Chapter 9 – How the World Ends

Rodney closed his eyes as he was expelled out of the archway at a terrifying speed when he arrived in the next reality. As it had been lying down on the ground, he had had no control over which portion of the arch he had been pulled through and it must have been somewhere near the top.

He held his breath and waited for the impact as he landed. But instead of smacking into a wall and breaking bones, he landed on something soft and yielding. It was completely pitch black in the room.

He did not have time to dig out his torch before a foul smell immediately filled his nostrils when he drew a shaky breath. It was a stench of rot and death and he groaned as he choked on the unpleasant smell assailing him. It was like the taste of ashes and dust in the back of his throat.

He gagged in disgust and valiantly fought to hold onto the contents of his stomach, but he failed. He rolled over onto all fours and vomited until he had nothing more to lose and his belly ached while he continued to retch with his throat burning.

The ground under his fingers was soft and his bout of sickness had not really done very much to alter the terrible smell in the room. It had certainly added an extra tang to the already unbearably obnoxious reek and Rodney groaned as he reached up and held his nose.

He crawled along blindly and his stomach muscles trembled when he tried to use them. The bruising on his chest was still hurting him and he could now feel another blunt impact pain on his upper arm from where he had hit the arch just before he found himself where he was.

Once he was sure he was clear of the mess he had made, he sat down and stretched out his legs, wincing when his sprained ankle pulled. He had to let go of his nose and breathed through his mouth while he took the bag off his shoulders and pulled out a torch. When he clicked it on, he clenched his teeth and his breathing sped up in panic.

The room was covered in a mass of purple and red tendrils, like a living organism. He would have thought he had been swallowed by a horrid creature if he had not known any better. He knew that he was on board a Wraith ship and the organic tendrils were just the disturbing way they powered their vessels.

He was seriously beginning to doubt that Telan's device in his left arm was working properly. He was still flitting through realities at random and no closer to home than he had been before he met the Ancients.

The tendril nearest to his right arm suddenly reared up and wrapped around his wrist tightly. Rodney pulled against it and tried to roll away, but more of them wrapped around his arm as he struggled. He considered standing up, but he looked down at his legs in horror and saw that they were completely covered in the same mass as the walls of the room.

"Oh, come on! This is a stupid way to die after everything I've been through!" he yelled into the gloom.

He panicked and grabbed the Ancient weapon still in the holster around his waist. A nearby tendril made a grab for it as he waved it unsteadily in his left hand. He could no longer use his dominant hand as his right arm was completely wrapped. He gasped as it felt like he was being crushed by the tendrils.

He shot some of them, but they were quickly replaced. The Ancient weapon amazed him in its effectiveness and power. The searching tendrils were vaporized on impact, but the gun was not enough and he was too slow.

A tendril crawled up his back and snaked around his chest as he sat there. It suddenly tightened and before Rodney could do anything, he was yanked backwards into the seething mass and he could no longer move at all. He kept firing the gun blindly as his left arm was drawn down to his side, but one of the tendrils jabbed into his wrist and he cried out in pain as he was forced to let go of the weapon.

The torchlight was rapidly fading as more tendrils covered Rodney and made his breathing difficult. He twisted and squirmed but it only made them tighter and they crushed all the air out of his lungs and compressed him until it felt like he was going to bleed out internally from the pressure. He screwed up his face and the bite of the tendrils around him made his fearful trembling impossible to see.

He dimly wondered how the Wraith had managed to move the device onto one of their hive ships, but his train of thought was interrupted when the door behind him opened and the tendrils retreated. He was left shaking in fear and covered in horrid slime from the slippery conduits.

He lifted up his left arm and winced when he saw a deep puncture wound on his wrist. As he watched, blood flowed out of the hole and ran down his forearm. He turned around and saw several Wraith approaching him; one officer with two drones. The drones stayed by the door and aimed their stun guns at him as he lay there.

