A/N: Oh the reviews have made the bunnies and muses quite happy. They are now dancing in the streets…avoiding the heavy traffic.

Chapter 8

Hang in There!

"This is for real, right?" Rodney asked as he sat up with Radek's help. "I mean, we've done this before…" The aquamarine shimmered in the room and played across everyone's concerned faces.

"It's not real," replied Ronon as one of Lorne's men helped him up. "Can't you tell?"

Sheppard thought about it for a minute and realized he was right. When he saw his team, as he was right now, there was substance to them. It was hard to explain or understand, but when they were recreations, they were mere shadows of themselves, not as complex.

Lorne had that clean, electronic feel-- very little substance and depth. Sheppard walked to the foot of Rodney's chair and Ronon joined him. As soon as Teyla and Rodney were up, they completed the team huddle.

There was only one other person in this nightmare that had substance and it was the little creepy guy. No one else had the sharpness that appeared to pertain to a living person. "Rodney, could there be someone running this Little Shop of Horrors? A sentient kind of program or a Professor Marvel standing behind the curtain?"

"Funny you should mention that…I've been making a few observations since our time in this little ghoulish playground and, yes, that little, creepy Norman Rockwell is a different sort of creation than the other mannequins running around in here."

"I had a moment where I heard Maj. Lorne and Dr. Zelenka…it felt totally different than now. It felt like I was awakening from a long nap," added Ronon, eyeing the other people in the room.

"Dr. Beckett, they're awake but disoriented. We will treat them accordingly," Lorne abruptly reported into his radio. Next, he turned to Sheppard. "Sir, we need to get going. We need to return home, now." Uncharacteristically, Lorne tapped his foot and glared at his superior.

John did not look at Lorne as he answered, "No. Not moving. Not playing anymore." He was going to show how stubborn he could be, because Lorne talking to Beckett was a true rub. The situation kept grinding and grinding, trying to wear them all down. He could see it in the others eyes as well.

Lorne answered by shooting Ronon in the knee without so much as blinking. Ronon let out a surprised yelp and dropped onto his side holding his thigh in his hands. Sheppard shot Lorne, returning the favor. One of Lorne's teammates raised his weapon and Teyla raised hers. Rodney drew his creating a good old-fashioned Mexican stand-off in the fake game room.

Pondo stood up from cowering in the corner and placed his hands on his hips. "Oh, never mind! You are no fun!"

Sheppard turned his attention and his weapon at the short and balding man. "We want out. Right now. Or I shoot you, you little snake. I'll keep doing it until you or I grow tired of it, and I like shooting things."

"No, not acceptable." Pondo waved his hand and the scene changed into the Gate Room. The team found themselves standing in a very busy Gate Room with people waiting to use the Gate…with their children.

"John!" Sheppard whirled around to see Elizabeth very carefully descending the stairs. She moved slowly and waddled with her very swollen and pregnant belly. "Oh Johnny! I was so worried when your team didn't make the check in!" She grasped him on both sides of his head and planted kisses on his face. "Oh sugar bob! Hunny bunny! Schmoopy, boopy bear!"

This would have been extremely funny except for its timing. He looked at his team in between lip locks and they at him. He wished he could laugh at this absurd reality. He wished it was one of the set-ups at the beginning of this corrupted adventure so he could have enjoyed this silly incarnation of the leader of the expedition. It was not and the weariness of his team showed in their desolate and frustrated looks. John just wanted this to end.

A familiar and gravelly voice echoed across the Gate Room. "So there you are! This is the man who impregnated you. This is the man whose bastard child is in your belly! I've waited a long time for this!" John only had a brief view of Kolya storming out of a side door before the bullet hit him between the eyes.

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Now it was Rodney's turn to wear Sheppard's gray matter. He could not even move as the body of his friend hit the floor and a spray of blood, bone, and brain spattered him. As it dripped off of him, he started shaking.

"I warned you, I can play even meaner," Kolya said in a patronizing tone as he stood over Sheppard. Weir hung on his shoulder pouting and picking at her teeth. "It seems I like to shoot guns too," he observed while turning the weapon over in his hand.

Kolya was not as tall as Rodney remembered him. Obviously, it was Norman wearing Kolya's face. Before Sheppard's body had even stopped twitching, the little Nazi lifted his weapon and shot Teyla point blank in the chest. The other impersonations in the room froze as her body thumped to the floor. Ronon stepped closer to Rodney as the Evil Kolya (and that was saying something) smirked at them. The two teammates stood side by side and then they sat shoulder to shoulder on the floor, crossing their arms in front of them in a show of defiance.

