Chapter Seventeen - Insensible

"McKay."

The scientist flinched beneath Sheppard's touch, his shoulder recoiling. Sheppard watched him breath heavily, knelt in the dust, his knees sinking slowly into the sand.

He tried again, keeping his voice soft. "Hey, Rodney."

"No…"

He heard McKay gag, and squeezed the shoulder beneath his hand firmly.

"Doctor McKay." Teyla kept her distance, but allowed her shadow to fall across the sand in front of the physicist. "It was not real."

"We're fine," Aiden ventured, although his voice sounded uncertain.

There was a moment of silence, throughout which McKay continued to breathe heavily, and Sheppard said nothing, allowing his friend to slowly come to terms with the lie.

Eventually, he heard a soft response. "I can't." And then the shoulder stiffened, muscles knotting in the man's back, and McKay jerkily pulled out from under Sheppard's touch and rose, swiping a hand across his eyes quickly.

"That wasn't pleasant." He dropped his hand, and peered at his teammates with a look of hunger. "You're alright?"

"Yeah." Sheppard considered his response, and corrected: "Mostly."

"It was… uncomfortable," Teyla admitted.

"You were in the tank."

"Yeah." Ford was examining his uniform. "The water was rising pretty quickly."

McKay's throat was bobbing threateningly. Wincing in sympathy, Sheppard interrupted: "the door opened and we got out."

"Right." McKay heaved a sigh, and waved a hand expressively. "Because, ah, in my version… you didn't."

"It was not real," Teyla repeated, firmly.

"It was pretty convincing. I couldn't…" Rodney cut off abruptly, turning to look at his surroundings for the first time. "Huh."

Desert.

Sand in the air that caught the back of the throat and stung the eyes. A wind whipping rough against an unprotected face, snatching any breath before each inhale. Sun on the back of the neck, chilled so hot the burn was never felt.

Oh yeah, Sheppard reflected, this feels familiar.

"Where are we?"

Ford looked up at McKay's question and glanced at Teyla. She shook her head, hair falling across her eyes, protecting her from some of the dust.

"I do not recognize this place."

McKay shrugged. "I prefer greener climates."

Sheppard raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun's glare, felt his hand bump against the brim of a hat and tugged the headwear down. "It's Afghanistan."

A barren land lay about them for several miles, rolling, undulating sand that sported a few shriveled shrubs and little else. On the horizon rose towering mountains, great, jagged peaks topped by snow. To the east and below them a small settlement could be seen, clinging to the edges of a shimmering body of water.

"Afghanistan," Teyla said, confused.

"Yeah. Lake Zarbol. Just outside the border with Tajikistan." He tugged the hat down further, hiding his eyes from his team members' gaze.

"It's a place on Earth," Aiden explained, at Sheppard's silence. "It was a war zone, until recently."

"And not for the first time," McKay added. He was starting to regain some color in his face, a hot pink covering the sickly white. One hand provided shelter for his eyes, and he grimaced at the sun's glare. "I wonder what the UV levels are like."

"It's virtual reality," Aiden reminded him. "The sun isn't real. No permanent damage."

He cut off abruptly, but not soon enough to stop a look of horror from flashing across McKay's face. The scientist recovered quickly, plastering another grimace across his face and snapping: "I burn easily. Forgive me for being a little over cautious."

Sheppard gritted his teeth at the whine, feeling tense and irritable. The memory was his, his nightmare to relive, and he didn't want to have to listen to the physicist's hypochondria. Then he cast another look at his friend, seeing the way McKay's eyes refused to lock on to anyone else's, the way his hands fiddled nervously with the straps of his vest.

They had stumbled out of the tank to find themselves in the desert, a helicopter cooling in the sands behind them. McKay had been kneeling in the dirt a few meters away, muttering under his breath and apparently oblivious to their approach.