Rodney quickly pushed his fear and pain to one side and rolled over. He grabbed the fallen gun and drew the rucksack he had dropped over his shoulders again. He knew he would have to keep the bag close as his very life depended on it. He stood up to meet the Wraith head on and fight his way through them so that he could find a way to activate the archway and get out of this reality.

The Wraith officer glanced at the shifting floor briefly and a tendril suddenly shot up and drove all the way through Rodney's right forearm. He screamed and fell down to his knees. The gun slipped from his hand as his fingers relaxed when the tendril turned slightly between the bones in his arm. It landed with a soft noise on the gory carpet in the room. The floor crunched under the boots of the officer as he approached the stricken scientist.

Rodney did not notice what was happening though, as he was now trapped in his own world, which only consisted of agony and horror. He held onto his lower arm just above where the tendril was still stabbing him and whimpered. He felt merciless hands grabbing him and opened his watering eyes to watch in terror as the Wraith officer held his arm tightly and grabbed the tendril rammed through him. He wrenched the intrusion from Rodney's arm and he screamed again as blood poured from the wounds.

He would have fallen down, but the Wraith was still holding him upright by his damaged arm. The officer barked at his drones, "Hold the human."

Rodney felt more hands on him and he opened his eyes to watch them when his curiosity got the better of him. He also wanted to know what they were going to do to him. The officer cut away his bag with a small knife and retrieved the Ancient weapon he had dropped. Rodney glared at the Wraith and shook and winced when the knife caught his skin where the Wraith had not been very careful as he removed the bag.

He asked them, "And what are you going to do with that? I don't think there's a lot of call for painkillers, bandages and proper food in Wraith circles."

The officer snarled and punched Rodney in the face as he uttered, "Silence, human."

Rodney grimaced as he felt a massive bruise forming on his cheekbone. He closed his eyes in misery, before he steeled himself and reopened them to stare at the officer who was rummaging through the contents of the bag. He was discarding objects onto the floor as he went through it. The drones still had a firm grip on Rodney's upper arms and he knew that struggling was hopeless and would only land him in more pain.

He said indignantly, "My name is Dr Rodney McKay."

The officer turned the bag upside down and the last of the contents fell. He growled in disgust and Rodney flinched when he rounded on him. His sharp teeth were bared and his whole face was in an expression of loathing as his eyes bored into Rodney's trembling form.

He spoke with a resentful bite, "Your artefacts are useless, human. But you still have one use for us."

Rodney started to pull against his captors as the Wraith's expression switched from anger to hunger. It was hopeless though and Rodney was already feeling weakened from the blood loss as he felt it streaming out of his arm and dripping onto the tendrils underneath.

The drones held him fast and the Wraith officer roared at him as he brought his hand back ready to feed. Rodney's eyes widened as he looked up at the palm of the Wraith's hand and then he turned his face away and waited to die.

Nothing happened though and after a few second he looked up to see that the officer was frowning at him angrily. He said, "You are lucky for now, human. She would like to see you before you become our next meal."

Rodney was helpless to resist as the drones dragged him from the room and forced him along another purple and red organic Wraith ship corridor.

Rodney was shoved and pushed by the drones and he stumbled several times when he put his weight on his sprained ankle. He was gasping for every snatched breath he could labour into his lungs by the time they had been beamed halfway across the hive ship to the Queen's chamber.

The drones had to drag him into the room and dumped him under a thin beam of light coming down from the ceiling. Rodney collapsed onto the ground in a heap and held his bleeding arm over his chest as he clutched the exit wound on the other side. The drones pulled him up to his feet and he swayed a little, but managed to stay upright.

The officer was standing in front of them and bowed slightly as the Queen walked up to him out of the shadows. He said, "I brought the human as you asked."

She sneered at him, "Good. Now leave us."

The drones and the officer obeyed and Rodney was left alone with the Queen. He felt a terrible fear gripping his rapidly pounding heart and his blood rushed past his ears in time with every pump. The Queen circled around him and he followed her with his eyes, but did not say anything.

