being a psychologist. She opened the hatch in the back, stepped in, and closed it. Now she could talk to Kate without fear of interference from Garin. Once she revealed herself to Kate in her mind, the real world would fade away, allowing someone to sneak up on her, and that was a risk she wouldn't take.
---
Peter Grodin was taking a moment's break in 13B, cupping his hands around his face and breathing deeply. They were getting close to decrypting the computer, very close but they just had been too tired to finish the night before and this required an alert mind. He had managed to get down there that morning, leaving the Control Room in the capable hands of the other scientists.
His headset radio activated, "Peter, still there?"
"Yes Radek."
"I won't be a moment."
"Alright." He tilted the chair back and yawned, it had been a late night, working in that very room, but it was worth it. He leaned forward and went back to work, trying different sequences and decoding matrices.
The door slid open and Zelenka walked in, Peter didn't shift his gaze as he greeted him, he was too busy. Radek sat down, looked at the screen, and nodded in approval.
Peter stopped typing suddenly and frustratingly scratched his chin. "I can't bloody come up with the right ending sequence!"
"Take break, I'll work on it." Radek scooted Peter out of the way.
"I only just took a break."
"Your mind will not work if you are frustrated."
"I'm fine now." He scooted back over and set back to work.
---
Rodney McKay had watched Garin practically flee from Major Sheppard and Elizabeth, and wondered what the hell was going on. Garin still hadn't shown up in his world since the night he made the mind-suppressant, the night before Kate had been taken over.
He saw Garin walking through a part of the city he didn't know and enter a room with consoles, picked up Kate's earring, and read the articles. Rodney also read them and now he knew what Garin had meant when he said 'they turned me into a murderer,' he was serious…
Rodney realized this just got a whole lot worse. Not only did an Ancient have control of his body and could access his memories, this particular Ancient was a murderous, mad genius that, Rodney deduced, was chasing after his wife who didn't approve…
"Crap." He stood there deducing a plan, preparing his mind. He turned around and looked around the imitation Gateroom, complete with orange couches, which he had woken up in for four mornings. Rodney closed his eyes, crossed his left arm across his chest, and held out his right hand, concentrating on what he wanted to show. After a moment he felt it and opened his eyes. Sitting in his hand was a power bar.
Garin walked into Kate's office, took a quick look around, saw no one, and left. He was getting nervous now, Elana knew what he had turned into, what he became, and it would scare her. He needed to find her and convince her that it would never happen again, that it was a one time, err two times, occurrence and that was it.
As he was heading to her quarters, he looked at his right hand and saw it shaking. He turned it palm up and stopped in the middle of the hallway. Something was going wrong.
"Hey, McKay." John had walked up from behind him and stepped around to face him.
"Major." Garin looked up and put his right hand behind his back.
He noticed the odd behavior, "Are you alright?"
"Yes, yes. Just have a lot on my mind." He tried to leave, but John stopped him.
John narrowed his eyes, "Hey have you seen Heightmeyer anywhere by chance? Dr. Weir's looking for her."
"No, I'm looking for her myself. So if you don't mind I'm just going to continue the search." Garin moved to the left, still holding his right hand behind his back.
"Right." John looked at him as he started to walk away, but Rodney suddenly jerked out his right arm, grabbing John's.
Garin quickly pulled it back, "Um, sorry. I just thought of something but forgot. Carry on." He hastily turned the corner.
Garin continued down the hall and stopped at Kate's quarters, but she wasn't in there either. His mind was racing, Elana had disappeared and now Rodney was fighting him. He couldn't focus on keeping control when his emotions were going haywire. Fear, anxiety, nerves, and panic were surging through him.
---
She opened her eyes in her recreation of her and Kate's office. She was sitting in her chair, opposite the one for the patient which Kate was sitting in. Kate wrinkled her forehead as she looked around the room and at Elana, in her true form, a brunette.
Kate's mouth opened to ask a question, but Elana cut her off, "First of all, you've been unconscious, technically, for a day. This isn't real, we are in your mind and my name is Dr. Elana Trelio. My husband is Dr. Garin Trelio who has taken over Rodney's body. We are, as you call us, Ancients."
Kate had seen, err heard of, some bizarre happenings in this galaxy, but this was just too much. She stammered, "Excuse me?"
"Here, take my hands and I'll show you." Elana extended her hands and Kate tentatively took them. Her eyes started to dart under her closed eyelids, viewing the memories Elana was sharing with her, starting with the day of the attack on Anfalas.
She was standing outside looking up to see Wraith Darts in combat with Jumpers, hundreds of them. She saw and could feel the Wraith feeding on her bringing a tear to her eye, the night lying in the hospital bed in Atlantis, Garin carrying her to his private office, and then 10,000 years later was back in his office looking at him in Rodney's body. She also saw all the rest, leading up to this very moment.
---
Garin turned down another dark hallway and stopped at a door on the right side. He opened it and looked around the forty-foot wide room. He glanced at the tables of long-dead plants. Some reached the fifteen-foot ceiling to the skylight, some were on the rows of tables in pots just starting out, others a few inches tall with long-faded blossoms, and still others were spread around in every size imaginable.
Rodney thought this place was obviously a greenhouse of sorts, and that the botanists would have a field day in there, give them something to do other than bug the hell out of him and the off-world teams to bring plants back, that was if he could remember where it was, and if he got out of this mess. He was certainly making progress, taking advantage of Garin's tumultuous emotional state, but now Garin had settled down a bit.
He knew Elana would often spend time in the greenhouse when she needed time to herself. He stepped in and as he walked down the middle of the room, between two dead plant-ridden tables, he look under the tables, eyed the corners, and finally moved into the backroom. The room consisted of other tables, cabinets, and some consoles. It was most likely the workroom. After a look around, he ran out, having a few more places to look.
