Previously: We rescued an alien escape pod and Elizabeth had a really bad reaction to it (last chapter). And, also, so much for things getting back to normal.


Chapter 117. When Level Three Was Haunted.

"Miss Zelenka?"

Anna bit her tongue and stepped up to the two Marines in the hallway. Right in her path. All the way down on level three, calling her by the wrong name no less. Of course, he knew who she was, but the finer points of Czech grammar hadn't been impressed on just about anyone around here. To be fair, she had very little idea who he was. She thought she saw him hanging around Reed once, but… most of the military people did at one point or another.

"Yes, sir?" Anna asked politely, anyway. He looked unamused and was carrying a large gun.

"Where are you going?"

Anna pointed down the hallway to the stairs she could see just behind him. "Level 1. There's a lab down there I… where I study."

The Marine and his buddy exchanged a glance before one sighed, readjusting his grip on his gun. "I see. Well, until further notice I'm going to have to ask you to take the transporter to bypass level three."

Anna gave him a sideways look, then his friend. Neither of them looked like they were joking, but she figured that was just a byproduct of being a Marine.

All the same she gave a small nod. "Okay. I'll… go take the transporter?"

"I think that's a good idea."

Anna turned away and walked stiffly up the nearest stairs, puzzling. As far as she knew… there was nothing in level 3 except for some empty labs. Sometimes the military personnel did training, though, so maybe that was it. They were running around shooting each other with lasers and didn't want people like Anna to get in the way.

Until further notice…? Right.

Everyone was busy studying some Ancient handguns and making sure their new puddle jumpers were in good working order. Anna had to imagine that was why everyone was acting cagey lately. Maybe stressed, restless.

They were bored. They were used to running for their lives and the relative safety of the last weeks had them nervous. Anna was still holding on to some leftover terror from having Ronon's gun pointed at her, but it wasn't so bad anymore. Instead, the fear was only a steady companion for when the room got dark… She sometimes she wished she were just a bit smaller, so she could ask Radek if she could stay in his room without feeling like the child she thought she shouldn't be.

She was tired. Of course, she was. She wasn't sleeping. That might have explained the invisible monster she could sense in the shadows but couldn't see. That thing making everyone nervous before it stepped into the light. She couldn't sleep with the lights on or off. The only thing that seemed to make any difference was if there was someone with her. During the day, it didn't matter so much as long as she could see. She still wasn't eager to be alone in the city's extremities, but if she wanted to study Janus's lab, she didn't have much choice.

Janus's lab had become, more or less, Anna's lab. No one was ever down here. Everyone seemed to have forgotten it and the information that came with it. Sure, there were some translators in the higher levels of the tower working on some bits of the logs for her, but only when they weren't busy. But they were always busy. Anna knew that if anything of interest came from Janus's lab, it would be because she found it.

And as nice as that sounded, it also sounded virtually impossible. It was hard to find things of value when people like Rodney were on the job, finding valuable things under every rock he bothered to lift.

She liked to blame the homework for her lack of progress on the ZPM. Or what could have been a ZPM. She'd showed Rodney a calendar distinctly saying it was early summer, but he didn't know what that was supposed to mean. Or else he was being purposefully obtuse.

"Anna." Radek's voice in her ear made her jump.

"Yes?"

"Where are you?"

"In the lab? The one—Janus's lab. Down on level 1."

"Oh."

There was a long silence, long enough for Anna to feel the same uneasiness in Radek she'd been hearing in everyone else's voices, seeing in their eyes. Whatever it was, she wanted it to go away. It was making her nervous. More than she already was, anyway.

"Can you come up here, please?"

Anna was about to step in the direction of the door when Radek stopped her.

"Use the transporter."

"What else would I use?" As if she was going to climb stairs arranged by a maniac up twenty or more levels…

"Just come up here." And he was not amused.

Anna made her way to Radek's lab, much further up in the tower, without any other incidents. Everyone seemed to be acting more-or-less ordinary, except with the familiar and ominous undercurrent.

Radek glanced up when she came to the lab entrance. Glanced back down when he saw it was Anna.

"I heard you were on level three this morning," he offered without looking up.

"Yeah," Anna said glumly. "What, did the marines call up to tell you all about it?"

"Only that you were there."

Because "be there" was just about all she'd done. "What's going on down there, anyway?" she asked.

The fact that the marines had called him at all was enough of a tipoff that he wasn't supposed to tell her even if he did know. And this, Anna was suddenly sure, was the source of the stress, the unease. Not her fear of the dark, not her inability to sleep.

He didn't speak for a moment, measuring his words.

"Is it a secret or something?" Anna asked when Radek didn't speak up.

"Well, yes, it's a very important and dangerous experiment. It's just safer if you don't go anywhere level three for the next long while."

