Fearless by Murron
Summary: A sleepless night finds Carson wandering into the depth of Atlantis. What starts out as a somnambulant venture soon turns into a nightmare he is unable to escape.
Rating: PG-13
Categories: General
Characters: Carson Beckett, John Sheppard, Radek Zelenka
Genres: General, Angst, Introspective
Warnings: Character Death
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: February 06 2006
Updated: February 06 2006
Index
Chapter 1: 1/4
Chapter 2: 2/4
Chapter 3: 3/4
Chapter 4: 4/4
Chapter 1: 1/4
Spoilers: Set at some generic point between Hide and Seek and Letters from Pegasus.
Huge thanks go out to eretria & auburnnothenna - without them, this story wouldn't be finished even now.
____________________________________
It seems only yesterday I seemed to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
Billy Collins
Atlantis, 4 a.m.
Dec. 23rd
As a child he had been wary of his bedroom door at night. Often he lay awake and watched, believing that something waited outside. He imagined it lurking so close to the door that its breath misted the wood. It never made a sound, but he had always waited, knowing that some night it would.
A shadow of the same superstition stopped Carson from closing doors in Atlantis. It was, of course, irrational but his instincts told him to give into the habit. No need to invite old fears. The place was creepy enough.
Carson looked around the broom-closet that served as his office these days. The only sources of light were his desk-lamp and the tall Ancient glass-tube with its fluorescent liquid. He was alone, the laboratory next door was deserted. He’d told Dr. Biro to get some sleep about two hours ago. She’d been the last to go and only went because he promised her to finish soon, too. It was a promise he broke and she probably didn’t expect him to keep.
Carson pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the heavy weight of exhaustion in every fibre of his body. Maybe the time had come to listen to good advice. He closed his files and decided to call it a night. Some precious hours until sunrise and hopefully they would give him rest. Sometimes, Carson thought he could sleep forever and still be tired.
In Atlantis, working the wee hours was the rule rather than the exception. There was always data to analyse, information to be archived, briefings to be held. Not to mention the wounded that came in with the off-world teams on a regular basis. And while Carson didn’t need to be present for every minor surgery, he still had to orchestrate the shifts, supervise the progress of his team and, ideally, get on with his own research. He didn’t stand alone, of course. His people were working just as hard. The place, the emergencies, the Wraith on their doorstep — it affected everyone. It was no help that the patients weren’t anonymous anymore. If someone died on your table, he or she wasn’t a stranger whose face you could make yourself forget. More often than not, the person who died was a friend, a part of a steadily dwindling group. Carson was well aware of the toll this took on his medics. Nurses, doctors, assistants . . . they needed time off, each and every one of them.
Soon, Carson thought. He closed his laptop and, with the screen out of the way, looked at the fresh candle on his desk. One of the nurses had placed it there, completely decorated with spiky alien leaves that looked almost like holly. Every time he saw it, the candle reminded Carson of his silent oath. Christmas would be the holiday they all needed. Of course he couldn’t keep people from getting hurt or sick, he could only hope that the infirmary stayed as empty as it was at the moment. He could also influence the regular schedule. And he was determined that for his team, there would be no schedule on Christmas. No DNA analysis, no routine examinations, not even a scrap of laundry to wash. Plus, no gadgets to test. That he promised himself.
His eyes strayed to the small metal globe that Radek had left here earlier. It rested close to the candle, reflecting green flecks of almost-holly. Looking at it, Carson felt a mixture of fond exasperation and wariness seize him. He sighed. You should think that Rodney McKay went unsurpassed in the field of harassment. Carson, not-so-proud bearer of the ATA gene, knew better. Radek was no less a terrier than his colleague. In a way, he was even worse. He didn’t argue like Rodney. He just pushed up his glasses and held up whatever doodat had caught his fancy. Held it right into your face. Looked at you. No, nyet, bugger off — nothing worked. In the end Carson had taken the globe and thought at it. Even as he had a mind to blow the dratted thing to smithereens he was full of apprehension lest it would indeed. Detonate, that is.
To Carson’s immense relief, nothing had happened. He would’ve been more than happy to hand back the globe, but Radek just flapped a hand at him.
“You keep it,” he said and shrugged. “Is nice paperweight.”
Carson had watched him shuffle from the infirmary with an increasing bad conscience.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help. Telepathy just wasn’t his province. Tracheotomy. Fine. Surgery on the open heart, also fine. But these tools tapped into his thoughts and Carson wasn’t sure that he had much control over those. The fact that he’d almost killed Major Sheppard should prove his point, or so Carson thought. But good riddance arguing in that vein with either McKay or his minions.
