Part 2
"You know I have more important things to do that walk around in the dark mapping empty rooms," McKay ranted to himself, irritated that he had to play at what he perceived as babysitting.
"You're not the only one, Rodney," Carson added tiredly. He held his light and splashed it over the walls of another waterlogged empty laboratory. It held work benches, glass instruments and bottles and a few console panels like they had seen in countless other abandoned labs across the city. Like the majority of the other labs, it appeared more geared toward basic sciences than weapon development whether energy dependent or biologics.
"It's your fault you know," Rodney chided irritated that Carson was right. They all had better things to do than wander aimlessly around the city mapping its every nook and cranny. Why not have some of the Athosian kids do it? With a little guidance in what to look for and stay away from, the kids would have had Atlantis mapped and surveyed in no time and probably enjoy doing it.
Children were irritating and unpredictable.
"Of course it is," Beckett's resigned concurrence clearly indicated anything but agreement.
"It is, you know," Rodney continued. "You've been pouting around here for a month, biting people's heads off, keeping to yourself, being an all around pain," McKay marked the room on his data pad and backed away toward the door where Beckett stood leaning against the door frame. "Weir and Sheppard probably sent me down here with you so I could figure out what's eating at you."
"Uh, huh," Beckett agreed disinterested in the conversation, "because you have such an open and warm friendly personality," Carson pointed out.
"Well, compared to you these last few weeks," McKay pointed out, "I've been the fairy Godmother of open friendliness." The scientist strode past Beckett and into the hallway "So tell me, what's eating at you? Your 'mum' send you a nasty note? Didn't make your bed before you left? Left dirty socks by the door?" Rodney sighed quietly to himself as he continued to walk. He hadn't meant for his words to sound as snide and as mocking as they came across.
Sullivan and O'Connor shared unease glances. Even in the deep shadows that enveloped the small group, they could see the quick anger flashing to the surface of the quiet medical doctor.
McKay's unverbalized apology was shut down before he had a chance to articulate it.
"Knock off, Rodney," Beckett snapped. "If yer so damn unhappy about it, why don't you take Sullivan or O'Connor here and jist go back to your lab and let me do this myself?" Carson grated, "I'll probably get it done a damn sight faster without having to listen to all your whingin'."
Rodney kept walking down the middle of the intensely dark corridor with Sullivan trailing dutifully behind him. Their flash lights barely made a dent in the overwhelming darkness. "Keep moving Carson. You're holding us up."
Beckett bit his tongue and nailed the retreating astrophysicist with a deadly glare, "Cheeky bastard."
The two scientists and marines headed deeper into the dark bowels of Atlantis.
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Sheppard, Ronan and Teyla snaked around another corner and came to a startled halt.
"Shit," Sheppard muttered. His eyes immediately began scanning the area, ignoring the torn and dismembered bodies that littered the blood soaked floor, searching for whatever might have been responsible.
"Not good," Ronan answered, slipping beside Sheppard and listening intently for any hint of sound.
Teyla hit her comlink, "We will not need medical. Please send more soldiers and someone to collect bodies."
"Parts and pieces," Sheppard clarified. He stepped forward, his P-90 at ready. He lifted a leg and stepped gingerly over a severed arm. Blood congealed and clotted like jelly on the floor and ran in thick rivulets down once pristine walls. The walls were splattered and sprayed at amazingly high heights, as if a mad spray painter had gone wild. It marked the power of frantic hearts as they pumped their last drops of blood as bodies died.
"Oh God," a young soldier muttered. The sounds of vomiting followed shortly after.
Sheppard hit his comlink, "I want all teams searching the city brought back in. Zelenka?"
"Here, Major," the Czech's heavily accented voice carried softly over the ear pieces.
"Colonel," Sheppard corrected, "I want you to start searching for life signs; what ever did this isn't human."
There was a pause. Back in the gate room Zelenka stared at his computer, trying to figure out how he would search for something when he didn't know what he was searching for. However, this was not the time for semantics, "Yes, Major, working on it now."
In the gateroom, Weir watched as Zelenka began typing in search parameters.
"Colonel," Sheppard muttered to himself as he stepped over the gutted torso of what might have been one of his men.
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"Did you hear that?" McKay asked, stopping short and jerking his flash light to the left.
Beckett was forced to stop short as well, landing a foot solidly in a puddle. His frustration rose a notch. "What now, Rodney?" His displeasure was not cleverly disguised. Water soaked through the seams of his hiking sneakers. He lifted his foot from the unseen puddle and shook it, muttering dark comments about girly Canadians that faint.
"Shh," Rodney waved his hand in a quieting motion, which neither man could truly see.
Beckett sighed tiredly.
"Shut up," Rodney hissed.
"You're the only one talking," Beckett hissed back. He felt his pulse quicken as silence blanketed the thick blackness.
"Shut up, will you?" Rodney whispered back. The urgency in his voice had the hairs on Carson's neck standing up.
The two men stood still in deafening silence.
Sullivan and O'Connor stepped around the scientists and raised their P90s.
Four flash light beams weakly cut through the darkness that blanketed them.
Eyes strained as pupils dilated, trying to capture as much light as possible.
McKay could hear the frantic beat of his own pulse roar through his ears. His breath felt unnaturally loud as he forced himself to breath through his nose.
Then he heard it. Clicking. Three clicks then three more. One right after another.