That sounded reasonable. But it also sounded like he'd been paid off by the government to sidestep questions about a vital truth.

"Oh." Anna nodded slowly, a smile growing to her lips. "What is it? Aliens?"

Radek chuckled, a genuine chuckle, and her fears allayed. Some. "What? No."

She smiled and waited for more.

There wasn't any more. Radek looked back to his work as he said, "Maybe it's the ghost of that Ancient researcher you found. Janus."

"Ha." Anna smiled broadly for a few seconds until her smile died away, a sincere concern pinching her brow. "Do ghosts exist?"

Radek glanced at her, an almost condescending arch to one eyebrow.

"What?" she demanded. "Aliens exist. Why not ghosts, too? The Athosians believe in ghosts."

"Yes; they also believe in some form of reincarnation via Stargate… or something." So he wasn't up on his Athosian culture…

Anna didn't find it funny, anyway. "Look, it's not an unreasonable question. Ancients exist in a state of pure energy, the Wraith can read peoples' minds, and we live on a floating spaceship. Ghosts could exist, maybe."

"I suppose…" he said. "The problem is that if we never see one, we can't know for sure that they don't exist."

A lot of things could exist. After all, only existence could be supported, not lack-of-existence. Anna sighed and nodded. "Yeah, yeah." She turned around and took a few steps toward the door. "Science ruins everything."

Radek gave her a sidelong glance as though he were considering an objection. To him, surely, science solved everything.

"So level three isn't haunted?"

"To the best of my knowledge, no," Radek answered with a smile. "The only beings down there are very much alive."

"And human?"

Radek sighed, nodded, and said, "Yes, last I heard." He paused and stared. "Anna?"

"Yes?"

"I just want to be sure you understand that it would be very dangerous—for you and likely everyone else down there—for you to go down to level three anymore."

Anna scoffed and spun back around to face him. "Relax. I'm not going to go skulking around level three." She paused and then looked at him askance. "All the transporters are locked out to access it anyway."

"Yes, they are."

Anna pinched her lips together. "You aren't going to tell me what's down there."

Radek shook his head. "I don't know what's down there. I only know it's dangerous."

Anna left the lab, wondering where to go now that Janus's was just about off-limits. Maybe Radek was getting better at lying after all. Or maybe… maybe he'd been telling the truth entirely.

#

Last Week

The day for contemplation had passed. Asking for opinions and ideas with a twenty-four hour deadline was ludicrous: Radek knew exactly what he wanted to say. One day, that monster had been here. Never a dull moment around here, considering it was only a week ago since all hell broke loose last time. He knew he personally had no concern for their enemies, only for the safety of their city. More, of course, the people in it. But of all the ways to keep their city safe… this was one of the worst.

Level three served as a stark reminder of exactly why he hated this.

"Wait," Radek started again, taking a deep breath. "What if it doesn't work?"

They weren't returning their captured Wraith to the wild—they all knew that. But they weren't keeping him here, alive. Not for very long anyway. They probably knew that, too, but hadn't really thought about the facts just yet. If they didn't give him food, he would die. Radek doubted Elizabeth would be okay with that, even if he was an enemy. Even if his only suitable food source was humans.

Something about the Geneva convention. Switzerland had long arms if they could reach all the way out here.

"It will work," Carson said. Then he sighed and looked at Sheppard. "One way or another, I suppose."

"We'll be ready to take… steps to keep the city safe if worse comes to worst," Sheppard said, glancing at Major Lorne.

Major Lorne nodded his agreement. They were good at taking "steps."

"We should be taking those 'steps' now," Radek muttered.

Nobody acted as surprised as he expected they would. Concern for the life of their Wraith guest was lower than he gave credit.

"If we can revert Wraith evolution to a stage before they relied on humans for energy, it would solve almost all of our problems." Carson said that like everyone at the table didn't realize what it was they were trying to do. "The trick is maintenance. And I can't know that without… trials."

They were trying to make the Wraith not the Wraith. They were trying to make the Wraith like Humans, not to put too fine a point on it. And, while the grandest majority of Humans didn't rely on one another for basic nutrition, there was a whole host of problems they'd have to address after they succeeded. If they succeeded. There was more to being Human than diet. Presumably, the same was true for a Wraith

"Right, but in case you haven't noticed, our relationship with modifying evolution has thus far been not-great," Rodney spoke up. Finally. Maybe they would listen to Rodney if they wouldn't listen to Radek. If Radek could figure out what it was he was saying.

"As terrible as it was," Carson said, "what happened with Sheppard and the retrovirus was quite helpful in understanding how it interacts with living genetic material." He paused, looked at Elizabeth, and back at Rodney. "Even if it doesn't work, we'll get valuable information."

Radek felt something inside shrivel up, shrink away.

