DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'Stargate: Atlantis'. They're not my property.
A small itch on her arm made her scratch gently before her hand returned to the scroll. She then let out a yawn and glanced at the half-eaten green leaf that had been her source of food for the five days that she had spent in this laboratory. At least water hadn't been a problem; a small entrance to the right wall in the middle room revealed an old well with clean water. But she felt tired, really tired. Elizabeth used her time to study as much of what she had discovered here as possible, while also caring to make sure John's body would accept the remedy and survive. It wasn't easy with a sealed entrance and five days which felt more like five weeks. Actually, the entrance appeared easy to open, the same diamond buttons were next to it, but Elizabeth didn't wish to venture out on her own. She had gathered many records and brought them in the first room to keep a good eye on him, though his calm state, which hadn't changed since she first applied the remedy, was not much of a help and neither were the instructions she encountered on the tapestry and a small white scroll.
Elizabeth gently rubbed her forehead and looked over at where John was sleeping. She did all she could. "I'll be forever pissed at you if you die on me," she whispered and then returned to her other work. It wasn't right for her to be this tired.
The moment the medicine drowned in his changed blood, he became very aware of what changes were happening inside him. His body – every bit of it – was dead to the outside, but his mind was alive, and very much awake and aware. John's senses were devoured by slumber preventing him from feeling the changes, but his mind could see them. He could see the multicolored remedy being absorbed and carried across his body, he could see the remedy forcing itself to change him back, to bring him back; he could see all of this like in a dream, but somehow more real.
This went on for a very long time, when finally his senses began to awake one by one.
She could hear the screams behind the wall as she gripped her gun and held it tightly against her chest. Juliana didn't know why she still kept the weapon – it was useless against those things. She was lucky, crouching like this against the wall, breathing and sweating, having only a few scratches on her. She avoided them successfully. Another painful scream and more useless gunfire made her shut her eyes tightly and for the first time she felt like a little girl – helpless, alone, and very frightened. Those scrolls be dammed!
The first image he saw when John opened his eyes was Elizabeth's sleeping face next to his. A sharp sting from time to time in his arm would remind him of the wound but despite this … he felt well. He noticed some of the objects in this room had been moved. He imagined it was because of Elizabeth. He could see the tiredness on her face, telling him to allow her more time to sleep. Removing her jacket from him, John covered her with it. "Thanks," he whispered to Elizabeth. Standing up with the bandaged arm, John licked his lips and curiously started walking through the rooms, observing what had been left behind to be seen. He saw up close many of the tapestries which Elizabeth had described the first time. He found the well and the rich colors with which images of flowers and jellyfish had been painted on its walls; John sniffed it and then tasted the clean water. It was good, but he felt little thirst.
Entering the next room, John noticed the tapestry with an image of an injury strikingly similar to the one he had suffered from earlier. Below it he saw a large stone-built box of some kind. Noticing the crack only a few inches lower, he touched it with his right hand and pushed it up. An icy wave hit his face and upper body among the mist which arose. Fanning it away, he saw this to be filled with various instruments, vials, glass boxes containing different plant and animal part samples, making John think of this as some sort of freezer. He noticed the source of the cold to be some small pipes emerging from the thick wall. Closing the lid of the box, John turned his attention to the other "exhibits". Observing the objects and tapestries gave this man the impression that this laboratory was used to produce medicine and whatever else insured the protection of the city and its citizens. He also imagined those who worked here to be quite obsessed by their research … whatever it might have been. Nothing was stored properly here, but simply abandoned. Were they in such hurry?
The next long, gray tapestry which came into view left him doubting if what he was seeing – at least by the images – had been for real: fossils, with some resembling the giant cats, instruments and representations of blood cells, DNA, and for all it to end with an image of a strong, young specimen. "It's just like I suspected," he heard Elizabeth's voice behind him. John turned briefly toward her. "Hey, slept well?"
"Uh-uh…seven nights in a row." Seeing his puzzled look, Elizabeth added, "You were out for almost eight days, John."
"Oh." He turned back to the tapestry. "Thanks for whatever it was you did back then."
"Feeling a little better?" she asked and saw him nod. Elizabeth smiled slightly. "I took a look around while you were recovering. There are some pretty amazing things here."
"Good that you found something to occupy yourself with."
Elizabeth took his arm and began removing the bandage. The wound had almost healed completely. She translated the instructions correctly - thankfully. "You won't need this anymore," she said of the bandage. "That tapestry before you tells of how they managed to bring those fossils to life."
"You were right then." John moved his fingers across the healing tissue.
"Mm." She pointed to the tapestry. "Many of these terms are unfamiliar to me … then again, biology isn't my strong point, but it's basically a … brief description of how this process occurred; the more detailed one is in the library scrolls unfortunately."
"So how did they manage to bring the thing … or things back to life?"
"Well," Elizabeth began as she pointed at the images of broken bones, "they found the remains in a cave underneath the city … actually, it was discovered when they were building the Southern Wing of the city." Her hand moved over to another tapestry that appeared to be a plan of the Southern Wing.
John saw it consisting of three levels. The first one having fourteen corridors and eighty-five rooms; the second level had eight corridors, two giant halls and sixteen rooms, while the third level had only one giant hall.
"It was just beneath where the royal chambers are. Now, those bones were in some sort of a see-through jelly mass. Apparently, they had the means with which to examine that mass and discovered materials which … for them, seemed sufficient in it to create a fertilized egg … not just one … because of the number of preserved genetic materials they found, it allowed them to make several of them, and also learning to create their own as the trials went on." Her hand then returned to the first tapestry and over the images of young kittens. "The first attempts were failures but eventually they succeeded with four births. Pretty soon, they … uh, they reached a healthy number of males and females that were able to breed and reproduce."
