Chapter 16
-Between Galaxies -
Hummmmm, tick, hummmmm, tock, hummmmmm, tick, hummmmmm, tock.
The steady hum of the machinery that surrounded and sustained the occupants of the Daedalus was distracting. Richard Woolsey did his best to ignore the hum while he re-read the mission reports from earth and a few updates on various other NID assignments that took place during his absence. The attempt was failing.
The incessant ticking of the alarm clock someone had loaned him wasn't helping either. They'd claimed that the familiar sound from earth had helped them feel more grounded in the space ship. It wasn't working.
He also tried not to think of the total silence that must fill the vacuum outside the Daedalus. He tried very hard not to think about the fact that a spaceship had a finite supply of oxygen.
This assignment 'sucked', as the younger generation would say. But he didn't choose this assignment because it would be fun. He chose it because it needed to be done and he was the man with the passion to see it through. Except that now he'd learned that McKay's particular case had nothing to do with irresponsible management of Top Secret Military funding and programming. It had everything to do with irresponsible citizens deciding that it wasn't enough to simply monitor government programs on behalf of the electorate. They wanted to decide what was best for the country regardless of what the electorate or the law had to say about it. It had everything to do with outright treason.
It was bad enough that people like that had infected virtually every level of government from the CIA to the Pentagon. But that the largest portion of the infection found its bed, and its source, in the NID made him ashamed. The very organization that was trusted by the people to make certain that the Military did not forget who it was they served, had lost its own focus. Or at least certain members had. That was a bleak prognosis indeed.
Richard didn't really consider himself to be a religious person, but he'd grown up going to Sunday School. As a consequence, on occasion a verse or lesson would come to his mind, unbidden. Today it was 'take the plank of wood out of your own eye before you take the speck of wood out of someone else's'. Perhaps it was time he turned some of his investigative powers towards the NID itself.
It was something to think about during the journey home to earth. They would be reaching the edge of communications range with Pegasus shortly. Then they'd be in the expansion between Galaxies, out of communication with either Earth or Pegasus for a short time, then in communication with Earth alone. He tried not to think about the emptiness of the space between Galaxies, and instead turned his attention to the folder that had been sitting on his desk all morning. It was his final report on the mission, to be reviewed co-signed, and combined with Colonel Caldwell's report.
He wondered if the Captain of the Daedalus had noticed that he'd been avoiding him since the ship left Atlantis. More to the point, Richard wondered if Caldwell knew that it was he who had tipped of Dr. Weir about his suspected and now confirmed misuse of the sensory depravation chamber to intimidate Dr. McKay. That hadn't been what Woolsey had brought it for. It was purely to be a psychological tool to help McKay remember if it came to that and if he were willing to try. It hadn't come to that.
He also wondered how the seemingly emotionless, calculating, Captain of the Daedalus would respond to the portion of the report where Woolsey pointedly disapproved of his attitude towards the mission. The Colonel's eagerness to drop the matter of the Phoenix project in favour of developing the Ancient weapon had proven where his priorities really lay. His interest in McKay was purely his military uses and that just wasn't in the spirit of the Presidents orders. It was safe to assume that the Colonel wouldn't like that part of the report.
In addition, the cool and calculating look in those eyes was just creepy. It was like something human was missing. What military experiences produced that sort of man?
Woolsey thought all this as he looked at the folder on the corner of his desk.
Hummmmm, tick, hummmmm, tock, hummmmmm, tick, hummmmmm, tock.
Annoyance soon overwhelmed his trepidation. It was foolish to be intimidated by Colonel Caldwell. He'd served Five Star General's with investigation orders without batting an eyelash. He could submit one unflattering report to Colonel Caldwell. Even if he were a Star Ship Captain and they were isolated in the middle of space. After all, what could he do? Make Richard walk the plank?
He drew around him the shield of confidence that had helped him face the Five Star Generals, picked up the folder, and turned to take it straight to Caldwell. No more putting it off. As an after thought he grabbed the ticking clock off his desk. He'd return that first.
