Stargate Atlantis: Shepherd's Hook3
"It's just us now, John."
John blinked. He found himself in the control room of Atlantis. It was empty, eerily empty and silent. Even the bubbling waters in the walls were soundless motions. He turned slowly and stared.
A woman was standing near. She was beautiful, almost ethereally beautiful. Her skin was white porcelain. Her long blond hair billowed around her in rich waves. A long white gown clothed her form, yet it was somewhat diaphanous to give John a glimpse of curves and her female anatomy. Her lips were ruby red. Her eyes were deep, deep blue, as deep as the ocean outside Atlantis. She resembled Ann in many ways, but was not his former girlfriend.
Her beauty made him stare, made his breath catch in his throat. He almost fell to his knees in the presence of such beauty, but it was a cold beauty. It was ice cold and regal, haughty and there was no feeling there, no warmth at all. She was like an icicle, or a statue made of ice and although gorgeous beyond words there was no humanity in her.
There was only cold. And power.
"Atlantis." John swallowed, realizing. He took a step towards her, paused. "You can't keep me here. In here, I mean. I belong out there defending you and keeping you safe."
"You are. The only way is to join with me, John. You will join with me." She took a step towards him and cool breeze swept over him, through him.
John shook his head. "I don't think so. Besides, is that even physically possible?"
The woman laughed. It was not a sound of merriment. It was a sound of icicles shattering. "You are here now and shall remain. I have chosen others…but none have had as strong an ATA as you do, John Sheppard. You shall join with me now."
"No…I'm really not in the mood," he countered, holding up a hand. He tried to back away but couldn't move. He looked down to see his boots encased in bluish ice, almost invisible as if he was in fact losing his physical form. "Oh crap," he muttered.
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"No, no, no you're not real!" Moira looked away, closing her eyes and opening them. She leaned close to John, touched his arm, his hand. His skin was cold. Too cold. "John! John, wake up! John, John!" She shook his arm hard, looking round to see that the Homo erectus was still here, beckoning with one hand, gore dripping out of my eye. "No! John, wake up!" She leaned closer, said into his ear, "Pale green satin, push-up, with a very skimpy sheer pantie to match." She leaned back but there was no response, not even a ghost of a smile. "John, John, please…you…"
She considered. Her gaze fell on the mishmash of crystals and wires and the ZPM. "Of course! Hang on, John, I'll get you out of there!" She began to methodically pry his fingers up from her other arm, one by one.
She tried to ignore the Homo erectus as it began to shuffle towards her.
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"Prep him." Alison's voice was calm, belying none of the fear she felt. She moved to scrub for surgery, glancing back at the inert form of Carson Beckett as nurses wheeled him into the surgical lab. Ronon was standing guard, worry on his face as he watched the nurses set up the equipment and anesthesia.
The tray of surgical instruments gleamed in readiness, silver against silver. The bright lights over the table where Carson reclined washed him in a pallid glow. It was an unnerving sight and Ronon had to look away for a moment, but he steeled himself and vowed to be there for his friend, just as Carson had been there for him during his darkest days after being injured by the new alien species.
"He will make it," Ronon muttered, nodding to himself. "He will make it."
"Have you ever done this before?" an assistant asked, pulling on a surgical gown. The teal was a splash of color against the white lights of the surgical lab.
"No. Guess there's a first time for everything," Alison answered.
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"I need you to override this lock down now!" Richard insisted, feeling helpless. He could only stare at the monitors displaying the bitter battle in space between the two ships. He could only watch as both Rodney and Radek tried everything they could think of to hack into the system and get around the programs the city was instigating on its own.
"I'm trying! It's not responding to any command codes, not even Sheppard's!" Rodney complained. "It's like the city has detected a threat but there's no threat here!" He paused, glancing round. "Is there?"
"No. Any contact with the Daedalus?" Richard asked.
"Negative!" Chuck Campbell announced.
"Any contact with Sheppard?"
"Negative!"
Richard sighed and tapped his earpiece. "Major Reynolds, take a team and see if Colonel Sheppard needs assistance in the Chair room." The leader of Atlantis glanced over to see Teyla bouncing her baby son, trying to comfort the unhappy infant. "Doctor McKay, is there any reason the Shield is still up?"
"No! I mean I don't know why the city is keeping it up because we are safe from that battle in space!" Rodney was sweating with anxiety as his computer skills were failing him at every turn. "I'm reading multiple power fluctuations but nothing's offline! I'm scanning for any outside interference but there is none! I can access the secondary systems but there's nothing wrong!"
"Could this have something to do with the two Chairs?" Richard asked.
"No! Every simulation we ran never projected this!"
"Could this be some kind of interaction with the Penning trap?" Richard asked.
"What? No! Of course not! It's inert, totally…" Rodney gulped and glanced at Radek who was staring at him. The same thought had crossed the men's minds.
Rodney took off at a run.
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"You will join with me, John." The woman seemed to float as she neared him.
John struggled but now his shins were encased in ice, and although he knew this wasn't real, this was just a virtual reality created by his connection to the city he could feel the bitter cold creeping up his limbs and he still couldn't move. Nor could he break free of the simulation. Try as he might he couldn't hear Moira's voice or feel her touch.
He was disconnected from the real world now and he wondered if he would ever get back to it.
"I won't! I can better protect you out there!" He gestured towards the windows where the light of day could be seen, but it appeared opaque, not real at all. To his horror his teeth were chattering as the cold was creeping up past his knees now. "You can't keep me here!"
"Oh…I can." She was close now. Her blue eyes blazed into his. Her breath was cold, so cold it was visible in white wafts of mist. Ice skimmed over her white teeth and ruby lips. "Do you think that all of the Ancients ascended or fled? No. A few…a few remained to serve me. To serve me through the long, long days of my sleep." She lifted an arm and pointed.
John turned his head to see the wall. It was translucent now and there was a man ensconced there. A man pale as ice and stiff as the dead. The long dead as his limbs had atrophied and his hair was a tangled white mess that fell to his knees. John looked back at the woman. "You cocoon them like the Wraith? What are you?"
"I am nothing like the Wraith!" she flared, blue eyes lit by fury. Her nails glittered as they slashed across John's face.
John didn't feel any pain. He was too cold to feel pain as the ice was creeping up past his thighs now. He was shivering furiously and conversely sweating. His fingers brushed the hilt of his gun he couldn't grasp it. He could barely feel it as his fingers tingled.
"If you imprison me here like this you are!" John's words were white puffs of air from between his chattering teeth.
The woman reached out and touched John's face .
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Moira finally got herself free from John's grip and ran to the back of the Chairs, perilously close to the shuffling Homo erectus. "You're just a, a hallucination!" She reached the ZPM and began to unhook the wires and crystals, trying to disengage the power from the Chairs and thus freeing John from the city.
A hand grabbed her, spun her and backhanded her across the face.
Moira cried out in surprise, whirling and falling. "No! You can't! You're a hallucination!" she protested, touching her stinging cheek. Blood speckled her fingers. She stared up in astonishment at the figure towering over her. It was a Homo erectus, but not the injured one. This one had both eyes and was physically unharmed. It smiled with a mouth full of teeth. The red gums were glaring against the gray skin.
Moira scrambled to keep disconnecting the ZPM from the Chairs, lurching up onto her feet to move to the equipment.
The Homo erectus grabbed her and slammed her onto the floor. Moira landed hard on her stomach, the breath knocked out of her. It pinned her down and shoved her legs apart, grunting.
"JOHN!" Moira screamed.