Chapter 2

"Excuse me? You want me to fix the what?"

Elizabeth folded her hands in front of her and forced herself to keep both a straight face, and her temper. "The bathrooms, Rodney."

"I have three PhD's and the finest mind in the Pegasus galaxy, and you want me to waste me fixing toilets?" Rodney stared at her. "That's what plumbers are for!"

"And where should I call a plumber from, Rodney? Detroit?" Elizabeth rubbed her forehead tiredly with her thumb, got herself back under control. She'd negotiated peace treaties in the Middle East, yet somehow Rodney McKay could annoy her enough to break through her facade. She'd chosen the man for this mission for dozens of very good reasons, but his people skills were not one of them. "Rodney, we have no plumbers. Strangely, when I was choosing people for this mission, it wasn't a skill I thought to include."

"Well, you should have."

She leaned forward. "Besides, it's most likely a malfunction in the Ancients' technology, not a clog. And you are, as you keep reminding us, the foremost expert on Ancient technology in the city."

Flattery, with Rodney, generally got you everywhere. He clasped his hands behind his back and puffed up a little. "Well, I'll see what I can do."

He left Elizabeth's office with his laptop in front of his face, running through schematics and doing rapid-fire calculations of fluid dynamics in his head. It had now been several days since the raising of Atlantis made it obvious to everyone that details on the bathroom facilities -- along with cooking, refrigeration and other everyday necessities -- would need to be among the first things teased from the treasure trove of Ancient wisdom at their fingertips. Luckily, Beckett and that Czech guy with the funny name had stumbled upon a bathroom, probably in search of something else, just before Atlantis had risen to the surface. (He'd heard that Zelenka had actually been in the bathroom -- as in, using it -- at the time of the raising. Never could get more details out of him about that, though, no matter how hard he tried.) Once Atlantis had stabilized on the surface, they'd tapped various team members with the gene to go around and activate the bathrooms. Fortunately for everybody (but especially for the gene wielders), the bathrooms were one of those pieces of Ancient tech that didn't need a gene to operate once they were activated, although it was impossible to hide the toilet in the manner that the designers had apparently intended without using the gene to raise and lower it.

Everything had gone fine for the first few days, once enough bathrooms had been activated to accommodate the city's burgeoning population. However it seemed that as time went on, the more systems they brought on-line, the more strange failures they seemed to be experiencing. Rodney suspected that what they were seeing weren't so much failures, per se, as the accidental activation of various failsafe features designed to prevent, say, a toilet flushing into the kitchen's cooking machinery. Unfortunately they didn't know enough about how the whole thing worked to understand how the individual problems related to the whole. All he knew was that at the moment, most of the toilets in the wing of the city that was being used for a Marine barracks were refusing to flush, and somehow it had become his problem to fix it. As if he didn't have a million other, more important things to do! The toilets in the scientists' wing were working fine, and frankly, he didn't care if the Marines had to hike a few blocks. Those military types liked exercise. It was one of the many reasons why he couldn't fathom military people and suspected he'd never feel truly comfortable around any of them.

Aside from Colonel Carter, of course. He'd love to get comfortable with her...

Where had he been going with this train of thought? Oh yes, the gene. In order to fix the plumbing, unfortunately, he needed somebody with the gene who would be able to perform the manipulations of the equipment that he couldn't. It still rankled that a genius like himself couldn't perform some of the most simple operations of the machinery in the city, while ordinary morons were able to slap their ham-hands on a piece of equipment and --

Aha. There went one of the ordinary ham-handed morons now, and one that he knew had the gene. He'd seen it in action.

"Hey, you, um --" Damn it, he could remember thousands of equations and the entire contents of certain textbooks he'd read; why could he never remember people's names? Well, most people were largely interchangeable anyway, and as an added bonus the military came conveniently labeled with their rank, so he used that instead. "Major. Come with me. Need extra hands." Hands with the ATA gene, to be specific.

The major raised his eyebrows but fell into step beside Rodney. "I'm Sheppard, by the way," he said conversationally. "You know, ranking military member of this expedition..."

"I know who you are, Major, now would you shut up for a minute?" It was hard enough to do differential calculus with alien number systems in your head without also having someone yakking at you. Just his luck he'd pick a talker.

"You know, McKay, I'm glad we got an opportunity to talk," Sheppard said as they went deeper into the city, apparently failing to notice Rodney's exasperated glower. "I'm currently putting together some teams for offworld reconnaissance, sort of like the SG teams back home."

