Part 7
"Where'd you think this goes?" Rodney panted. The duct was ominously dark. The last flashlight had been turned off to conserve the batteries and hope that perhaps the creature wouldn't be able to find them.
But between the noise Beckett made dragging Rodney through the crawl space and the sound of his breathing, McKay held little hope that they would remain undiscovered for long.
"Away from that room," Beckett puffed out.
Rodney rolled his eyes.
After a few more steps Carson finally stopped and eased Rodney's upper body down. Beckett leaned heavily against the wall of the duct. He was nauseated from the exertion and a crushing headache that pierced his eyes.
"Why're we stopping?" Rodney asked, carefully craning his head to stare at the doctor.
"I need a rest," Carson explained.
"I thought you highlanders were tough," Rodney gritted out, "Burning casts and chasing sheep."
"I swear, Rodney, you are an irritating ass."
"Still doesn't answer my question." McKay knotted a bloody fist into his wound.
"You didn't ask one," Beckett snapped back, trying hard to catch his breath. His back and shoulders ached miserably and his legs shook from exertion.
"Thought you came from a line of fishermen?" Rodney pointed out.
"Aye, my dad and a bucket full of uncles were fishermen," Beckett clarified, "I am not."
"Your mom a fisherman too?" McKay joked.
An uncomfortable and tense silence met his remark. It stretched for an uncomfortable amount of time, nearly forcing an apology from McKay.
"Aye, she was hell of catfish person," Carson answered reverently. "We'd go catfishing together along the muddy banks of the creek just behind our home." Beckett leaned his head back against the cool material of the duct and closed his eyes, adding a deeper sense to the blackness around him. His stomach swam and vertigo swamped him. He swallowed carefully and opened his eyes. Carson could remember those horrible days spent struggling through his work, fighting for every page he read, every patient he treated. But at night, when he'd wander home, his mom would be waiting with a wicker basket and their fishing poles. She always seemed to know when he was at his wits end and on those nights she'd meet him at the door, put the pole in his hands, and together they'd go fishing, no matter his protests.
"Hey, you ready? That goon still out there," Rodney whispered, shattering Beckett's memories of home.
McKay didn't want to hear anymore about Beckett's perfect childhood. He survived just fine with parents who tried to shed him off like beaded rain off an umbrella.
Without a word, Beckett pushed himself slightly unsteadily to his feet and, with a groan, reached for McKay.
They traveled silently through the ducts in near suffocating darkness. Their harsh breath seemed intrusive. The deafening silence was getting to Beckett.
"Did you know Ostriches and pigeons don't have gall bladders?" Carson asked.
Rodney was taken aback by the non-sequitor. "Why would you even know something like that?" Rodney asked slightly frightened--perhaps Beckett had been hit a bit harder on the head than McKay originally suspected.
"I read it once, some psittiscines lack gall bladders too." Carson paused gasping for breath speaking had stolen, "no use running post prandalial bile acids on them."
"You're a freak Carson, you know that? A freak."
"Aye, maybe, but you'd be the one to know," Beckett pointed out.
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Sheppard stared at the others, "I never really thought about it."
"What is an Ostrich?" Telya inquired
"A big bird," Zelenka offered.
"Can it be eaten?" Ronan asked.
The new Canadian shot sideway glances at the others and hunkered down closer to his computer.
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Beckett shuffled backward through the duct, dragging McKay with him.
He could feel the slight shivers that shook McKay's frame and could imagine that the body was beginning to shunt blood from the extremities to the central core, increase muscle tremors, all in an attempt to raise body heat. He was developing an infection and going into shock.
Carson kept trudging backward, unsure how to get back to the lighted part of the city but knowing Rodney needed help and soon.
"Please, Carson, stop," Rodney muttered. His voice effectively conveyed his pain and weakness.
Beckett nodded to himself and gently eased McKay to the ground, "Aye, Rodney, we'll stop, but just for a bit."
"Any more bizarre bird facts?" Rodney mumbled.
"Aye, if you do a pancreatectomy on a carnivorous bird they become hyperglycemic, virtually diabetic because their pancreas is more geared to insulin production, but if you remover the pancreas from a granivorous bird they become hypoglycemic because their pancreas are more geared toward glucogen production.
"Stop, Carson, just, just, stop talking, please," Rodney muttered closing his eyes, "I'm sorry I asked."
"Aye, they're good deep fried too." Beckett muttered to himself. He groaned as he bent over to lift McKay's shoulder again to start to drag him further away from monster that hunted them.