Guessing what had happened hadn't been hard. Trapped in the room, Sheppard had heard the panic and frustration in the scientist's voice, and although he knew that the loss of knowledge was only temporary, he was not naïve enough to think that it made a difference.

He hadn't shared what McKay had seen, but he could be certain that, for him, it was real enough.

"We should head to the village," he said, breaking out into a stride. Startled, his team followed him, McKay sliding down the loose sand and Ford and Teyla adopting a more practiced, loping gait.

He was trying not to question the position of the chopper, or its proximity to the town ahead. The original mission had involved a two hour trek through the heat, and a tense, close call trying to avoid the rebel look-outs posted at the settlement's border. His memory of events seemed disjointed, holes where details should have been. The game was making it seem easy, but he couldn't shake a deep sense of dread, his stomach roiling in protest.

The tension was shared by his team. Teyla's movement across the desert was elegant, but her gaze continually darted about her, scanning her surroundings for any movement. Ford seemed to have recovered from his return home, but Sheppard could see tightly knotted muscles beneath the younger man's shirt, and a patch of red on his bottom lip where his teeth had drawn blood.

He pulled his gaze away, looking ahead. The town loomed before them, its gray, squat buildings and roads covered in sand. The houses – concrete squares with straw and sacking for roofs – were empty, falling into disuse. The wall of one had been blown away, its innards open to spectators and revealing a torn sofa, tipped over cupboard, an empty bottle of paraffin. Debris littered the road, hollow shells amidst torn scraps of clothing, empty water bottles and crisp packets, and a broken photo frame containing the picture of a bearded man in uniform. They passed what had once been a shop, its contents looted, rotting fruit crushed beneath fallen tables, the sacking roof torn.

On a wall outside, innocuously, someone had placed a stuffed children's toy. A chocolate colored rabbit, its fur rubbed bald in patches, looked out with glass eyes for its missing owner.

Teyla picked it up and cradled it in her hands for a moment, while Sheppard wondered whether anyone was left to come back and claim it.

"This isn't going to be good, is it?" McKay asked, his voice oddly subdued.

He gave a dry, bitter laugh. "Things haven't been so far, have they?"

"I can't keep doing this."

"Then find me another way out," Sheppard shot back, unable to restrain his anger.

McKay flinched.

He winced, scrubbing a hand across his face. "Sorry."

"No, it's… you're right." He heard the scientist sigh heavily. "But I don't know. I keep thinking of Asimov."

"Three rules, right?" Ford asked.

"The purpose of the book was to show how an AI could seem to break the rules given to it without actually doing so. It was an exercise in logic. The situation must be comparable but I can't see the solution."

"Okay," Sheppard allowed, "then we brainstorm."

"We know the Ancients chose to build safeguards into their equipment," Teyla offered. Her feet crunched against a patch of broken glass. "And yet they do not seem to be working here."

McKay shook his head. "We don't know that. The computer may still think it's doing the right thing by the users."

"Then its thinking is wrong," Sheppard pointed out.

The scientist rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious."

"Major," he corrected, impishly.

McKay didn't rise to the bait, his forehead furrowed in deep thought, his hands moving expressively in the air before him. "Assuming nothing had changed since the original instructions were input, the computer should behave exactly as it was designed to. So what's different?"

"Power failure," Sheppard supplied. He glanced up an alley to their left, looking for movement and seeing none. They were in a residential area, but he could see shops lining the street ahead.

"Right," the scientist continued. "The computer shut down one section of the network to support others. But it won't allow anyone to leave the game." He shook his head, mumbling snatches of thoughts under his breath. "I don't understand. You jerked out – probably due to the stronger gene – explains why we can't but…"

"Doc," Ford interrupted thoughtfully, "what's the third rule?"

"Huh?"

"You told us the first and the second, but what's the third?"

"Oh." McKay frowned. "Well, if the Major here hadn't interrupted me…" He cut off, his face lighting up, fingers clicking triumphantly. "Oh, yes, of course. I.."

