Chapter 6 – Falling Sideways

Dr Robert Newall lifted his hand from the waist high podium in the Ancient lab on Atlantis. He breathed deeply and staggered backwards as the control was torn from his limbs. He gazed down at the back of his right hand for a brief moment and then turned it over.

A frown creased his brow as he saw the device embedded under the skin in his palm.

It had hurt at first. The pain so intense he nearly screamed. Somehow the wound had healed around the injury and all that was left was a glowing light, which quickly dimmed to nothing as he watched. He recalled how it had come to be in his possession and bowed his head and narrowed his eyes with a particularly evil expression, almost devoid of any shred of humanity he had possessed before he had come to know the power of the device.

The previous day…

The device looked completely innocuous and inert when he first saw it. After all, it was just a small triangle of metal with an intricate design on one side and a few lines of tiny Ancient text on the other.

The moment he picked it up it activated to his artificial ATA gene and lit up. The careful patterns turning white and then red as it sensed a viable target. As he held it in his right palm to study it sank down painfully into his hand and then stopped. Fusing to the skin.

He thought he really should go to the infirmary or maybe even just show it to McKay and get some more information.

As he walked through the corridors of Atlantis trying to decide what to do a strange sensation nearly overwhelmed him. He fell sideways against a wall and some of his co-workers, who had been passing, rushed to his aid and helped him upright with calls of, "Are you alright?" "Shall we call for help?"

Newall brushed them off in annoyance and carefully concealed the palm of his hand, where the skin had already formed over the device.

As he straightened up to walk, he felt it again; a gentle tugging from several directions. He thought there was no point bothering McKay with it until he knew what it was, and he was obviously medically fine as he was still walking around. Also, he was almost beyond caring what happened to him, his world had been nothing but a downward spiral of misery for the last few weeks.

So he followed one of the forces that was pulling him.

It took him over an hour to find the lab. It was sealed and did not look as though anyone from the expedition had found or catalogued it yet.

He looked up and down the corridor, but there was no one else about. He then swiped a hand over the door control and stepped inside.

The pull towards the centre of the room was now almost too much to bear and Newall could no longer control himself as he walked forward into the empty lab. Bare walls and a smooth floor were all that he could see and he had no idea why the device had been guiding him to this empty and abandoned lab.

As he reached the centre of the room, the door closed and the lights turned out.

Suddenly a small podium rose from the floor in front of him. Newall saw a hand-shaped groove cut into the top at exactly the right height for him to reach out and touch.

Curious now, he stretched out the fingers of his right hand and placed the palm carefully on the podium.

The reaction was instant and terrifying.

The lights in the room rose to such brightness that Newall closed his eyes. A feeling of total control ran through his mind and all his veins. Newall opened his mind and soul to the power that coursed through him. He could feel everything; all of Atlantis' systems and towers; every room and door. He could even see in his mind's eye, every life sign as they moved and others as they slept. He felt every tap as someone activated the Ancient systems in the Control Room.

Newall stood there for hours and hours, letting the sense of absolute power in all its corrupting glory wash over him. He felt like he had become the city and the city sang with him as he concentrated on activating and manipulating the systems.

It was still very early in the morning, but no one was around and he had to test it out. So he started on the doors and quickly moved onto the water pipes.

He laughed as he watched the life signs rushing around trying to fix the problems. He blocked every attempt at McKay and Zelenka to trace the problems with the city. They would never find anything wrong with the code as Newall had every system under his control and could manipulate all things with just a thought.

Then he remembered why he was there. He had been so wrapped up in the power and delight of being at one with Atlantis and having the city do his bidding. Now that he had a means, he would destroy the one who had made his life nothing but misery. . He thought that as he had nothing to lose, he may as well wreak havoc on everyone in Atlantis out of spite before he was through.

Narrowing his eyes, he focused on the life signs and searched through the video feeds until he found what the person he was looking for.

He flooded the lab with gas, but the target was too quick for him and escaped before Newall could close the door. He still struggled to control more than one system at once. He screamed in rage and fell away from the podium.

