Chapter 7: Process ... complete

For what felt like the hundredth time Sheppard tried to mentally connect to the malfunctioning Ancient device. He didn't think his headache could get any worse but somehow it had ... his head was one big mess of throbbing pain and it was seriously hampering his efforts.

As time went on he found himself missing Atlantis ... if he'd been able to tap into his connection with her at the very least she could have dulled the pain, smoothed the way for him to think clearer. And Rodney ... what John wouldn't give for a little McKay complaining right about now, especially if it was accompanied by a cunning plan to get him out of this. It'd been a while since Sheppard had been completely alone and in need of rescuing ... and while he could do it, find a way to get himself out of this, it didn't mean he had to like it.

John glared at 'the cube from hell' as he'd dubbed it. All he wanted to do was fix the stupid thing but his current approach just wasn't working. He needed something to help him concentrate. Closing his eyes wasn't an option – the devices' effects seemed amplified when he did that. Quickly considering everything he had on him gave Sheppard an idea.

Reaching for his P-90, John unclipped the strap and then efficiently and smoothly began to dismantle the weapon into its major components. Trigger group, barrel and optical sight assembly, butt plate, magazine, bolt carrier and recoil assembly, stock body and trigger. Laying them out carefully on the floor in a prescribed pattern he then took a moment to set himself before rapidly reassembling the submachine gun.

Repeating the process a few times, John began to feel better ... the familiar activity, the way his hands just fell to the task without conscious thought lending his mind a surface of calm and focus sorely needed.

Continuing his dismantle and reassemble activity, John turned his mental attention back to the Ancient device. He'd been trying to get it to do some kind of self diagnostic but just couldn't find the right pathway. Probably because he had no idea what the thing was supposed to do. He'd refrained from getting close to it in the physical sense, not wanting to tip his captors off to his plans. The outside probably wouldn't help all that much anyway - for this distance it looked like a standard Ancient 'cube'. John had seen more than a few of those in his time on Atlantis, enough to know there were a number of functions that could all apply here.

Maybe if he could look at the internal schematics he'd be able to work out the function of this cube and from there get the thing to diagnose its own problem. Usually when John operated Ancient tech, anything he requested would appear on a display screen for him to look at. Like the HUD on a Puddle Jumper. Here there were no view screens ... he'd just have to discover for himself how Ancient devices accounted for that lack because he had no doubt they would in some way.

"Ah ... schematics," John thought at the device.

Immediately his mind was assaulted with a flashing mass of pathways and junctions ... kind of like one of those special effects segments where they film a car travelling down well lit roads and then play it back super fast.

"Slowly," John pleaded, wincing at the renewed pain even as his hands continued their automatic task with the P-90.

Everything slowed down and as the information was presented to him again, John began to get a horrible feeling that really bad news was approaching.

The device was familiar ... in a creepy, unpleasant kind of way.

John wasn't sure how it was possible or even if it was possible ... just that the inside of that cube felt too much like that storage device Rodney had trapped Aperio into to be a coincidence.

A feeling of dread and fear swept over him ... not that he'd admit to it but Sheppard's experience with the Aperio avatar was right up there on his list of things never to be lived through again. They'd struggled to beat it too ... he'd had to practically kill himself before they'd succeeded in removing Aperio from the Atlantis systems.

McKay had put layers of encryption and protection on the unit and then Lorne had launched it into orbit around their old planet. How was it possible that it had ended up here?

Was that how the IOA had found out about his connection to the city? Had they managed to retrieve some of the information from the storage system?

Frowning, John tried to remember what his host had said about the device. They'd found it at a historic site ... the old planet could qualify for that title. With other artefacts though? The expedition had left nothing behind. Of course, all this was him assuming that bad guys tell the truth. He'd been around the block enough times to know that was almost never the case ... that often they lied just for the sake of it.

So ... that innocent looking cube could be the one holding Aperio. The fact that it was broken even lent a little credibility to his theory. It had been circling Lantea for over a year ... in space, subject to who knew what kind of external forces. That could have led to it's current malfunctions.

Regardless of the how, Sheppard was now in the position of having to change his strategy. He couldn't have the device run a self diagnostic and fix itself ... not without risking Aperio coming back and biting him from inside that system. Sure, she was contained, or at least he bloody well hoped so. But there was no way he was merging his brain with that thing to the depth required for him to fix it.

He'd have to shut it off despite what that would reveal to his captors ... or maybe .... narrowing his eyes at the offending device, John reconsidered. Maybe he could tweak it in the opposite direction. It was already broken ... surely he could break it enough to put it out of action completely.

If he did it the right way there'd be no evidence he had anything to do with it ... in fact, the more he thought about it the more he realised it was a better course of action than fixing the device because who was to say a broken machine couldn't get to the point of dying completely, all by itself? Happened all the time.

Now, how to do that ... an idea hit him and Sheppard began to smile. From what he recalled of Rodney's explanation, the device was just a portable file storage system ... designed to back up large blocks of data.

"Duplicate all files and store locally," he thought at the device, crossing his fingers that whatever was wrong with it would still allow that command to be actioned, given that it was a primary one.

Keeping one part of his attention on the progress of the device and the other on his P-90 concentration efforts John didn't have to wait long for something to happen.

"Process complete." John mentally read the status of the device with quiet amusement. Yes, this was going to work out nicely.

