My apologies to everyone about the lack of scene dividers. Can I say how much I'm hating 's propensity to remove what I so painstakingly included? Sigh. I think I've caught them all and added them back. Please let me know if I've missed any.

PART TWO

Steven Caldwell stepped off of the Daedalus onto the metal-like plating of the east pier and breathed deeply of the rich ocean air. Seven days docked at Atlantis would allow the engineers to affect repairs that couldn't easily be handled in the void of space. It also meant much needed downtime for his crew, and an opportunity for him to ferret out the real reason for Everett's arrival.

Initially, he hadn't thought Woolsey or Sheppard good candidates for the Atlantis Expedition's command structure. But he'd come to appreciate Sheppard's methods, and Woolsey was wilier than he looked. It was the unknown that gave him pause.

On the other hand, if there was to be a changing of the guard, it wouldn't hurt to know when to make himself available.

He would have beamed down with Everett when they'd arrived, but there was an unwritten rule that a ship's commander be on the command deck when his ship put into dock. There was, however, nothing against having a quiet word with Woolsey now that the docking was complete.

He navigated around the fork lifts and other machinery that were being maneuvered out toward the Daedalus. On past visits, they'd simply beamed pallets and personnel to the deck. But today, the ship was taking up that space. The entry doors of the city were within reach when a distant sound reached him, then suddenly, the doors slammed shut, blocking a pair of stock men who were on their way out.

For a moment they stared at him through the transparent material, looking just as surprised as he felt. Then their eyes focused somewhere across his shoulder. He turned in time to see the city's shield rising all around him.

"What just happened?"

"Who raised the shields?"

"I can't get into the system!"

"Radios are down!"

John staggered in complete darkness as a chaotic array of questions and sounds surrounded him. He couldn't answer or respond to any of it. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut. The last thing he'd seen had been a roiling black wave of tiny particles coming right for them.

All evidence was that it had smacked him good. He could feel the stuff beneath his hands, jammed against his eyelashes, tickling at the edge of his nostrils. He scraped at it, desperate to get it off. He needed to get a handle on what was going on. But the stuff was thick and resisted his efforts.

"Colonel Sheppard!" That sounded like Woolsey, but he wasn't close. John's response was lost, stuck somewhere in his brain. He couldn't get the words out. His lungs weren't working.

Something at the back of his throat had closed off and had no intention of reopening. His chest burned with the urgent need to take in air.

"Water! Does anyone have water?" The panicked question came from Rodney, and he was very close. Someone bumped and jostled him. He opened his eyes.

The barest black-hazed glimpse of Teyla, on her hands and knees, coughing, registered and then fire singed along the rim of his eyelids. He jammed them shut again, but the damage was done.

His body chose that moment to try to remember how to breathe.

An initial inhale followed by an explosive cough ripped through him. In some delirious oxygen-deprived part of his brain, he wondered if puffs of black ash were coming out of his mouth. And then, he was on his knees like Teyla, trying his best to lose the black crap, but keep his lungs.

As the coughing began to ease off, he heard Rodney making a fuss distantly. Much closer, though, was Teyla's voice; weak, but assuring someone that she was fine.

"Colonel, take this…."

Was that Woolsey? John didn't dare look up, but grasped onto the rough material that was shoved into his hands. He turned and sat on the floor, not caring that he was in the middle of the gate room, and went to work on his face.

"Ronon?" he asked, grimacing at how scratchy his voice sounded.

"He's okay. He appears to be ensuring that our uninvited guest isn't going to rise from its ashes."

John grunted. "Not a bad idea."

"Do I have to do everything?" Rodney's voice drew closer. Then, "Hold your head back."

"Why?" John asked into the cloth that he held against his eyes. He allowed reactive tears to flow into the material, hoping that it would take the burning with it. It was already easing off.

"Because I have water. Unless you'd prefer not to have that stuff washed off of your face."

"Give it to me. I can do it."

"How are you going to do that when you can't see?"

"I know where my face is, Rodney."

"Fine."

John reached out for the heavy container that was pressed into his hands, then leaned his head back and allowed the fluid to flow over his face. The cool liquid felt wonderful as it spilled over his brow and onto his closed lids. He sensed Teyla moving in closer on one side.

"I believe much of it is gone." She offered a new cloth when the water ran out that John used to dry his lashes before carefully opening his eyes. The stinging didn't increase, and he could see.

Richard Woolsey was half-stooped in front of him. Beyond Woolsey stood a man that John had last seen in an infirmary bed, waiting to be shipped out with the rest of the wounded.

John blinked just to be sure. "Colonel Everett?"

"Retired." The other man's response was accompanied by a grin. "I see the level of excitement around here hasn't changed since my last visit."