A yawn interrupted Carson’s thought-stream, reminding him that he’d meant to go to bed. He would go, too. As soon as he found the will to rise from his chair.
Carson buried his face in his palms for a moment, then rubbed his weary eyes before he looked up. Beyond the frame of his open door he could see the laboratory, lights out there dimmed to a minimum. Deserted . . . yes, it applied. Carson listened closely, but heard nothing, not even the sound of the ocean lapping against foundations of steel.
He tried to suppress the stirring of unease inside him without success. There was no denying it, the quiet did make him uncomfortable. Not because anything was there, but because the silence left too much room for imagination.
In the nocturnal city’s stillness Carson always felt threatened by the sheer, glowering size of the place. It was easier when people were around during daytime, but at night the archaic emptiness became harder to ignore. It seemed to press in from outside the circle they had created with their bustle. Sometimes Carson felt they had come not to reclaim the city, but to haunt it like spirits from another tomb.
A shiver ran down his spine and Carson clasped his cold hands. God, if only there was a wee bit more light in here. Or at least a window, to let in some fresh air. Anything to make him feel less displaced or isolated. Instead there was only this stuffy pocket of a room, surrounded and topped by squares and squares of alien metal.
Carson turned in his chair, looking back at the empty range of his office. The corners were filled with shadows making the room seem larger than it was. It was stupid and illogical, but at the same time, perfectly easy to imagine some unseen thing lurking in the impenetrable gloom. Carson stared transfixed into the shadows, his faithless mind thinking of invisible watchers and pale faces surfacing from the dark.
Someone coughed behind his back and Carson nearly jumped out of his skin. He twisted around, knocking his elbow against the chair, pushing discs and globe clean off his desk.
On the doorstep, where the meagre light could barely reach him, stood Major Sheppard.
A surge relief washed over Carson. A split second later there was only pain, vibrating along his arm like fire.
“Crap!” Carson hissed and gripped his elbow. Swearing some more, he looked up to glare at the intruder. Rumour had it that John Sheppard could walk as silently as a cat on a carpet. Well, it was true. It was also enough to give a healthy man a heart attack.
“One of these days I’ll strap a bell around your neck,” Carson said, bowing low to scramble his scattered discs together.
“Sorry,” Sheppard said, sounding not sorry at all. “Saw your light on.”
“Did you now?” Carson marvelled. Sheppard’s mouth slid into a lazy grin. He crossed the threshold, picked up the Ancient paperweight and palmed it casually.
At this late hour, the major seemed even more dishevelled than usual, which was saying something. His hair looked like a hedgehog who’d fraternised with a high-voltage fuse. As if he’d picked up on Carson’s thoughts, the major lifted his hand and scrubbed the back of his head.
When the shadow of his arm fell, Carson got a good look on the major’s bruise-of-the-day. A crimson cut ran smooth along his cheekbone. The skin around the area was still flushed, but the wound itself was neatly iced and taped. It really was a scratch compared to Ford’s split lip and blackened jaw.
Try as he might, Carson couldn’t imagine what drove them through the gate time and again. Where did they get the nerves, when it was clear they’d be in for at least one scrape or another? Did they think about the pain when they encountered another potential hostile people? More likely they didn’t. Perhaps it was only him who wondered while he waited for their return.
“You had a rough day, Major,” Carson said, sobered. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“Oh, I slept,” Sheppard replied and sat down at Carson’s desk. “A couple of hours anyway.” Carson suspected that was true. He doubted the efficiency of those hours, though. Sleep to John was like an unpleasant necessity. Or wasn’t it? Perhaps he craved rest and had forgotten how to find it.
“What’s this?” Sheppard asked, turning the globe between his fingertips.
“Ancient Christmas bauble,” Carson prompted, then smiled. “I’ve no idea, honestly.”
John continued to eye the globe with mild curiosity. Carson suspected he was prodding mentally. The major had no qualms in that corner. Unlike Carson, he didn’t mind being Rodney’s (or Radek’s) hamster. Most times he was the successful lab rodent, too. No this time, though. A little while passed, then Sheppard lowered his hand and Carson exhaled a secret breath.
“What’s it supposed to do?”
“Radek couldn’t say,” Carson said.
“Could be a golf ball,” Sheppard suggested.
“An air-refresher,” Carson offered.
“A Tamagochi.”
“A door-stopper.”
