Lorne sighed. He had only been up for three hours and already he was tired. Though trying to argue with Rodney McKay had that effect on people. It was supposed to be his day off, but he had coincidently been passing the Jumper bay when he heard the argument break out. Luckily, it didn't get too heated, and the Major had managed to get Colonel Sheppard to come and sort out McKay.
Lorne would've put more effort into dealing with Rodney himself, but for the fact that he was eager for some time away from duty. He had worked hard to get here, Atlantis, the mission most military personnel dreamed about being a part of – those that knew about it anyway – but he had barely had much time to himself since his arrival.
He walked through the hallways of the great city and pondered what to do with himself. He still didn't know the city all that well, but he was learning. There were still areas, however, that were off-limits until more research had been done on those particular sections. That narrowed the area open to him down to about 80. Most of that he knew, such as the control room, living quarters, infirmary, science labs, Jumper bay, mess hall and the armoury.
'Okay', he thought to himself, 'that leaves me a smaller area to play with.' He made his way towards the nearest transporter and pressed a section on the map that was unknown to him. Seconds later, he was facing a hallway on the opposite side of the city. Like the Colonel, Ancient technology fascinated him, and he was lucky enough to have the gene that allowed him to use it to its full potential.
'Right. Now what?' he asked himself. He emerged from the transporter and made his way down the hallway that lay in front of him. It looked the same as most of the other hallways he had been in, modern and enclosed with lights running down the pillars and columns of illuminated bubbling water. There were small windows at regular intervals, decorated with the same stained glass that filled the windows throughout the city. He came to a stairway that lead downwards, when he suddenly remembered he had forgotten to bring his radio. 'Ah well,' he thought, 'What's the worst that could happen? If I get lost, I'll just go back the way I came.' He made his way down the stairs, and arrived at another hallway, this one considerably darker than the previous one, however, it looked like most of the others he had seen. There were three ways to go, so Lorne picked the middle one. He was halfway down it when the lights went off, plunging the corridor into darkness. 'Great' he said to himself. 'Now what do I do? I have no idea where the hell I am.' A dim light came on somewhere at the end of the hallway, so he continued the way he was going, and emerged into some sort of boiler room. Well, that's what he assumed it was. It was warm and humid, and he could just make out the shapes of pipes spreading throughout the room. He could see through the dim light that there was steam coming out of one of them. He couldn't tell if it was damaged or not, but he was sure it wasn't supposed to do that; it was making the floor wet. The light he had seen was coming from a door panel on the wall. 'Huh.' He thought. 'That's odd, this light only came on when the door opened. Why did it open?'
Suddenly, Lorne felt another presence in the room. He saw a movement to his left by the door he had just come in out the corner of his eye. His hand slid to the sidearm strapped to his leg, and whipping it from its holster, he spun to his left. There was nothing there. Lorne frowned and turned back the way he had been facing, and was suddenly hurled into the air. The last thing he remembered was the aching in his back as he slammed against the far wall, and then complete darkness, as he slipped into unconsciousness.