His explanation was interrupted by the distant rattle of machine gun fire. Sheppard was aware of Aiden flinching, of McKay protectively pressing himself against a wall.

"Weapons fire." Teyla glanced at Sheppard, looking concerned. "Is this how events played originally?"

"Yeah," he answered, his fingers closing around the butt of his gun. "Told us where the hide-out was." He didn't mention that the shots had been a warning, punishment for a failed escape attempt, that one man now lay dying as a result.

"Hide-out?" Ford asked.

The village was one of the few remaining strongholds of a fierce pocket of resistance. Its inhabitants had long since fled to the nearest town, or to hide in the surrounding desert, but some remained. Those too weak, too old, or too stubborn to move, eking out an existence in the skeleton of their homes. They survived under the fire of both sides, venturing out rarely, no longer caring that both groups fought in their name.

Sheppard had spent four nights there, having narrowly escaped a crash when his chopper had come down on the village outskirts. He had been rescued by friendly troops, and sheltered by them until his rescue.

A month later he had returned, trying to provide his own rescue to the remaining cluster of those same men. It was here he had defied orders, his team creeping through the abandoned streets and hiding in the doorways of forgotten buildings.

Of the four, Stevenson had never made it back, Jacobs had left on disability, and Sheppard and Allen had both been forced to choose between the air force equivalent of a desk job or early retirement. Allen had taken the latter, dropping a single, apologetic letter to the pilot before cutting off communication entirely.

It was easier, that way.

"We should split up," he announced, casting a glance in the direction of the weapons fire.

Ford stared at him, looking confused. "Sir?"

"The game wants us to play this round together, because that's the way it was the first time." He gave a grim, brittle smile. "I'm not going to give it the satisfaction."

"What happened?" Rodney asked, looking anxiously up and down the street.

"Rescue op turned sour. We were outnumbered."

"Back-up?" Ford asked.

"It wasn't exactly a sanctioned mission, Lieutenant."

"People died," Teyla said, softly.

"Yeah." He looked away, listening intently. The gunfire had stopped, the town was silent. "We got some out."

No one had lied to the review board, and claimed it justified their actions. Four men went in to rescue twelve and only eight returned, in pieces. It was a decision he would make again, repeating his father's mantra, 'you never leave a man behind.' But here, trapped in an artificial re-imagining of events, he started to doubt the validity of his choice.

"I'm not sure splitting up's such a good idea." McKay licked his lips nervously. "As long as we stay together we can ensure we're all experiencing the same thing."

"We tried that last time," Sheppard pointed out dryly, then regretted it when the scientist took a defensive step back, folding his arms across his chest. "Look, if we can't leave this thing then at least we can try and control part of it. Last time my team was here we entered the square as a single unit, and it was an easier target."

"What about safety in numbers?" McKay mumbled.

"What if the computer compensates?" Teyla asked. "Your last attempt to halt the game was not successful."

He flinched at the reminder, forcing his mind away from thoughts of hospitals and disinfectant. "It's worth a shot," he argued, haunted by the memory of Jacobs' screams, and the blank, glazed expression over Stevenson's dead face.

"It's a bad idea," McKay muttered, hugging himself tighter.

He responded without thinking, snapping: "Last I checked, I'm in charge."

The physicist lifted an accusing gaze towards him, and then looked away, snorting and pushing himself away from the wall.

Sheppard turned, ignoring him. "Teyla, Lieutenant. Take this alley and follow it until you come to a wide road. It'll lead you directly to the town square. Keep to the shadows, and be careful." It was easy to fall into a pattern, allowing the words to fall from his lips as though the mission had only been the day before. "Most of the enemy are protecting the border and they're not expecting an ambush. As far as they know, their hostages are assumed dead, and they're not intending to announce otherwise until they become useful."

Ford nodded. Teyla looked unhappy, but acquiesced with a simple tilt of her head.