"Go ahead," Ronon challenged as Rodney returned an outstandingly smug smirk to back him up.

"Too quick…way too quick. No chance for learning and conditioning. Bonds forging. Unwillingness. Oh, I know." The horrible little man tapped the side of his head with the Genii gun and then he leered at Ronon. "Oh, that is perfect." He was thinking out loud.

"Who are you?" Rodney asked, not really expecting an answer but hoping for one. "Why not just let us go?"

"So much newness, so many interesting experiences…New places and situations…New ways to die…new ways to kill. Before it was Wraith, Wraith, and Wraith with some murder by human hands, and maybe a little lust. It's just not enough anymore. Hmmm, yes, not enough. Come, let's play." Kolya's voice had changed from his arrogant, cold tone to one of child-like wonder during the rambling. "Yes, must draw it out more…savor it."

"Who are you?" Rodney repeated. His question went unanswered as the scene changed again. In this variation, he found himself hanging with his arms extended over his head and his feet barely touching the ground. His wrists were tied together on dangling chains connected to a thick beam. It allowed his body to sway and whirl from left to right.

In his rotation, he saw Sheppard to his left, unconscious, and Teyla to his right, also unconscious. He guessed they had not quite recovered from being dead. Pity. In the center, Ronon stood before the biggest, meanest Wraith Rodney had ever seen. It held Ronon's chains in its hands and leered at the Satedan. It pulled on the chains to make Ronon stagger towards it. It hauled off and punched him as hard as Rodney had ever seen anyone or anything punch anyone or anything else. Ronon staggered back only to be pulled forward again for a similar blow to be leveled at him a second time. This time Ronon fell into the dirt on the floor of the large barn-looking structure.

The Wraith jerked on the chains rolling Ronon over onto his back. "I can do this all day, human."

Ronon gave a blood-tinged smile. "It doesn't matter who it is, McKay. We're just toys to him."

"It does matter…it may not even be a who. It may be a what…a really complex program…"

"We just have to wait, McKay. Zelenka and Lorne are out there…"

"How do you know that that wasn't just another fake-out?"

"Because," whispered Sheppard through his cracked lips. "He didn't stay."

"He doesn't want us to know what is happening…" added Teyla.

"ENOUGH!" shouted the Wraith dragging Ronon to his feet. "Enough talk of things out of your control. Show me more! Show me how you face death! Show me how you beg!"

Ronon laughed at the pale alien face and then spit at it. "That's how I face a cowardly dung heap like you."

The Wraith whirled him around to face Rodney. "Then how do you face the death of your friends?"

A black rubbery material was pulled over Rodney's face so he could not breathe. Chains rattling on either side of him and Ronon's roaring in front of him told him all he needed to know. This was just a game as Ronon had said. Then a voice confirmed it.

"My name is Atar. I've been bored for so long that it is good to have company who can entertain me like you do."

Rodney's brain raced to understand how this was happening. He felt the manacles cut into his skin. His lungs burned and screamed for air. He heard his friends' frantic grunts and thrashing on either side of him. Ronon's pleading that Atar stop…

Except there was not any pleading. Ronon was laughing. "There's no death here, you idiot. You've proven that time and time again. Only pain. Pain can be survived. Pain can be endured. Pain can be brought!"

Ronon was right. There was no real death here. There was only pain. It still didn't make the lack of oxygen any less traumatic, but it did help with the thought that he would just have to keep surviving until they figured a way out.

Rodney heard skin smacking skin and then chains smacking skin. He heard grunts and shuffling and thumps and bumps. A body slammed into him and the rubbery sheet fell away to reveal Ronon beating the ever-living shit out of the Wraith. He twirled his chains above him and slung them at the creature's head. They wrapped around its neck and Ronon twisted around to its back to grab both ends and pull a Princess Leia versus Jabba the Hut move. Thank goodness Ronon was not wearing the little gold bathing suit.

The move brought Rodney a brief moment of glee, a small moment of, "Hah! Take that asshole!" It was short lived.

The Wraith laughed as Ronon pulled-- its voice never changing and its lung power never strangling. "I don't breath." He grabbed Ronon's arms and, without ever moving a muscle, simply inverted his entire body to face the Satedan. "This is my home. My rules." The chains fell from its neck and Ronon was flung through the wooden barn wall, splintering it.

