Thank you Lady Anne for the beta job - mucho appreciated.
Part 8. Down the rabbit hole
Beckett was frozen. A heavily armed and hallucinating marine was pointing a gun at him and he couldn't move a muscle to save himself. With increasing disbelief he watched the young man pull the P90 to his shoulder with shaking hands.
The doctor squeezed his eyes shut and so didn't see Ford bring the tranquiliser gun up to his shoulder in one smooth movement and fire off a dart. Within less than a second the sergeant had collapsed in on himself and lay motionless on the floor, his P90 slipping from limp hands.
The stink of cordite hung heavy in the air.
Beckett opened his eyes unwillingly to believe that he was still alive.
"What the hell was that?" demanded Ford in a voice gone shrill. He turned to McKay, unconsciously shifting closer to the jamming device.
Beckett stared at Ford and Rodney's antagonistic stance in shocked incomprehension. Ford was shouting now. "You said if we stayed within three metres we'd be safe, what the hell went wrong?"
McKay was staring at back at Ford and then turned to the unconscious soldier on the floor. His mouth was working but no words were coming out.
Beckett struggled with his composure. "So, everyone's alright are they?" he asked eventually in an unnaturally light voice. He looked around expecting to see wounded but all he saw were the shocked faces of his team mates.
Finally recovering his voice, McKay turned to yell at Zelenka. "What the hell did you do? Ham-handed idiot!" He threw the life signs detector to one side and, glaring angrily at his fellow scientist, he knelt down in front of the jamming device.
"I didn't do anything," retorted the Czech as McKay snatched a data pad out of his grasp.
McKay then shifted his glare accusingly to Beckett who raised his hands defensively and spluttered, "D'nae look at me like that, Rodney. I d'nae touch that bloody chair."
"Then what the hell just happened?" he demanded turning his attention back to the equipment in front of him. "No, no, no, no, no. This is not happening! Tell me this is not happening," he breathed. Abruptly he set the data pad down and crawled over to another. "Everyone fall back, get closer to the antennae," he ordered. "Zelenka, boost power to that thing!"
"Doctor McKay, what has happened?" asked Teyla as she stepped in closer to the large silver box housing the jamming device. Although it was a large room the area around the chair was becoming cramped where the group huddled closer to the silver box. Zelenka and McKay were kneeling in the dust beside it and the rest of the team stood in a loose circle, almost a defensive formation, around them. Teyla took another step backwards careful not to step on to or to dislodge any of the equipment the two scientists had set up. She glanced uneasily to one side to look at Ford and realised that they were standing so close now that if she'd have reached out she could easily touch his shoulder. His eyes were fixed on the man he had shot with the tranquiliser and she could almost feel his fear of this unseen enemy that could manipulate their minds. She recognised the same fear rising within her.
"There has been a power surge, I don't know how. Our safe area is shrinking all the time," the Canadian scientist answered. "Christ, Radek, we have to boost this. Wire up the spare batteries, all of them." Zelenka nodded and then turned to work.
"Crap, crap, crap, it's like something's looking for us. There are uneven surges all over the place. How the hell? It's like something knows we are here…" McKay could feel the panic rising inside him. "But we were so careful. We bypassed the protocols. There are no sensors in here; this should not be happening! Maybe it has detected that the sensors are no longer here and is reacting to that?" he theorised.
"But that would suggest the ability to reason…" Zelenka's voice was worried.
Simultaneously the two scientists turned, stared at the chair and then turned to look at one another. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asked McKay.
"That programme has been running for very long time. Lots of things can happen in ten thousand years," replied Zelenka.
"Or it could be Major Sheppard," added McKay. The smaller scientist didn't answer, just nodded his head and continued wiring additional batteries to the jamming device.
"What the hell are you guys talking about? Just tell me what is going on!" yelled Ford, now thoroughly disquieted and out of his depth.
McKay fixed him with a worried look and said, "The data suggests that something is looking for us. We can boost our signal and try and fool it but we don't have enough power to keep going for long. Zelenka, you're going to have to monitor the variations in the frequency and match them."
"How long?" demanded Ford.
"How long what?" McKay snapped back.
"How long before we start seeing things again?" Ford's eyes widened as he remembered the pain of the stomach wound.
"I don't know. Look it might not come to that – we have five maybe six hours of power in the batteries and so long as we can keep matching the variations in the frequency we can hold this thing at bay. That's going to take up all of one of our time though which leaves only one of us to work on how to hack the system, turn it off and extract the major," replied McKay.
"So, that means you've got three hours to get him out of there," stated Ford.
"What?" blustered McKay.
"You got him into this mess, you can get him out."
"I did what? No he did! He touched the damn chair!" shouted McKay in response.
"The question of where fault lies is not the issue. The issue is the life of Major Sheppard and how we save it," interjected Teyla swiftly to avert what looked like becoming an ugly argument.
"And ours. When that thing finds us, it might not decide to let us go quite so quickly as it did last time," added McKay.
"And I think that we're going to have to disable all the weapons," stated Beckett flatly remembering how he had stood at the wrong end of a P90 just minutes before.
"What?" asked Ford as if he thought Beckett was crazy.
