Chapter 7
God Save the Queen (or Potential H Bomb)
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Above all, I must not play at God. -- Modern Hippocratic Oath
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"Ah Dr. Beckett. So good of you to speak with me, a lowly Wraith." The sarcasm thickened as the words broadcasted in his ear. "I guess I can let Dr. Weir rest now. I'm sure Teyla, Ronon and the others with me would like for Col. Sheppard and Dr. McKay to stop their thrashing as well."
Elizabeth went slack in the bed and the machines resumed their hypnotic, atonal beeps. Carson closed his eyes and rotated his shoulders. He checked her over quickly and handed her off to another doctor before he began walking out of the infirmary. He turned to a nurse and gave the silent order of call me if anything happens.
"It was you? You've been doin' this?" Carson asked in the hallway.
He had only wanted to help the denizens of the Pegasus Galaxy and to end the cycle of suffering for both parties. After all, the Wraith were human at one time. The hunger they experienced was as unnatural as it was strong. It was an unfortunate consequence of the blending of two disparate species with disastrous repercussions to one of the originators.
He stopped in front of the transporter as he collected himself waiting for the answer. The bastard sounded amused when he responded.
"Oh yes. How does it feel to be fooled, doctor? Hmm? How does it feel to be left wondering? To have your questions go unanswered? To lose control?"
"Michael, don't play martyr with me," Beckett snapped back as he entered the small space. When he stepped out, he continued, "We're past that you and I. A shared animosity will help no one right now."
"But animosity is all we have left."
"Michael, you wouldn't hesitate in killing us. We have the right to protect ourselves." Carson entered the control room and immediately made his way to Major Lorne. The entire room was eavesdropping on the conversation and Lorne gave a curt nod in his direction.
Right or wrong about method, they had the right to fight back. So help him, he had seen the results of their touch. He had watched people he knew die slowly after surviving the initial feeding. He had watched complete strangers slip into comas and pass away quietly. He had watched a very good friend recover from three weeks of torture at their unmerciful touch. He had watched as that friend was unable to recognize a friendly face from a hallucination. He had heard the terror of said friend and others rescued from a Hive ship as they regained their health, an entire ward of frightened and moaning people. He had been on the receiving end of a mind probe by this very Wraith he was talking to. His compassion for this race was waning.
Lines had been crossed, and decisions made. Now they all had to deal with the penalties.
"Yes doctor, you are, of course, correct." Michael laughed which unnerved Carson more than he cared to admit. "So let's talk."
"I have no authority…"
"You are the only one I will speak with!"
Michael had told him he had an open mind and a strong sense of empathy. Michael thought that using Carson as a go between would ease the so-called negotiation. Carson had been right before Michael manipulated him into revealing hidden dangers at the encampment-- the empathy was not as strong as it used to be.
Carson looked at Lorne who gave a consenting nod of encouragement. "I'll do my best, but I'll have to confer with others."
"Of course Dr. Beckett. I will allow you and Teyla to confer, she is here beside me."
"Teyla?"
"Yes, Dr. Beckett. I am here."
"Are you…?"
"She is fine; everyone is fine! I have not extended any other sort of control over her. She is speaking of her own freewill."
"How do we…?"
"Trust, doctor. It's so hard to give, isn't it?"
He had Carson there. "What do you want, Michael?"
"What every being wants, safety. We want a cloaking device and we are willing to trade for it."
Lorne immediately made a cutting motion across his neck. "Doc, that's something we can't give them."
And, Carson knew that.
"Dr. Beckett, I am sure there is some little voice next to you advising your next answer. Let me present the terms of the trade. Once we have the cloak, I will release all those I have in my custody, unharmed. Second, I will give you some new information that I'm sure you'll find useful. Third…Teyla, why don't you tell him about my third term of the agreement?"
Carson could imagine the smoldering look of contempt from Teyla.
"Dr. Beckett, he has the bomb from the planet and will use it on some unsuspecting world if we do not give him what he wants."
"See, trust Dr. Beckett. Trust that I will deliver on all of my terms of the agreement."
Damn, that bomb was a dangerous game piece. A game piece he had surrendered. Carson Beckett would soon be known as Pegasus' destroyer of worlds.
"Doc, ask him about the information," Lorne whispered in his ear.
"Michael, what sort of information do ye have that would make us want to trade something so valuable?" Lorne gave another curt nod of encouragement to Beckett.
"Something, which might help us and you at the very same time. We have a common enemy besides ourselves. This would ensure added time to our survival. It has to do with the Queens."
Lorne and Beckett swallowed convulsively. Beckett could really use Teyla standing next to him and not on the other side of the wormhole. Shoot, what he really needed was Elizabeth to be standing here instead of him.
"The queens?"
"Oh yes doctor, the queens."
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"What the hell was that?" McKay yelled picking himself up off the misty underworld-styled floor.
"I don't know McKay, but I know I had fun. I don't know about you but I like it when my brain gets fried." Sheppard followed his friend's example and stood up as well. "Elizabeth, you OK?"
"Yes, I was back in the infirmary with Carson and Radek…a Wraith device in our heads and a signal from the planet initialized it…then lots of pain."
