Part 3: Friends in Low Places
The radio crackles suddenly a little while later, stopping Rodney just as he's settling into a really good rant on the incredible headaches of keeping 100-plus scientists pointed in the same direction instead of letting them wander all over a brand-new city any way they want, and the inevitable comparisons to herding cats, although his own cat is far more intelligent than most of the so-called scientists he's forced to work with on a daily basis.
"Teyla? Doctor McKay? Answer if you can hear me." It's Ronon and thank god, there are more voices in the background, familiar ones. Rodney abandons his rant without a second thought, and he and Teyla grab for the radio, fumbling it between their hands before Teyla finds the talk button.
"We are here, Ronon," she says urgently, "but Colonel Sheppard is injured."
"Teyla? You're there? It's good to hear your voice, finally. Are you okay?"
"Only if you consider being buried under a ton of rubble to be synonymous with okay," Rodney snaps impatiently. "How's Sheppard, is he alive?"
"Alive and well," Carson's voice answers, and Rodney and Teyla both sag a little in relief. "That is, I think he'll be well enough, as he's responding nicely to treatment. His hair is standing up even more than before, so I'm assuming he managed to get himself shocked on this bloody huge device?"
"That's the theory," Rodney agrees with only a little sarcasm, "given that we couldn't exactly see what was happening." Teyla flicks the flashlight back on, pressing it against her side to diffuse the light until their eyes adjust to it again. The relief from the darkness is almost as good as the voices, almost as good as knowing Sheppard is alive. "The hair is even taller, hmm? Hard to imagine. Tell anyone who touches that thing to make very sure they're wearing insulated gloves."
"Aye, I have already. How are you two? Given what Ronon told us, we weren't sure you'd still be with us."
"We're fine," Rodney lies immediately; Teyla looks dubiously at him, then eloquently at their trapped legs, but doesn't contradict him. Well, it's not as if anyone can do anything at the moment anyway, and Carson needs to be focused on Sheppard. "But we would like to get the hell out of here before we suffocate or things go boom, so are we done with the idle chit-chat now? Where's Radek?"
Carson sighs heavily, but Zelenka chimes in on the channel, so Rodney doesn't care. "I'm here, Rodney, next to the generator. Are we sure it is a generator?"
"It's producing power from no source we could find, so yes, I'm working on the wild assumption that it's a generator."
"Being cranky is not helpful," Radek informs him severely.
Under Teyla's warning glare, Rodney bites back his first response, then his second. "Fine. Yes. It's a generator, until we find proof otherwise. And we need to be worrying less about what it is, and more about what it will do when it blows up."
"True," Radek agrees. "But starting from the beginning is always a good idea. When did it turn on?"
Rodney gives him the same rundown he went through with Sheppard, concluding, "There must be some kind of damage to the generator -- the jostling from every quake seems to be pushing the generator closer to the red line."
"It is more of an amber line, but yes, I understand. I see no outside controls, only indicators. Perhaps there's a control room nearby?"
"The scanner indicated an empty chamber on the other side of this wall, with some faint energy readings, but I was prevented from investigating it by the ceiling falling down!" Rodney bangs the side of his fist against the wall in question as emphasis, and only succeeds in hurting his hand. "Ow. Assuming it is the control room, getting in is going to be a little challenging. Next brilliant idea?"
Radek is silent for a minute, long enough for Rodney to hear Ronon directing people in moving the rubble, and Carson's calm voice running through diagnostic questions, presumably aimed at Sheppard. "I think we must open up the generator," Radek says finally.
Rodney's left leg is really starting to hurt again; he tries to wiggle his toes and bites back a gasp of pain. "Oh, really?" he says through clenched teeth. "Because I thought you could just sit and stare at it for a while, see if it shuts down on its own. It's not like there are people in here running out of oxygen or anything!"
He hears Radek take a deep breath and let it out slowly, and Carson intervenes. "Rodney, if you were going to suffocate, you'd have done it by now. Air must be making its way into you through the rubble, even if you can't see where it's coming from. But we don't know how much there is, or how rapidly your CO2 levels are building, so you'll want to stop wasting oxygen on being rude to people who are trying to help you."
"Yeah, Rodney," a new voice agrees. "Chill out and stop being a jerk."
"Cadman?" Rodney demands, having a sudden, horrible sense of deja vu at being able to hear Cadman but not see her. "What are you doing here?"
"Did you think I was going to leave you alone here, having all the fun?" He can just see Cadman's completely inappropriate grin, and grimaces at the image. "Besides, they might need me to blow things up if it's the only way to get to you."
"Oh. Great. That's just... great. As if there weren't enough things threatening to explode, we have to bring C4 into the picture!"
"Aw, what fun is life without a little C4?"
Rodney rolls his eyes towards Teyla, who shakes her head in mild disgust at Cadman. Well, he thinks it's directed at Cadman, anyway. It should be.
"I have brought Dr. Simpson with me, as well," Radek interrupts very calmly, apparently deciding to ignore the entire previous exchange. "We will try to open the generator. Please keep the radio on so we can describe what we find."
Rodney lets his head hang for a second, trying to breathe, trying not to feel as helpless and useless as he obviously is. His head is hurting more, and his leg is hurting less; neither of these strike him as good signs. "Your best bet is probably to go in through the bottom, towards the back," he sighs finally. "I think there's a panel there, but I didn't have a chance to find the release mechanism."
