Chapter Seven – Appearances

"And what is the truth to you?" John countered, unfazed by the look he was receiving. "All I've heard so far are rumors and… who's this man?"

Amni Lak broke into a wan smile. "You tell me," he suggested. "He should be very familiar to you; he's Ro Chuk. I've finally found out why the military was always one step ahead of me. Courtesy of this double agent."

"So you kidnapped him just like you kidnapped me?" Sheppard returned darkly.

"It's not relevant," Amni Lak shrugged. "Now, how about the truth?"

A quirk pulled on John's lips as he realized he was walking on thin ice. Deciding to ignore Lak's suggestion he focused on the first statement. "What do you want to hear? That there are little green men out there just waiting to take over your planet? That the large ship was just the beginning – a scout ship? That an invasion is imminent?"

"Maybe we should start at the beginning?" The doctor butted in, his voice soft as silk, yet cold and surprisingly uncaring as he turned his focus solely on John. "I have another theory about you. You may look like the rest of us but you're not like the rest of us. There are variances in our bloodwork compared to yours, your DNA…" he trailed off, looking at Sheppard for any kind of reaction. He was rewarded by a slightly raised eyebrow.

"I'm partly brought up to speed about the research in the experimental bunker, but judging from our little conversation here, I doubt you're an Alpha team member at all," the doctor finished.

The man before him seemed calm and not the least intimidated by the rest of the men in the room so the doctor decided to put all the cards on the table.

"You've been quite convincing in your appearance as a native to this world, I've got to hand it to you, but it's clear you don't know much of this planet. I dare to say you're in fact coming from the ship," he said smugly.

Sheppard frowned and carefully began to work out the kinks in his sore shoulders before cockily placing his hands across his chest, looking straight at the doctor. "You know, you're wrong in so many ways," he let on.

There was a tension in the room that didn't sit well with Sheppard's analytical mind and something told him it was time to get out. He carefully swung his legs over the edge of the bed and, a little unsteadily, took a step forward.

"Where do you think you're going?" The doctor cautioned, some of the compassion having come back into his voice.

"There's an expression; anywhere but here," Sheppard quipped sarcastically, and if he was surprised that they didn't stop him from taking another few steps away from the bed he didn't let it on.

"Look," John said, trying to be patient. "First I was a member of M.O Katan's secret ops – Alpha team, then I was an alien. Are there anymore theories you'd like to share?" He questioned.

The leader nodded casually at the doctor. "Give it to him," he said.

The medically trained man walked over to a locker and retrieved John's TAC vest. He'd previously gotten back everything he'd carried except for the knife, his extra gun strapped to his ankle and the P90.

However, before the M.E handed John the TAC vest he reached into one of its pockets and retrieved the life signs detector. He held it up in front of John so that he could see. The display showed several life signs like small white dots.

"Now, this thing shows a dot for every person present in this room," the doctor began.

John said nothing.

"It is of old design, like the gadgets presently stored deep down in the museum," Amni Lak explained as he gazed around the room. "It originates from here."

'Not quite', John had the words on the tip of his tongue but wisely kept that information to himself at the moment.

"Katan has obviously found a way to make it operable," Lak filled in.

"So, are we're back to me being a spy, or a member of the military special forces?" John wondered aloud as he decided to play along.

"You tell me how he did that," Lak demanded. "And tell me why since the government has always claimed that aliens do not exist and that there is no need to poke in the past."

"You expect me to know that?" Sheppard replied in disbelief. "It was just handed to me."

The leader cracked a ferocious grin. "You've been playing us all along – haven't you?" He asked coldly as he retrieved another life signs detector, just like the one John had brought with him from Atlantis, and held it up for John to take. "Something makes you special – so special in fact that Katan is searching for you. Reliable sources said to me he's just redoubled his efforts."

Sheppard hesitated, knowing that if he took the offered Ancient equipment in his hands, provided it wasn't faulty, it would respond to his ATA gene.