"For some reason that sounds creepy. Everything was found in that see-through jelly?"
"Well, almost, but enough for them to create this."
"And that thing that attacked me earlier?"
"I didn't find anything on it … Oh, but I did find what that giant cat was in the Protector's Hall." Elizabeth motioned for him to follow her in the other room where an opened scroll lay on another table. John saw only text on the gray paper as Elizabeth explained to him. "It was a sort of a security camera, I suppose you could call it." Her finger went below a sentence as she read it. "They describe it pretty much as a 'Guardian sent from the heavens' to keep an eye over who came and went; a … divine gift."
"Not something they created?"
"Um… they say it was thanks to the Queen that they received this, among many other … ideas, which basically changed a lot about the way the city was organized and governed, I suppose. The purpose of that Guardian was to see whether those who came for the first time in the Hall belonged there or not; if they did then it would leave them alone but if they didn't belong there…" Elizabeth made an imaginary knife with her hand and ran it close to her neck.
"Nice." John kept looking at the scroll. "So, if whatever it was didn't stop it, it would've probably…" he made the same knife impression as her "... us too."
"I think so. I even found one confession saying that most of the scientists who worked on these new ideas weren't too happy with what she kept suggesting, so they did this pretty much against their will."
"This being that same Queen who turned against them?"
"Probably. Those records were written not that long before the city was abandoned."
They didn't stick around very long. Elizabeth took the small scroll along with her flashlight and then followed John to the small corridor outside of the laboratory's entrance. They saw another tunnel on the left side and stairs leading up on the right. Without hesitation, they chose the stairs.
Climbing those stairs up to the next floor led them to a room with the most decorated walls. A lonely carpet made of blue and green wool was on the stone floor, surrounded by feline, shark and serpent mosaics. Nothing else succeeded in catching their view. Another roar was heard from somewhere. "Well good. At least we have that to keep us company here," John said as a response to it. Pushing the stone door shut just in case, they then moved their flashlights on the walls in the darkness. As he leaned forward for a closer look, he momentarily lost his balance.
"John?" she took his arm.
"I'm fine … don't know where that came from," he said and stood up again.
"Are you sure you're feeling better?" she asked with worry.
He looked at her and nodded. She could see the speck of uncertainty in his eyes – one which he tried to hide.
"Yeah," he told her. "But did it mention any side-effects for whatever you put inside me?"
"No. The medicine was supposed to remove the toxins of the saliva from your system."
"Okay, that sounds assuring," he replied and looked back at the walls. There were entire themes of nature entwined with those of the Bronze City. The giant felines were prominent on these colorful walls, along with men and women with rich clothing, of whom Elizabeth assumed were individuals with dignified and high status. The felines were mostly represented as guardians for these people; one was even shown as killing men of a different tribe viciously.
A cat with gray fur that stood on a rock overlooking the rest of the valley had eyes made of diamonds. Assuming this to be another way of turning lights on in this place, Elizabeth touched it.
Instead of light appearing, they heard a loud human scream and then the opening of stone gates at the other side of the room but invisible to the human eyes from here. It was when Elizabeth removed her hand that the floor of the large room began gaining light from special, triangular openings in the corners.
What they saw in the next room was not pretty. Fresh corpses, most disembodied, torn limbs scattered everywhere, blood, guts … chaos of a fresh kill. The stench was unbearable.
"This … this is …" Elizabeth tried to speak, stunned by the site. The strong stench of decaying flesh attacked her nostrils so hard, she had to cover half of her face with her sleeve.
"Beyond disturbing," John finished. He saw claw marks on most of the victims. "This was not done by a human." He narrowed his eyes. These were not Juliana's men; these poor souls were other outsiders.
When Elizabeth approached one of the bodies, the stench reached inside her stomach and furiously pulled out its contents, forcing her to turn around and throw up.
He turned around with concern for her but she brushed him away. "We better keep moving," he said and took her hand. And so they did. Neither could see the correct number of bodies. It was impossible to do that in this mess.
Wiping off the last bits of regurgitated food, Elizabeth said, "This part of the city didn't like being revealed to outsiders, it seemed."
Seeing some of the blood-stained tools on the ground made them think of these people as probably looters in this wide room that was once a gathering place for the royal family.
They saw a doorway with a torn, yellow curtain at the other end; but next to that doorway was an opened wall. Curiosity led them to it, deeper inside it where torn pieces of white gelatin were scattered everywhere. The circle-shaped entrance forced them to turn on their flashlights. Seeing traces of the gelatin – where it once was and where some of the remains had been now – told them about the possibility of there being a door made of this.
"This seems familiar to the kind they found in the cave, from the tapestry descriptions," Elizabeth said.
Both avoided touching it.
Beyond the entrance of blue stones was a much larger room with a strange smell. Inside it were ten bronze cages, very similar to the ones they had come across during their first visit; only these had green glass between the bars that had been hastily broken by something or someone in an attempt to escape. The cages looked old, but the damage seemed recent. Above the cages was a single blue tapestry with images of ten sleeping felines and some ancient writing beneath them. "'Peace…'" Elizabeth whispered, trying to translate the short sentence. "Or rest … no, it's probably peace … 'Peace to them until the slumber of the city is disturbed and the … writings of … time are revealed to forbidden … eyes.'"
"The library?" John asked.
Elizabeth and John lowered their flashlights back to the broken cages simultaneously. "Oh boy …" they both said and slowly looked at each other.