"Pancreas or the birds?"
"Both."
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"That's disgusting," Sheppard stated making a face at the screen. He'd make it a point not to eat anything else that he didn't recognize in one of Mrs. Beckett's care packages. Sheppard paused and furrowed his brow. Mrs. Beckett hadn't sent one last month, or else the doc was hoarding it.
"I've got them," the young Canadian announced.
As a group Sheppard, Weir, Dex and Teyla moved from the blackened lap top monitor to the second computer monitor which showed two blue overlapping dots and a distant but closing third dot.
"Third level, section 2 near the West pier."
"Can we get there yet, Radek?" Sheppard asked, turning from the Canadian to the Czech scientist.
"Atlantis still won't let us in."
"Damn it," Sheppard muttered.
"It is getting closer to them," Telya pointed out.
"It knows where they are," Dex stated.
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"Carson, stop, please, stop," McKay's soft, winded pleas had Beckett halting again.
"Okay, okay," Carson placated, easing Rodney down flat on the duct floor. He ran his fingers lightly over McKay's wound and could feel the stickiness of fresh blood. He was going to end up killing McKay before the creature did.
"Think your mom would take me catfishing?" McKay mumbled between short gasps of breath. He rolled his head to the side trying to touch his cheek to the cool metal below him. It struck him as contrary how his body was cold but his face felt hot--even his breath felt heated as it coarsed over dry lips.
Carson sighed, "I fear you might have missed your chance," he muttered, separating himself from McKay and searching the area with his hands and strained eyes. "But she would have. She'd out fish the devil himself if given half a chance," Beckett chuckled, focusing his attention on a spot of dark grey just down aways to the right. Carson stared at it for a bit, his mind wandering back to his mother sitting alone at the kitchen table reading old letters his father had written to her while out at sea. "Think that's how she kept the memory of him alive," he muttered to himself.
Carson got behind McKay again, "Come on Rodney, only a little farther and then we'll stop." Beckett reached under Rodney's shoulders again and started his slow painful shuffle toward the speck of grey light.
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"He saying Rodney's going to die?" Sheppard asked the room in general.
"Maybe it's his mom who's passed away," the Canadian pointed out.
"No, She's alive and living in a small town up north in Scotland," Weir offered.
Zelenka's drawn out, "oh," drew their attention. It sounded as if he had made some sort of mental connection. As if an elusive concept finally made sense.
"You find away in to them?" Sheppard asked
The scientist stared at his computer screen, unsure if he should mention what he knew, which could possibly explain the uncharacteristic behavior of the chief medical officer.
"Not yet, Major." Radek answered. He'd keep his suspected information to himself.
"Colonel," Sheppard sighed tiredly.
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Beckett pried the grate out of place and set it aside. He carefully poked his head down into the room and searched it. His eyes adjusted to a deeper darkness, easily making out different shapes and instruments and tables in the ill lighted room.
It looked like a second infirmary. Smaller than the one they used in the inhabited side of the city, but this one had windows looking over the ocean. Their source of light.
The sun was setting.
They had been traveling for hours.
"Okay, Rodney, looks good, I think I can get some supplies and maybe patch you up a little better. I'll be right back."
Rodney merely nodded his head, not truly caring. His world had been reduced to a hazy plane of agony and random thoughts.
Beckett sighed, worry pulling at him enough that he disregarded his own safety. The doctor dropped heavily into the room below. He staggered to the side, bumped into a bed and leaned heavily on it, trying to regain his sense of balance.
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"They've separated," the Canadian reported.
"We can see that," Sheppard said.
They watched as the melded two dots separated and one moved away but kept within a few meters radius of the other. They listened as Carson spoke softly to himself, looking for supplies that might prove helpful to Rodney.
"Oh no," the Canadian muttered. He pointed needlessly to the larger third dot.
The five watched as the third dot seemed to move closer to Beckett's moving dot. The group listened intently as Dr. Beckett spoke to himself, gathering, supplies seemingly unaware of the impending danger.
"Shouldn't he see it?" Teyla asked.
"It's in the room with him," Dex stated.
The group turned as one to the computer screen which showed the doctor moving about the grey lit room.
They could not make out the creature either.
Then they saw it. It stood behind Beckett flush to a wall, its black exoskeleton nothing more than a deeper shadow with a hint of an outline.
"What the Hell is going on?" Sheppard asked, tightening his grip on his P-90 as he watched Beckett walk past the creature which stood camouflaged against the wall.
"Radek, find us a way in there," Weir ordered in a hushed, tensed voice.