"Hello Radek." Rodney greeted the man before he could say anything. "Glad you finally decided to come to work this morning."

Zelenka waved him away impatiently. "Rodney, it's still early. I am not yet awake to talk to you."

"Works for me, just listen." He tapped the screen impatiently. "What's this?"

"You say to listen, then you ask stupid question." Radek put on his glasses and squinted at the screen. "Numbers."

"Yes, yes, very good, but what is it?"

"What do you mean what is it? Why should I know what it is?"

"Because you were the one last at this particular station according to the log, because your project was on this laptop and led to this screen, now will you please stop pussyfooting and tell me what this means?"

"Are you tailing my projects?"

"Radek. . ."

"I am telling you I do not know! Why do you not believe me?"

Rodney opened his mouth to expel his usual tirade, but halted. Radek was looking at the screen, and his puzzled face was all the proof Rodney needed. "You really don't know about this?"

"No! I am telling you no, but do you listen? It is as always." The smaller man eased his arm in front of Rodney and touched the controls below the screen. The numbers flipped like pages in a book. "I have no idea. This is new."

"What exactly were you working on?"

"I was trying to establish a alternate connection between our sensor array and the. . .wait, look, look at this!" Radek had turned, and was now jabbing his finger at nearby laptop. "It blinked. They all blinked."

"All of them?" The lights above him suddenly dimmed, then brightened.

Rodney spun in his chair and started to run his fingers over the console. "Radek! Run a scan. . ."

"Am doing so!" Radek interrupted, and turned quickly. "We have a problem!"

"What now?"

"I've traced the spike. It is inside the room that houses the water containment facility."

"What?" That was a damned odd place for a spike. Rodney stood and walked over to the laptop which plugged into the console below it. "How?"

"Rodney. . .levels are high." He turned. "It will not shut down."

"Bypass?"

"No."

"Crap!" He leaned over Radek's shoulder, tapping away, then sighed. "This is no good, I'll have to divert the power manually. Call Dr. Weir and tell her what's going on. . .no wait, get up to the control room, you'll have better access to the system from Big Boy up top."

"Right." Zelenka pushed past Rodney as he studied the screen, then took off towards the containment plant.

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The facility, at least what was currently active, was a mere four rooms, three very large and one small. The large rooms housed the storage tanks that held the purified the water coming into the city. Rodney knew there were many more scattered through the various layers of the city, but the city had enough power to run two. The small room he entered was filled with pipes, and on the wall was a small panel.

He slung his pack from his shoulders and pulled out his laptop. The panel popped open, providing the necessary wires to link the control to his computer. Within seconds a grid showed, and he squinted at the exposed crystalline wires within the wall. Okay, this was easy. He reached in, and cursed as sparks spat at him. There was a dull whine, a sound that was not good on so many levels. He heard a frantic voice over his headset, the accent thickening the words, "Rodney! Huge power spike, get out of there! You hear me?"

Oh yeah, he heard.

Right as the wall blew.

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Sheppard was climbing the stairs to the upper level of the gate room when he heard Radek's shout. People rushed around suddenly, and several grunts flew past him down the stairs. Four strides had him at Radek's side. The scientist was calling out orders to anyone near him, and even spun to push John out of the way, until he realized just who it was he was pushing. "What's going on?"

"Water containment blew. The room is flooding."

So they hadn't met their crisis quota for the week. He knew things were going too smoothly. "Can't you just vent the water to the sea?"

Radek shook his head violently. "Internal controls are not responding, we cannot gain access to the doors nor the flue. And Rodney's in there."

"Open the door then! We'll seal. . ."

"Did you not hear? I cannot! The power's down, the door will not open!"

"Shit!" Sheppard was already running.

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There was a hole in the wall. Unfortunately, the wall was on the wrong side of the room, towards the tanks, and the hole too high to vent the water before he was under. Four large feeder pipes were now busted. Water was everywhere. The explosion had flung him back, slamming him painfully into the smaller pipes that dislodged from the wall in the blast and fell around him.

A worried eye was glued to the control panel that still threw sparks. The laptop was now wedged between a u-bend and the wall. Oh god, please don't slip. . .don't slip don't slip wait until I can get up. . . .

His head throbbed. He pulled at his leg uselessly as the water continued to fill the room, reminding him of those seventies disaster movies that were so popular when he was young. He always laughed at them.

He pushed at the pipe holding him down, knowing there was no way in hell he could budge it. "Fuck!" The water was circling his waist. Maybe it would rise and create a floating leverage, but he knew the pipe was too heavy for that. He twisted his body, flailed his arms, used the heel of his boot to heave the bar off, but nothing worked. One tiny part of his body trapped, but it would be enough to keep him under as the water closed in over his head. He keyed his radio again. "Hey! I need help down here!" The water rose to his lower ribs. There was another small burst of power from the downed machine, and the lights went out. "Oh, yeah, great!" Rodney shouted. "That's just great, thanks! At least I won't be electrocuted, that leaves just one way to die! Thanks for narrowing the options!"

The water continued to rise swiftly, more swiftly that he would have thought possible from four pipes. His chest was submerged, and that damned pipe that trapped his ankle wasn't budging a centimeter. He braced himself on the materials behind him and pulled, pulled with all his might until an intensely painful pop caused him to yell out and stop. He could feel the water level with his shoulders, and the urgency of the situation set in. "Oh, christ. Christ!" Panic swelled. He tried to raise himself up with his hands, grabbing the pipe overhead, and managed to get his upper chest out of the liquid, but his slick grip gave way, and he was under. Not only that but when he resurfaced, he realized the water was up to his chin, and he had no way of surpassing it. "Dammit! I need help down here! Ohgod. . ." His eyes were wide as he gasped. This was it? This was how he was going to go? "Jesus f – ' Christ!" His voice was deep with panic. "Somebody help me!" Water filled his mouth and he spat it out, his chin lifted as high as it would go, even higher than his arrogance carried it. Nose toward the ceiling, he gasped for his last breath.

Hands grabbed the back of his head, lifting it higher, and voices yelled over the rush of water. He felt bodies around him, felt excruciating pain around his ankle, heard a mix of voice he couldn't recognize. The water suddenly closed over his face again, throwing him into further panic, and this time there was no relief.

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Radek slammed his hand down and flung his glasses to the table top. He couldn't find it. There was no indication of a power spike that would cause the water containment system to blow. Nothing. He let flow a string curses that his colleagues didn't understand, nor did they need to.

A voice gasped over his radio. "We have him! Tell Carson we're coming!"

"Oh, thank god," Radek raised his hand to his headset, but heard Carson's voice come through, saying he was ready. Radek lowered his head in relief, then raised it to Elizabeth's concerned gaze. He shook his head and resumed his work, sealing off the levels closest to the flooding.

"Radek?" Weir wasn't letting him off that easy. Radek took a deep breath.

"The power spike caused an explosion. I don't know how, or why. I saw it with my own eyes, and now there is nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"There is nothing! No readings, nothing that shows the spike even happened"

"Wait, you're saying there was a power spike large enough to shut down our water containment system, and you can't find it?"

"I am saying just that. As far as this. . ." he flung a hand at the screen, "it never happened."

"Is the water contained?"

"It is."

"How much power did we lose this time?"

Radek checked. "According to this," he said, and slowly turned to Weir. "None. It was rerouted."

Weir studied him for a moment before speaking. "You mean this was deliberate?"

"The city does not reroute power on its own, even under failsafe. Someone had to do it."

"Sabotage." Weir said plainly.

Zelenka shrugged. "Not easy to say. Maybe."