She then stopped behind him and asked, "How did you get here, human?"

Rodney answered indignantly, "Like I already told your goons, my name's Dr Rodney McKay."

She walked around in front of him and smiled nastily, her sharp teeth jutting from her mouth and saliva dribbling down her chin, "Alright then. How did you get here, Dr Rodney McKay?"

He thought it sounded even worse when she said his name. Every syllable was spat out with such vehemence that he winced and wished he had not insisted she called him by name. As for her question though, Rodney knew that he must not answer her. If he told them about the portal and how it worked they would want to go to other dimensions to cull all the humans who were yet to be touched by the Wraith. He would be providing them with an infinite food source and the chance to rain down misery upon countless other realities.

He clenched his teeth together and said nothing.

She frowned at him in annoyance and spat while she spoke, "You appeared on one of the lower decks of my ship, in an auxiliary junction room."

She then raised her hand up and Rodney saw the teeth in her palm which she used to feed. He was fairly certain he was about to feel what it was like to be fed upon by her and he flinched away. He nearly fell backwards, but the Queen suddenly curled her outstretched hand into a fist and Rodney was powerless to stop himself moving as she forced him to his knees with her mental control over him.

He grunted and she asked again, "How did you get on my ship?"

Rodney could not find anything to say to her, all his sarcasm lost in the fear coursing through his veins.

Rodney thought of all the horrendous torture they were probably going to inflict on him if he did not cooperate and he trembled violently in fear. He knew that he was bound to break very quickly in his weakened state, but he also knew that he held countless billions of lives in his hands and that he must not give into them no matter what they did to him.

The Queen placed her hand on the side of his face and stroked his skin while she gave him a seductive look. Rodney frowned at her incredulously as he watched more drool leaking from her mouth in hunger as she gazed at him.

She remarked, "Pity," and before Rodney could try and break away from the physical control she had over him, she planted her hand in the centre of his chest. His flimsy white shirt provided virtually no protection against her.

Rodney felt the painful bite of her hand on him just before his system was injected with the enzyme to keep him alive during the feeding process. For a brief moment he felt the all too familiar sense of bliss and strength flowing through him. It then vanished and all that he could do was scream and scream in excruciating pain and horror as she drained his life away.

The Queen suddenly stopped and Rodney was left panting as his last scream echoed around the room. He opened his eyes to look at her and she was looking back at him in shock with her eyes wide. It was as though she had suddenly realised something important.

She curled her fingers and then pressed her hand more firmly against Rodney's chest. He did not scream at all as she forced the years she had taken from him back into his body.

He opened his mouth and closed his eyes as his strength was returned to him. She did not stop there though, or maybe she was unable to prevent it, because as she gave him his life back she also unwittingly healed his many injuries.

She pulled her hand away once he was at the same age he had been and released him. Rodney fell down onto his back and rubbed his chest, but the marks from the feeding had also healed. He glanced down at himself and saw that there was blood around a tear in his shirt over the centre of his chest, but nothing more.

He groaned and shouted through his fear and fury, "What are you doing?" The Queen merely continued to stand over him looking down into his eyes in confusion.

She glanced away briefly and soon the drones and the officer from earlier came into Rodney's sightline from where he was sprawled out on his back.

She said, "Get a sample and then take him to the chamber. I do not want this human to go missing like the last ones."

The officer nodded and drew out a small knife. He crouched down next to Rodney as he eyed the blade fearfully and tried to roll away. The Queen held him down with her control and he could not move away in time to avoid the knife and the Wraith cut into the palm of his hand. Rodney flinched and shook as the Wraith collected some of his blood as it ran out of the cut into a small vial the Wraith held under his hand.

The drones once again pulled him upright, but Rodney shrugged them off with an annoyed sigh, "I can walk on my own, thanks!"

They still pushed him in the back to keep him moving and Rodney kept his hand over his heart where he had just been fed upon. He looked at the ground in all consuming terror over what he had just endured and hissed angrily when the drones shoved him onwards.