He didn't think this was wrong, necessarily. Hell, he'd pitch the idea of turning them all into Humans just to make them easier to kill. He was good at making weapons, but the bigger they were, the more expensive they were to make. Humans… were delicate. At least Human-like things were.

But at the same time, this entire thing was uncomfortable.

They didn't care. His two paragons of compassion and ethics—Carson and Elizabeth—they were arguing for medical experiments on prisoners of war? No matter how heinous their crimes, no matter what their motives, no matter if it could even be considered a crime at all? They were now serving as every piece of the justice system from judge to executioner. He didn't know they were capable.

Because the Wraith weren't Human. Similar arguments had been made throughout history, but this time they were right on technicality.

Rodney must have thought something similar. "Do you hear yourselves?"

Radek hoped not, because they would be ashamed. He was. At least, a small part of him was. Maybe just because it made him feel better. "Have you even heard of Nuremburg?"

Carson scoffed in Radek's direction, looking insulted and disgusted. "Oh, my god."

Radek figured he might be insulted, too, if he were being compared to Nazis. And the most worrying part…? In this instance, he wasn't even sure he disagreed. Radek knew his grasp on ethics was weakly held at best. He questioned his contributions to weapons development, sometimes weapons that could conceivably destroy planets. Work for Capitalists, or Communists when he was younger—it made no difference to him. He knew, somehow, without ever pulling the trigger, he was a killer at heart. He did not know the balance of his soul or whether he even had one.

But this felt wrong.

"That's a little extreme," Carson went on, in such a tone that Radek wondered if their friendship was well and truly over now. No matter, Carson was a healer. He shouldn't have been arguing for this—whatever this was.

"Wait, what?" Sheppard looked a bit confused; not, perhaps, because he didn't know what Radek was talking about, but because he didn't know what Radek meant. Couldn't fathom the comparison, probably.

"I think Zelenka just called the doc a Nazi." Lorne's glower made Radek wonder if their association, too—he hesitated to call it a friendship—was over.

"Not to put too fine a point on it?" To Radek's relief, Sheppard didn't seem too concerned, but he gave Radek a look that distinctly said, Really? "Well, I'm glad one of us is speaking his mind." He didn't sound glad at all.

Radek didn't get a chance to defend himself before a feeling of righteous indignation took over completely. It was easy to be disgusted at comparisons to Hitler. Millions died in Europe, the continent changed in ways they could never forget. Millions more afterward languished under the aegis of corrupt governments for decades. Mines were still buried and waiting to go off to this day. All because someone, somewhere, thought they weren't human enough.

Radek didn't really believe that. He didn't know what he believed, and it didn't really matter. Part of the point for meetings like this was for someone to play the devil's advocate. It was disconcerting that Radek just couldn't tell which side was the devil's.

He didn't want a Wraith on Atlantis: that was what he believed. He also didn't want Carson and Elizabeth to make a decision they'd regret for the rest of their lives. He knew them; he knew they would regret it.

The Wraith weren't Human. That was a fine line to press up against, especially when the Stargate was involved. It was a fluke of Human history that most of the life on other planets they'd met thus far had been genetically related to the people of Earth, no matter how distant. Even the Wraith, if all Carson's research was to be trusted, were, too. Very distantly, down an evolutionary path blessedly not traveled.

But right now it didn't matter. "I am not saying you're comparable to a Nazi."

"I feel much better, thanks," Carson said sarcastically.

"Can we all take a step back?" Elizabeth suddenly spoke up over the impending cacophony. She looked first to Radek. "I understand your concerns. In fact, I share them."

"But it doesn't matter," Rodney said with a half-sigh. "Does it?"

The way Elizabeth paused told Radek enough. They were going to keep their Wraith in custody on level three, because of course they were. He knew they were here, and that knowledge was dangerous enough to kill for. Why not use the opportunity to try? If the experiment worked, the Wraith could live. If not… well, the Wraith was dead either way.

Radek left the conference room a half second after Rodney did. Everybody else seemed to take his exit as the signal for adjournment. Radek wished he could catch up to Rodney, make sure they were on the same page, at least practically, if not philosophically. It already seemed like Elizabeth and Carson had sold themselves to the proverbial devil.

He didn't get the chance. Elizabeth caught up to him in the hallway, pulling him aside through a door without so much as a word.

Radek shook his arm free of her grasp and glared. "What is it?"

"You're angry."

"You're perceptive."

Sarcasm wasn't helping anything…

"Look," Elizabeth said before Radek could apologize for his tone. "I won't pretend to understand exactly your reasons to object, but I don't see what choice we have. I have the same qualms as any self-respecting human being about the dangers of medical experiments on prisoners of war, but, Radek, we are facing an enemy that will stop at nothing to kill us all."

She was right, of course. It was not just about food for the Wraith. If it were, they might take some steps to control their own population, to limit their requirement for food until they could arrange a simpler means of production. And none of them were about to sit down with the Wraith on level three to discuss the finer points of ethical ranching practices.