However, the leader insisted that he'd take it, trusting the gadget into the colonel's hands.

As John feared, the moment it came into contact with him, it responded to the gene and lit up. Despite that he was fairly good at controlling his gene he couldn't prevent the life sign detector from being activated.

There was an audible gasp from the people standing in the shadows of the large underground room.

A cunning smile crept over Amni Lak's lips. "You know how to turn it on and how to operate this type of equipment," he said and it wasn't as much a question as it was a statement. "It was you who activated the other one and not Katan."

Sheppard swallowed as he saw the looks shared among the resistance members in the room.

"It's interesting because the Intendent at the Museum of the Highest Order doesn't know what it is. Only that it originates from a society that lay in ruins on this planet over ten thousand years ago," Amni Lak finished.

"Well, since you know as much, you've probably figured out that it shows every life sign in the vicinity," Sheppard returned.

"Actually, that's irrelevant at the moment," Lak countered. "What I want to know is why we could use yours but not this one?" He glanced at the life signs detector now in Sheppard's hands. "Yet you could?"

Sheppard shrugged. "What can I say? Pure luck?" He tried.

"Not good enough," Lak let on with a faint smile. "Why don't you try again?"

John was about to deliver a smart ass remark but held his tongue as a small green dot began to dance across his chest. Without wasting any time he gracefully jumped away, putting distance to the tracer of the weapon, and before he could even begin to comprehend what was about to happen he was standing in the middle of a battlefield.

Men in dark green uniforms practically littered the room, shots were fired from both sides and a strange mix of gunpowder filled the air around him. Then the beam of a stun gun sizzled by, only inches from his neck, leaving him staggering for a moment. For a split second he expected Ronon to come forward with a grin on his face, demanding to know why he'd decided to stay on the planet without company. However, his hopes where crushed as one of the guards he'd seen at the hospital suddenly emerged from the shadows behind him.

"Typical," he muttered. "Caught in the middle. I really could've use for my P90 now."

The M.E was suddenly at his side, beckoning him to follow. "Come this way," he urged.

"I do apologise for Lak, he tend to get a little carried away at times. However, this is not his doing."

John ducked as a bullet smashed into the wall an inch from his shoulder, not paying much attention to the doctor's attempt of small talk. "I need my gun," he said through gritted teeth.

"A prototype?" The doctor wondered aloud curiously, obviously he hadn't seen anything like it before. "It's been taken apart."

Cursing under his breath Sheppard sidestepped an attacker and then with a well-practiced move that Teyla had taught him shifted his attacker's momentum, causing him to fly over him. In a timed swift movement he easily snatched the blaster from its holster just above the man's hip. Wasting no time he then knelt by a fallen officer and retrieved a small hand gun. He then turned around just in time to see the doctor take a direct hit in his shoulder.

It was a surreal event, like watching an exaggerated theatre play. The contrast of the dark red blood spilling over the starch white medical uniform, staining it with crimson.

John quickly grabbed his arm to haul him up as his knees buckled. The doctor tried to push Sheppard off him as he wheezed between clenched teeth. "Leave me."

John shook his head stubbornly, his features grim. "Not going to happen, doc," he replied. The soldier having taken over from his usually laid back persona intent on getting away from the chaos surrounding him.

The doctor seemed to understand Sheppard wasn't one to argue with and instead reluctantly let him help. "Where are we going?" He whispered. "To the transportation device?"

John hesitated, clearly weighing options against one another in his head as he watched the doctor, trying to decide how much to trust the man.

"A small space which you enter, push the button and exit elsewhere in the facility?" He asked cryptically.

The doctor glanced at him in surprise. "Yes, we discovered it only last year by accident," Tori explained. "Katan's special forces knows about them too? How much –"

John held up a hand to silence him as they were about to round a corner. As the coast was clear he tightened his grip around the injured medical examiner and pushed him forward. "I don't know," John said grimly and that was the truth.

