A/N: Cookies for the reviews. The muses are well fed. Creepiness will now ensue...

Ch. 14

Whispers

"Jooooohn."

John opened his eyes.

" Jooooohn."

He couldn't move. He willed motion, but his limbs wouldn't respond, like those dreams where one is running down a corridor that just keeps getting longer and longer.

" Joooohn."

He was a stranger in his own frame, seeing through eyes like seeing through a window from five feet away. Detached, disconnected, shoved to the back of his own brain with no one to steer at the front. Something caressed his mind, touched it, probed it, breathed on it. John's gut churned, and his body reacted without him by stiffening the spine and halting the breath. His heart was pounding in his ears, in his throat, thundering in his head. He couldn't even whimper like a pathetic pup.

" Joooohn."

" Tell me about Atlantis John."

The words were a whispering purr that violated his conscious. Then came the gutteral growl. Unseen light flashed off of yellow eyes. The erek placed a heavy paw on John's chest. John couldn't control, but he could certainly feel. The erak smiled stained teeth, digging its claws into Sheppard's skin.

The claws punctured bone, raked, and split John open like a ripe melon. John could only scream in his head.

John snapped upright.

" Son of a...!" His hand went to his heaving chest to encounter the solidity of muscle and bone. He breathed out in relief, but it didn't stop his heart from hammering or his body from quaking. Sweat tickled down his back to soak the bandages and sting the cuts.

Something nudged John in the shoulder, and he jumped with a gasp. He glanced unseeing around, then up at the perplexed face of Bren. It was only then that John realized the dusky, wavering light that kept back absolute darkness. He heard the snap and roar of a fire.

Bren handed John the pad.

You all right?

John closed his eyes and nodded. His heart rate had finally decided to descend from on high. " Yeah, I'm good. Just a dream." He looked back at Bren sheepishly. " Did I scream or anything?"

Bren grimaced sympathetically and nodded.

" Did I wake Krissa?"

Both men looked to the open door of the bed chamber and could see the outline of Krissa's huddled form beneath the blankets. Bren typed something on the pad still in John's hands.

She's always been a heavy sleeper.

" Even with all the crap she's going through?"

Bren took the pad and typed away, handing it back two minutes later.

She's grown accustomed. Savine had wanted Krissa as a protégées in the field of bio-mechanics. Krissa refused. Savine was furious. Felt it an affront. Savine always used to getting things her own way. Everyone knows Savine threatened by Krissa's intelligence. It's why she wanted Krissa to follow in footsteps. Uncertain why Savine feels threatened. Hostilities between Savine and family rose when Krissa entered guild. Rose again when Krissa got invite from Diavante. Savine has tried to kill Krissa through accidents. No proof, except that those Savine are angry with always die – or must flee. Krissa has become jaded to Savine's attempts. Not much Krissa can do except survive, and win a place on Divante's science team.

John returned the pad. " Sucks to be anyone these days. She does good handling it."

Bren typed and showed John the screen.

She's hopeful. Krissa never the type to give up. Savine old, can't live forever. Can't touch Krissa if on Diavante's pay roll. Another reason why Savine not in prison. Everyone's safe with him, to put it mildly.

" Have you ever even seen this Diavante guy?" John asked.

Bren shook his head and typed.

Known by reputation only. He's been around since before I can remember. And before that. He's very old. Rumors are – he has discovered how to lengthen his years."

John shifted. " Not a secret he got from the wraith, is it?"

Bren lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. He cleared the pad's screen and typed something else.

I have some tea that might be able to help you sleep.

John waved the notion away. " Naw, I'm good. I'll just start my watch now. You sleep."

Bren typed: Sure?

John rubbed his face, his eyes, then moved his hand around to run it down his head to his neck and wipe away a lingering feel that he couldn't quite describe. " Yeah. I'm not going back to sleep any time soon."

Bren lightly patted John's back, then moved over to the couch on the other side of the room. Bart was curled up like a dog before the fire. It hadn't taken to John's permission to sleep on one of the seats, but it was at least using the proffered blanket.

John threw back his own blankets and pulled his feet from off the couch. With a shudder from an onslaught of cool air, he stood, stretched, and turned to stare out the massive night-blackened window. He didn't expect to see anything, and preferred it. He didn't want to see what lurked the ground at night, slinking from the forest like a sewer rat, vanishing in and out of shadows. He did see something, though. Distant lights from the other mansion windows, marring the perfect wall of dark. John wasn't the only insomniac in the place.

A part of him hoped to see a re-materializing puddle jumper flashing search lights through the gloom.

Dream on.

Wish I could.

One of the lighted windows blinked out.