Rodney moaned as the drones slammed him onto his front on a slab like a table in the room they had just forced him into. His system was still in shock over the life drain and reanimation he had just been through. He felt weak and sick as he sweated and trembled. He knew John and Ronon had been through the same ordeal, but they had never told him how ill it had made them feel afterwards.

He felt so utterly wretched that he did not move in time as the drones grabbed his arms and tied them together under the table and he could no longer move. They then strapped his legs down and Rodney finally galvanized his senses and asked, "Hey! What's going on?" But it was too late for him to do anything.

He was not totally oblivious about what was going to happen to him next. He had managed to force the details out of Ronon after several days of asking his team mate as his curiosity got the better of him. However, he was unprepared for how much it was going to hurt as a different Wraith officer stood over him and stabbed a sharp blade into his upper back and sliced a deep cut.

Rodney could hear screaming again and he realised it was him after a few seconds. His throat was soon hoarse and his shouts became a lot quieter. If this is what Ronon had had to endure twice and with no anaesthetic, Rodney found his already high regard for the Satedan intensifying in pride. He focused on thoughts of his team mates as the Wraith walked away and he bunched his hands into fists and kept his eyes closed as he flinched and the agony in his back did not diminish.

He watched blearily with his head turned to the side as the Wraith came back with a device held in a medical instrument. Rodney squirmed to get away, but there was nothing he could do to move as the Wraith implanted the tracking device in his back and it latched onto his spine. The pain it caused sent him over the edge and he finally lost consciousness.

Rodney woke up lying curled up on the floor. He grimaced when he looked around and saw that he was still on the hive ship and in the Wraith Queen's chamber again. His back stung and made his eyes water. He closed them in misery as he rocked a little on the hard ground.

The Queen already knew he was awake and he heard her feet on the floor as she came over to him.

He looked up at her and asked, "Are you going to make me a runner? You do realise that you're wasting your time? I wouldn't last more than a few minutes and won't provide much entertainment for your needs."

She crouched down and stroked the side of his face again. Rodney flinched away from her touch and his lower lip trembled and he whimpered as it felt like his back was tearing open. She cooed down at him soothingly and smiled.

Rodney was feeling increasingly unnerved at her current behaviour and he asked, "If you're not making me a runner, then why did you do it?"

"Even if you escape, we'll find you now, human."

She wiped away his tears and grinned at him, the gesture was lost on Rodney though as he had a horrid close up view of her rotten teeth. Her bad breath blew over him and he could not avoid inhaling some of it. He groaned in disgust and rolled away from her. He ignored the stabbing pains in his back as he stood up and squared his shoulders as best he could manage.

The Queen was no longer smiling and she pointed into the shadows. A drone came forward and held out the advanced Ancient gun Rodney had been given. His eyes darted to it nervously and she asked, "Where did you get this, human?"

His thoughts once again strayed to his team mates and he thought about what Sheppard would do in the situation he was currently in. He thought the man would crack a joke, but certainly not answer any of her questions.

Rodney shrugged and instantly regretted it. He gasped, "Disneyland."

The Queen nodded at the drone, who came over and smacked Rodney in the head. He staggered and held the side of his face as it smarted and started to bleed.

The Queen raised her hand at him again. Rodney flinched and struggled to control his emotions as all consuming terror flooded him and left his heart racing. The fact that he now knew what the feeding process felt like did nothing to alleviate his fears, it only intensified them until he shuddered.

She quickly pointed to an area of the room obscured by shadows and said, "It is utterly pointless not to answer, human. There is no longer anywhere for you to go even if you did manage to escape."

Rodney heart rate sped up even more and he stuttered, "Wh-what?"

The Queen tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him and then walked away. A drone came over and grabbed Rodney's upper arms and guided him after the Queen.

Rodney's eyes adjusted to the darkness as soon as he was out from under the bright spotlight. They came to a door and as it slid open he gasped, "Oh, my god!"