"Where are they?" Aiden asked.

McKay groaned despairingly, shaking his head. "You're not going along with this, Lieutenant?"

Aiden shrugged, helplessly. "Seems like the right thing to do." He glanced at Teyla. "Doesn't it?"

She frowned, but nodded, slowly. "It seems… right, yes."

"But they're not real!" the scientist protested. "Those men are just constructs of the game, simulations of the people the Major rescued. They're not real, they're not in danger, but we are!"

Sheppard growled, his hand itchy over the gun, torn between the memory of the dead soldiers and the deep rooted imperative that yes, this was real, and he had to act now or more would die. A very small, rational voice in his head tried to repeat that McKay was right, that this was insanity – but another rattle of distant gunfire effectively silenced it. "You stick with me, McKay, and you keep your damn mouth shut, alright?"

McKay, pale, shot him a dark glare, and turned away.

Aiden shifted his weight between his feet. "Sir…"

Sheppard had a flash of Jacobs, eager expression on a young face, too young to end his career in a hospital bed.

"Sir, what's our target?"

He took a deep breath before explaining. "The rebels are holed up in an old cinema with our men as prisoners. There are eight in the building, two on the roof, so we outnumber them, but they've got our weapons. We've got surprise." Then he added: "We can do this, because we did it before."

"But this time you wish to divide us?" Teyla asked, looking concerned. "Major, Doctor McKay raises a valid question. Do you honestly believe that anything we do here will make a difference to our survival?"

No, screamed the voice in his head, but the memory of the battle was too fresh, the environment too real. Sheppard remembered the way his uniform had been caked with blood and sand, the look of amazement and relief on the hostage's faces when his team had arrived for them.

"It gives us control," he replied, tightly. "You have your orders, Lieutenant."

A myriad of emotions crossed Aiden's face, before the younger man closed them all down, and stiffly drew himself to attention. "Yes, sir." He moved into the alley, Teyla beside him, but paused for a moment, his control wavering. "See you in the next game, I guess?"

Sheppard wanted to close his eyes and hide from Ford's fear, and Teyla's reproach. "Sooner than that," he replied, with faux confidence.

Ford nodded, then disappeared down the alley. Teyla followed, their two figures melting into the long shadows.

Pausing to glance at McKay, Sheppard took a left turn and started trotting quickly down a street, not waiting to see if the scientist followed.

He knew he wasn't alone from the puffing, and the muttered, "bad, bad idea," from behind him.

"Change the record, McKay," he shot back, concentrating on the road.

"No," his friend hissed back, "I won't. You realize they're as good as dead?"

Sheppard clenched his jaw and ground out: "Nobody dies in here."

"You know what I mean!"

They pulled up into the shadow thrown by an imposing two storey apartment block. A large, battered Coca Cola sign covered one wall, its colors faded in the sunlight. McKay looked around the empty street, twitching at any sign of movement, at every flutter of sacking or blown swirl of sand.

Sighing, Sheppard told him: "Relax. There's no danger."

"No?" Rodney glared at him. "Less than ten minutes ago I thought you were all dead! And I know, I know that isn't possible, I know all the computer can do is drive us insane, not kill us – but it can mess with our heads, make us forget where we are." His breath was coming quick and fast, his voice rising in volume. "Or do you think it's fun, being repeatedly tricked into thinking all your friends are dead, and that you're the one who killed them!"

Sheppard shook his head, repressing a pang of sympathy for the scientist. He had heard the terror in McKay's voice, although he couldn't see him from the tank, he could guess at how much his friend had panicked thinking his genius had deserted him at the one moment he needed it the most.

But McKay had lost control, he told himself, and this was his attempt at getting it back. The game couldn't take everything from them, he wouldn't let it.

There was a long, tense silence. McKay broke it quietly.

"The characters we're playing, they're all dead, aren't they?"

He grimaced at the words. "They're not characters, this isn't a movie. They were my friends."