John didn't quite manage a return smile, but looked toward Rodney. His friend's face was a mottled mess of smeared black ash. His blue eyes were stark against the darker color. "What are the odds that this is the wrong Atlantis at the wrong time?" he asked in a half whisper.

"None." Rodney sounded defensive. "You're the one who insisted on a solar flare probability rating before booking missions."

"It wasn't like you had to write a program, Rodney. It was in there all along. You just had to turn it on. Besides, with all the glitches since Elizabeth and the Earth thing…"

"Not an alternate reality. Buzz cut is really here."

"Great." John looked past Woolsey to Everett. "I'm glad to see you've… recovered." He pushed himself up from the floor, not liking the feeling of disadvantage.

"Now that we've gotten that settled," Woolsey stood with him. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning?"

"I should probably…" Rodney gestured over his shoulder toward Operations.

"Right." John directed his statement toward Woolsey. "Rodney should be helping figure out what's going on with the city. If the system is in quarantine, you guys are probably already infected, anyway. Teyla, Ronon and I can debrief."

"Agreed." Woolsey nodded.

Rodney was already grabbing his gear and heading toward the steps leading into the control center. Ronon and Teyla moved in closer to Woolsey. So did Everett. Woolsey didn't seem to react, so John decided to let it go for the time being.

"Was it dead?" John asked Ronon, gesturing toward the black spot that marked ground zero for the bat thing. A pile of ashes, indented by a very large footprint was at the center of radiating lines of soot. The spaces where the team had stood were outlined by clear spots in the dark imprint. The sum of the thing's parts was definitely more than it appeared to be.

"There was nothing left to shoot," Ronon replied.

"We should gather whatever is left," Teyla suggested. "An examination might help us to determine what sort of creature it was."

"Certainly," Woolsey replied. "Once we regain control of communications and the city. I imagine there was more than one of these… creatures on the planet?"

"Yeah, you could say that. We were following the energy signature, and after a few detours, it led us to a cave. They came out of the cave – dozens of them. They were pretty hard to take down, and they chased us all the way back to the gate. As you can see, one of them got through."

"Were you able to determine anything else about the energy signature?"

"Well, we were actually leaving when these bat things showed up." John turned toward his two team mates. "Teyla and Ronon recognized some kind of danger."

Woolsey's attention switched to them.

Teyla shared an uncomfortable look with Ronon, then, "It was the mark of the Zoan. They are… difficult to describe."

John frowned and looked from Ronon to Teyla. "Well, try."

"The symbol we saw on the cave is their mark. Yet, no one has ever seen them and returned to tell of the encounter."

"So, they're… what? Aliens? People?"

"They're monsters," Ronon blurted, putting Teyla out of her misery. "We were all warned about them as children. They prey on the weak and the young. They don't hunt in the day, only in the night and usually in dark, tight places."

"Their presence can be felt." Teyla took up the story again. "Much like the Wraith, but no gift is required. It is the feeling of hairs standing up on your skin; the feeling of being watched by someone or something unseen. When they take their victims, they disappear as if they were never there, even if another is standing alongside. The victim's screams can be heard even after they are gone."

"Sounds like the boogeyman to me." Everett spoke into the silence. "How do we know that those stories aren't just fairy tales?"

"Let's not be so hasty." John raised a hand in Everett's direction then, continued toward Teyla, "Have you ever sensed one of these Zoan things?"

"No. But the story is very strong among my people. Once the mark is found on a world, word is spread and no one goes there. The warnings have continued throughout every generation."

John sighed, sharing a look with Woolsey. There was obviously something going on in that cave. Fairy tales didn't follow them through the gate. Question was, how reliable were the stories?

"It's real, Sheppard." Ronon spoke intently. "Everyone knows their mark. No one will remain on a world where the mark of the Zoan is found. I felt them once, when I was very young. They took one of my friends on a training world."

John's brows rose. Ronon wasn't prone to flights of fancy. If he thought he felt something, then he did. His mind began to search for plausible explanations within the story. "Well, vanishing into thin air – that could be some kind of cloaking technology."

"Possibly." Woolsey didn't look all that convinced. "How does that explain what happened here today?"

"And if it is some type of cloaking technology, how do you defend against it?" That from Everett.

Woolsey responded to the retired military man. "They obviously don't want us to know too much considering the way that creature blew up."

"Something bothers me about that," John admitted. "I mean, it had us – why not just use an explosion that had some real force behind it? The burst really didn't do much more than get us really, really dirty."

"That's where you're wrong." Rodney's voice sounded from the observation deck above.

Carson Beckett turned and allowed Jennifer Keller to check the seals on the blue-gray medical isolation suit.