"Ah, Sergeant," he stopped one of the men passing in front by his quarters, pausing only to read the man's nametag, "Sergeant Freeman. Do you know where I might find Colonel Caldwell?"
The big man grinned a broad, friendly smile, "Sure thing! He's in his office. I'm just coming from there now. I'll show you the way."
"That's alright Sergeant. I wouldn't want to take you from your duties," Woolsey smiled in gratefully in return. His reputation tended to precede him in the military, making it extremely rare to receive such a warm greeting from any military officer, ever.
The attempt to refuse the offered help only proved to broaden the friendly Sergeant's smile. "It's no trouble!"
A rough clap on the shoulder caused Woolsey to stutter forward a few steps as Freeman steered him towards Caldwell's office.
The niggling feeling that there was something 'off' about Caldwell nagged at Woolsey until his habit for digging for answers won out, "So, What's it like working under the command of someone like Colonel Caldwell?"
Within minutes Richard found himself missing the customary cold shoulder he received from military personnel. This man, as personable as he was, would not shut up about how incredible Colonel Caldwell was.
Mercifully, the space on the ship was as finite as the oxygen supply and he was soon left at the door to Caldwell's office.
"Mr. Woolsey," Caldwell observed with a friendly half smile that didn't reach his eyes, "I was beginning to wonder if we'd lost you out an air lock."
That settled the question of whether his absence had been noticed. "Yes, well I've been busy with some paper-work. Speaking of which, here's my report."
Caldwell accepted the proffered file and perused it casually, "I see you disagree with some of the finer points of my investigative method."
"I should think I made it obvious from the beginning that McKay was not to be intimidated into helping us." Woolsey lifted his chin as he spoke. Why did everyone else have to be so damn tall?
Surprisingly, Caldwell let out a light chuckle and leaned casually against his door frame, as though there were nothing at all serious about this blatant disobedience of the Presidents orders. "Mr. Woolsey, you're a sensible man. Wouldn't you agree that McKay is a naturally nervous, even jittery man, at times?"
"Well yes, in my limited experience of him I suppose when he's faced with a stressful situation he can be…" Woolsey began to form his answer but was soon cut off by Caldwell.
"The man is a nervous wreck. Don't you think it's possible that I didn't intend to upset him that way and it just happened?" Caldwell's tone was that of a reasoning man. Both eyebrows raised silently as though to punctuate his point before continuing, "Now, I'll admit that allowing McKay to see that chamber thing may have been poor judgement on my part. I just didn't want him to be surprised by it later when he was repairing a jumper or something. I should have expected he would react strongly. But you can't really think I did that to him purposefully."
Well, if he put it that way it sounded like a rather reasonable mistake to make. Realizing that his work must be making him paranoid, Woolsey blushed and looked away, feeling embarrassed. "Uh, yes. Actually that makes perfect sense."
The file that had been sitting on the corner of his desk for so many days was offered back with a knowing smile, "Then I expect you'll want to go over this again."
"A few edits might be in order," Woolsey agreed and accepted the file, "I owe you an apology for assuming the worst case scenario."
A hand waved dismissively, "You were just being diligent. I probably would have thought the same thing in your place. If there's nothing else, I should be getting back to my own paperwork."
"Of course. I'll be getting back to my own paperwork then," Woolsey waved the file awkwardly as he backed away.
The door to Caldwell's office swished closed, the Goa'uld within him practically quivering with rage. Having to reason with these lowly creatures was demeaning. No matter. With any luck, his assignment would be over soon. Once it had become obvious that the Pentagon would never agree to experiment on McKay in the way necessary to get the information needed, his masters had wasted no time in sending a cloaked scout-ship with new orders. Smiling maliciously, he turned back to the female Atlantean scientist standing silently in the corner. He allowed his eyes to glow at her, and she bowed her head in submission. Human minds were so easy to bend and break. It was a shame they needed McKay's mind intact.