Stretched out in front of him was not a Wraith hive ship as he had assumed, but it was the city of Atlantis. It had been completely taken over by Wraith organic technology and was barely recognisable as the purple skin covered the towers and piers of the city in front of him. He felt sadness and anger as he saw the once proud and beautiful structures of Atlantis in an unholy union of Wraith and Ancient design. He had loved the city from the moment he had first laid eyes on it and it cut him to see it corrupted in such a profane way.

The strange fusion reminded him of how Jennifer had been taken over by the Wraith entity trying to create a new ship. He wondered whether what had happened to Atlantis had been as a result of them not being able to stop the growth of the entity in this reality.

That was not the worst thing though, as he saw they were not only in space, but in orbit above a planet.

A very familiar planet.

The Queen glared at him and then looked at the planet below. She motioned with her hand and spat, "See what has become of your world, human."

Rodney's stomach lurched and he could not raise his voice above a whisper as horror completely overwhelmed him, "Earth…"

The Queen turned back to him and was haloed by the bright clouds and oceans of Earth behind her as she said, "There is so little left of your race and home world, human, that it is pointless to resist."

Rodney was still staring in shock and his eyes gradually got used to being out on the balcony in space behind the shield of Atlantis. He soon noticed hundreds of hive ships swarming around the city and thousands of darts flying between the ships and the ravaged planet below.

The Queen continued, "Your race have been brought to their knees in a matter of months, human. They are still desperately trying to stand against us though. You are going to help us eliminate the last resistance of your kind."

Rodney's mouth was still hanging open and he was finding breathing difficult as he witnessed the bleak doom of mankind. It was the end of everything that he had fought and bled and struggled to protect since he had first arrived on Atlantis; since they had awakened the Wraith and the creatures had discovered the existence of Earth. He realised that all his work had been in vain in this reality and he grimly wondered at exactly what moment he had died in his past to bring about the nightmarish reality where he had been thrown.

He only managed to speak in a small voice, "How many?"

The Queen waved her hand nonchalantly, "Nearly all of them have now been culled."

Rodney furrowed his brow and lifted his chin in defiance, "Billions of lives! You do realise that if you had not culled the entire population in your greed that Earth could've become an infinitely renewable source of food for you!"

The Queen snarled and this time she hit him herself. She hammered her fist into Rodney's breastbone with such force that he was lucky she had not stopped his heart. He lost the air in his lungs in a cough, but the drone continued to hold him in a bruising grip, so that he could not stagger away from her or collapse.

He winced and rubbed his chest as she rounded on him and held her hand near the side of his head. The drone let go of his arms and moved away. The entire scene was still lit by the soft glow from Earth as the Queen once again forced Rodney to his knees.

He was completely paralysed by her and his anxiety over what she was going to do next left him gasping in terror.

She narrowed her eyes and a sharp knife of pain went into Rodney's head. He raised his hands involuntarily and pressed them against his face in agony. The Queen delved deeply into his mind and sifted through his memories as she glared at him intensely with her hand still raised. Rodney cowered and shielded his head as best he could, but it was no defence against her probing as she continued to violate his mind.

To Rodney it felt like there were claws imbedded in him as she intruded inside his head. He was reaching the limit of his endurance and he could feel his veneer of strength cracking and breaking under the stress. His utterly exhausted and worn down mind and body were hopelessly vulnerable to the Queen. She took advantage of this by digging even deeper and finding out as much as she could before he was too badly damaged to continue.

Rodney felt trickles running down from his ears and he came to realise in the everlasting pain that he just wanted to get home and forget about all the bloodshed, horror and misery his death in every reality he had seen brought about.

The Queen suddenly released him and Rodney collapsed and shuddered as he continued to hold his head. He felt something tickling him just beneath his nose and he rubbed his hand against it and felt dampness. He narrowly opened his eyes and glanced at the palm of his uncut hand. There was something shining darkly on his skin. He could not see the colour clearly in the dim light, but he knew it was his blood. The Queen had assaulted him so badly that the strain had made his nose and ears bleed.