"Good for you," Rodney said shortly, endeavoring to ignore him.

"I'd like to ask you to be on my team."

That not only stopped him in his tracks, it also made him forget the latest result of his mental calculations. "Damn it!" He turned the full force of the patented McKay glare on the major. Back on Earth, this expression had emptied laboratories. Sheppard just stared back at him, apparently unimpressed. "And why would I want to do that?" he demanded. "I am the smartest man in this galaxy, the only person who can keep this city running, and you want to me to risk my brains on alien worlds? You're out of your mind."

Sheppard appeared genuinely surprised. "Don't you want to explore other planets? Find new technology? Meet cool alien races?"

McKay waved his hand in the air. "Didn't notice the alien technology all around us, hm? There's enough here to keep me busy for, oh, about twelve lifetimes, and that's if people don't keep interrupting me every five minutes complaining about the plumbing."

He wouldn't admit to a teeny, tiny twinge at Sheppard's words. Blast the man, it would be something to walk on alien worlds. Never mind the fact that they were, technically, on an alien world at the moment. Besides, if he wasn't on one of the teams, that meant someone else would have the opportunity to discover brand-new technology and get all the credit. The first person to find a ZPM would probably be a hero in Atlantis. And it wasn't as if anyone in his department could actually be trusted to find a ZPM if it was held in front of their noses...

Sheppard had assumed a quiet, hopeful, slightly puppydoggish look. "No," said Rodney firmly, "means no," and he started walking again.

"C'mon, McKay!" Apparently "no" did not always mean no to one Major John Sheppard. "You said it yourself, you're the smartest man in the city. I need your brains. We're going to be the front lines, figuring out new alien geegaws, meeting sexy alien women --"

"-- getting our lives sucked out by Wraith," Rodney finished for him. "No thanks. I'm fond of my life and I want to keep it."

"Alien technology no one's ever seen before," Sheppard wheedled.

"I said no, you stubborn pain in the ass." He didn't mean it to come out like that. He just wanted the guy to shut up and quit derailing his train of thought. On the other hand, Rodney was quite used to the disconnect between what he meant to say and what he actually said in most cases. Not good with people. He'd never been good with people. Not that it bothered him overly much; most people weren't worth the effort of getting to know, in his experience.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Hey, aren't you the guy asking for my help? And that's Major pain-in-the-ass to you."

Rodney gave him a brief sideward look, decided that he did not appear to be either drunk or high, and went back to his calculations. Yes. Yes. That just might explain a lot of what was causing the problems with the plumbing. It just might be easy enough to fix ...

"Are you thinking about my offer?"

... provided, of course, that Major Pain-in-the-ass would just shut up and let him think.

"I'm thinking about sealing you up in the nearest Ancient sewage treatment plant, if you don't let me concentrate," Rodney snapped.

He kept expecting to piss the guy off, which was the usual effect that he had on people, but instead, the major just grinned. "You'll have to take me down first," he said. "I have a black belt in whoop-ass and I'm not afraid to open a can on you."

Rodney looked up from his laptop and gave him a flat stare of disbelief. "Did your brain stop developing in grade school? That's the most juvenile insult I've heard since--"

"Dr. McKay, come in, please." It was Dr. Weir on his radio, her voice startling him into an involuntary jump. Sheppard's irritating grin got even wider. Rodney McKay decided, in that moment, that his initial impression of Major Sheppard back on Earth had been correct: the man was an insufferable jock, exactly the sort of person who used to make Rodney's life miserable when he was younger. He also decided in the same instant that he did not like this man and never would.

"McKay here," he said stiffly.

"Rodney. Sorry to bother you. I've just been informed that the toilets in the Athosians' quarters have stopped working as well, and the showers aren't draining."

Rodney snorted. "They're probably used to crapping in the woods. They'll be fine. I'll bet they haven't even realized anything's wrong yet."

Elizabeth's voice turned frosty. "Dr. McKay, this is a public channel, and the Athosians are our friends and allies. Please choose your words more carefully."

What was it with him and his mouth? He didn't know if she realized it or not, but Weir was one of the few people in the city he was actually willing to apologize to. "Sorry. It's been a long day, and it just keeps getting longer."

"I know, and I'm sorry to dump something else on you." She paused; McKay had a mental image of her mouth twisting as she regretted her unfortunate choice of words. "Please give me regular reports, Rodney. There are a lot of fairly tense people waiting for the problem to be fixed."