Richard Woolsey settled back at his desk to being rewriting his report, making note in the edge of the old one that he should speak with Dr. Weir again as well. Surely he'd be able to concentrate now that he'd gotten rid of that damn clock.
Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
He found he missed the clock.
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-Atlantis-
A heavy silence hung in the air of the waiting room. Unable to get any work done in her office, and tired of the intrusive glances and outright stares coming from the direction of the control room, Elizabeth had decided go down to the infirmary waiting room. She really shouldn't have been surprised to find Teyla and Ronon already there. They'd had questions, which of course she had not been able to answer to their satisfaction. Eventually they had stopped asking for information. Teyla now sat in silence staring at a fixed point on the wall, her brow furrowed in worry. Ronon, however, glared accusingly in Dr. Weir's direction. So Elizabeth glared back with confidence and determination, her back ridged. She wasn't sure how long they'd been sitting there like that. But her back was getting quite sore.
The tension in the waiting room actually sharpened when the door leading to the infirmary opened and admitted Carson.
"Sorry to keep ye waiting," he said lightly. But his shoulders were heavy and his eyes were tired.
Ronon immediately crossed the small room to confront the physician with a growl. "What happened to McKay?"
"Um," Carson squeaked, "He's doing fine. Wide awake. Go on in. I'll let him explain what he wishes."
The tired physician managed to hop spryly out of Ronon's way as the imposing man swept into the infirmary. "He's in a side room. A nurse will show ye the way." Carson called after him.
"Thank-you, Dr. Beckett." Teyla bowed her head in the Athosian manner before calmly walking past the physician and after Ronon.
"Yer welcome Lass," Beckett replied tiredly after she'd gone. He turned to the one person remaining in the room. "I expect ye'd like to have a wee talk before ye go in."
"I expect I would." Elizabeth managed a smile.
"Ronon!" Teyla's exhasperated voice drifted out of the infirmary, "Let the nurse go. Rodney is this way."
The expedition leader and the medical leader both winced and waited a few a moments. When they heard no cries for help Carson continued, "The good news is, aside that he seems perfectly healthy, is I didn't have to strap him down."
"Good." Elizabeth allowed herself a small sigh of relief before asking, "What did the scans tell you once he was awake?"
Beckett looked as though he'd been dreading that question, "Only that he's awake, and perfectly healthy if a bit stressed."
"That's all?" Elizabeth expected it would have been rather obvious now that all was not normal within Rodney McKay.
"I'm afraid so." Beckett's tone remained apologetic, "It's not really that surprising. If whatever is happening were that easy to detect I'd have caught it long before now. I'd expect that the only way I'll be able to get anything on a brain scan is if he happens to be using the abilities at the time as the scan."
"But there must be something, Carson. A normal healthy Rodney shouldn't be blowing up bits of glass with his mind." Elizabeth made a frustrated gesture as she spoke.
Carson sighed his agreement, "Aye. And that's not the half of it. He's not without certain lasting side-effects, to say the least. It will take time to determine just how far-reaching they are. He's been experiencing, for lack of a better term, relapses for some time now."
"Relapses?" Weir repeated the word, wondering what exactly 'relapses' entailed for this sort of thing, and equally importantly, "For how long?"
"Virtually since arriving in Pegasus." A bit of the physicians own anger at this slipped into his tone, "and by relapses I mean basic psychic impressions."
"Do we have any idea what might have triggered these relapses?" Elizabeth made a mental note to ask more about what exactly the relapses entailed later.
"Aye." The pursed his lips and paused as though this were the difficult thing he'd been building up to saying, "I'm afraid it's the gene therapy."
"The gene therapy!" Elizabeth's voice rose in alarm. Half the members in the expedition had the gene therapy, "How?"
With the initial confession out of the way, Carson relaxed minimally as he explained, "We don't fully understand how ATA works. Up until now it's been enough that it does. We're working with medical sciences far beyond our own here."