He tried to shout at her indignantly but he only managed to croak weakly, "Genius here. I do actually need my brain intact if I'm going to be of any use at all and not turn into some gibbering moron like the people I used to work with."

The Queen said, "I know. In fact I now know everything about you, Rodney McKay, and the device you came through from another reality."

Rodney rolled onto his back and continued to clutch his head as his angry headache did not abate no matter how hard he pressed his fingers into his temples in agony. He hoped that she had not scrambled his precious brain, but he winced when he thought that she may well have done and made him totally useless to anyone.

She crouched down next to him and placed her hand on his forehead, "I do still need you though. Why do you think I stopped and gave you back your life earlier?"

"Maybe I wasn't very tasty?" Rodney said tiredly.

She rested the back of her hand on his cheek and he shivered as she lightly brushed his skin in a gesture too close to affection for Rodney's nerves. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

She said sweetly, "No. It is because you are like the ones who created us and you can power the few systems left in this city that will not allow the Wraith to operate them."

"What's the point?" he asked miserably as he felt weariness overcoming him. "Earth's gone and you've killed everyone."

She leant in closely to him and her fetid and rotten breath flooded Rodney's nose again. He shuddered as he lay there and said shakily, "You know you should visit a dentist or at least drink more water."

Her reaction was instant and furious. She raked her claws down his chest, carving deep lacerations across his skin and leaving a trail of blood. Rodney cried out in shock and rolled over. He curled into a tight ball and put his arms in front of his chest as the agony registered in his fragile mind and the remains of his tattered white shirt soaked red. It was too painful for him to consider touching the cuts to try and stop the bleeding so all that he could do was lie there and whimper.

The Queen straightened up and said, "Take him to the holding chamber and make sure he does not die from his injuries."

The drone nodded and grabbed Rodney's wrist. He dragged the scientist along the floor and back through the door into the Queen's chamber. A trail of blood was left in Rodney's wake as it flowed out of the cuts and smeared along the floor behind him. He closed his eyes and was soon rewarded with unawareness as his broken mind finally gave out on him.

There was a feeling of tightness around Rodney's ribcage when he woke up after his recent blissful unawareness. As he returned to consciousness, he felt pain flaring across his chest and his head throbbed angrily in a headache he knew would not be going away any time soon. He was lying on a table again, but he was on his back and not restrained.

He turned his head to the side and flinched in shock when he saw various medical instruments laid out nearby like in a medieval torture chamber. He lifted up his hand and gently felt his chest. He winced, but the Wraith had removed his shirt and wrapped a bandage around his ribcage so that at least he would not bleed to death from the wounds on his chest.

He felt cold as cool air flowed over his bare skin and made him shiver. He wrapped his arms around himself to conserve what little body heat he could after his blood loss.

He was curious as to why they had not spared him a little of their healing power, but then he knew that they probably just wanted to make sure he suffered so that it would make him easier to bend to their will.

He lay completely still and listened to his hitching breaths in the virtual silence of the room he was in. He could barely hear the hum of the Lantean power conduits behind the walls as the Wraith technology was covering everything and muffling any sound they made.

He suddenly decided that he would fight against them with all his might as they had destroyed Earth. It may not be his reality, but he no longer cared. He felt a righteous anger and desire for vengeance building in his heart and the fire it created coursed through his veins and brought strength back to his flagging spirit.

He gritted his teeth and sat upright with a small whimper as he expected to feel a tearing sensation across his chest when the lacerations were opened up again due to him moving.

He did not feel anything other than a slight pull and as he sat up, he noticed that there were the remains of a suture kit near the tray of medical instruments. Someone had properly patched him up and made sure that he did not die. He frowned in curiosity and glanced around the empty room to make sure that he was definitely alone.