Impacting the floor he rolled away and looked up at the stand in fear as it lowered into the floor in a seamless join.

It was as though a heavy blanket had been lifted from him and he felt light-headed as he stood up.

Shaking his head and trembling, he ran from the room. Praying that no one had missed him and that he could do his normal duties without arousing any suspicion.

1230pm (Present…)

Rodney returned to the lab and sat opposite Zelenka as they both continued to hunt down the cause of the malfunctions.

McKay was searching through the power schematics for that morning and had his face fixed in a permanent frown when nothing was forthcoming from the diagrams in front of him.

He was just about to ask Zelenka for a status report when his screen abruptly changed. He narrowed his eyes in surprise, as he had not been touching any of the keys. The monitor displayed a real time readout of the power distribution on Atlantis.

There was a massive power drain channelling towards an abandoned lab on the South Pier. As Rodney continued to watch his eyes widened in realisation as the reading vanished.

He reached up a shaking hand to his radio, "McKay to Sheppard."

"Sheppard here." It sounded like he was halfway through a mouthful of food.

"Where are you?"

"Mess Hall."

"I need to speak to you. See you in a minute."

"What is it?"

"Uh…Not over the radio."

"Okay."

Rodney unplugged the laptop and walked to the side of the room to grab a pad of paper.

Zelenka watched him curiously as he quickly scribbled a note and passed it to him.

Radek took the note and read. Then quickly folded it and placed it in his pocket with a nod.

Rodney then left the lab and headed for the transporter. He kept glancing up and down the corridor warily and held the computer tightly in his hand.

Dr Newall quickly recovered his poise and put his hand down on the podium again. He ran through some checks and noted with alarm that there was only one life sign in McKay's lab.

He had been keeping a careful eye on the two scientists just in case they got lucky or if Newall unintentionally overlooked something.

He searched through the logs of accessed data in his momentary lapse and saw that he had been discovered.

He swore and used the video feeds to locate McKay as he exited the transporter and headed towards the open door to the Mess Hall.

He had to be stopped, but there was no time. If he could seal the Mess Hall door even just for a couple of minutes, he would be able to escape before Sheppard's team found the lab and stole the device from him.

The noise from the Mess Hall increased as Rodney approached. He shifted his gaze nervously to the people who walked past him and hugged the laptop under his arm closer to his body.

He saw Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla just before he walked through the door and felt himself relax slightly in relief. He had made it.

There had been no lasting effects from Ronon's near suffocation earlier. Beckett had quickly analysed the gas and discovered it was harmless. The lack of oxygen in the room had made Ronon pass out for a few seconds. That was quickly solved with an oxygen mask, which the Satedan had pushed off his face before Carson could get him to the infirmary.

Rodney stepped up to the door, as two marines rushed out and forced him to turn sideways in the doorframe.

Rodney huffed in anger and was just about to turn into the Mess Hall when something very solid and very painful hit him in the back.

The door shoved Rodney forwards as the opposite door approached him at a speed seemingly too fast for any of the doors on Atlantis.

Rodney tried to move out of the way, but he was not fast enough and the doors slammed onto the right side of his chest.

The motors strained to make the doors close the rest of the way and Rodney's side and ribs were pressed by the edges. His laptop clattered across the ground as he dropped it and struggled in vain to free himself. However, he was too tightly pinned between the doors and any movement hurt so much he had to stop. He grimaced and shuddered in agony as the compressing bite of the doors increased on his chest and side.

Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla ran over to aid their friend.

"Sheppard to Zelenka. We need you at the Mess Hall to open a door. Rodney's trapped!"

He tapped his radio again as he ran, "Medical team to the Mess Hall."

Rodney looked up at them and tried to speak, but all the air had been crushed from his lungs and the terrible pressure on his ribcage prevented him from drawing in enough oxygen. His eyes widened in fright and he lifted his hands to desperately try and force the door to stop its constant attack. He tried to find a purchase against his side, but the edge was so deeply embedded in him there was no give for him to snake his fingers in-between.

