A/N: Welcome back! First off, thank you to all of you who reviewed the last chapter. I'm happy to see you're still enjoying this story. To the one guest reviewer who begged me not to change my rating to M, I am so so sorry, but I think it has to be done.
Anyway, this is the chapter that necessitated the rating change from T to M. The overall tone of this chapter is pretty mature and pretty ominous but in my opinion, the M warning only applies to a small portion of the text, which for anyone who might be affected by this sort of content, has been marked by two asterisks at the beginning and the end of the passage (**).
For the sake of the overarching plot, it's not 100 percent necessary to read this small portion and I think you could probably skip over it and still carry on with this story without issue. At the risk of spoiling what's going to happen in this chapter, I've put a detailed content warning in the author's note at the bottom for those who may need it.
I was pretty nervous to include this, but I've thought a lot about it and think it should remain in the story. I hope I don't scare any of you off and I hope you continue to stay with me. The next chapter will be much lighter, I promise. :)
As usual, thank you for reading, reviewing, favorite-ing, and following. I appreciate you all.
This was her chance. If she wanted to get a few hours of sleep, she either needed to try now or she would have to wait another full day, possibly longer. For the next five hours – or rather, four hours and forty-five minutes, she realized as she glanced at her watch – he would be on shift, guarding the infirmary. She first checked to make sure the door was bolted, then turned out the light. Nothing quite like a ticking clock to promote peace and relaxation, she bitterly thought as she settled under the bedcovers.
Finding sleep should have been easy – it had been three days since she had even lain in a bed, after all – but she couldn't stop thinking about him. She could feel his eyes, always watching, his hands tight on her wrists, could hear his voice as clearly as though he were in the room with her.
"Hey, beautiful…"
Her skin chilled and she shuddered. Drawing herself into a tight ball under the scratchy sheets, the twin bed seemed far too large for her, as though she were a lone rowboat floating over deep, open waters. He's in the infirmary, she told herself, he won't be allowed to leave for the next four and a half hours.
She should have just left it there, but her thoughts began to race.
But who makes those decisions? Who sets the shift schedule? He's head of security, isn't he? Couldn't he adjust those shifts to his liking? And even if he does stay in the infirmary, what if I oversleep? What if four hours turn to six turn to eight? What if he comes here when his shift ends? What if he…?
She sat up in bed and shoved her glasses onto her face, squinting through the dark and windowless room to make sure the door was locked. It was, of course it was…but that reassurance didn't stop her initial shudder from developing into a violent, full-body shiver.
With a shaking hand, she placed her glasses back on the nightstand, lay down, and closed her eyes; they burned, a sure sign that she had been keeping them open too long. And no wonder, for under the guise of dedicated interpreter, she had spent the last day and a half at Janus' bedside, holding his hand and whispering soothing bits of Ancient into his ear, leaving only to grab something quick to eat, use the restroom, or bathe. The other marines, the nursing staff, the doctors, they had all commended her for her sleepless dedication and empathy toward the ailing Ancient. Was she an exceptional linguist? Absolutely, if she did say so herself. She hadn't become senior linguist of the Atlantis operation at only twenty-five by slacking off or clocking out early (though a letter of recommendation from Dr. Daniel Jackson himself hadn't hurt either). But had she stayed with Janus out of an overwhelming sense of compassion… because her tender, feminine heart couldn't bear to watch him suffer alone? Regrettably, no. She stayed because the infirmary was a public place and she knew Corporal Hanson wouldn't try anything with witnesses around. Unlike most other places, there were always people bustling about the Alpha Site infirmary and though being in the same room with Hanson was nearly intolerable, if she could see him, keep an eye on his actions, then someone else could, too. If she made sure she remained under McKay or Beckett's nose, he wouldn't be able to surprise her like he had in the hallways on Atlantis a few days earlier.
Now, though, she was alone. The door is locked, she reminded herself as she willed her body to stop trembling. The walls were solid concrete, there were no windows, there were guards posted on every floor; this room was like a tiny Fort Knox. In spite of it all, she enjoyed no sense of security. Eyes wide open, she fixed a fuzzy stare on the cement ceiling, wishing it were the Pegasus sky. How, under a canopy of stars, in the middle of the wilderness surrounded by whistling pines and wild animals, had she felt safer than she did in this moment?
You know why, a quiet, niggling voice said.
She flipped abruptly onto her side and punched the pillow. It was too fluffy, too hard, too crinkly. She wanted her own pillow. She wanted her own blankets, her own sheets, her own pajamas. She wanted her cactus blossom candle. She wanted to open a window and let the rip and curl of the Lantean surf lull her to sleep. She wanted to be back home.