The door was shut and he stood up on his unwilling legs and stumbled over to it. He knew he would be able to break whatever lock the Wraith had in place so he lifted his trembling hand towards the control panel to find some loose wiring to work on. He was promptly zapped by a bolt of electricity as his fingers connected with a shield. He sighed as he drew in shallow breaths to minimize the burning pain across his skin with every expansion of his ribcage.

He furrowed his brow as he curled his smarting hand against his chest and walked back across the room to a control console behind the table where he had woken up. His eyes widened in shock when he realised it was an old Atlantis control panel. He glanced around the room and muttered, "Well the dimensions are the same, as is the rough shape of the room."

He realised he was in one of the many Ancient labs on Atlantis. He raised his eyebrows at the tray of medical instruments left behind and went over and grabbed a saw. He made short work of the Wraith tendrils covering the console as he cut through and removed them from the panel he wanted to access.

He smiled as he tapped away on the control panel and went into the Lantean mainframe. He frowned when his current access codes would not work and tried all of those he could remember. He eventually managed to get in with the code he had been using just over a year ago.

He asked the console rhetorically, "How did I die in this reality?"

He soon found that a lot of the system files were corrupted, but he was able to find a few that were easy to access. It appeared that the Wraith had yet to devise a method for keeping genius scientists at bay, as Rodney quickly hacked his way through their ineffectual lockouts.

He soon found the system he wanted and set his plan in motion. He would make the Wraith who had stolen Atlantis in this reality pay for what they had done, even if he died in the process along with them.

The door to the lab suddenly slid open and Rodney jumped. He watched the corridor beyond in expectation, but no one came through. He reasoned that they may well be toying with him, but they were right, he had nowhere to go. He did not think they would have left the arch room unguarded, as the Queen now knew his sole purpose was to get back there so that he could escape the hellish reality where he had become trapped.

Rodney did not really feel like wandering around the Wraith infested Atlantis with only a flimsy bandage wrapped around his torso as he was starting to lose the feeling in his fingers due to the cold.

He looked around the room more thoroughly and spotted a very well hidden cupboard which was covered in more disgusting tendrils. He walked over and opened the door. Inside there were blankets as well as some other clothes. He grabbed a shirt from the stack inside and as he pulled it out, a couple of things fell out onto the floor with a clatter.

He looked down at them and his eyes widened as he wondered exactly who was helping him. His eyes darted around the room nervously, half expecting to feel hands grabbing him, but it was still empty. He hastily pulled the shirt over his head and then grabbed two more and put them on as well to shield himself as best he could from the cold. He then scooped up the Wraith stunner and Ancient hand scanner which had fallen from the cupboard. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers so that it was concealed against the small of his back.

He held the scanner out in front of himself and spun around. There were many life signs showing on the screen, but none in his immediate vicinity. Whoever was helping him was really good, he decided.

He cautiously headed out into the corridor and kept the scanner in his hand while he drew the stunner and held it up ready to fire at a moment's notice.

The scanner suddenly chirped and Rodney levelled it in front of himself in alarm to see what it had picked up.

It was a message though and not a warning. As he read it, his eyebrows rose.

This is the resistance. We have spies everywhere. Even amongst the Wraith. We know you are capable of destroying the Wraith capital ship so we helped you. Set the self destruct for five minutes and we will clear a path for you.

Rodney muttered, "Way ahead of you there," and typed an affirmative reply.

He was curious over exactly who was communicating with him. Not many people in his reality would have been able to bypass the Wraith jamming devices and monitor the video and audio feeds on Atlantis. He typed his query into the scanner and then continued to walk along the corridor while he waited for a reply.

He sighed sadly as he read the incoming message

We cannot tell you who we are or how we operate in case you are captured again. Just know that there are a lot of us left.

Rodney then smiled grimly. At least some of the people on Earth were still alive and fighting back. He was unsure how much longer it would be before the Wraith found them and he was fairly certain that they would. If he could eliminate Atlantis and tear it from the Wraith's grasp it would at least be a start.

He stepped into the transporter and held his stunner ready as he shoved aside the tendrils and tapped the map concealed underneath.