"Sounds about right, the pain part that is. At least, when you woke up, Ronon wasn't lying on top of you. And don't you say another word!" said McKay as he pointed at Sheppard. "You got to rub against Teyla and don't think I'm not going to tell her about all of your dirty thoughts when this is over!"
John gave Rodney a scathing double take.
"Threesome," Rodney rebuked giving a quick, pointed look to Elizabeth.
"Rodney!" Elizabeth and John yelled.
Rodney continued to try and dust himself off as he looked back to the front of the theater box. "Oh goody, it's still here."
The innocuous playground repeated the same kids doing the same things and singing the same song. It was bordering on the ludicrous.
"Does anyone have a sidearm?" Rodney asked. "I don't think I can handle another round. You've missed a few choruses, Elizabeth."
Then the little boy walked up to them, again. "What is your favorite thing in the whole wide world?"
Rodney hung his head in defeat. "It only has one question. Please, does anyone have a sidearm, anyone?"
"Sorry McKay or I'd offer to shoot you myself."
Elizabeth felt an overwhelming terror race through her; the terror of being found out, the terror of this can't happen again. She figured she might add or alleviate it with her next bit of information.
"Rodney, John's not going to have to worry about you being a tattletale. I couldn't remember a thing. Just little impressions that something was important; that something was wrong."
"Oh that's just great. We can't remember anything about this?"
She shook her head.
"I guess we weren't awake long enough to realize it," speculated Rodney as he gestured between Sheppard and him.
John looked and felt relieved. The terror calmed. "I wonder why the Vegas motto?"
"I'll get there. Just give me a minute to think and get the cobwebs out," Rodney groused still fiddling with clothing that really was not really there.
John grimaced at both of his cellmates with a forced nonchalance and then at the playground and the teacher, one more time. He constantly kept her in his periphery sight noticed Elizabeth. The teacher made a figure eight in the middle of the scene right in front of him. She never deviated from her route through the merry-go-round and monkey bars.
"A waiting room," Elizabeth said out of the blue. "We're in a waiting room."
Still looking at the teacher, John added his two cents with a chuckle, "With the damn repeating video or out-dated magazine, VR style. Something to keep you occupied while you wait."
"VE," corrected Rodney.
"Whatever, McKay," John retorted.
Rodney snapped his fingers. "You know, you might have something there." He started a circle in his own little area on the other side of John. "We're kind of like in between the spokes of a wheel or theater in the round. You say there was a signal initializing the whatever in our…in our heads." Rodney looked a little sick and felt a lot anxious. "Maybe it's a new addition to the tracking devices. It keeps a runner or other prisoner docile and incapacitated to await pick-up if they lost the tracking device."
The little boy put his hands on his hips and stuck out his bottom lip. "I want to play," he demanded. He was summarily ignored. Annoyance was the prevalent feeling running through the three of them.
The teacher moved to the edge of the middle of the playground and called to the little boy. "Come here Michael!"
"Of course, we figured out who's responsible awhile back," scoffed Rodney while waving his arm in disgust at the hub of waiting room. Now it was Elizabeth's turn to feel anxious. "I'm just guessing that the floor show lasts long enough for the local retrieval squad to…well, retrieve."
"Makes sense," responded John outwardly casual. Inwardly, he was terrified.
Elizabeth never realized how much she relied on John's outward guise and disregarded what might be truly going on inside the carefully crafted persona. She looked at Rodney to see if he noticed it. The look of horror and the feeling of anxiety rolling off of him corroborated her realizations. Their rock that they had built their trust on was crumbling.
John looked between the two and fought for inward control and was failing catastrophically. The playground started again.
"An off button, I want an off button! I'm almost rooting for a Wraith patrol to find us and shut this damn thing off," Rodney ranted.
"No McKay, you don't want that."
Hive ships, feedings, pulled out of his single wing X-302 and marched…
"John…" Elizabeth said trying to calm the panic.
"Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head!" John frenetically commanded.
"Want to, want to, want to!" Rodney screamed back.
This was Michael's revenge. He had found something from the first queen who tried to devour Earth. He must have found the beacon that Teyla had warned them about.
"The beacon! Damn it. She left notes or devices or something." Rodney dropped down onto the floor, dejected. The cotton candy mist poofed into little eddies around him.
The little Michael wannabe stepped forward and asked his question, one more time.
"That bitch would have too," John hissed and envenomed every word with hatred. He looked at his shoes and dropped eye contact with the teacher.
The hatred rolled around the waiting room like a steam locomotive. Elizabeth felt like the damsel tied to the tracks just moments before the wheels would tear her body apart. All she could do was try to console and support the both of them to the best of her ability.
"Come here, Michael…" the teacher called, one more time. The voice unexpectedly lowered and vibrated preternaturally. "…my tender morsel."
John's head shot up and he looked into the dangerously amused, tangerine eyes of the teacher. Involuntarily, Elizabeth moved to the front edge of her boundary. In addition, Rodney stood and slowly drifted forward to his. To the contrary, Sheppard retreated to further back in his theater box.
The increasingly sinister teacher walked forward and effortlessly broached the boundary between Sheppard's area and the playground. She gently pulled back the strands of amber hair that had obscured her face and tilted her head to the side.
"Mmm, tender morsel, you're looking yummy."
Hysteria exploded throughout the waiting room completely enveloping Elizabeth and Rodney.
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A/N: Now the gang's all here.