"You're good." Her muffled voice reached him as she patted his arm. "Are you sure this is going to make a difference? You weren't here the last time the city went into lock down. Nothing worked. We couldn't get the doors to open. Ronon and I were trapped for hours."

"It certainly couldn't hurt." Carson turned to look at her through the clear face plate. She had spoken as if there was nothing to worry about, but he could see the doubts in her eyes. "On the other hand, it could be nothing more than a blown fuse. Someone could have it fixed in no time and we'd have donned this garb for nothing."

Jennifer smiled wryly. "Yeah. That'd be some fuse to take out communications and lock down the city."

"It would be that." Carson grabbed his case from the floor and moved toward the infirmary exit. He held his breath as he drew closer. If the doors opened for him, the quarantine was real; if they didn't open, he could only wait and hope that someone found a solution.

The doors slid open on his approach.

He turned back to Jennifer. "I guess that answers the question."

"Yep." Jennifer looked grim. "I'll get things set up here for any potential casualties. Send anyone you can find in to help."

"Aye, I will." He headed through the open door as he continued to speak loudly so that she'd hear him through all of the layers of protection. "I'll head to Operations first. Hopefully someone there will be able to get communications back up. That'll go a long way in isolating any victims."

"Carson!" He almost didn't hear her calling him back.

"Yes, love?" He turned and met her gaze through the opening.

"I'm glad you're here. Sometimes, the things that happen here can be overwhelming." Light reflecting off the face plate blocked much of her expression, but he sensed her sincerity, and completely understood where she was coming from.

"That it can be. But they need us, so we keep going. This, too, shall pass." The door slid closed.

"Whatever this is, it's definitely more than just dirty," Rodney announced to his gathered audience. With a few tapped commands on his tablet, he co-opted one of the larger Ancient monitors. He might not be able to get into the city mainframe, but it didn't take a genius to power the simple connection with his smaller computer.

"What is it?" Sheppard asked, moving in closer to the larger screen. He squinted at the signal visualization, and then blinked as if he was having trouble focusing.

Rodney frowned, and started to ask if he was okay, but John shot him a look that ended the conversation before it began. "The better questions," Rodney said instead, "are where and when. I haven't been able to get into the Atlantis mainframe yet, but I do know why it locked us out and why the city shield activated."

"How can you tell if you can't get into the system?" Everett spoke up from the back of the group.

Rodney barely gave him a glance before responding. "Look around – this is a city largely staffed by scientists. At any given moment any number of researchers could be taking readings or running computerized experiments which record ambient data transmissions." Seriously, where did Stargate Command find these military types? he thought. Their ability to completely overlook the scientific majority was almost genetic.

"And were they? Running any experiments that can help us, that is?" Everett asked.

Rodney refused to be abashed. "Unfortunately, Atlantis has erected a dampening field around at least a portion of the control tower. Until we can get into the system and turn it off, I can't access anything on the expedition's wireless network. The city is preventing any signal of any kind from leaving or entering this room. That's also why we no longer have radio communication, by the way."

"And Atlantis did all of this because…" Sheppard prompted with a creepy blood-and-ash-shot glance.

"Because it detected this." Rodney pressed a button and directed their attention to the screen. The static took on a pattern with consistent valleys and peaks. A numeric readout along the side showed other parameters. He gave them a moment to take it all in, then, "I'm sure you're all wondering what this is."

"It's a subspace signal." Sheppard spoke dryly. Teyla looked as if she'd figured it out as well. Ronon looked like he didn't care either way, but if someone would point him in the right direction, he'd shoot it. No questions asked. Woolsey and Everett were just looking on waiting for the rest.

"Okay, so yes, it is a subspace transmission. Congratulations, most of the class. What you don't know is that thanks to this nifty program MRM CommSniffer3000 – a combination of Ancient, Asgard and earth technologies, written by yours truly, we were able to detect it. I had the program running beta test on my tablet when we came through the gate. The program time stamp is 37 seconds after we passed through the event horizon. The MRMCS3000 also provides coordinates. And this signal was coming from there." He pointed toward the pattern of black ash on the gate room floor. "It sent it right before it exploded. My guess – it was calling for back up."

"Is that why the shield engaged?" Teyla asked.

"I'd say that's a definite yes," Rodney confirmed. "But with two very important twists. The signal is still transmitting."

"It's just a pile of ashes. How can it be doing anything?" Ronon's hand twitched near his gun as he asked. Rodney wasn't sure how much more of a scorch mark it could be. There was only so much damage the ray gun could do.

"In a word, nanites."

"What are the other four locations?" Sheppard cut in, but his tone was guarded like he already knew the answer.

"Us." Rodney met his blood shot gaze and confirmed it. "You, me, Teyla and Ronon. We've all been reduced to flashing beacons, alerting the enemy to our position."