The doctor fought to stay alert, not an easy task considering the blood loss. "You are not from this world," he stated drowsily.

"Hospital," John asked succinctly as they made their way into the transporter.

The doctor blinked heavy eyelids open trying to deduce what button to push. He reached out, not without effort, to the familiar board, a display of the Ancient City, and pushed on a location that would have taken them straight to a parallel corridor to Atlantis' infirmary.

The doctor's condition was deteriorating for every minute, but Sheppard didn't know how much they knew about the underground city as they called it, and if he was about to guess he'd say they didn't know about the ancient infirmary. The doctor might have chosen that exit point out if the blue. However, he had no other alternatives but to try and reach it.

With a strained grimace he hauled the doctor out of the internal citywide transporter and pushed on. The eerie glow cast by the light sources, complete with cobwebs and dust, told him that this part of the city hadn't been used for several thousand years. It had been visited, yes, considering all the footprints made before him but not used the way it was supposed to be.

The doctor peered at him through glazed eyes, obviously confused by his actions.

Just as John was about to head back and tell the doctor a white little lie about being lost he could see the doors to the transporter close at distance and then hear the familiar whining of the transporter.

Cursing under his breath he readjusted his grip around the medical examiner and hastily half-dragged the man across the corridor to where Atlantis infirmary would have been and swiped his hand over the console. The beautifully arched double door opened immediately at his command and the inside of the room lit up, machines came to life and a screen switched on at his mere presence.

Teldan Tori, the medical examiner, stared at him and then around the room in wonder, having had no knowledge about the sealed medical department. "You – " he began, his voice no more than a whisper.

"Save your strength," John commanded as he helped him over to a bed.

Tori didn't understand. "You know of this place, yet you've never been here?" He questioned in amazement. "We have tried to get this part of the underground city accessible for so long now."

"It's not an underground city, at least it's not supposed to be. Besides, it's complicated," Sheppard let on cryptically as he studied the Lantean medical equipment. "Now, I'm educated in basic field medicine only and nowhere near qualified to deal with your kind of injury; so please tell me where to find someone who is, or at least give me the location of the hospital you whisked me away from."

"Why?" the M.E asked, having a hard time trying to catch up with Sheppard's train of thought, his condition not helping the cause.

However, John understood what he was trying to voice. "Why I'm helping you?" He asked. "I needed an ally and I needed help to get away from that place."

"You came with that ship," the doctor insisted.

John sighed in frustration. The man was stubborn. "No, I didn't come by the ship. I came through the stargate," he admitted seriously. "Now, medic or hospital?"

Deciding he needed help and deciding he could actually trust this man hovering over him he spoke up. "M.E Nadim," he managed to croak out. "Find her and she'll help out."

"I hate to break it to you but you've got to tell me how," John returned.

"In my pocket…lies a communicator…page her. Code the word E.M Evac," he said.

Since the trust had to go both ways John followed through the instructions and hoped that Nadim wouldn't get him into more trouble than he already was in. He figured it would take her some time to find her colleague and he decided to use that to his advantage.

"Hey," John said as he nudged the semiconscious man. "Stay awake now. I never got a chance to ask before – who's Meren really?"

"He's a science officer in the Inner Circle," Teldan Tori explained through gritted teeth.

John mimicked the action of gritting his teeth but for an entirely different reason. Medical Examiner, Military Organizer, Hospital Section One, the Inner Circle; everything just sounded wrong to him. He glanced down at the man on the dusty bed, which hadn't been used for thousands of years, his expression both regretful and grim.

"They'll come for you. I need to go now," he said.

"No," Tori whispered faintly. "There are so many questions I need to ask."

"Another time perhaps," John said. "I don't appreciate your hospitality and I certainly don't like being stuck in the middle while you and those other guys swap pleasantries."

OOOOOO

To be continued

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