Welcome to the Machine
"Dr. McKay, welcome to the Labyrinth."
McKay calmly, at least outwardly, looked around the huge lab. It was too organic, too vein like, too spidery. "Um, what's your name?"
"Forgive me sir." He said it like 'suh'. "I'm Jae Berje or as everyone- whether they are a friend or foe- calls me, Papa Jae."
"Well, Papa Jae," Rodney informed him in his best condescending tone, "Col. Sheppard won't be able to help with the technology in this room. Like to know why?"
"Of course sir," answered Papa Jae inappropriately amused.
"This is a Wraith lab."
"That would explain a lot. But…you see doctor, the colonel has already interacted with the equipment I was interested in and successfully turned it on."
Then the dread infected his mouth and he stammered, "Wha…where…how…?" He closed his eyes and started again. "Where is Col. Sheppard?"
"Follow me."
Bama grabbed him by the upper arm and led him practically on tiptoes across the room. It was easily as big as football field. Not all parts were seen immediately. Papa showed him to an alcove in a secluded corner. Within, were a group of…he would not say scientists…assistants- maybe. His benefactor stopped to watch and listen to the conversation.
"That's not right."
"…off the scale…"
"Can we just stop the program?"
McKay stepped closer and looked at the entire room. He knew who was in there of course; he just was not ready to see him in that state.
"…should just let the program run."
And with complete idiots running the device and no one paying any attention to Sheppard's frantic convulsions and the fact he was awake- Rodney felt sick.
He broke away from Bama and pushed the assistants out of the way. He felt sicker. The monitor told a story of taking the body to the brink and back quickly, efficiently and repeatedly. This machine held no benevolent purpose. It was Wraith after all. Then he saw it flashing lazily in the corner of the screen. An abort. He went to press it.
A thick veined arm grabbed him around the neck and choked off his air supply.
"Whatever are you doin' doctor?" Papa Jae asked leisurely.
The arm loosened a little.
"That's an end game program…it's a torture device! It's not Ancient, Ancestral or whatever. It's Wraith." McKay choked it out. He wriggled, pushed and pulled unsuccessfully on the arm. "Let me stop it," he gargled.
Jae puckered his fleshy lips, "I think we need to see where this leads."
"What! Nowhere! It leads nowhere!" McKay began frantically clawing at the immovable stump around his neck. He looked down at a monitor; Sheppard's vitals were all askew as the device kept up with each emergency. Interrogation and torture. Just enough to keep the person aware and alive but incapacitated.
"I'll make a deal with you doctor. You explain, repair, test the devices I give you and he won't be exposed to this particular session again. If you don't agree, we'll just watch as this end game plays to the…end."
McKay let dread get its ass kicked by hate. He fixed the man in front of him with a baleful glare. There was no negotiation going on, just demands. He had no choice but to agree. "Deal."
Bama let go.
At that moment, he would have sold his grandmother to the man. Lucky for this guy, she was dead. Papa here would want no part of that hateful woman. On second thought.
Jae waved the assistants away and McKay staggered over the station. He studied the screen. Abort was still an option but he saw a better one. It loosely translated to finish and return to normal. He pressed it. Everything returned to normal, including Sheppard's vitals. Well as close as they were going to get after that. Then McKay only heard gasps for air, no vocal sounds. Then it struck him that Sheppard had not made a sound through the entire ordeal.
He scrolled the information until a scan of the brain appeared. Now he was truly nauseous. A probe at the base of his skull had what looked like ganglia or spider webs winding its way through Sheppard's brain. It was affecting one of his speech areas. Beckett would know exactly what it was doing but McKay could read. It was a purposefully induced condition to keep the subject from disrupting the rest of the lab with their screaming. How utterly considerate, the Wraith included a mute button.
Rodney pressed another part of the screen and disengaged the probes. He ran over to the chair.
"Colonel, can you hear me?" Hate was pushed out of the way by fear when no answer came. "Colonel, look at me." Terror was quickly moving in its belongings to evict fear.
Glazed eyes stared back at him and a very shaky voice whispered, "H-h-hey Ma-K-kay."
He tried to keep his voice from shaking, to keep it strong. Rodney swallowed before replying, "Hey back…How…"
Surprise entered the glazed eyes as an arm wrapped around McKay's neck- again- and pulled him away. Other hands started pulling an excessively compliant Sheppard out of the grisly cradle.
"Don't you touch him!" McKay struggled futilely against the arm. "Where are you taking him?"
Rodney watched as blood streaked across Sheppard's back, ran down his legs, and trickled from the back of his head onto his neck. The droplets fell to the floor and shoes smeared it as they stepped in it. He noticed Sheppard's nakedness and then bit his own tongue to keep his mouth shut about the indignity of it. He bit it harder to keep his contempt for these people silent, as silent as Sheppard had been.
