AN: Wow! 111 reviews! Thanks so much; I'm speechless...well, maybe not entirely.
SPOILERS for "Trinity"
SUMMARY: After the events in "Trinity", Sheppard and McKay's relationship is strained at best. But is stranding them in a remote lighthouse with only Zelenka as referee going to help them work things out? And what about the dead scientist who used to own the place?
DISCLAIMER: The following story is a work of fanfiction, and as such is for fan enjoyment only. All recognizable characters/settings are the property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is made.
Deus Ex Machina
By KerrAvon
9. Safety Precautions
"Hey, Doctor Z, you gonna be OK?" John and Rodney managed to negotiate Radek up two flights of stairs and into his bed; after the evening he'd had, Sheppard was immensely grateful for McKay's help with the somnambulating scientist.
"Be fine. Thank you," came the muffled reply from beneath three blankets. It was quickly followed by the sound of soft snoring.
Easing the door closed, Sheppard turned to his other charge. Once they had reached the third floor landing, Rodney had bent over double, gasping for breath as John finished putting the other scientist to bed. Placing a supportive hand on the panting man's back, he inquired, "What about you, Rodney?"
McKay, red-faced, tried to speak between wheezes. Rolling his right hand in illustration, he puffed, "Carbon…monox….monoxide…permanently…binds…" Abandoning that sentence, he tried again, "Short…of…breath. This…gonna…last….months!" His breathing finally began to slow to normal as the pair made their way around the hall, during which time he began to mull over the consequences. He glanced up at Sheppard in a panic as they paused outside his room. "What if I'm anoxic? I could get brain damage! I may need a transfusion to increase my oxygen carrying capacity. We need to contact Beckett!"
John studied him critically. "Rodney, the damage was done hours ago and you just helped haul Radek up two flights of stairs; as long as you don't get exposed again, you'll only improve from here on out."
"How do we know I won't? Get re-exposed, I mean?"
Sheppard's eyes became dangerous, boding ill for person or persons unknown. "Because I am going to find out what happened, and make sure there are no repeat performances." He intentionally lightened his expression, clapping a hand on Rodney's shoulder. "Besides, would you leave before you figure out if you can make Seinlein's project work?"
McKay paused, considering. "Good points. Beckett would yank me out of here…"
"And whoever did this will have gotten what they wanted." Sheppard opened the door to McKay's room and ushered the scientist inside.
"Who would want to sabotage this project?" Rodney was truly confused. "If we can make it work, it'll effectively protect this planet from further cullings. Why would someone here want to prevent that?"
"I can think of a few possibilities," replied Sheppard, folding down Rodney's blanket. "First, there's the rival scientific camp, who might just be petty enough to want to see this fail no matter what." Rodney sat on the edge of the bed and began to pull his boots off as Sheppard continued, "Second, it could be an enemy of Dr. Seinlein himself who doesn't want any of the doctor's work to succeed. The man didn't sound like the warm and cuddly type." McKay was having trouble with his shirt, so John reached over to help pull it over his head, then stepped back again. "Third, there could be Wraith sympathizers on this planet. We have no idea how widespread that problem is. Finally, it could just be some nut with an insane prejudice against off-worlders." He shrugged. "I don't care so much as to who they are as to how they're getting in, and how to stop them."
He looked at the scientist. "Can you finish getting to bed by yourself?"
McKay frowned indignantly, "Of course."
John nodded. "Good. I have a few things to do before I turn in. Sleep tight; I'll see you in the morning." So saying he turned and let himself out of the room.
Having effectively tucked both scientists in for the night, Sheppard headed downstairs while trying to work the spasms out of his back. The effort with Zelenka had worn him out, and he'd managed to breathe some of that carbon monoxide himself; not enough to impair his exercise stamina, but enough to give him a headache. He wanted nothing more than a good night's sleep. Nevertheless, there was no way he was going to bed with some unknown assailant potentially stalking their every move. The incident with the masonry could have been an accident, the fall from the cliff a coincidence, but for the exhaust hose to the generator to come loose, flooding the lab with poisonous gas? Sheppard wasn't buying it. To top it off, that mysterious scamp kept showing up in the nick of time to inadvertently save their lives…Mama Sheppard didn't raise any fools.
'First things first. Check the perimeter.' Thought into action, he snagged a jacket, a flashlight, and his 9-millimeter firearm. A careful inspection of the outside of the building revealed nothing out of the ordinary, and all the windows were securely locked from the inside. There were no signs of attempted entry on any of the sills, and the glass was unbroken.
Going back inside, he repeated the circuit on the first and second floors, confirming that everything was locked up tight.
Putting a hand to the back of his neck and rubbing at a spasm, he stared around the room consideringly. "OK, how are they getting in? Most likely a secret passage of some sort. If I measure the inside and outside dimensions of this tower, I ought to be able to tell if one of the walls is thick enough to hide a tunnel or stairs." Digging out a tape measure from their supplies, he carefully measured and recorded the inside dimensions of all the chambers on the first two floors, figuring that no hidden access would begin on the third. Once this was completed, he headed into the basement and repeated the process, planning to compare the dimensions to the chambers above. There had been sufficient time for the filters to do their job, so he felt relatively safe working down there for a few minutes.