Click---click---click then click---click---click. Like nails on a floor. He had a girl friend briefly, all of two days, who owned a dog. It had long nails. They clicked on the floor when it walked across her kitchen. He never had breakfast in that kitchen or in that apartment, or with that girlfriend, for that matter. She wasn't much of a girlfriend.
The clicking sound seemed to be moving closer.
"Aye, I hear it," Beckett whispered softly. His voice sounded intrusively loud.
"Sounds like nails on a floor," Rodney suggested.
There was a brief pause, as the clicking was disrupted by a soft splash as if something stepped into a puddle.
"Or claws," Beckett offered.
The marines tensed. Leave it to scientists to come up with worse case scenarios.
"I think maybe we should go," McKay stated backing up a step with his arm out forcing Carson back a step as well.
"I think you might be right," Beckett agreed.
O'Connor and Sullivan shared a quick glance through the gloom. Commonsense in the face of danger seemed a bit out of character for doctors.
The four men began walking backward. Neither doctor articulated their fear of turning their back on the unusual noise that lay unseen before them.
Rodney twisted the material of Beckett's coated arm. The medical doctor gripped the shoulder of McKay's coat slowly tugging the man backward with him.
Two stepped together, each foot placing down simultaneously with the other. The marines backed away P90s leveled. "McKay, Doc. if we tell you to go, you go," O'Connor stated in a demanding whisper. "You understand me?"
Both McKay and Beckett nodded.
"He can't hear you nod your heads," Sullivan pointed out not bothering to look over his shoulder at the two civilians.
"Aye," Beckett whispered in acknowledgement and in affirmation to both statements.
Both held their flashlights aimed at the end of the corridor where it turned to the left. Their lights grew dimmer as they slowly distanced themselves from the noise.
"You got a weapon?" Rodney asked softly.
"Just my brain," Beckett answered.
"We're doomed," McKay muttered.
"Don't worry, Docs, you've got us," Sullivan nodded with a bit cocky grin.
"Oh great, bacon boy from Montana 's gonna go cowboy on us," McKay muttered while still stepping cautiously backward with his grip twisted in Beckett's coat.
"Yippie Kiayaa," Sullivan answered back. His humor was dampened by his tone and tense set of his muscles.
The four men strained their eyes, fighting the blackness that bled around flashlights. The corridor end was becoming increasingly dimmer.
They couldn't hear the clicking as they stepped backward as one.
"Maybe it's gone," Beckett stated with near muted hopefulness.
"Maybe…," Rodney's response was cut short when a dark shadow slowly stepped from around the corner and stood at the end of the hall facing them.
Through the heavy grey light cast by their flash lights, they could clearly make out the exoskeletal bipedal that stood closer to 7 feet than it did six. The scaled head and large vertical oval eyes held Rodney's gaze for a moment before moving to Carson.
The geneticist shuddered as genome sequences ran through his head. Thoughts of running PCR and testing the s16 mRNA flashed to the forefront as he stared at the heavily muscled and sinewy creature before him. He marveled at what appeared to be exoskeleton black plating. Obviously for protection, yet soft enough that defined individual muscles could be seen moving fluidly under the natural shield.
Beckett swallowed hard, frozen in place as the creature focused its gaze back on McKay. Carson tightened his grip on his friend's jacket, fisting and twisting it painfully in his clenched hand, effectively anchoring himself to the Canadian and pulling McKay further back from whatever stood at the end of the corridor.
McKay matched his grip.
"Claws," Beckett muttered to himself. Three sharply curved claws adorned each toe and finger. The doctor's eyes ran up the creature's legs naming the easily discernable muscles under the shiny black scales. Cranial tibialis, the Long digital extensor, Caudal crural abductor, names popped into his brain followed by their insertion, innervation and function.
Beckett sometimes really disliked how his mind worked.
He briefly wondered if it happened to McKay when he looked at the night sky and saw constellations or when he watched something power up.
"Think its vegetarian?" Beckett asked hopefully.
"Why don't you go down and test it?" McKay offered.
"I'd rather you do it; I'll take notes on my observations," Beckett returned.
The two marines shook their heads. The continued bickering was almost soothing.
The four watched as the creature peeled its near invisible lips back revealing rows of pointed incisors dwarfed only by obvious upper and lower carnasal teeth.
"Oh God, dead men standing," Rodney muttered.
"Aye," Beckett agreed softly.
"Go! Go! Go!" O'Connor ordered as he and Sullivan squeezed the triggers of their P90s.
With unspoken agreement, Beckett and McKay turned and ran.
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"What do you mean you can't contact them!" Sheppard lashed out verbally as he paced the control room floor.
"Something must be blocking our transmissions," The Canadian at the console explained just as heatedly.
The colonel whirled around ready for fight, "Grodin would have found them," Sheppard bit out.
"I'm not Peter Grodin," the Canadian cracked back, tired of being compared to the legendary and God like person of one Peter Grodin.
"Enough Gentlemen!" Weir slammed her hand down on a console. "Colonel, get some men together and go find them."
"About damn time," Sheppard hurrumpphed. His men were already together. Ronan and Teyla stood just within the doorway of the gate room and seven marines loaded for bear waited just outside the door.
"Anything, Radek?" Sheppard ask his tone losing its deathly edge when addressing the Czech.
"Nada," Zelenka shook his head.
"Let me know if you get something." Sheppard turned his attention to Weir, "We're heading out."
"Be careful, John," she said as she watched him disappear out the door. "And bring them back safe," she added just loud enough for her own ears.