"Good. We will start there."
"Teyla dear," Carson jumps in again, "do you and Rodney have any food or water in there with you?"
"Our canteens were with our packs," Teyla answers, and Rodney is suddenly very thirsty. "We have no water, and I do not believe we have any food."
"Wait, wait!" Rodney scrabbles at his lowest vest pocket; he can't quite reach it, but Teyla manages to work her hand under his chest, and pull out the crushed, half-eaten power bar he stashed there at some point this morning.
"Well, it's better than nothing," Carson sighs when they update him. "Go ahead and get something into your systems; hopefully, we'll be able to get to you before the lack of water becomes too critical."
Rodney keeps his hand on the radio, listening to Simpson and Radek making hasty plans for their assault on the generator, while Ronon and Major Lorne keep the digging parties organized and moving, and Teyla awkwardly divides the remains of the power bar. Eating is less a matter of actually eating, and more of dumping his handful of sticky crumbs into his mouth and trying not to drop too much.
And, of course, he's in the middle of this delicate operation when the ground starts to shake again. The crumbs spill over them as he and Teyla both grab for the radio and flashlight, sheilding them between their bodies as small bits of rubble tumble around them. Teyla grunts when something hits her, but Rodney is too busy not screaming as his left leg shifts to a slightly more agonizing angle to see what and where.
"Teyla! McKay!" When the aftershock fades, it's Sheppard's voice that comes through the radio again, and he sounds like hell.
"Still h--" Rodney chokes on the dust, the air burning in his lungs; the remains of the archway are pressing down harder on his back now, forcing him closer against Teyla and making breathing that much more difficult. His ribs are a fiery line of pain down his side. "We're still here. Will someone please make the ground stop doing that!"
"Yeah, we'll get right on that."
A sudden burst of Czech profanity floods over Sheppard's response; only slightly calmer English follows. "Rodney, we are up to nine lights. Only one left, and the alarms are quite loud."
"Damn it!" Rodney squeezes his eyes shut, squeezes his hand around the radio as if holding onto it will magically make his currently useless brain start working again. The alarms are, in fact, exceedingly loud, and Rodney could really stand to stop hearing the damn things as a constant background, as if anyone needs reminding of the danger they're in. Teyla's hand folds around his again, and he looks down at her helplessly, no miracle answers coming to him. Their eyes lock for a long moment; her face is tense with pain and fear, but he can also see a growing resignation. He knows what she's thinking and he knows she's right, even as his mind shrieks in terrified denial.
It's Teyla who keys the radio again. "You are endangering yourselves by trying to save us," she says without a quiver in her voice, but her hand is tight over Rodney's. "You should--"
"--stop talking and fix the damn generator so we can get you out of there, we know!" Sheppard cuts her off ruthlessly.
Rodney pulls the radio away, forcing his words past the lump in his throat. "That's not what she was saying, Colonel, and you know it! You need to get everyone out of here, get them out of range before--"
"You need to shut up and help Zelenka," Sheppard snaps back. "We've got one light left and no one's going anywhere!"
"He's right, Rodney," Cadman butts in, panting like she's been running, or hauling rubble. "Let's focus here."
If they weren't buried and trapped, Rodney could get in Sheppard's face, yell at him, make him admit that they're all being suicidal and stupid. Not that Rodney's eager to die here, eager to see Teyla die here, but he's almost gotten Sheppard killed once lately, he can't even think about doing it again, and that's without considering Carson and Radek and Ronon and even Cadman... No. Just... no.
Teyla's face is set in full agreement. "Colonel--" she starts dangerously.
"You're wasting the time we have, Teyla," Ronon growls, equally dangerously. "If another quake hits, we're probably all dead."
"Exactly my--!" McKay starts to shout, then stops talking, almost stops breathing.
"Rodney?" Sheppard asks after a minute. "What the hell--?"
"Shut up a second," Rodney waves him off, absolutely not caring that Sheppard can't see the gesture. An overloading generator overloading a little more with every quake, and what if they've been overthinking this whole thing?
"Radek, did you bring a GPR unit?"
"Of course," Radek answers immediately. "The search and rescue teams brought several, they're using them now to plan how to excavate you."
"Good. Go steal one and get a radar reading off the bottom of the generator. See how far into the ground it goes."
"Into the--" Rodney can almost hear the moment Radek's mind makes the same connection his did. "Of course! It's not a generator, it's a converter!"
"A convert... A seismic converter!" Simpson is only a few seconds behind Radek. "It's not generating energy--"
"--it's converting the energy from the quakes into a more usable form, yes!" Rodney doesn't realize he's nearly vibrating with triumph until Teyla places her hand back over his to steady it and the flashlight stops bouncing all over the place. "To stop the overload--"
"--we need to stop the flow of energy from the quakes, or find a way to discharge the energy that's already there," Simpson continues.
"Which means..." Rodney follows the chain of logic to its inevitable conclusion. "You have until the next quake hits to work. Otherwise, if the quake is too strong..."
"The converter overloads and explodes," Radek concludes grimly. "And who knows when next quake will come."
TBC