"What you've seen…What you've experienced…I could play with forever…" The floor roiled turning from wooden slats to dirt. The barn shimmered into a clay and wood building. The air became stifling hot and Atar turned from a Wraith into an ordinary man in a T-shirt and jeans-- an ordinary man with a lit fireplace and pokers heating up in it.

He extracted one and walked over to Sheppard. Atar grasped him by the face and held up his head. "You're people are inventive." He placed the poker through Sheppard's thigh and then pulled it out. Sheppard screamed so loud that his skin pulled tight across his ribcage showing each detailed protrusion of bone. Sheppard, still trying to get over near suffocation, was so incoherent that he had not even tried to dodge the red hot implement. He gulped in air and made gutturals that cursed Atar without forming words.

Teyla started struggling, Rodney hung limply, and Ronon did not return to this hell. "Little Wraith girl. You've given me the other side to all of those cullings. Feel what I have learned from all of you." The next poker he pulled from the fire he pressed right through her chest. The point protruded out her back and the blood glistened in the firelight. The smell was nauseating and her scream could have shattered glass along with his heart.

Atar was learning this from them. He was learning to enjoy such pain from them…no, he must have already enjoyed it. He just had found new ways to torment others through them. Apparently, they were great teachers.

Atar returned to the fireplace and Rodney realized not all pain could be endured. It was not the first time he had thought this was not real, even if it damn sure felt that way. Sheppard tried to gain footing and clanked his chains taunting Atar. He tried to get the anomaly to come to him. Atar ignored him and stepped in front of Rodney. "You see too much. You know too much. But this time knowledge is not power. I am the power." He shoved the poker right through Rodney's right eye.

There was so much screaming and bellowing and wailing (not all of it was from him, he was pretty sure) that Ronon's voice in the background almost go lost.

"Zelenka says to hang on!"

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Radek Zelenka was about to throw the hissy fit to end all hissy fits if this (insert expletive here) machine would not cooperate. Every time he had thought he had found a back door, it would slam shut in his face. He had tried to put the figurative foot in the door, but he was just not fast enough.

To make matters worse, Maj. Lorne was walking back and forth creating a rut. The glances thrown at him were impatient and bordering on hostile. Radek was hoping it was aimed at the sniveling little man cowering in the corner or the damnable computer that kept bleeping and giving two-toned error signals.

He had almost had it. He was sure because Ronon had stirred. He had not completely woken up but had shifted, and his eyes had fluttered. Then, the (more expletives) door slammed so hard in his face his beak went up at a ninety degree angle. Perry, dodge, spin, thrust…

Now he was good and mad. He decided that maybe Ronon's hook-up had a glitch and he could, maybe, possibly, work around it. At least, that was his theory. The person who could have made short work of this was sitting in the next chair, completely still.

That stillness and the decline in visible health had Lorne on the radio to his people at the Gate requesting medical assistance. The occupants, otherwise known as SGA-1, were looking paler and paler. Their respirations were barely discernible. They did not move except for the eyes under their eyelids. It was starting to freak out Lorne and, quite honestly, himself. A ray of hope slipped through the gloom with Ronon's movement. With that, Radek knew they were not lost in this frustrating and maddening program.

Zelenka wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked up at Lorne. "Is it getting hot in here?"

Lorne stopped his pacing and furrowed his brow. "It is, Doc." Radek got up and went to some other controls on a far wall. The temperature gauge for the room was rising. He might not have understood the system of measurement, but he knew what the rising numerals meant. It would take more than a little sweat in his eye to get him out of this room.

"The computer is trying to flush us out. Kick us out of here…"

"You're making it sound like it's alive or something, Doc," Lorne suggested as he stepped up behind him. "If it is alive somehow, maybe that's why you're havin' so much trouble."

Radek turned around to face Lorne. "You may have something there, Major. It may have some form of a learning scale. I may be playing chess instead of Twister."

He realized he had been playing catch-up and not hardball. Ronon's chair was the key. As he watched the information scroll, he noticed there were times when it paused to change into a whole different set of algorithms. It was most likely changing scenes. The program was essentially a virtual environment and a game.

He began typing. If he could get it to pause for just a brief second, then he might be able to pull one of them out. This program was crafty. This program learned. This program might be more than the average program. Ronon's data indicated he was away from the others. Radek pressed 'Enter'.

Ronon grunted and his eyes fluttered like the last time. His fingers wiggled and Radek took the window of opportunity for however long it lasted.

"We're here. Hang on!"

As Ronon slipped back into the computer program, Radek thought he heard a whispered, "Good."

TBC…