"I understand that." Elizabeth forced a calm she didn't feel into her voice, "What can you tell me?"
"We know that Ancient Technology Activation is caused by a single dominant gene. It instructs the body to produce a certain combination of enzymes and proteins that somehow interact with the brain and the nervous system. I think that these enzymes are taking the place of the chemicals that were used to treat McKay as a child.
"Half the people on this expedition have successfully undergone the gene therapy. Why haven't they shown these symptoms?" She silently prayed that they wouldn't. The last thing Atlantis needed was for her scientists to have even more ways to blow up things.
"Rodney underwent extensive and complex treatments to initially activate the areas of his brain that govern these abilities. Even with the discontinuation of the drug therapy there had to have been some long-term effects. The human brain just can't be turned on and off like a light bulb. The ATA enzymes have interacted with the long-term effects of those initial treatments to produce a slightly different series of effects."
"Different how?" It seemed to Elizabeth that every answer Carson gave her only lead to ten more questions.
"I wish I could say clearly." Carson let out a frustrated sigh that told her Carson was as frustrated with the number of questions and lack of answers as she. "Rodney tells me it's different in a great many ways that I couldn't possibly understand."
Elizabeth couldn't help but smile at that, "That sounds like our Rodney."
"Aye," The physician shared a rueful smile. "That it does. More tests will be required, and even then I'm afraid only time will tell. It seems that, for the most part, what little extra-sensory ability he has is limited to ancients and similar energy beings. Even then he tells me he doesn't pick up clear thoughts as in the original experiment. Only emotions. The lack of such beings on Atlantis will make it difficult to test… if not impossible. But for an example, do ye remember Chaya?"
Elizabeth's eyes widened with realization as she recalled Rodney's behaviour during that whole ordeal, "I can't believe he didn't tell us that!"
"In his defence," Carson added grudgingly, "He did try bloody hard to convince us all there was something off about that girl."
"I suppose," Elizabeth admitted, but looked nonetheless annoyed. "You mentioned similar beings?"
"Aye. That great black energy eating monstrosity," Carson spoke calmly, but a small vein had appeared on the left side of his forehead.
"Oh." Was all Elizabeth could come out with as an image of Rodney laying unconscious on the control room floor flooded into her mind.
"Aye, Oh." Beckett agreed. He had no doubt what Elizabeth was remembering.
They sat in silence a few moments, rethinking his behaviour on those occasions and second guessing others, before Elizabeth decided it was time for another pertinent question. "Have you considered reversing the gene therapy?"
Carson shook his head, "It isn't possible, I'm afraid. Certainly not safely. Using a retro-virus to add specific genetic information is completely different than taking it away. I wouldn't know where to begin to create a virus that would target and destroy specific genetic material. The risk that it would attack the wrong genes or additional genes would be enormous."
"That's not an option then." Elizabeth wasn't even sure she could have asked it of him if it was possible. Ancient technology was Rodney's life now. It would have been like cutting off his hands. "So, how much do we know about what he's actually capable of?"
"We still know very little." Carson was loath to admit it. It seemed to him they'd been struggling for ages to get into a position to help Rodney, only to find that he was virtually powerless to do a thing. Even the ancient scanners, as much as he had learned to use them so far, showed nothing that he wouldn't find in a scan of Sheppard's brain or even his own. And so he relied on old fashioned questioning to determine and interpret symptoms. "He tells me he has no control over it, which he tells me is different from before. His telekinesis is another matter entirely. We've not been able to test the telekinesis. We're reluctant, as I'm sure ye can understand, given what happened in the east tower. Any physical condition which negatively impacts mental concentration, ranging it would seem from exhaustion to drunkenness, seems to result in both extreme pain and loss of control should he attempt telekinetic activity. Specifically, loss of control of the faculties commanding the telekinesis should he attempt to use it. Additionally, as we don't know what the scope of his abilities in that regard are we really have no way of knowing what level of telekinetic activity would strain or exhaust him. I think we should assume that it wouldn't take much, at least as far as intentional focussed use is concerned."