Papa Jae smiled serenely. Yep, this man knew how to get his way. He had orchestrated this little demonstration. He might not have known what the chair did but he knew this was a Wraith lab. No one with the ATA gene would fair well if the device reacted to them. He had led McKay by the nose to get what he wanted. The fat bastard had successfully used Sheppard to get McKay to acquiesce. Anger shoved terror out of the way, and anger was not leaving.
He watched them remove a semi-conscious Sheppard out of the alcove and out of eyesight.
"Don't worry doctor, he's in capable hands. We have a bargain sir. So now I think you had better hold up your end," Papa Jae said it so genteelly, as if he had bartered for those apples McKay should have been hauling back to Atlantis.
All McKay could do was glare ineffectually as he clung to his anger that fueled the raging fire in his mind.
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McKay started with the MRI from the Addams Family's basement. He was right; the chair was only for those with Ancient genetic make-up. It was supposed to be used to study the mental component of the Ancients and their technology. The Wraith were either trying to figure out how to counteract it or incorporate it into their own technology. They discovered it was an effective torture device rather quickly. The experiment either failed and/or the device abandoned when the Ancients left and sunk Atlantis.
A young woman who had been one of the assistants during the procedure stood next to him peering over his shoulder.
"The programs we were running only initialized after he was placed in the chair. It immediately recognized what he is. It was our first time interacting with them."
He bristled. "And what is he? An inanimate toy, a plaything?" Rodney did not look at her as he talked. "Was he just a glorified pin cushion to all of you?"
The assistant did not answer.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Go away." He hit another square on the monitor. "This device is unfortunately working fine."
"That's wonderful news Dr. McKay!" Papa Jae's voice boomed into his ear making him start. "I have other things for you to lend your vast expertise to." The man grinned congenially.
"Before that, and I'm not reneging on our agreement, I want to see Col. Sheppard." Rodney stood up from the station and came eye to chins with the man.
"Dear boy of course, he's your friend, your comrade, your leader. He's in a holding room awaiting his next session."
Shit.
"But first let's get something to eat. You look positively famished!"
A heavy hand clapped him on the back making him stumble. They walked to Papa Jae's office where a whirring noise distracted him- the orbs had returned and hovered a few feet in the air. They resembled great big eyeballs: pupils, irises, veins, all included. They were definitely Wraith in design.
"Oh my little pets- they'll also keep an eye on you." Papa Jae laughed at his own joke. "Come Dr. McKay. Bama's wife, Lycee, is a fabulous cook."
"B-but Col. She…"
"Has already eaten."
Papa Jae led Rodney and the two eyeballs up the staircase to the level of his room. They walked the opposite way and up another stairwell into a grand entrance hall. "The main part of my house," Papa Jae told Rodney.
Iron-like railings adorned a grand staircase to a second floor. It was in the middle and curved upward gracefully. The floor was made of a hardwood close to mahogany. The walls were a federal blue with many portraits of family members.
"I'm in a Tennessee Williams' play in the Pegasus Galaxy," said Rodney quietly to himself as he stopped to look at the room.
Papa Jae continued past the staircase to a door behind it. Rodney was bumped by an eyeball to follow its master.
"We won't be eating in the main dining hall- that's for tomorrow evening. I'm throwing a banquet for you and Col. Sheppard to celebrate our new partnership. Everyone within 20 miles is invited. So please forgive such vulgarity as having to eat in the kitchen."
Shoulders slumped, Rodney followed. He knew what the chair served Sheppard, the database told him. For the first time ever, he would feel guilty while eating.
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Papa Jae was right; Lycee was an outstanding cook. The roasted meat was moist and tender. The vegetables were prepared to a tender crispness. The dessert was understated in its sweetness and so silky. Moreover, he hated himself for enjoying it. If he rationalized it, he was keeping his strength up along with his mental acuity. He was staving off his hypoglycemia. Anyway he put it; he was still a traitor.
"Dr. McKay, let me show you what I'm protecting," said Papa Jae after putting down his dessert fork. He pushed himself from the table and stood up. He walked through a door adjoining the kitchen.
McKay recognized a den when he saw one. "What about Col. Sheppard? I really need to see him." McKay was about to become insistent, greasy wheel and all that.
"You worry too much. He's waiting to be cleaned up."
McKay's stomach dropped and that roasted meat wanted to make a second appearance. "B-but you said…"
"Oh sir, you will. He's resting."
"Oh thank God." Rodney closed his eyes and let out a small breath.
"Then he'll have a few tests run on his blood and other things that I quite frankly didn't listen to."
The dessert was trying to join the meat. McKay paled.
"Don't worry doctor; we're not a backwater planet here. He's perfectly fine."
"Perfectly fine my ass," McKay said under his breath swallowing his dinner for the second time.
Papa Jae casually strolled through his den and picked up a cigar. "Let's take a stroll."