"And how many of them died?" McKay pressed. "Even if we split up, we can't change the rules of the game. So you tell me Major, what do you think will happen?"

A burst of static from his earpiece answered the question.

"Major, Doctor McKay, please respond!"

Sheppard slapped a hand to his radio. "We're here, Teyla. What's going on?"

"We were spotted by the enemy when we entered the central square, Major." She sounded breathless, and Sheppard could hear a thumping noise, and guessed she was running. "There are four men on the roof of the cinema and another two on the building opposite. They are all armed. Lieutenant Ford is…"

There was a pause, and the distant sound of a scream, and the thud of a body hitting the dirt.

McKay looked like he was going to throw up.

"Lieutenant Ford has disabled one of the gunmen," Teyla continued. "But we are still under fire. What should we do?"

McKay looked up at Sheppard, his eyes wide. "Tell them to retreat, before one of them is killed!"

John looked through him, thinking of the smell of the cinema, of the pervading scent of crushed sugar over the rich copper tang of blood. Then he was moving, running down the street, a surprised McKay following him. "Hold on, Teyla. See if you can get around to the back of the cinema, there's a sloping roof which will protect you from enemy fire."

"What?" McKay demanded, panting, struggling to keep up. "What are you doing? Tell them to get out of there!"

He shook his head, his thinking muddled, struggling to hear McKay's words. "This is what we do, McKay, this is what soldiers do! We don't leave men behind!"

"They're not real!" the scientist repeated, pleadingly. "Dammit, Major, the computer is in your head, making you think that this matters but it doesn't! Don't put them through this!"

"Major!" Ford sounded distant, his voice strained. "I've taken out two of the men sir, but the rebels know we're here. I don't know how we're going to get into the building without…"

"I'm coming," he interrupted, his legs pounding against the ground. "You and Teyla stay close to the cinema and keep out of their angle. They're not used to those weapons, they're bad aims."

"Major, we will not be able to get inside." Teyla paused, and the sound of alarmed shouts and gun shots came loud over the radio. "We must abandon our position!"

"Stand your ground!" he ordered, desperate, willing his legs to move faster, to drive him to the square. But the road stretched out before him, the buildings morphing and shifting before his eyes, the sand dragging his feet down. His muscles started to burn with the effort, sweat dripping down his back, the sun's heat burning the back of his neck. McKay was lagging, constantly wiping his forehead with his free hand whilst the other clutched at his gun.

He turned his head towards the direction of the square, one road and a short alley to his right. He could see the white outline of a minaret, towering above the central space. Across from the mosque he could visualize the cinema building, its walls painted a gaudy yellow, its innards torn apart, seats uprooted and curtains torn and hostages – men, good men, soldiers and friends – crouching amidst the wreckage with their hands to their heads and…

"Major!"

McKay grabbed his arm and hauled him around so hard he stumbled. The scientist was a bright pink and panting heavily, sweat dripping from his forehead. He looked at Sheppard with desperation.

"It's a game, Major!"

The world around him seemed to shrink into that moment. The road seemed claustrophobic, the brilliant blue sky a low ceiling above his head, the buildings on either side of the street clustering threateningly close.

The radio exploded with the sound of gunfire, of bullets ricocheting off concrete and metal. It lasted a few seconds, and then fell silent.

McKay was the first to move, his hand shaking as it rose to touch his radio. "Teyla? Lieutenant Ford?"

There was no reply.

Sheppard was frozen, unable to move, listening to McKay repeat the call once, twice, three more times. At the fourth he interrupted. "Stop it."

Rodney turned to look at him, his hand falling from the radio. "But…"

"You were right." He closed his eyes. "But nobody dies in here."

"No." The scientist's voice was barely above a whisper. "Nobody dies. The computer has safeguards to prevent that." He dragged one arm across his eyes and shouted, his voice rough: "I can't keep doing this, Major!"