"I thought you were going to take care of them!" Rodney ground out to the scanner clutched in his hand as another stunner blast flew past his hiding place.

He moved his gun around the wall where he was sitting on the floor and fired a few blind shots before drawing it back again. He looked down at the scanner in fear as he watched some of the life signs trying to blindside him.

He shot three of the drones before they had a chance to react, but the fourth one fired a bolt into the wall above Rodney's head before he was able to shoot it. One of the tendrils broke and slammed down onto Rodney's shoulder.

He grunted and tried to ignore the pain in his collar bone when he lifted the scanner up to check it once more. The life signs were converging on his position and he stood no chance against them; there were just too many for a lone injured scientist with only a stunner to cope with.

He shook the scanner again and muttered, "Why aren't you helping me!?"

It seemed to have heard him and another message appeared.

Set the self destruct and we will assist you.

"Oh, uh, okay." Rodney switched it back to a life signs detector and watched the Wraith approaching.

He only had a few seconds before they reached him, which should be enough time. He frantically tapped on the tiny screen and interfaced it with the Lantean mainframe. He then set his previously written code to activate and set the power system overload to countdown for five minutes.

When it finished the ZPM powering the city would explode and destroy Atlantis along with any Wraith hive ships in the vicinity. He had hidden the subroutine so deeply, that the Wraith would never have time to act even if they did find it. He had also encrypted it with an algorithm he thought even Zelenka would have trouble with.

He pressed the button on the scanner and turned it back into a life signs detector. He then glanced at the screen in apprehension while he waited to either be shot or saved.

Rodney waited and waited. He raised his stunner ready for a last stand and as the first Wraith came around the corner and levelled his gun at the scientist, he suddenly vanished in a cloud of white stars.

Rodney blinked in shock and then glanced at the scanner quickly. All the Wraith life signs had just disappeared. He whispered, "An Asgard beam? How did they do that?"

He looked down at the scanner again and saw that he only had a couple of minutes left before the overload was going to kill him at the same time as destroying the city. He would have to live with his questions, but he could not help the theories which went through his mind as he dashed along the corridor towards the archway room.

Perhaps the Daedalus was nearby? Maybe they had found a way to cloak the ship using a Puddle Jumper cloaking device? Or the resistance could punch through the Wraith jamming with an Asgard beam just as they could send messages and hack into the systems?

He thought the most likely scenario was that a member of the resistance had made their way onto Atlantis with an Asgard beaming device and was coordinating the whole effort from there.

He suddenly felt sad that if there was truly a free human still alive on Atlantis, they were about to die when the city was destroyed. A small price to pay for the countless millions who were already dead, but a single human life was now a rare commodity after the Wraith had all but wiped them out and needed to be protected and cherished. Rodney had no choice in the matter though, as he continued to run for his life.

When he reached the doorway he fired at the tendrils and cleared a path towards the control panel he needed to get to. It was so well concealed that it was no wonder that he had not realised that he was in fact still on Atlantis and not on a hive ship as he had assumed at first.

He pulled the power cell from the stunner and inserted it into the control panel as the countdown showing on the scanner reached single figures. He feverishly hooked it up so that the console suddenly lit up.

He actually helped the pull from the archway snag him this time as he ran unsteadily along the tendril strewn floor and dived headfirst through the portal.

He knew he was going to be in trouble on the other side due to his momentum, but he would rather not get vaporised.

He kept hold of the scanner as he passed through and it reached zero a fraction of a second after he was clear.

He knew it would take them a long time to find the arch in the debris of Atlantis. That was if they ever found it. There was a chance it would fall to Earth and land in the ocean where it would be virtually impossible to find.

It would take them even longer to figure out what it was and how to operate it.

Rodney just hoped that Telan was still working on a way to destroy the device in every reality. Even if Rodney got stranded in some horror laden reality, he would just be glad to know that the ever powerful Wraith of his latest reality would never get their hands on Earth again.

TBC