Sheppard and Ronon crouched down on either side of the doors and grabbed the edges near the floor, where they were not crushing McKay. They heaved and strained to stop or even just to slow the doors in their tracks as Rodney gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.

Teyla felt so helpless as she stood there watching the life being literally squeezed out of Rodney. His face was growing more and more pale as he tried to fight and hold onto consciousness.

Teyla reached out and grasped his hand and he opened his frightened eyes to look at her. She felt his hand trembling, so she lifted her other hand and held his tightly in both of hers.

He mouthed something, but his airless lips only moved and no sound came out. Teyla did not know what he had tried to say and she frowned in confusion.

Rodney closed his eyes again and turned away with his brow furrowed in pain and fear.

Sheppard pulled with all his strength. Entirely blotting out the pain in his hands as he tried to stop the unceasing and unyielding door from cutting Rodney in half. He hoped that Zelenka would be there soon. He was not sure how much more Rodney could take and expected to hear the horrendous sound of the scientist's ribs snapping like twigs at any moment when the door won.

Ronon grunted on the other side, still feeling light headed from his recent ordeal, as he fought against the door mechanism. He suddenly thought that he had been lucky not to have had the same thing happen to him earlier in the gym when the door had sealed in his face. Ronon frowned as he pulled. There was simply not enough time. Rodney's face was so pale, if he did not suffocate, then he would soon be killed when the compression broke his ribs and drove them into his lungs and internal organs.

Zelenka arrived at the same time as Beckett and his medical team.

Carson surveyed the scene before him, "Oh my God, Rodney!"

But McKay was already unconscious and made no sign that he had heard.

Zelenka grimaced as he saw his friend trapped and being slowly crushed to death between the doors. Two marines were crouched on the floor on this side and were pulling the doors to try and stop the relentless closure.

Zelenka grabbed a pair of wire cutters from his toolkit and pried off a wall panel from next to the control crystals. He was just isolating the correct wire to cut in order to release the murderous doors, when they opened on their own.

Sheppard quickly jumped up and caught Rodney under the arms as he crumpled onto the floor.

Zelenka frowned at how the door had opened before he did anything, but he continued working and cut the wire anyway. They had no way of knowing whether it would happen again and he needed it to be completely safe. He turned and watched in worry as Carson's team pushed Sheppard aside and worked on Rodney.

Carson quickly checked over Rodney as he lay on the floor, "Pulse is rapid. He's not breathing."

Carson threaded an IV line in Rodney's arm while one of the medical team crouched down and placed a mask over his face and began pumping air into his lungs. The rest of the team lifted him up onto the gurney they had brought and pushed him away towards the infirmary.

Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon followed while Zelenka stood still in the corridor with his mouth open and holding the wire cutters in exactly the same way he had been for the last minute.

One of the marines who had been in the Mess Hall went over to Zelenka and put a hand on his shoulder and then helped him pack up his equipment.

Dr Newall wrenched his hand away from the podium, feeling once again hollow as the city fled from his system.

His hands shook in exertion. That had not meant to happen. He was supposed to just shut the door before McKay had gone into the Mess Hall, but it had gone wrong and McKay had nearly paid the price for Newall's stupidity.

Newall had had to search through the network to isolate the code to open the door, but it had been strangely elusive.

He had spent many hours figuring out how to shut doors, but never how to open them.

He felt empty and drained. No emotions registered in his mind. He thought that he should be feeling shocked or guilty or maybe even relieved as Rodney would be unable to communicate what he had found out for a while.

Instead he smiled, but there was no happiness in his eyes. There were still many systems to play with and a lot more fun to be had before he could proceed to his ultimate goal.

First he would need to relocate to another of the Ancient labs where he had felt the pull from earlier. That way, if anyone checked McKay's laptop, he would still be safe.

Whistling softly to himself, he left the lab and allowed himself to be guided by the device once more.

TBC

A/N – Interesting aside, the working title for this chapter was 'Doored to Death.' However the humour in the title was jarring against the seriousness of what's happening, so it had to go...

I hate keeping secrets and I thought it was fairly obvious who was doing it anyway. Please keep reading though! Thanks x Varda x