Chapter 8
When Logic and Proportion Have Fallen Sloppy Dead
Her face had been hidden by her long, blond hair the entire time. She had kept her gaze aimed at her shoes and never up at any of them. The thing had been hiding in plain sight which was very appropriate for this place.
"No, no, no, no," Rodney kept repeating trying to reign in any sliver of calmness achievable. "No, no, no, no…"
"Tender morsel? No greeting?" She smiled impishly by pursing her lips together and giving a tilted smirk. Her momentum carried her steps into John's theater box and then she stopped. Her billowy cotton dress changed to a flowing, brown, floor length dress reminiscent of Wraith webbing.
After the initial shock, the suffocating hysteria changed into a white-hot fury. "Rodney, Elizabeth, I believe you know Lucy." Yet, Sheppard still sounded like he was introducing a superior officer at a garden party.
Lucy only had eyes for him.
"Sheppard, don't let her come anywhere near you." Rodney walked the length of his enclosure back to where John stood in his. "She's only in your head…I mean the thing in your head. I mean she's a program, she's not in ours!"
"Thanks, but there aren't too many places to go, McKay." The space was finite. There was no escape route.
"Rodney, why does that matter?" Elizabeth had to ask.
She saw the answer as Rodney formed it in his mind and she was in awe. Rodney's thought processes were unlike anything going on in her head. From the moment she relayed what Carson had told her about their condition, Rodney had been adding his own observations. His brain worked through each bit of information, categorized it as useful or extraneous, and organized it into shapes and color patterns for memorization. Things just made sense to Rodney and they made sense with blazing speed and accuracy.
John, on the other hand, had no logical or coherent thoughts. He was on an emotional roller coaster complete with roaring in his ears and he could not think of a single way out of this. The emotions coiled tightly within every muscle of his virtual body. Thoughts were not forming into words. Words were constricting in his throat. To top it all off, his state at the moment was reactionary.
She was pretty sure her thoughts were in a similar jumble and might fall victim to the tide of emotion crashing through the waiting room.
He was drowning in a virtual sea of fear and trying to take them along for the ride. Rodney rose above it and continued to infer.
"His parasitic addition! It must have been altered by her, seeing as she had a lot of time to do it. I'm sure there were times a marching band with cheerleaders could have been in the same room and he wouldn't have noticed it. She could have done it at anytime! She can manipulate him. The real him!"
"I knew I should have kept you under better care, trickster. Should have kept you closer," Lucy whispered in a sultry two-toned voice. She transformed from human and back into Wraith as she watched Sheppard from the edge of his spoke. "But, alas, I could not have everything I wanted."
"Or much of anything," John shot back when words finally released from his throat.
"Apparently, my life was taken-- by you. My purpose is to make sure I get a chance at another."
Lucy spread her arms out from her waist and held them bent just enough to come only to her hips. Her palms faced out as inky, black tendrils of smoke-like wisps curled away from her body. The tendrils moaned and shrieked like the illusions the Wraith used to round up their human herd. As she completed her transformation back into her Wraith form, the tendrils took shape into familiar people known only by John.
"It has taken me awhile to assimilate your knowledge and I'm not quite finished yet, but why wait to say hello?"
The black ghosts encircled him and stroked his arms, the back of his neck and his face. John stood petrified to his spot. The names flew out and around him: Osy, Linus, Rein, and Bose. Then names from television shows crept out completely confusing Elizabeth: Daisy, Betty, Paw Ingalls and so forth.
"What is this, a walk down syndication lane?" Rodney worriedly taunted with his own confusion.
John was past taking the bait.
Elizabeth had not noticed walking down her own area to stand even with John in his until she looked directly at his profile. This was her fault. This was all her fault. She had not rescued him at Ixion. She had not destroyed the Hive ship either. She had almost lost everything to another Queen on a similar mission in between galaxies. The bureaucrats in the IOA had not wanted to make any decisions so she did. Those decisions led her people to being duped by their test subjects on that isolated planet and here it was biting them in the ass. They faced two enemies because of her grand mistakes. Two for the very high price of one.
"John!" she called to him. "John, you've beaten her before. You're alive; she's not!"
He was trying to hide his utter chaotic fear like he had been doing for the past several months. And there was nowhere for it to go. The panic, the fear, the anger, the rage-- he was trying to cram them all into a proverbial suitcase that was too small. The hinges were surely about to break.
"Snakes in a can?" Rodney supplied.