"They're alright," Sheppard said, softly. "They've just moved onto the next game."

"Game." McKay choked a laugh. "No wonder that Ancient went insane."

He swallowed, his throat feeling gritty and scratched. "I just… I wanted to control part of it."

"You can't."

"No." And he thought of Stevenson, and Jacobs, and Allen, and the men who had fallen during their rescue.

Slowly he lifted his head to look at McKay.

There was a very quiet zipping sound in the air beside his right ear. McKay's expression changed abruptly to one of startled confusion, his eyes growing large and staring in astonishment at Sheppard. Blood blossomed over his forehead from a hole above his left eyebrow.

Then he fell.

Sheppard caught him around the waist and managed to lower the body to the ground awkwardly. He didn't look for a pulse. The entry wound was small, but the exit wasn't. He looked away from the red and gray on the sand and concentrated his gaze on McKay's blue eyes. Glazed and open and staring, just like Stevenson.

Above them, a dark shape moved quickly across a rooftop. Sheppard thought that then, he should have been running, trying to escape. But he didn't, and the shape disappeared, and there were no more quiet zips.

He sat for a long moment, gripping his friend's hand, as blood pooled around the body.

No wonder that Ancient went insane.

His mind, rebelling against the twisted nightmare it was being forced to experience, decided quite calmly to vacate the area.

Sand swirled around the pair, spun up into miniature tornados by the hot air, picking up the odd scrap of paper or empty packet of chips and carrying it into a strange, alien dance. The sun beat down upon his neck and baked the earth, his eyes closing against its glare.

Not again, he told himself. Distance was easiest, simpler to hide behind a wall of emotional divorce and not be involved. Not to bottle up more grief, and drive it down in an effort to survive. Losing more and more pieces of himself on the battlefield, driving himself forward because he had to, because stopping, just for a second, would get him killed.

And yet here he was, repeating history in a familiar desert.

An explosion rocked the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air. He could hear footsteps, and knew that the rebels were coming for him, tossing Teyla and Ford and McKay's bodies aside and taking him, using him as another hostage. Using him as an example to the others, a demonstration of failure. Slowly, mechanically, he pulled his hand away from his friend's face, and untangled their fingers. He dragged himself to his feet to scan the battlefield.

"Major?"

A hand touched his shoulder.

Sheppard turned so fast he slipped, landing on his ass painfully, kicking out with his feet to push himself away from the enemy, raising his gun just a second before recognition set in.

Teyla. Ford. Back in the OS. And behind them, McKay, white as a sheet, muscles tensed so tight that a vein could be seen throbbing in his neck.

Sheppard stared at them, frozen to the spot.

"Major." Teyla again, softly. He looked up at her, then back down at the weapon in his hands, and dropped it guiltily.

In a sudden, violent burst of energy McKay pushed past both his teammates to stand over Sheppard, and stretched out his hand. After the briefest hesitation Sheppard reached out and gripped his friend's wrist tightly, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Then he stood a few inches away from McKay, staring into his face, drinking it in, gripping the man's warm, and very real arm tightly.

McKay was trembling, his eyes unable to look into Sheppard's, flicking to the ground, his skin as pale as a corpse.

Repulsed, Sheppard pulled away, snatched his hand back and spat onto the floor. "Fuck." Yelled at his shadow: "FUCK!"

"Language," McKay reprimanded, barely audible.

He took a breath, then another, swallowing his fear and grief and rage and pushed it back down for later nightmares and abuse on the walls of Atlantis. Turning, he offered his team his best smile, weak as dishwater.

"Sorry. Maybe I should start a swear box, huh?"

"You and Zelenka both. I found a dictionary in the linguist's lab and it turns out his mouth is a lot more poetic when he's speaking Czech."

McKay received a feeble chuckle for his trouble. Turning away, Sheppard raked a hand through his hair fiercely, released a shudder.

"We have to get out of here. Before I go nuts."