SGASGASGASGA

John opened his eyes, and was greeted by the sight of Bart's dour face. The proximity of that face made John jerk back in fright.

" What the...! Bart, what the hell!"

" Your pardon, Mr. Sheppard. I have brought you some breakfast and thought you would want it before it grew cold."

John blinked sleep film from his eyes, then rubbed them with his palms when that refused to work. He sat up, startled that he had been lying down to begin with.

" Ah damnit! I fell asleep? Why didn't anyone wake me up? I was supposed to be on watch!"

" You were – until sunrise. You were barely alert, so Mr. Bren had you lie down. No surprise by your complacency, you were very much sleeping on your feet. Miss Krissa insisted you rest for as long as you need. Said she would be safe enough with Bren in the lab, and had me stay until you awoke."

John leaned with his elbows on his knees and yawned. Bart sniffed.

" Breakfast?"

John twitched his head up and spotted the tray of food on the small stand at the right end of the couch. John shifted over to sit beside it. He peered into the bowl filled with stuff that resembled brown cream of wheat. John picked up the spoon and swirled the stuff into melting spirals. Appetizing – he couldn't say yet, but the sweet, nutty smell was promising.

" What exactly is this?"

" Bry mash. Good for increasing energy."

John gathered a small lump of the stuff on the tip of his spoon, and with stomach clenching hesitance, took a bite.

Like cream of wheat, but with a pleasant nutty flavor to it. He ate bigger bites, and downed it all within minutes. If only Beckett could see him now. With the mash was some kind of yellow juice, but juice was juice no matter the color, and this one tasted like mangoes.

Bart was right. John was already feeling a lot less heavy in the limbs. Filled and awake, John grabbed his boots, yanked them on, threw on his jacket, grabbed his P-90 and let Bart lead the way to Frankenstein's communal lab.

" So," John said when they were in the hall. " You've been around here... a while. You've probably run into Diavante a few times. What's the guy like?"

Bart's head swiveled around on its neck – all the way around, like an owl's head, or the girl from the Exorcist. It's like the creature couldn't express anything else but bored apathy.

" Like?" Bart asked.

" Yeah. What's he like, look like, act like? Do you ever see him around or is he that reclusive?"

Bart sniffed, and John was starting to suspect the creature had a permanent cold.

" I have seen him."

" Okay, that's good someone has. At least I now know he exists. What's he like?"

" He is like," Bart returned his head to the front, " what he is like."

It was an effort not to cough out an acerbic laugh. " Well that's all nice and cryptic but it doesn't answer my question."

" Master Diavante is... difficult to explain. Given time, you may meet him yet. He appears to some on occasion."

John tilted his head back and rolled his eyes. " Great. Okay, then, can you answer this? Who's the blond guy who's got it bad for Sareeka? You were there the other night, you saw what went down. I'd like a name to put with the face for future reference."

" You speak of Mr. Avril. He is a purveyor of chemicals."

" A chemist?"

" If that is the term your people use, then yes. But you need not worry about Mr. Avril."

They were almost to the door leading down into the dungeon when John stopped.

" What do you mean by that?"

Bart hauled the door open. " Mr. Avril's protectors were making a very loud fuss over the disappearance of mister Avril this morning."

John balked. " Disappearance!"

Bart turned. " Yes. Seems he is not to be found anywhere on the grounds. It happens."

" It happens!" Crap, crap, crap, crap, CRAP! A small fraction of John's self had been clinging to the hope that Krissa's stories of the contest were exaggerated. But one day in to being here and having someone go bye-bye this early was good reason to start giving into fear, or at least be a bit more alert. Bart being so blatantly blaze about it, however, troubled John more than the fact that someone had gone MIA.

It happens? How often? Every single day if he was to go by Bart's jaded remark

And Krissa let me sleep in? The girl could have pulled a vanishing act from the room to the lab, Bren going with her. The more eyes the merrier, and safer.

Bart was heading down the steps to the dungeon. John pushed himself into motion, taking long strides until he reached the genetic hob-goblin and stopped it with a hand on the bony shoulder.

" Hold up, wait a minute. Is anyone one looking for him, besides his protectors? Why isn't there some kind of an alert or investigation?"

Bart swiveled his head around and sighed. " Such things might have been, once. But Diavante does not wish to expend energy on such matters, especially if a favored potential for his staff may be behind it. More than likely he entered the woods. One must never enter the woods. It is why you have been told not to wander during the night."

Bart returned his head to the forward position and continued on. John just stood there.