"There are other bathrooms in the city, you know."

"Less of them all the time," Weir said. "Zelenka tells me that less than 20 percent of the active ... facilities are currently operating correctly."

Twenty percent? Last time he'd checked, it had been 31.4 percent ... Rodney added this to his mental calculus, and didn't like it much. "I'll keep you posted. Um ... not that I can't fix this, because I'm sure I can, but you might want to start considering, er, other options just in case ..."

"We're already working on something. Just keep me posted. Weir ou--" She broke off, and said, "Rodney, while I've got you on the line, is Sheppard with you? He doesn't seem to be responding to his radio."

Rodney rolled an eyeball in Sheppard's direction, noted the radio headset dangling from his collar by its little wire, as well as the man's urgent shushing motions. Presumably Sheppard was avoiding Weir to prevent being assigned to some petty and meaningless task ... worse than fixing broken toilets in the Marines' barracks? The thought occurred to him that turning Sheppard over to Weir would be the perfect revenge for the man's general annoyingness. Unfortunately, it would also mean he'd lose Sheppard's ATA gene, and considering how busy everyone was, it would be hard to find another one. Plus, what could Weir possibly come up with that would be worse than unclogging the plumbing? He probably had his perfect revenge right here.

"Haven't seen him."

"You're sure about that? You haven't seen him at all?"

The nerve -- was she accusing him of lying? Of course, technically, he was lying ... "Elizabeth," he said, with his eyes fixed on Sheppard in a sort of dare, "the major dislikes me as much as I dislike him. Why in the world would I want to spend more time around him than I have to?"

"I know, Rodney--"

"I mean, just between you and me, he's an arrogant ass," Rodney said, and was rewarded by the dirty look Sheppard sent him. A slow grin started to spread across his face, although he fought to keep it out of his voice. Sweet revenge! The best part was that Sheppard couldn't say anything without tipping Elizabeth off to his location. "He's an idiot flyboy whose idea of interacting with Ancient technology is to poke it with a stick and then shoot it. The very epitome of everything about the military mindset that flies in the face of reason, decency and common sense. Not to mention the hair. Do you think anyone is ever going to tell the man that he looks like a hedgehog that stuck its tongue in a light socket?"

Sheppard was now giving him the finger with both hands.

"Rodney," Weir said, "public channel, remember?"

"Oh, right. Sorry. Well, if I see something that looks like an ambulatory Chia pet on a stick, I'll let you know. McKay out."

He switched off his radio, eyeing Sheppard with a combination of amusement and challenge, wondering how the man would react. Anger? But Sheppard was laughing.

"Chia pet on a stick?"

"You have no idea what you look like, do you?" Rodney inquired, returning to his laptop. Twenty percent. Damn. Gonna have to start his calculations all over again. "You probably think you've got some kind of cool, chick-magnet flyboy thing going there," he added, typing one-handed while he walked. "Well, I hate to break it to you, Major, but it just looks like you lost an argument with a lawn mower. That hair cannot be military regulation."

"You do realize that you're hardly Mr. G.Q. yourself."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Sheppard shrugged. "A little more time in the gym, a little less time on a lab stool, if you know what I --"

"You know what, Top Gun? I didn't bring you down here to insult me."

"Yeah?" Sheppard said, looking around at the dank corridors. They were fairly deep into the guts of the city now. "Just why exactly did you bring me along, anyway? I assume it has something to do with the gene."

"Precisely. You're going to help me fix Atlantis's plumbing problems."

He became aware of Sheppard giving him a funny look. "Okay, I'm doing what now?"

"Drains not draining. Toilets not flushing. No Port-A-Potties in the Pegasus galaxy. Very bad. Shut up, I'm working."

Sheppard, predictably, shut up for all of five seconds. "McKay, I'm a pilot, not a mechanic. I don't know anything about fixing plumbing."

McKay shut the laptop with a loud snap. He should have picked someone else with the gene. Anyone else. "Well, you're not going to be fixing it. I am. All you have to do is -- how shall I put this in terms you'll understand? -- make the glowy things glow." He twirled his hand in the air, indicating the corridors and conduits around them, and opened the laptop again, looking at a map of the city. "Aha, we're here."

Sheppard looked around at the slightly corroded walls, the ominous puddles of water on the floor. "This doesn't look like a bathroom to me, unless the plumbing problems are a lot worse than you've let on."