" Not helping!" John and Elizabeth answered in unison.
The little wraiths whispered to him.
Rodney shouted at him.
Elizabeth pleaded with him.
The tendrils turned into the very young and danced around him as if he were the Maypole.
The hinges popped and he struck out.
He began frantically swatting at the images trying to chase them away. His hands moved the tendrils into swirling currents which curled around his arms. The action did not meet with any success as they reformed around him. He decided to change tactics.
He strode through them as they attempted to cling to his clothes and he stopped right in front of Lucy. The cold-seated hatred reappeared as his upper lip went into a sneer and his head swayed jerkily back and forth like an epileptic cobra.
"Colonel, what part of 'stay away' didn't you understand?" Rodney demanded while his panic increased.
He was ignored.
"John Sheppard, stand down!" Elizabeth ordered.
"You can ask that of me after…after what she did? What she's still to doing?" His voice broke as the bottom dropped out of his composure. He could hide no longer. "She squeezed the life from every cell in my body like the juice from an overripe orange. She bled me dry!"
"No John, you survived. I order you to stand down." Elizabeth growled out the last word as if she was channeling R. Lee Ermey. She stood firm and waited for his answer, his compliance. Control, he needed to regain control. She demanded that he regain control.
He did not get the chance.
"I've been sending little reminders every once in a while so you wouldn't forget me. The trickster was right; I made a few modifications during our time together. Anytime you have been near Wraith technology, it became harder and harder to ignore, did it not?" Lucy purred.
"They don't own me. They haven't been able to make me cow down yet." The desperation made his voice crack. It was puberty all over again.
"No, they weren't meant to. Just keep you unstable. Your trip on that other Hive must have taken everything to keep them quiet. Days of uncertainty and flickers just out of sight driving you mad." Her eyes finally left John and nodded at Rodney. "You should've listened to the trickster." The words flowed out of her mouth like velvet while she tried to grab his chest.
Elizabeth had no idea her voice could get as shrill as she screeched, "LOOK OUT!"
Her screech mingled with Rodney's male version and the warning seemed successful at first.
John dodged the blow by jumping back quickly. He was not so lucky the second time because, after all, he was in a finite space. The other wraiths startled him from behind by clawing at his arms and back. He spun around to defend himself and swatted at them as he had done before. The effect was the same, tendrils of smokiness separated only to reform back into escaped ghosts.
Lucy took the advantage and struck while he faced the images of her victims. She captured him in more of the inky tendrils. His mouth opened but no sound came out as the tendrils disappeared into the skin on his arms, cheeks and legs. He appeared to be choking and gasping noiselessly as they firmly held him in place.
Rodney's mantra of "no's" returned and Elizabeth wished she had something to grab a hold of to keep her up.
Lucy sank into John starting at his back and pushed out through the front fitting into John's image like a Latex mask. She slowly separated herself and gathered the tendrils to her while adjusting her new copy of a human suit into place.
John stiffly dropped to his knees and Elizabeth followed his lead by dropping to hers. With his face devoid of emotion and mouth hanging open, he stared into nothingness. Across from her, she could see Rodney on all fours calling desperately to his friend.
There was a static thrum in Elizabeth's ears blocking all other sensory stimuli. She swayed along with John and said nothing of any consequence. Pleaded whispers escaped her mouth but were unintelligible.
Victorious, Lucy turned to face John and lowered herself to eye level. She watched him sway for a moment without saying a word or touching him. The malicious victory spread all over her borrowed face as she listened to his silence and willed him to stay up. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the melody coming from the playground.
The queens loved the subjugation of their prey and she was the exemplification.
Lucy, now wearing John Sheppard's likeness, stood and turned shocking tangerine eyes towards Elizabeth. "Time to go," she breathlessly whispered and then mischievously winked. All of her little minions dissipated and then she too vanished without as much as a ripple.
John swayed on his knees for a second more and then collapsed onto his side. The impact was soundless as the cotton candy cloud padded his fall. He did not get back up.
"What do you want most in the whole wide world?" Little Mikey asked after a while.
Neither Rodney nor she could answer because it was lying lifelessly on the virtual floor between them.
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"…Lingering stench…" she had said. His former Queen had considered him laced with an infection. How ironic that the Lanteans had thought they were curing a disease and his kind now thought he had one.
This willingness to trade with the Lanteans might prove the Queen's suspicions though. This was a tactic he would never have considered before Atlantis. Of course, his life and the lives of his brethren depended on it and they really liked living.