Next he checked the generator room to make sure that the exhaust hose was still in its correct position. Moving the radiator clamp back to the groove that it had dug in the rubber over the years, he examined the screw before tightening it down. Grimly he noted the fresh, silver scratch marks that stood out from the rust-encased screw head of the too-loose clamp. Pulling the rubber exhaust hose back just far enough to see the oxidized metal pipe beneath it, he observed fresh scratch marks there as well, made by prying the hose loose with a screwdriver. Scowling, he replaced both the hose and the clamp, tightening it firmly with his Leatherman. He turned to check the rest of the chamber. There were no windows as this level was below ground, but the soldier carefully examined the walls, sequentially tapping on them to confirm that they were solid from the ground to his shoulder level.
Next, he climbed up to his room. Digging through his rucksack as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the others, he retrieved a roll of tape, his sewing kit, and his digital camera and descended to the library. Choosing the finest white thread he had in his kit and stretching to reach the corners, he tacked an almost-invisible 'X' across every window. He held the thread in place with only a tiny amount of tape, so that it would easily come off if someone entered through that part of the building. On the first floor he repeated the process, leaving only the main entrance unmarked, as they themselves used it to enter and exit. Finally, in the basement he taped up his camera in a remote location, then rigged a tripwire to take a photo if the door to the generator was opened. He'd tell Rodney and Radek about it in the morning, so they wouldn't get paranoid if they found it on their own. The 'Nikon' on the side should clue them in to the fact that it belonged to him rather than to an intruder, but they were likely to be a little jumpy.
Glancing at his watch he noted that it was just 2 AM; he had time to catch a few hours sleep before dawn, at which point he planned on examining a few things in the daylight. Plodding up the stairs, he realized just how exhausted he was. Falling into bed, he hoped that his sleep would be undisturbed for a change.
Unfortunately, that hope was in vain. Every time he closed his eyes he found himself back at the Arcturus Project with Rodney, only now billowing, poisonous green smoke kept pouring out of all the airvents, threatening to suffocate them before they could escape. He would wake in a cold sweat, only to repeat the process a few minutes later.
As the pre-dawn light crept in his window, Sheppard gave it up as a lost cause. Throwing off his blanket, he hurriedly showered and shaved in the small bathroom attached to his bedroom, and headed downstairs. There was no sign of either Zelenka or McKay stirring, so he took the opportunity to measure the outside dimensions of the building and add them to the results he'd obtained the previous night. Next, he knelt beside the stone that had almost flattened him. It was quite weathered on all sides but one, clearly the side that had fractured from the wall above. Careful examination, however, revealed disturbingly regular chisel marks in the rock on that side. Clearly, someone had intentionally loosened the masonry from its mooring, causing it to fall at just about the time he'd been returning from the village. He wasn't sure how the timing could be set up, but those marks were man-made.
Squinting up at the tower, Sheppard could just make out a lighter patch below the fourth floor window. "Well, let's take a look, shall we?" he asked himself. Going back inside, he mounted the stairs as quietly as he could; Zelenka and Rodney had both had a harrowing day yesterday and deserved to sleep in. Heck, he deserved to sleep in; too bad his subconscious wouldn't allow that.
Reaching the deserted fourth floor, he eased the creaking door open and went to the window overlooking the path below. He carefully examined the sill; visually it looked unremarkable, so he felt along the edge. His questing fingers soon found the fresh chipping in the stone of the casement where a crowbar equivalent would have rested if prying on some object outside. 'Or prying off', he thought to himself unhappily. Next he evaluated the frame of the window. "I was afraid of that," he commented as he noted the fractured wood where someone had splintered the lock…from the inside. Finally he swung open the glass and peered at the wall directly below; there were chisel marks in the outer edifice identical to the ones on the stone. "Well, that answers the timing question; whoever dislodged that rock was up here when it fell." Swinging around, he hurried back downstairs, heading to the cliff edge where Zelenka had slipped the night before. On the way he began running possible hypotheses in his mind.
'All right, first point: someone definitely tried to kill me by dropping that slab just as I was returning from the village. Therefore, someone bypassed the complex's security system and made it up to the fourth floor in order to do that. Second point: the boy, fast as he is, still couldn't have beat me back and run upstairs in time to do it. Also, there is no way he'd have the strength to lift that rock, much less loosen it from its attachment to the lighthouse wall. Ergo, someone else did, and that someone else is probably an adult male - a strong adult male. So is the kid working with him or against him?' He snorted at the mental question. 'Given that the only reason my head's not crushed like an eggshell is the fact that I was chasing him, I'll have to lean towards the latter.' He rubbed a hand over his bleary eyes as he moved his aching muscles towards the cliff. 'Dang, I'm tired. I feel worse than I did in Atlantis. When we get back I'll get some sleeping pills from the infirmary if I have to steal them.'