Krissa had warned him, over and over. But there was a massive difference between being told then experiencing it for ones self. As CO of an entire city, it was his natural inclination to seek out the details of what happened and try to prevent it in the future. But this wasn't his world, his house, his competition, or his rules. And it was only his concern as far as Krissa was concerned. A cold fact to swallow for a man of action who was sick and tired of the unknowable. Perhaps if he discovered a little something during his stay here to give to Avril's protectors, it might do, but it was as far as he could go without leaving Krissa vulnerable

John finally moved and went the rest of the way down into the dungeon. Bart was waiting by the door when he reached it. John fished the key card from his pocket and swiped it through the slot of the lock. Blue turned to yellow, and the door clicked open.

The moment John walked in, Krissa dropped what she was doing and hurried up to him, wide-eyed and fretting.

" John! You're here. Thank goodness. Did you hear what happened to Mr. Avril? The man that attacked you last night?"

John jerked a thumb at Bart. " I got the gist. Guess you weren't kidding about how bad things could get."

" Actually, I was never certain if they were true either. The only certainty was Savine."

" Do you think she did it?"

Krissa chewed her lip thoughtfully. " I wouldn't hold it past her. Could have been anyone though." She moved back to the table and picked up a mini-welder. She gestured with it as she spoke. " Avril dealt in chemicals, but I over heard Mr. Krem – the small, round man – say that Avril had been looking into diseases and their possible creation."

Bio-terrorist, goody! John was feeling slightly less empathetic for the man chosen to be number one on an unknown's hit list.

" Savine could have easily seen his work as a threat since some bio-science involves working with viruses." Krissa hunched over what appeared to be a tiny circuit board, welding two small wires together. John moved to the table to watch while distant enough not to be hovering.

John raised is eyebrows in admiration. " You did all that today?"

" Mm, don't be impressed quite yet. This is just a nick in the mountain. The first component."

The welder sparked, fusing more wires. She took some small tweezers and lifted a pea-sized chip from a petri dish and set it in the center of the circuit board.

" If I may ask," John said. " I mean, if it's safe to ask as long as the walls don't have ears or anything, what's your present clutter going to be turned into anyways?"

Krissa touched the tiny chip along the edges with the tip of the welder, and smiled. " It's safe, we scanned the room. Scanners are my specialty. So are transmission scramblers. What I'm doing now will be my ultimate work – a combination of both. Not only will it be able to detect energy readings from beneath illusion shields such as the one Diavante has surrounding us, it can also temporarily disable shields to allow weapons fire or even people to go through."

A vice seemed to tighten around John's chest. " A shield scrambler."

" In a word. It's really called the Sil."

" Sil?"

" It's a small, wriggly insect that can burrow through anything, even metal, using acid. They can get into anything, like my device."

" Oh," John said in a voice one octave too high. Sounded enough like a highly useful, and very probably coveted, device. And therein lay the dilemma. Useful for who? " Um, you know, a device like that could be pretty dangerous if the wrong people got it. You know, like the wraith..."

Krissa paused in her welding. " I know."

" But you're not worried?"

She went back to welding. " I am. But I've designed it with fail safes. To use it, a certain code must be keyed in, an ID code. For a wraith to use it, they would have to grab one before it is calibrated to a specific user or users. Also, the components are rare, so not many will be made – five, at most. Divante will want one for himself, and there's the prototype. The rest will be auctioned – not to the wraith, of course."

Not even a smidge of comfort in that. " Hey, there's more than one kind of bad guy besides the wraith," John said. " I know, I've met them. You know the Genii? They hate my people. And then there's these guys called the Cyladrans who I wouldn't sell a Genii too. Well, maybe Koyla... but that's beside the point. People like them, they'd use a device like yours against people like me – my people."

Krissa did another pause, this time straightening to look up at John. " Would your people be willing to purchase a sil? I'll have no say – or presence – at the auction so I can't pick and choose who gets what. But your people could try. Should Divante accept what I create, and sell it, you could be one of the buyers. Another feature is that the sils counter eachother – like how the same ends of magnets repel eachother. If you were to have one, you'd be able to stop others from using their own against you."

John perked at this. It was a thought. Better if such a device wasn't created at all, but being able to own one had its merits – such as wreaking havoc to a Cyladran shield.

" Sounds like a plan. What would it take to purchase one?"

" Something unique. Rare metals, pieces of technology..."

The ability to use Ancient devices. John doubted Weir – or Beckett – would be up to sharing the secrets of administering the ATA gene, but keeping the gate shield from becoming useless could end up demanding a few technological sacrifices.

Krissa returned to the creation of her circuit board. " I just hope this one works better. My first was a little finicky. You had to move fast to get through the shield, but I've tweeked it since then."

" Why build a new one? Why not present the prototype?"