A subtle emphasis on the word intentional caught Elizabeth's ear, "Is there any other kind?"
Carson took a deep breath and motioned for Elizabeth to sit back down as he took the seat beside her. He'd intentionally left the worst bits of his prognosis for last. "I wish I could say there wasn't, but these abilities can be forcibly triggered. From what he tells me the risk of this is minimal. A specific set of very unlikely conditions would have to take place. Namely, total sensory depravation over a prolonged period of time, accompanied by exhaustion caused by extensive forced use of his abilities.
The drug therapy he was put through worked to somehow forcefully stimulate and maintain stimulation in certain areas of his brain. But only when combined with sensory deprivation, as in the tank they held him in, are the artificially stimulated areas forced to become active."
Anger boiled in Elizabeth as she listened. This flew in the face of every human rights convention that was worth anything. It was disgusting in any country, regardless of what treaties they'd signed. And it had happened right in her own country. She looked up at Carson when he paused, and realized that he must be letting her soak in the information. "Continue," she ordered.
Carson nodded, understanding that the anger wasn't directed at him. "If left exhausted and directionless in those conditions his mind, and consequently the focus of his abilities, would remain active and drift inward. From there, I confess I didn't quite understand what he was saying. Something about looking at something that was never meant to be seen, and the act of it bringing it here and such… But he compared it to not knowing what an atom was and accidentally splitting it."
Elizabeth swallowed, schooling her expression and forcing her emotions down. "Is that what happened in the desalination tank?
"Somewhat," Carson nodded, "But not quite," and he prepared for another long-winded explanation. "Perhaps because of the ATA enzymes interaction with the nervous system as well as the brain, the trigger for his telekinesis now has more of an emotional component. It's possible it can activate even without cognitive awareness given the right circumstances.The desalination tank created conditions similar to the sensory depravation chamber. Because of his extended isolation his subconscious mind turned inward, as past experience no doubt has predisposed it to do quite readily I'd imagine. His emotional agitation translated into molecular agitation directed towards the tank walls, eventually producing enough heat that they began to melt and further short-circuit.But his conscious mind remained focussed. His 'wide open spaces' chant probably helped."
"I don't understand. You say he can burn things and blow things up without wanting to or being aware of it and yet you say he's not a danger?" Elizabeth hated to question it, but she had a responsibility.
"As I said, specific and unlikely conditions would be required. The only way I foresee a problem is if he finds himself in that very specific situation again. I don't think it's vera' likely we'll find very many specially built chambers. It's perfectly avoidable." Confidence on that point radiated from Carson.
But Elizabeth wasn't so sure, "You say unlikely, but not impossible."
A bare hint of an eye-roll crossed Carson's features before he caught himself and settled on a scolding smirk that said she should know better, "Forgive me for being blunt, Elizabeth, but we're in another Galaxy with life-sucking alien vampires. At this point I wouldn't say it's impossible that a team will come back through the gate suffering lycanthropy! And let's be honest. Rodney has a great many more likely ways of accidentally blowing something up. We've never had a problem living with that particular hazard before."
Despite the severity of the situation Elizabeth found-herself smirking at both the imagery and her own fallacy. She had been letting the strangeness of the situation cloud her judgement. "Well, when you put it that way, you have a point."
"I'm glad ye agree," Carson admonished all too cheerfully. "I expect he'll be up and about in the labs some time tomorrow."
A bemused, knowing, expression crossed Elizabeth's face as she pursed her lips at the Doctor. She knew there was no point in questioning Carson's decision if he was that confident Rodney could handle it. And, after-all, Rodney had been doing exceptional work on this program for nearly two years now, in this condition. Nothing seemed to indicate that would change now. "I'm sure Dr. Zelenka will be relieved to know that Dr. McKay will be back soon."
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