---
Kate opened her eyes to see Elana still sitting before her, still in her mind. She laid her hands on her lap, "That is a lot to sort through."
Elana was still edgy, and nodded, talking slowly, "I know. I thought I should come to you face to face and show you everything. Now I'm going to fix this and I'll leave you here to process it and a… screen so you know what's going on. If you talk, I'll hear you and if you want to take control, that's fine, I just think that right now it would be best if I was in control if we do run into Garin."
Kate rested her right hand on her cheek and bit her lower lip, "That sounds reasonable, but what are you going to do?"
"We are making a trip to see Carson, I have a feeling he'll believe this."
"Alright, let's go."
Elana nodded and vanished before Kate's eyes, and a large screen appeared on the wall, showing what Elana saw walking out of the submarine.
"Kate, can you hear me?" Her voice sounded in the room.
"Yes." Kate looked up at the ceiling, unsure of why. It seemed like the right thing to do.
"Okay, good. This is peculiar, isn't it?"
"I don't believe there are words to explain this."
Elana walked herself and Kate quickly to Carson's office in the infirmary, and there he was, mulling over the latest reports on the compound now running through Rodney's and Kate's systems.
"Carson."
He looked up, "Kate, what brings you here?"
"First of all my name is Elana Trelio and I have a lot to tell you."
Carson's mouth dropped open.
"My husband is Garin Trelio, who has taken command of Rodney McKay's body. I do not approve of this at all and want to fix this." She took a deep breath and proceeded to tell him her story, but Kate had to take over, it was just too much for Elana to actually say.
---
Radek and Peter were still working, chatting using techno babble, until the text on the screen changed.
Peter exclaimed, "Ha! That's it!"
They started reading, and looked at each other in shock.
Radek broke the silence, "We'd better get Dr. Weir and Major Sheppard down here."
-
"Major Sheppard, we have decrypted the computer, you need to see this. Have Dr. Weir come down also."
John responded to Peter's radio call while he was just outside Elizabeth's office, he wanted to talk to her about the encounter with McKay he had in the hallway, "How bad is it?" He walked into her office.
"Bad enough that Rodney's going to give us all quite a lashing when we get him back."
She saw him walk in, "Major. What's going on?"
"Grodin and Zelenka broke into the computer in 13B, they say it's bad."
They moved out of her office and headed to the transporter, "How bad?"
John entered the coordinates, "Apparently McKay's not going to be too happy with us."
By the time they walked into 13B, Grodin and Zelenka had gotten through most of the text of Garin's computer, talking incessantly.
"Well?" Elizabeth asked since the two scientists had not even noticed that they walked in.
"Oh, yes, you're not going to like this." Peter said.
John was impatient, "Try us."
Radek responded, "Bottom line, Garin is a real person, Dr. Garin Trelio, an Ancient, and has been downloaded into Rodney's mind by this panel here, taking control of all his functions."
"I thought this place couldn't get any weirder." Major Sheppard knew something was wrong with McKay, but never thought about this.
Peter added, "It gets worse. Garin has also downloaded his wife, Elana, into a female member of this expedition."
Elizabeth looked a little in shock, "Excuse me?"
John had a sudden realization, "Heightmeyer."
She turned to him, "Of course, that would explain their behavior," and turned back to Peter and Radek, "Can you reverse it?"
Peter answered, "Yes, but we need to get them down here."
Elizabeth nodded to John, who turned to the side, activated his radio, and started gathering two three person teams, one to find Rodney which he would lead once they wrapped up in the lab and now had Bates leading it, the other to find Kate which he had Ford leading. He explained the situation quickly to them.
"Elizabeth?"
She fluttered her eyes and answered on the radio, "Go ahead, Carson."
"I have an Elana Trelio who needs to speak with you, but the thing is she's in Kate's body-"
"We know already. Is she compliant?"
"They came to me with this revelation about Rodney and Garin."
"Bring her, them, down to 13B. Major Sheppard, and Dr.'s Zelenka and Grodin are already here with me."
"Aye. We'll be right there."
Elizabeth let the others in on what had just transpired, "Carson's bringing Kate, who does indeed have Elana… in her mind."
"Alright then, one down, one to go." John went back to his radio orders, changing them so both teams would be looking for Rodney and Garin.
"Anything else you have to tell me?" She asked the other two men.
Peter stood and walked over to the cabinet, "We've also been working on getting in here. From what we've read about the process, Garin had to have used a mind-suppressing compound in order for a new consciousness to gain precedence over the original."
Elizabeth crossed her arms, "And that cabinet is where he's been keeping it."
"Yes."
"Get back to work then."
Radek continued on the computer while Peter stayed at the cabinet, prying off the keypad and playing with the wires behind it.
John turned back to the group, "Well, unless there's something else I should be aware of…"
"Go ahead." Elizabeth said just as Elana walked in, followed by Carson, the door closing behind them.
Elana held out her hand, "Dr. Weir, I'm Dr. Elana Trelio, I'm terribly sorry this has all happened."
She took it, "So am I."
John started to leave but Elana grabbed his arm, "No! Wait, you don't know the gravity of the situation."
He turned his head and took her hand off his arm, "And what is that?"
Elana sighed, not able to say the words, so Kate took over like she had up in Carson's office at one point, "Garin killed two Ancient Council members after they ordered him to discontinue his work on resurrecting Elana. You should consider him dangerous."
"Heightmeyer? Okay… this just got a whole lot weirder… hold on, you said he killed people?"
The door slid open and Garin was standing there. He took one look around at stared right at Elana, "My own wife has betrayed me," and took off down the hall, Major Sheppard chasing him, but made it to the transporter and closed the doors before John could touch him.
TBC…