"Duplicate all files and store locally," Sheppard repeated his prior command. It might take time but it would work.

Rodney would be proud ... if the device was the one Aperio had been trapped in then backing up the huge mass of information that made up her systems would quickly fill up the device to the point of overloading it. John wasn't sure what would happen at that point. If the thing had been in full working order then it'd probably be just like his laptop when he overestimated how much space he had left ... all he'd get was a message saying the operation couldn't be completed. Except there had been that one time when he'd gotten what Rodney had called 'the blue screen of death'. He'd scored himself a new laptop along with a healthy serve of McKay snippiness and a lecture on maintenance procedures.

Sheppard was counting on this device malfunctioning in much the same way ... attempting the save and overloading the crystals. With any luck he'd blow a couple of the essential ones and it'd be goodbye Ancient device. And if the cube didn't contain the Aperio system? Well then everything would take longer but eventually he'd get the same result - quiet time for his brain.

If the plan didn't work then he'd have to think of something else ... although what exactly escaped him for the moment. The added benefit was that now he was doing something active it actually seemed to help his head ... the buzz of the device was still there but able to be pushed into the background in favour of weapons drills and a really good plan.

oOo

Sheppard kept up the steady pace of P-90 practice and repetitions of the same commands for the next half an hour without seeing any visible changes.

"What are you doing Colonel Sheppard?" his hosts voice filled the room abruptly.

Not stopping, John shrugged. He'd wondered when they'd check back with him, assuming there was some kind of time limit on their plans for him. "Well, the entertainment here leaves much to be desired. You should do something about that if you want to continue in the kidnapping business."

"We will know if you attempt to deceive us Colonel," the man warned.

"Sure you will," John shot back insolently. "Good luck with that."

"You will not trick us," his host said grimly. "Any attempts to do so will be punished ... severely."

"I'm just sitting here," John said innocently. Thinking quickly, he continued. "If you want me to consider doing something with that device you can start by telling me where you found it."

"You would have me believe that you will cooperate if I answer your questions?" the tone was mocking disbelief now.

"Of course not," Sheppard smirked. "I said I'd consider it ... and then rule it out as a really bad idea."

"Despite your belief that Atlantis is impenetrable, my organisation has had people serving there for some time," his host couldn't resist bragging despite John's response, his voice smug and condescending.

John gave the conversation some of his attention, the rest still on continuing his plan to overload the device. It was taking longer for the device to finish each backup ... hopefully that meant its end was near.

"You want me to believe you have spies in the city?" Sheppard queried with deliberate disbelief.

"Believe what you will Colonel," his host replied. "We learned of the existence of the device you see before you at the same time that we learned Atlantis was under attack and would have to leave Lantia. It is remarkable to me how seldom people pay attention to what I like to call 'background people' ... yourself included. Maintenance staff, cleaners, kitchen hands ... orderlies ... nurses. They move about freely and see much. With the right incentive they make very effective sources of valuable information." John could hear the amusement in the man's voice as he continued. "One man's garbage is another man's treasure."

"How'd you get to Lantia to pick it up then?" Sheppard asked, still doubting it really was the actual Aperio storage cube even though it didn't look promising.

"With the right coordinates it was easy to beam the device onto the Apollo during the confusion of the city's evacuation."

John's eyebrows rose ... things had been confusing at the time. They'd been transferring personnel and equipment, running Lorne's meteor relocation mission and trying to prepare the city to fly ... it was possible that one extra beam in to the ship hadn't been noticed.

"Process ... complete," another back up cycle finished. John didn't miss the delayed status report either. He was close ... he could feel it.

"Duplicate all files and store locally," John shot the command to the device while at the same time considering what his captor had revealed. "Was it these same sources who sold you information about my supposed gene skills?" he asked mockingly.

"Our source for that is without question Colonel," his host said lightly.

"You won't get me to -," John broke off abruptly, ducking instinctively. It happened suddenly and it was a lot more spectacular than he'd been expecting. The damaged storage device had reached critical levels and just as John had hoped, when it couldn't complete his command the main crystal had overloaded. The explosion of sound was loud in the large room, echoing off the walls, a high pitched whine that quickly escalated into the sounds of destruction. A bright flash accompanied the noise ... when Sheppard could look back at the spot where the device had been hanging all that remained was a frayed rope, still swinging gently from the ceiling. On the floor beneath it were jagged pieces of metal, twisted and still smoking. The cube looked like something small and vicious had fought it's way from the inside, tearing it open without mercy.

The greatest impact wasn't visible ... in Sheppard's head finally there was blessed silence.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" John just managed to keep from flinching as his hosts angry question reverberated off the walls.

"Me?" Sheppard questioned lightly. "Nothing!"

There was no reponse which couldn't be a good thing. John hurriedly finished the last reassembly of his P-90, training it on the hatch where ninja man had appeared before.

Instead, a door he hadn't noticed - blending into the wall and with no handle on his side - opened from behind him. Before he could turn and react he'd been hit by blue lightning from a zat'ni'katel. His body quivered and he had just enough time to understand that that was why they hadn't removed his weapons before he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Authors Note:

I don't even want to check how long it's been since I've updated this story ... apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience. So ... Yay! We're back to John! And Aperio? That was a surprise, right? *grins* More from Sheppard in the next chapter too ... no promises on when that'll be posted but I'll do my best.