Maybe she hadn't been completely truthful with Ronon that second night on the planet. Atlantis had begun to feel like home; at least, compared to this drab hunk of concrete it certainly did. And maybe her blankets and her pillow weren't the only things she wanted in bed with her.
"Oh, stop it," she said aloud, flopping onto her stomach, too embarrassed with herself to notice she was no longer shivering. She clamped her eyes shut and tried to think, not of men, but of sheep.
Her breath slowed with each fence-hopping lamb, and somewhere in the high fifties, they turned into cows. Eventually she lost count, but the little cows dutifully continued to jump the fence, one after the other, until there were no cows left – just a bull. It rammed the fence, the wood shaking and splintering under the impact. It charged again and the top beam split in half. One more blow and there would be nothing to stop it from coming right for her. She woke from her state of half sleep with a start, but the ramming continued. It took her a few seconds to realize that the sound wasn't coming from her dream, but rather from someone knocking at her door.
"Who – who is it?" she called. Her heart thrummed in her ears.
"McKay!"
Propelled by relief, she leapt out of the bed, slipped her glasses on, and searched for her jacket. "Just a second!" Satisfied that her jacket adequately concealed her chest, she unbolted the door and opened it a crack. He had come alone. "Rodney…" She opened the door the rest of the way. "What are you doing here?"
"Good, you're awake." He strode into her room without waiting for an invitation and sat at the small table in the corner.
She took a seat across from the physicist. "I am now," she muttered, pulling her hair back into a messy bun to give her some semblance of professionalism.
"Thought you might be. Carson disagreed with me, though. Told me not to bother you."
"Did he now?"
McKay opened his computer and turned the screen toward her. "Anyway, I was going through Janus' personal items, you know, the ones he had on him when we escaped, and I found a data storage device inside his cloak."
"Like a flash drive?" Emma pulled her legs onto the chair, sitting cross-legged and barefoot as she leaned over to see the screen.
"Like a flash drive?" McKay repeated with derision. "It is a multi-terabyte, solid state storage device of Ancient design, small enough to fit in your pocket. It's full of different files, audio recordings, videos…"
She shot him a dubious look.
"Okay, exactly like a flash drive," he conceded.
Emma sighed loudly, pulled off her glasses, and rubbed her face.
"Problem is, most of the information is either in Ancient or in Wraith. Now I was able to translate a decent amount of it on my own –"
She put her glasses back on and raised her eyebrows at him.
"But I need your help with some of it."
"Only some of it?" She glanced back at the screen to see a still image, the beginning of a paused video. "Mmhmm. What are we looking at here?"
"Video files. From what I can gather, it looks like they're notes on various human trials and experiments. The labeling system is a bit convoluted – I'm still trying to figure it out –"
"Human experiments?" she asked warily, leaning away from the screen as though it might jump out and bite her. "What kind of human experiments?"
McKay looked her in the eyes. "That's what I need your help determining."
Emma swallowed and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Okay…"
McKay clicked open his tablet and sat staring at her, poised to take notes.
Her eyes shifted from his to the screen. With a bit of trepidation, she hit the space bar and the video clip started rolling. Throngs of women and children, filthy and dressed in rags, were shoved together in a small, enclosed area. A voice behind the camera began speaking in Wraith.
"Reality A.23, year 5237," she interpreted. "Separating the mature males from the females has helped to control population growth and reduce rebellious incidents in the main population. Females without offspring are the least likely to resist control. Conversely, females with male offspring have proven to be the most likely to exhibit resistance when said offspring are taken from them." The video cut to a clip of a Wraith drone stunning a woman and what must have been her ten-year old son before dragging the boy away by his feet. "However, aggression amongst the males has increased, resulting in several deaths." Once again, the video cut, this time to footage of only men, mostly large and muscled, standing in a circle while another male figure, smaller and thinner, lay crumpled and bleeding in the middle of the crowd.
Her stomach twisted into a tight knot. "McKay?" She looked over the screen at him, but he was focused on typing out her translations.
The video went dark and she thought the footage had ended, but another scene soon began. "Reality D.12, year 3014." This particular recording showed the interior of a Wraith ship, likely the Cruiser they had just escaped from. In the far end of the frame, there were two people trapped in cocoons, one fighting tooth and nail to escape his fate, the other hardly showing any signs of life, staring blankly into the distance, resigned to it.
"Quality comparison between human runners and humans raised in captivity."