"You heard me, Laddie. Disable all the weapons, at least the lethal ones. We might not be so lucky next time!" and gestured towards the unconscious body of the marine lying face down on the dusty floor. Ford scowled and then, seeing the sense of Beckett's advice, he nodded to his men. They started breaking down their weapons to render them harmless should they succumb to the hallucinations.
"Rodney, you might want to look at this." It was Zelenka, speaking in short bursts in between frantic bouts of typing.
McKay scrambled the short distance over to Zelenka and looked over his shoulder. "God, the frequency of the transmissions is varying incredibly quickly," he said.
Zelenka nodded and stared intently at the monitor preparing to match wits with whatever it was that was hunting them.
McKay turned away from him picking up one data pad after another examining the readings as he desperately wracked his brains for a solution. And then it occurred to him. "Oh sweet Jesus Christ," he whispered to himself and turned to stare at Sheppard who lay there, oblivious to the noise, the heat and the tension around him. "There's only one viable option."
"Rodney, you've gone white. What's up with you? Are you feeling nauseous?" asked Beckett putting his hand on McKay's shoulder.
The scientist nodded and then shook his head, "No, no, I'm fine. It's just I have to do something and since Zelenka has to focus on matching the frequencies, I need you to help me."
Beckett noted McKay's stricken expression and said, "Alright, Rodney."
McKay swallowed hard and then worked swiftly pulling cables and crystals out from the base of the chair. Beckett had no idea what Rodney was doing. He watched in silence as the Canadian worked frantically noting with concern McKay's occasional lapse in concentration.
The Canadian at last seemed satisfied with his handy work. He looked questioningly over to Zelenka who was sitting on the floor, his whole being concentrated on the data pad in front of him. He appeared to sense McKay's scrutiny and said, without taking his eyes of the screen, "It's not slowing down, I'm sorry."
At his answer McKay scowled fiercely and then said, "OK, you know what it is I'm going to do now?"
Zelenka shot him a sideways look. "Good luck," he said and then turned his gaze back to the data pad to concentrate all his wits on blocking whatever it was that was hunting them down.
McKay nodded. He looked as if he was about to say something and then changed his mind, sat down leant against the console. He carefully grasped the crystals he'd been working on in both hands and looked over at Beckett. "Look, when I say so, just flick that switch, OK?"
"Anything you say, Rodney," replied the doctor giving his friend an encouraging smile.
McKay didn't smile in return. He just breathed heavily for a few minutes and then said, "Carson, now, before I change my mind."
Beckett still didn't know what his friend was planning to do and so he did as he was told. He flicked the switch and then watched in horror as McKay stiffened then slowly toppled over sideways to lie limply on the floor.
"Rodney!" shouted Beckett and lunged forward.
"Stop it!" ordered Zelenka in an uncharacteristically harsh voice.
Beckett stopped his forward motion and then asked, "What the hell has he done?" in a low voice although he suspected he knew the answer.
"He's gone in after Sheppard," replied Zelenka.
"And you knew this and still let me help him? Am I surrounded by loons? What in hell's name did you let him do that for? The man's sick for God's sake." The Scot was shouting now angry with McKay for duping him into helping, angry with Zelenka for his complicity and angry with Ford for driving McKay to such a desperate course of action.
Zelenka didn't even look at Beckett; he couldn't afford to in case he missed a change in frequency or a power spike. So he kept his eyes focused on the data pad in front of him as he replied, "He's the only one who could. It needs ATA gene and knowledge of advanced mathematics. He is only one who, as you say, fits bill. Now quiet please, I must concentrate."
There was silence in the small room. Beckett's mouth slowly formed into a hard line and then he turned towards Ford and spun him round forcing the younger man to meet his glare. "Are you happy now, Laddie? What the hell are we going to do if he doesn't come back? Did you think of that when you started hounding him?" he demanded.
Ford didn't answer. He was aghast at the enormity of what McKay had just done. He had willingly interfaced himself with the chair which he knew could kill or maim him in order to try to save Major Sheppard. He didn't know what to say. He had badly misjudged the scientist.
It was Teyla who broke the silence. "Then we will have to trust that Doctor McKay will succeed," she said and they all turned to look at the unconscious Canadian sprawled inelegantly in the dust at their feet.
Bright sun light burst in on him and he blinked trying to build some sort of frame of reference as to where he was. He squinted and then strained to hear as something caught his attention above the sound of the rollers breaking on the shore. Wait? Rollers?! What the hell was going on here? He turned in the direction of the sound. It was voices, laughing and shouting. He saw two figures in the distance, one the unmistakable figure of Major John Sheppard and the other, a woman. He was too far away to make out her features but he could see that she was slim with shoulder length brown hair. The two figures were entwined; arms wrapped around one another, heads leant towards each other.
"Typical! I hallucinate lugging a hulking great marine back to the star gate whilst holding his guts in place with Teyla dripping blood every where and HE hallucinates romancing the beautiful alien!" snorted McKay in disgust and started the long trek down over the dunes to the two distant figures on the beach.
Please leave review if you liked it and especially if you didn't - constructive feedback is a great motivator for me. FYI there are only two more chapters to go and the next one just isn't co-operating... Thanks for everyone who has left reviews so far - your comments and encouragement are greatly appreciated.