If cattle were sapient, though…?

Even if cattle were sapient, Radek's primary function was still a physicist, computer programmer, a weapons designer, a singular and small human being that didn't (often) question the decisions of the people in charge. He would play his part in killing cattle, Wraith, or Humans. It was his job; it was a matter of survival. His own personal survival, his daughter's, or his people's.

"You're right."

Elizabeth seemed taken aback. "I'm right?"

"Yes." Radek took a step toward his lab, but Elizabeth held him back.

"But," she said, her voice low. "This is crazy."

Radek sighed. "Yes. It is." Unfortunately, being crazy and being right were rarely mutually exclusive.

"I'm approving medical experiments on a living, sapient creature. Approved going out and capturing that creature for the experiment. The experiment could possibly kill him." She looked horrified, shaking her head. "I do not make decisions like this."

But she had before this, did in this situation, and she would continue to do so. She wouldn't find that comforting. Maybe she would find nothing comforting.

"This is war, Elizabeth." Radek sighed and started to walk away. "In war, there are casualties." Before, they'd staked their lives on it. Now, it was their souls. He wasn't sure if he believed in souls, per se. He wasn't sure what he believed.

He believed this was a horrible idea that could only go wrong. That's what he believed.

#

The door opened into the main room, and Anna was surprised to find that she was not the only one up at one o'clock in the morning. She blinked at the tablet's blue light, the highlighted contours of Radek's face just about the only thing she could see in the darkness.

"What are you doing up?" he asked.

She shrugged and stepped out into the room. "I couldn't sleep."

She could see the creases in his brow, the reflection of a wall of text just barely reflecting off the side of his glasses' lenses. "Nightmare?"

Anna shook her head, and then sighed. She didn't know what the point was of lying anymore. So she nodded. "Yes." She looked at the sink, the kettle, and said, "I was just going to have some tea. Do you want some?"

She didn't know why she'd asked. She'd never known him to have a single cup outside of when he was sick. He gave a small smile and shook his head, so she went about getting one for herself. She joined him on the couch with a cup smelling vaguely of mint a few minutes later.

"So what are you doing up?" she asked, wondering if, maybe, he saw the same ghosts she did.

He looked at his tablet, as if he wasn't sure what was on it. "I didn't realize how late it was."

His eyes stayed on the tablet, though she couldn't tell if he was reading or not. She had expected to see lines of code, his usual fare for late-night reading involved debugging of some kind. This was actual writing, a paper maybe. When he didn't scroll to the next section for too long, she decided he wasn't reading after all.

"Do you have trouble sleeping a lot these days?"

Once again, Anna was struck by the absolute futility of lying. It wasn't solving any problems, even though she wasn't sure what telling him would solve, either. "I guess…"

"I wish there was something I could do."

There was. Maybe. It was easier not to be afraid when he was here. Perhaps not him specifically, but maybe just someone. With a sigh, she turned her eyes to him, surprised for a reason she couldn't find that he was looking at her. "Can I sleep in your room?"

He nodded.

"Just for tonight, only I don't want…"

"It's okay."

She looked down into her cup, but couldn't really see it in the darkness. Only the shadows of the city beyond the window shimmered on the edges. "I'm so tired." She frowned at the distinct whine in her voice, again, like a little girl she liked to think she wasn't anymore.

But Radek chuckled. "Me, too. Finish your tea; we'll go to bed."

"Maybe I'll leave it for the morning."

Anna gathered her quilt and pillow, spreading out on the floor next to his bed while he brushed his teeth. It was silly, of course, but he didn't act like it was. She appreciated that. He waited for her to get situated before switching off the lamp next to his bed, and laid down.

"Goodnight, darling."

"Goodnight."

"Wake me if you need anything."

She didn't answer, but appreciated the offer.

Radek shifted on his mattress, the blankets rustled, and then it was quiet. She listened to him breathe, and tried to match her own breathing to his. He didn't seem anxious or upset, which was more than she could say for everyone else on Atlantis these days. After fifteen or so minutes, he was asleep.

Anna stared at the black ceiling in the distance she couldn't see. Radek was so at-ease with whatever was happening that he could sleep in less than half an hour. He couldn't tell her what it was that kept her up at night, but he'd told her enough with his even breathing. Her eyelids were heavier than she remembered, and the quilt hugged her shoulders. The floor never seemed so comfortable, the quiet never so inviting.

She knew it had nothing to do with the quilt or the floor. Maybe… just for tonight…


Next time: Tough room.

A/N: Does anyone know why Elizabeth is okay with this idea? If anyone would point out these admittedly-shaky ethical reasons for not creating Michael, she would be the one. But she's not available, so I guess Radek gets to talk about Nazis. Fun times.