A/N: Okay, the dark & nasty part is over. We now return to our regular schedule of action, drama and humour. Coming up: a short chapter filled with bad decisions, statistical improbabilities, and bribery. Oh, and please remember that reviews are my oxygen. Even just a smiley face, or a yay/nay will do. Real words are nice, though.
Perīculum (Noun, [peh-ri-ku-lum]): peril; danger; adventure; hazard; action; risk; attempt.
Three hours of manual searching with LSDs have yielded nothing, and not even Ronon has been able to pick up on Sheppard's trail. There's just too much potential ground to cover, and too little evidence to follow. Finally, McKay radios in from the control room that his adjustments to the medical-sample-enhanced biometric sensor are complete.
All the search teams fall back to the control room for the briefing as McKay gets a lock on Sheppard, and Ronon grudgingly confirms that the rapidly moving dot is definitely the Colonel. Sore loser. Caldwell and Weir tussle for authority, and the search teams are secretly grateful that Weir's orders supercede Caldwell's. Nobody *wants* to kill their CO, especially not Sheppard. With a final grateful look, Teyla turns to join the search team.
They head out; behind them Caldwell yells at McKay when Sheppard unexpectedly uses a transporter.
Dr Ellingson pulled himself back to his feet using the wall for support. Sheppard had grabbed him and flung him out of the transporter as though he weighed nothing. The wall on the other end of the atrium had stopped his flight, hard. Ow. He glanced back, relieved to see that the transporter was empty. Sheppard was gone. He momentarily considered radioing in his encounter with Sheppard, but stopped himself with a hand halfway to his earpiece.
He wouldn't be able to tell them where the Colonel had transported to, and knowing that Sheppard had been in this particular tower wouldn't help much in catching him. It would also publicly reveal that he himself wasn't where he was supposed to be: in the safe zone with everybody else. He took a few deep breaths before pulling himself upright and continuing down the corridor to his destination.
Casey hadn't shown up in the safe zone during the roll call, wasn't answering her radio, and he knew she had been working on the aquaculture tanks in this tower when the the protocol was enacted. The security team guarding their safe zone had shrugged off his concerns, saying that she was probably in one of the other safe zones (there were seven) and he shouldn't worry. Apparently there were several scientists who had not responded to the safe zone protocol alert.
There always were - they didn't think "safety drills" were worth their time, or worth interrupting whatever experiment they were running. Short of a full-scale invasion or evacuation with self-destruct, there were always the stubborn few who skipped out. He'd tried to explain to them that Casey wasn't like that; she'd been scrubbing out smelly gunk-filled fish tanks, for goodness' sake! Who would skip out on a security protocol in favour of that?!
They'd simply shrugged and said they would pass it on, and she'd be retrieved and dealt with after the crisis was over. After that he'd radioed Major Lorne directly. Colonel Caldwell probably wouldn't care, but Major Lorne would. Even if he was busy, he would at least listen. He would understand. Lorne knew pretty much everyone in the city, even the scientists, and he would believe that Casey wasn't like that; believe that something was wrong. It had taken a little while and some begging and trading favours to get Major Lorne on the radio though.
The Major had been flung several meters through the air by a grenade's directed shock-wave on their attempt to get Iratus bug eggs for Colonel Sheppard's treatment. Two of his men had been killed as well, and even though he had walked himself back to the gate, he'd been admitted to the infirmary for observation. It had cost Ellingson two Snickers bars (and a promise to name one of his next "cool alien creatures" after someone's sister) to get a Marine stationed in the safe zone that included the infirmary to sneak his headset to where the Major lay under medical observation.
Major Lorne had listened. He had believed Ellingson when the Xeno doctor had explained that it was unlike Casey to ignore a security lock down. Lorne had promised to try to do whatever he could given that he was confined to an infirmary bed, without his own radio, with bruised ribs and a potential concussion, in the middle of an emergency situation, and with Colonel Caldwell able to supersede him in security matters. But he would try, he really would, he had promised. At the very least he would try to find out if Casey had reported into one of the other safe zones.
Ellingson had held little hope after his talk with the Major, and had spontaneously decided to do something about it himself. If nobody else was willing to look for Casey, he would. The chances of running into Colonel Sheppard in a city of this size were slim, especially if he headed straight to the tower where Casey had been working. He would go straight to the lab, find her, and bring her back to the safe zone. It would take him 15 minutes, tops, using the transporter. Yeah, the odds of running into Sheppard were miniscule, he'd reasoned. There were so many transporters on so many corridors on so many levels of so many towers of the city. He'd be quick. Get Casey, get back.
The security teams were watching for people trying to get into the safe zone, not for anybody trying to get out. It wasn't too hard to slip out into a side corridor and pop across a bridge to the next tower over where he could hop into a transporter. They might see him go, on the LSDs, if they were looking in this direction, but they wouldn't come after him. That would be against the protocol. Their job was to protect the civilians in their safe zone. He'd simply waited until the marine guarding his exit turned around for a moment, and had ducked out. The transporter doors had slid shut as he'd selected his destination, there was a flash, and then he was being flung through the air by a man-shaped blue & black blur. So much for minimal chances, then.
He picked up the pace as he headed for the stairwell that would take him down the three levels to the Aquaculture lab. If anything, running into Sheppard in the tower had cemented his belief that something was wrong, very wrong. He turned a last corner and came up short in front of the sealed door of the lab. He ran a hand over the sensor, but nothing happened. It was locked. It's supposed to be locked, he reminded himself. That was the protocol. Maybe she was inside? That didn't make any sense.
The safe zone cluster security protocol had been specifically chosen because Sheppard was involved. His ATA gene meant that he could get into any place in the city, even through most locked doors. A Sheppard-free protocol existed where staff were instructed to lock themselves inside their labs, making impromptu safe zones. In this instance, since Sheppard was the one causing trouble, locking yourself in your lab wouldn't do you much good if he decided he wanted in; they had thus been called to gather in the safe zones instead, guarded by armed security personnel.
He banged on the door anyway, and hollered a few times for good measure. Nothing. This type of lock down required the person who locked the room to be present to unlock it, unless senior staff authorised an override. He wouldn't be able to get in. If she was in there, then there was nothing he could do unless she opened the door, and if she wasn't opening the door then she probably wasn't in there. His plan wasn't going so well. There was no choice but to head back to the safe zone, and hope he didn't run into Sheppard again. This was Pegasus; statistics be damned.
He headed back to the transporter, opting for the one three levels down instead of going back up three flights of stairs. Scientists are inherently lazy and efficient - going down stairs is always better than going up, and he figures Casey may have done the same. He almost doesn't see it, except that as he gets closer to the transporter he gets more and more nervous about running into Sheppard again. He's going to have some grand shiners from the first encounter - he doesn't want more if he can avoid it. He's peeking into every dark recess as he goes, just in case the Colonel is lurking in the shadows, waiting to jump out at him again.
In the corner of a room, behind one of the water towers near the transporter atrium, he finds Casey's bag.