" This one'll look prettier. You get points for aesthetics."

The day wore on monotonously with Krissa glued to the table as she welded, fitted, molded, and wired odds and ends together. Bren helped by retrieving and writing pointers on his pad. Bart remained standing by the door, and left only once to retrieve their lunches from the kitchen. The lab was complete with a bathroom, so it wasn't like any of the party were forced to leave the room for any reason. John occupied himself by wandering, peering out the little square window into the dungeon to see who came and went, and challenging himself with mental math puzzles. Tomorrow, he was bringing his deck of cards – if the washer women or whoever had thought to take them out of his vest.

The evening meal came to Krissa unaware, who jumped at the sound of the chimes. John just sighed and mentally thanked the heavens.

It was a quieter dinner by far. Suspicious glances were exchanged, a few casual remarks to start a conversation only to have it peeter out, and the on again/off again scrutiny of John by one of the Genii goons. John kept his face close to his food and turned slightly away.

The table was lacking in a couple of diners.

One down, crap-load more to go.

With the meal complete, Krissa's party went back to the room. John's vest and shirt were folded neatly on the couch, with a small basket containing the items from the vest beside it – cards included.

" Tomorrow, I'll begin the casing for the device," Krissa said. " Best to get that out of the way now. And I'll need that piece of amber crystal in the lock box, Bren. You still have the key, right?"

Bren stopped fixing his 'bed' to pat the pocket of his jacket. Krissa, dressed in a navy-blue nightgown and combing her hair, beamed.

" Good. If you'll give me your clothes, Mr. Sheppard, I can fix them tonight. I need something to do until I'm tired."

John passed the clothes off to Krissa when she had put away her brush. She padded on bare feet into the bed chamber, then jumped onto the bed, pulling a small alabaster box toward her, and removing a needle and thread.

John had his bed made, but just sat on it. Tonight, he was taking first watch. Bart had another fire going and was adding wood from a basket beside the hearth.

When the time for sleep came, John grabbed his deck, slid from the couch to the floor, and started up a game of solitaire.

The fire popped, snapped, and hissed. After one game of solitaire, John stood to loosen his stiff muscles and stirred the fire with a poker that wavered the thin shield that was strong enough only to hold back the sparks. He then went back to his spot for a second round. Bren was snoring softly, and Bart sounded as though he were purring like a content kitten.

John smirked a lop-sided grin. To each his own snores.

Over the softer sounds he heard it, which he probably shouldn't have been able to, but it was as though it wanted to be heard.

Whispers, or unnatural breathing – John couldn't tell. He strained his hearing toward the sound like following a fishing line in the dark.

" John."

John jumped, his heart jumping painfully with him, and the cards flipping from his hands to flutter to the floor in a 42 pickup mess. He fixed his eyes on the door. The next sound was a rush of air like a deliberate exhale from a heavy chest. Another, then another, then a sharper breath released with a whuff.

John's heart did another wild thud that sent prickles of electricity numbing his spine. The door was locked, the room secure with devices, but John still felt the need to move slowly as he reached for his gun and slid it from the holster. In the same drawn-out motion, he crept on hands and knees toward the door. He wasn't stupid as to risk opening it. He laid himself on the floor and pressed the side of his face into the cold stone between the carpet and entrance. The crack was an inch wide, and solid black as a line of ink.

He could hear the breaths sharp as though they were right smack next to him, but no whispers. John slowed his own breaths.

Hello? His throat refused to expel the solitary word. Here little puppy. He couldn't see a damn thing, and needed his light.

The breathing stopped, and John's own stopped with it to hear better.

Suddenly, there was a snarl, and something flashed beneath the door, quick as lightning, sparking the stone where it struck. John snapped his head back in time before it got his face, and the only remnant of its existence were three deep gouges in the stone.

John scrambled backward, rising, falling, then rising again until he reached the couch. He grabbed his P-90 from beneath his 'bed' and rushed back to the door. This time, he kept a foot between him and the barrier. He was back on his side with the light of his weapon stabbing the ink to illuminate the carpet of the corridor. John moved that light up and down, but nothing was revealed. Whatever had been there was gone.

John's heart felt capable of exploding at its current rate. He did another scramble from the door, back peddling farther and father until his spine met the wall - sweat soaking him, body shaking, and lungs heaving out pants. He kept his gun on that door.

Around him, Bren, Bart, and Krissa slept on.

Cool air like a cold breath snaked through the collar of John's shirt to caress his back with ice. It made him cringe in sudden disgust, loathing it, but incapable of stopping it.

" Jooooohn."

SGASGASGASGA

A/N: (Insert scary music from Friday the 13th here.)