Two Wraith soldiers, feeding hands locked in chains, were brought to the cocoons. Though they each wore long leather coats that hid the shape of their bodies, she could tell from the gauntness of their faces and the knobbiness of their wrists that they were emaciated. The drone escorts removed their shackles and each soldier was directed to face a human – the first toward the struggling captive, the second toward his passive counterpart. Without waiting for permission or some other signal, the starving Wraith simultaneously began to feed.
Bile rising in her esophagus, Emma resisted the temptation to look away.
The second Wraith finished before the first and was immediately restrained as, in its mindless hunger, it lunged to feed on one of the drones. Once the first had taken its fill, it turned slowly to face its audience. Without any warning, two energy blasts similar to the kind emitted by Ronon's particle magnum, hit both of the Wraith prisoners in the chest. The second fell at once to the floor and Emma needed no confirmation from the drones onscreen to know that it had died. Its compatriot, however, the one that had gorged itself on what must have been a runner, looked down at the burning wound already regenerating in its chest and swiftly attacked the drone that had fired at it. After a momentary struggle in which a few drones got taken out, the soldier was once more subdued and locked in chains.
The voiceover placidly carried on, as though this were all routine. "Wild game once more proves to be of superior nourishment due to its natural resistive quality. Finding a way to integrate this into captivity bears further investigation."
Emma took a deep, steadying breath, comprehending just how lucky they had been to get both Eva and Ronon off that ship in time. The screen went black again, but the audio continued.
"Reality H.17, year 7492. Separating mature males from the females has proven successful here, as well. Mature males are further segregated from one another to temper aggression. Accidental deaths have been greatly reduced, but quality of sustenance, as expected, has declined. Males are only allowed to convene for breeding initiation."
**The video cut once more.
"Breeding initiation. Reality H.17, year 7492. Sexually mature males are congregated behind a forcefield to watch the demonstration." The rising bile crept to the back of her throat as she looked at the group of boys, all of whom appeared to be between fourteen and sixteen years old. The youngest of them looked confused, but a few of the older ones had their eyes eagerly fixed on the open space in front of them. A pair of drones led a girl, about Eva's age, into the unoccupied space and left her there. "A sexually mature but inexperienced…" Emma cleared her throat, "a sexually mature but inexperienced female is brought to the center." The older boys, the ones she had noticed before, got as close as they possibly could to the forcefield without getting stunned by it. Silence ensued, every eye in the crowd locked on the girl.
Though the voice speaking in Wraith continued offscreen, Emma stopped interpreting. She watched long enough to see an unescorted man, not a boy, stalk toward the terrified girl before she slammed the laptop screen shut and shoved it back toward McKay. A delay between the visual and the audio meant that the Wraith voice managed to say a few more words before the speakers, too, shut themselves off.**
"What the fuck, McKay?" She got out of her chair so quickly it fell to the floor with a clatter. "What the hell are you doing showing me that with no warning?" she shrieked.
"I'm sorry." He was wide-eyed. "I didn't realize –"
"Did you watch the video that far? Did you know that was going to happen?"
"No." He gave his head a vigorous shake. "No, I had no idea that was going to happen. I didn't make it that far into the –"
"Get out." She crossed one arm across her chest and pointed toward the door. "Take your stupid computer with you and get out of my room."
"Rogers –"
"Leave, Rodney," she said through gritted teeth. "Get out of here."
He collected his things faster than she had ever seen him move and made his way to the door. Turning around to look back at her, he opened his mouth to say her name but she interrupted.
"If you still need an interpreter, call Atlantis and have them send another linguist to do it. Do not come to me with something like that again, do you understand?"
"O-of course. I should have watched it all the way through. Emma, I'm so –"
"Good night, Rodney." She shut the door behind him, bolted the door, and collapsed onto the bed with her head in her hands, her stomach still churning.
The Wraith commander's last words reverberated through her thoughts. "My little runner? I have a special plan for her."
A/N: Thank you for reading. Please let me know your thoughts. Like I said, I'm pretty nervous about this particular chapter. I don't normally go this dark, but while I was researching for the chapter with the cows (of all chapters), I came across a documentary on the cattle industry. I already had the idea of taking a closer look at how the Wraith essentially treat humans like herd animals and wanted to explore some of the more gruesome aspects of it. In the documentary, there was a bit where they talked about how they get the bulls to reproduce and then they showed some bulls at a breeding demonstration. I found it pretty horrifying, but because I was so struck by it, felt compelled to include it here to really show the horrors of this particular Wraith and his experiments.
Content Warning: Implied underage rape that is not shown; does not happen to a main character.