"No. I…I…I demand to see him now." The chin poked out and the eyes began their mad dash around the room. His answer was a shock from one of eyeballs in the shoulder. "OW!"
Papa Jae smirked domineeringly and continued through the den to a door leading outside. "As I said, let's take a stroll."
Scowling and rubbing his arm McKay dutifully followed him through the door out on to a large porch.
"This, Dr. McKay, is my piece of the dessert. This is Papa's Place."
Before him was land filled with gardens and pathways. Stables were off to his left and smaller houses were farther away to his right. Pastures, fields and roads came into view as he and Papa Jae circumnavigated the grand, two-story, plantation style house. It was beautiful. All that was missing was the Spanish moss and live oaks.
"I lied just now. We are backwater at least to the Wraith. Our little planet isn't on any of their regular routes, so we've remained relatively unmolested. That is until now. They're culling worlds they've left alone for generations and we're probably on the list." He took a big puff on his cigar. "So you see, with all that tech underneath us, there has to be something. I've also been collecting and that's where you and Col. Sheppard come in. We're running out of time and I don't have the inclination to ask politely anymore."
They did a complete circle of the house with their escorts hovering a few feet behind. Girlish giggles from the stables interrupted them. Three young women walked towards them apparently just finishing a morning ride. They were in their late teens and early twenties if they were a day.
Well, here comes Miss Scarlett and her sisters, thought Rodney in his best Georgia drawl.
"Ah girls, good ride?" Papa Jae called out.
They smiled in greetings while pulling off gloves. They gave Rodney and dear ol' dad questioning looks as to who the stranger could possibly be.
"My apologies girls, this is Dr. Rodney McKay. Dr. McKay, these are my lovely daughters: Aggie, Lia, and Osy. They're the picture of grace as was their mother- rest her soul."
And pretty girls always elicited the same stammering reaction and jittery response in Rodney. So he left it with, "Uh, hi."
"One of Daddy's new employees?" Aggie asked innocently.
Papa Jae waited for Rodney's answer with an eagle-like stare and a deceptively laid-back smile.
"In a manner of speaking, slav…" He started to say slave but a quick shock to his shoulder stopped him.
Then the girls gave that same laid-back smile. McKay realized they were not that innocent and knew exactly why he was there.
"So doctor, you're Daddy's new employee. We look forward to seeing you at the banquet tomorrow." Aggie said it with such a casual tone; McKay guessed the apple did not fall far from the tree.
With that, they walked off giggling and conversing about what they were going to wear; who was coming; and what the menu was.
Papa Jae came face to face with Rodney and cemented him in place with a stony glare. "Dr. McKay, you do try my patience. Need I remind you of the precarious position that Col. Sheppard finds himself in. Choose your words carefully. Something to remember for tomorrow night." Then the man smiled at him and blew smoke in his face. "Now, let's go see Col. Sheppard."
Rodney coughed and hacked as Papa Jae returned to the house.
He was led and prodded by the mechanical eyeballs back into the house and then to the lower levels. They crossed the lab to a set of doors near the alcove. He frowned. These were prisoner quarters or the larder depending on what the Wraith were in the mood for. Some were the cocoon pods and other were smaller versions of a holding cell. There was no doubt in his mind that his host knew exactly who had built this place. Papa Jae led him to a set of doors half way down.
An ammonia smell hit him first, and then the bile. He tried to ignore the rest. He looked into the small cell. A lump laid on the floor dressed in a short hospital gown. He faced the rear wall and shook with muscles spasms. Red wept through the back of the gown and smeared the floor. Rodney lost it.
"Oh my God! Resting! You fat...piece...of...shit…" came hissing and spitting out of his mouth. McKay was backhanded so hard he sat down on the floor with a thump.
Papa Jae bent down over him. "I told you to carefully choose your words sir. Now, I didn't lie. He's waiting to be cleaned up and dressed. I'm afraid the chair left him with little muscle control. Temporary I hope." Papa Jae straightened up and looked into the cell through the spider webbed doors. "Dr. McKay, I can leave him in this state or I can see to his needs. I just wanted you to know what price has to be paid for deception or disobedience on your part. Right now, I want you to tend to his needs. There's a bucket, a cloth, another coverling and soap."
Footsteps echoed down the hall. "Good Bama's here to supervise. I'll give you an hour doctor."
McKay stood up rubbing his cheek and jaw. "Our packs, do you have our packs?"
"Why yes sir."
"In it is a pouch with a red cross on it. You can't miss it. Take out whatever you feel is dangerous but leave the bandages and medicines…please." That please was particularly hard to say.
"Bama, have one of the technicians get it, would you? Anything else doctor?"
"No." You fat piece of shit, Rodney added to himself defiantly. And I do choose my words carefully.
Papa Jae opened the doors and Rodney stepped in with his supplies. This was definitely a time that big boys do cry or at least want to.
A/N: I have a hanky for you Rodney. No not Mr. Hanky, that's just gross.