After having to forcibly indulge his human derivative, he had a unique perspective of the Wraith's weaknesses which were few. It always came back to the hunger. As a human, he was not afflicted with such a deep craving. There was pleasantness about that. His kind was not the most adaptable and for so long it had not mattered since they were the top predator. The Lanteans challenged them for the first time in eons and his race was not prepared. They were scrambling to keep up, but the Lanteans did not need to know that.
Michael considered his objective as simple but not easy: gain independence. He could not foresee much of a chance when he escaped the first time. All he had ever known was Hive life. There was much more out there and, now, he had help. His brothers would never know the lingering stench bias. They would never have to serve another queen. He had no need for the female of the species anymore.
There were Hives that rallied around a head male. He could possibly achieve the same status. He wanted to achieve the same status. He would achieve the same status.
This was one step in an uncertain bid for self realization, a rogue amongst the stars. He had a small part of the strategy planned out. The village lay to the north and the Ring to the south. The hostages (or snack if the mood struck) had been taken to an open field between the two where a large insect mound provided some cover. It was easily defensible and a good place to wait. A time limit had been set for the duration of the Stargate's remaining open wormhole and then when he reestablished the wormhole, they had better answer.
During his conversation with Dr. Beckett and whoever was speaking in the doctor's ear, he moved away from the humans dragging Teyla with him. When he finished relaying his demands, he sent her back and oversaw the placement of counter measures near the Gate. Since he left the Ring open for its maximum amount of time, it allowed them to ponder his demands to their fullest and to decide their fate. It was all a matter of control and to keep Dr. Weir out of the proceedings for as long as possible. Also, they might have questions, who knew? It was the least he could do.
Getting back to the matters at hand, his brethren finished the restocking of the ship at the village. True to his word, the people in hiding were left alone, but they had better stay in hiding until his kind left. Those in the village…well, he was back to thinking about snacking.
He had a sense of pride about keeping the deal originally struck and he was not sure why. Maybe there was an infection. Maybe his human side was still trying to assert itself. Stench, indeed.
Another foreign concept slithered through him, revenge. Until this group of humans had shown up, who had challenged them? Some races had achieved small victories against individual Wraith. Some unsupervised societies might have taken down a ship or two, but no one had such unfettered access to Lantean technology and knew how to work it. From what he had learned during his captivity, allowing the natural order of this galaxy to proceed did not occur to them. They fought, explored and denied the losing battle until the bitter end.
His kind had defeated the original Lanteans. Their diluted offspring should have presented no problem. Except, apparently, the diluted offspring did not know that. They exemplified the importance of the occasional cull to keep the herd manageable.
He had a second step which would come later. For that, he would use the Lanteans for its completion. He would start them on the path and let that feisty nature run its course. The information about the queens would elicit their own brand of hunger.
Everything was right where he wanted it.
Everything was…
Michael stopped. A consciousness…no a scent was beckoning to him. A scent with instructions wafted on the breezes. It was an electric, female scent.
How could a Hive…? No, there was no other Hive, but the brethren buzzed and hissed in his head over the distraction. Teyla contained a mild form of this scent, but not enough to influence. It could not be her. So who?
Was he not just rebelling against such hierarchical formalities? Had he not just declared his independence from the Hive mentality? Where was this coming from?
Show yourself! he yelled in his head.
As he approached the clearing, only his agitated brethren and the hostages were present. The presence was here though as he stomped on the still moist grass. He walked up just in time to hear Teyla warn Ronon, "That's not Col Sheppard."
Sheppard stood in front of the insect mound and stretched his arms and neck. He gave a small arrogant laugh at Teyla's observation-- Teyla's very correct observation. His movements were all wrong. This was all wrong.
Noticing Michael for the first time, Col. Sheppard demanded eye contact with him and received it. Imperial orders and genetic dispositions made him comply. This was impossible, right? Sheppard was only a human, right?
"Perfection," Col. Sheppard hissed finishing it with a coquettish smile.
Michael realized that that was what he had been thinking only moments ago-- everything was perfect. He found it not to be so anymore.
Everything was very wrong.
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A/N: Well, now we have a little Shep whump. And yes I know another taken over by an alien scenario. But hey, you just can't have that happen too many times. Bunnies are very apologetic for the cliché and fought the author tooth and other big tooth over it. She pulled their fluffy little tails and told them to shut up.