Lips thinning to a line, he proceeded to the spot where Zelenka had fallen the day before. Not wanting to end up in the same predicament as the scientist, he knelt on the ground several yards away from the edge and inched his way out. About a foot from the new cliff-edge the stone appeared intentionally dislodged, then covered over to make it appear stable. Clumps of grass had even been positioned to disguise the torn-up ground. Given that a goodly chunk of the loose stone must have tumbled into the sea when Zelenka fell, he suspected that the assassin had torn up a good yard of ground. There was a second section a hundred feet further down his jogging path that had been similarly disturbed. The weight of a man would easily send the rock and its occupant tumbling into the surf below. Zelenka had merely been caught in the fallout from an attempt to kill Sheppard. John worried that the red headed child might have fallen as well until he recalled that Rodney had seen the scamp after Sheppard had found Radek.
Sheppard wasted no time returning to the lighthouse and his two charges. Upon entering the building he was relieved to hear the murmur of a low conversation coming from the kitchen, as well as the aroma of fresh coffee. Hanging up his jacket, he headed in to join the others. To his surprise, Zelenka sat sipping coffee at the table while McKay stood at the stove with a spatula and a frying pan.
"Wow, Rodney, I thought we'd given up on you doing any of the cooking this trip," commented John as he sauntered over to the stove. "Whatcha making?"
McKay drew himself up proudly. "If you must know, Doctor Zelenka has been instructing me in the fine art of scrambling eggs." To demonstrate, he held up the pan where fluffy, nearly-done mounds of yellow nestled in rich butter.
"Yes, but it is time to remove from fire," commented Radek upon seeing the stage of preparation. "They will finish firming on the plates."
Like a schoolboy, Rodney looked at his creation and said, "Oh. OK," then proceeded to distribute the eggs evenly onto three plates where slabs of toast and jam already rested.
"Let me help you carry this," offered John, picking up two of the dishes. Carefully transporting them to the table, he set one in front of Zelenka and the other at his own place before sitting down himself. Rodney, turning off the fire, picked up his laden plate and joined them.
As John poured a cup of coffee, he took the opportunity to examine the other two men. Rodney for the most part seemed to have recovered, but Radek was significantly worse for the wear. Clearly the man had bathed, as numerous scrapes and bruises stood out in sharp relief against his pallid skin. Despite the shower there was still blood under the ragged fingernails of his right hand from having gripped the cliff face so tightly, and his right wrist appeared swollen as if he had sprained it as Sheppard pulled him up. While no longer frankly shaking in shock, his hand still trembled slightly as he reached for the sugar.
"You gonna be OK?" asked the colonel, concerned.
Radek stared at his food, embarrassed. "I shall be fine once I get back to work. I apologize for my weakness."
Rodney piped up. "That's why I thought I should make breakfast this morning; a kitchen fire would be a bad way to start the day. Besides, I always wanted to know how to cook eggs."
Sheppard didn't understand it, but for some reason the Czech was embarrassed that he hadn't completely recovered from his harrowing experience overnight. Sending McKay a surreptitious nod, he took a bite and commented, "And fabulous eggs they are, Rodney. I couldn't have done better myself."
Rodney took a bite of his own, then looked up at Sheppard in surprise. "These really are good," he exclaimed, then lit into them like there was no tomorrow.
Radek picked slowly at his food, but managed to clean his plate before he spoke again. "So, Colonel, what have you discovered?"
John didn't sugar-coat things. Staring the other two straight in the eye, he spoke slowly and seriously. "None of the things that happened to us yesterday were accidents. When I secured the exhaust tube last night I found definite signs that it had been intentionally pried loose. The rock that almost flattened me has chisel marks from where it was dislodged from the tower wall, and the ground where Zelenka fell has been deliberately dug up and smoothed over."
The room was silent for a minute, then Radek quietly asked, "So…what do we do?"
"Well, for one thing, I'm heading down to talk to the constable. He needs to know what's going on, and he might have some idea about who the kid is so I can question him."
"You don't think that the child…" began Radek, aghast.
"No, I don't," replied Sheppard before the engineer could even finish his sentence. "But he does know how to get in and out of this facility without triggering the alarms, and I'll bet our assailant is using the same method. While I'm gone I'd like you two to stay inside and together as much as possible; keep an eye on each other's back."
Sheppard then went on to describe what he'd done the night before to try and pinpoint the entry site. "When I get back I'll compare the measurements I took from the inside and the outside of the structure to see if there are any glaring discrepancies."
"What about contacting Atlantis and having them send reinforcements?" asked Rodney anxiously.
"The problem is, to do that we have to go through the Deltarran Science Ministry to relay a message. I'm not sure I trust them, and I don't want to tip off the criminal."
"Do you want me to run those measurements while you're gone?" McKay offered half-heartedly.
"Nah, I have too much free time as it is. Your genius is better spent working on that prototype in the basement." So saying, he pushed back his chair and stood. "I'd better get going."
"Hey, don't forget; it's your turn to do the dishes when you get back!" Rodney called to the retreating figure.
TBC….
AN: Yes, there's still more whumping left to go, but I think I've tortured poor Radek enough for one story, don't you?