Rodney attempted, once again, to wither him with a glare. As usual, it didn't work. The man appeared to have the hide, and possibly the brain, of a rhinoceros; nothing got through to him. "We're under it, you Neanderthal. Several levels under. All the outflow conduits seem to run down here, and if I'm right, there's some kind of central control station behind one of these walls."

"You really are looking for an Ancient sewage treatment plant! I thought you were kidding."

"I do not 'kid'," McKay said stiffly, "about sewage." He looked at the laptop, the walls, and traced some of the glowing lines with his finger. Then he pointed. "Okay, do your mojo there."

"Which mojo is that, again?"

"Open the wall, Major, so those of us with an education can fix what's behind it."

A few minutes of wall-groping later ...

"It's not opening, McKay."

"Yes, thank you for stating the obvious so eloquently." Rodney rotated the image on the laptop, stared at it again, the blue glow of the screen bathing his face and the walls. "It's got to be back there. All the conduits lead here. I've done the calculations three times. It has to be here."

"Maybe something's wrong in your calculations."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. I don't make mistakes. Not of that nature."

Sheppard laughed. "McKay, everyone makes mistakes."

"I don't," Rodney said. "Try it again."

"This is silly," Sheppard complained, touching various parts of the wall. "Why in the world would they hide their sewage treatment plant?"

"Hello? You're the military commander around here! You name it -- terrorists! Sabateurs! Wraith spies! Who knows what they had to deal with out here?"

"Bungling humans messing with their technology ..." Sheppard muttered, stretching to reach the ceiling.

"I heard that, and I assume you were talking about yourself, not me."

Sheppard just snorted. "Are you sure there's a door here? It doesn't look like it to me."

"Half the doors in this place don't look like doors to us. We assume the Ancients had some sort of coding system that we haven't worked out yet." Sheppard braced visibly for another infodump, but instead, Rodney's brain was already flying off in another direction. He spun around to regard the far wall. "Say, that panel there, open it for me."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow, but went to it. "This doesn't require the gene," he said, teasing the panel loose from its millennia of corrosion. "You could do this yourself."

"That is why you're here," Rodney retorted, propping the laptop against the wall so that he could type better. "I'm busy thinking. You, on the other hand, are not doing anything useful."

One end of the panel came loose with a tearing screech of metal, snapping back against Sheppard's knuckles. "Ow!" He sucked at the flap of loose skin and gave McKay an aggrieved look. "No, clearly not, just standing around, that's me."

"For God's sake, don't put your mouth on that! Who knows what kind of germs are down here."

"Which would be why you're standing safely over there, and I'm the one doing all the dirty work over here?" Sheppard inquired a bit nastily, hooking his fingers under the panel and prying it up.

"You bet your ass. Aha!" As a section of the wall's inner workings were revealed -- a few crystals glimmering dully, but most of them dark -- Rodney left his position against the wall and came to look over Sheppard's shoulder.

"Ah, yes, yes, I thought so," Rodney murmured. He reached around Sheppard with a barked "Move!" and began rerouting wires. "There's a failsafe. It's preventing the door from opening. This has been driving us crazy as we've been trying to power up the rest of the city, too. Every bit of technology is couched around with a thousand unnecessary and redundant measures to protect against every possible unlikely thing you can imagine. One tiny short somewhere in the system, and nothing will turn on, and you end up wasting hours with a voltmeter trying to track down the problem. The Ancients were worse than ... than ... worse than you Americans' FDC. They're like a bunch of nannies -- ah, ow. Can't get to that one. Hold this for me."

Sheppard took the laptop that Rodney passed to him, bemused. "You know, the fact that you science types are disabling failsafes right and left ... this couldn't have anything to do with the current problems, could it?"

"Of course not. We know exactly what we're doing, and we don't disable necessary systems, only the ones preventing us from -- Got it! All right!" He snatched his laptop back, and pointed at the opposite wall. "Open it!"

Sheppard reached for the wall, hesitated. "Are you quite sure this is safe?"

"Safe as a holiday on the Atlantean Riviera," Rodney reassured him, standing on his tiptoes and jittering up and down in eagerness.

"This would be the Riviera with all the Wraiths?"

Rodney clenched his teeth and attempted yet again to pin Sheppard to the wall with a glower. It worked so well on the scientists, damn it ... "Just open the freaking door so we can go somewhere dry, would you?"

Sheppard laid his hand flat against the wall. Obligingly, it slid back immediately...

... releasing a cascade of ice-cold water that deluged the corridor.

------

tbc...