Both grinned. Sheppard held out the globe and Carson took it from him. He put it in the pocket of his trousers, intending to pass it on to Dr. Aphron. She had print-outs galore and would surely welcome something to weigh them down with.
“You’re in for one?” Sheppard asked, rocking back his chair until it balanced on two legs.
Carson spent one wistful thought on sleep, heavenly sleep, then said: “Sure.” He reached beneath his desk, opening a drawer. “As long as I can plead lack of sleep as defence for my failing.”
Sheppard grinned. “Don’t worry. We’ll go slow.”
Uttering a sound that was meant to be a huff and turned into a chuckle, Carson pulled out his chessboard. Once he’d placed it on the desk, the major bent forward, chair clanking back to the ground, and they started to set up the men.
Carson had played before he switched galaxies, of course. You couldn’t move in the circles he did and not play chess. When he joined the SGC it had become a habit to play against Rodney. And Rodney always won. After three dozen games Carson had resigned to losing in tremendous fashion. To his credit, Rodney tried to hide his smugness, but not very hard and not very successfully.
That was then. Now was Atlantis and among a couple of other things that had changed, Carson suddenly aced at chess. He might not win all the games, but he was still miles from his former history of failure. It was a development that mystified Rodney to no end. Being Rodney, he was also as suspicious as an old badger and needled every scientist for the secret of Carson’s sudden success. So far he’d been needling in vain.
Only two people knew that Rodney was looking in the wrong place.
“I’ll teach you a good one tonight,” Sheppard said at present, moving a pawn. “We’ll have Rodney blow his stack.”
* * *
One hour and two games later Carson stood in the small kitchen opposite the infirmary. Watching as water ran into a measuring jar, he yawned into his palm. The new moves had spiked his concentration for a while, but even the prospect of flooring Rodney couldn’t erase fatigue that was lodged as deeply as Carson’s. If he wanted to keep Sheppard company he needed some stimulant which, for Carson, came in the form of tea. He placed the jar into the heating unit, then took two tea-bags out of the cabinet and threw them into the mugs he prepared. After a moment’s consideration, he re-opened the cabinet, pulled out a green bottle and poured two shots in each mug.
Carson waved his hand in front of the heating unit’s sensor panel and watched the niche glow red for a second. He felt reminded of his old kettle at home which had always sounded like an asthmatic hippopotamus. Oddly, Carson found he missed it. The Ancient heating unit boiled water before you could do so much as blink. No bubbling, no whistle — you didn’t even burn your hand when you lifted the jar.
Taking the jar out of the niche, Carson finished preparing the tea. They’d run out of sugar a week ago, but the Athosians had provided them with enough honey to last a good while. Thank God for small favours.
Carson picked up the mugs and stepped into the corridor. Once he’d crossed the threshold, the lights in the room behind darkened.
It was unpleasantly chill in the hallway. Either the mechanics had tampered with the heating again or the sleep-deprivation did more to Carson’s body than he wanted to admit. In any case he appreciated the warmth-trapping wool of his pullover. He had almost reached the door to his laboratory when he noticed that he was being watched. Carson stopped dead in his tracks. His gaze passed the empty hallway, the blue light on the floor and the dark reaches beyond.
Standing at the edge of darkness was a little boy, bare-footed, his pyjama bottoms and bare toes barely illuminated.
Carson stood motionless, eyes fixed on the child, mind not yet catching up with what he saw. A child? Down here? He closed his eyes, tried to focus and snap out of his haze. It worked. As soon as Carson was able to think straight, the answer was quite simple. It was, of course, an Athosian boy. Most likely the lad was lost. And you probably scared him half to death, popping out of nowhere like you did, Carson told himself. He opened his eyes with every intention of correcting his error, but as he looked again, the boy was gone.
Carson frowned. This was strange. Come to think of it, it couldn’t possibly have been an Athosian. The last time any of them had visited Atlantis had been weeks ago. Teyla’s people usually didn’t wear pyjamas, either.
With a flutter of nervousness Carson peered down either side of the hallway. There was no glimpse of a child. Finally he concluded that he must have imagined the whole thing. That’s what happened when you pushed your body over its limits. Your own fault, Carson thought. He really should know better. He cast another glance to his left. Nothing. Carson turned his head and moved into the laboratory, balancing a mug in each hand.
To imagine a boy of all things. He really needed that tea.
* * *
On his return to the office, Carson found John fast asleep on the little couch. A book had dropped from the Major’s fingers and on picking it up, Carson recognised it to be his copy of ‘The Name of the Rose’. To fall asleep reading this.
“Heretic,” Carson whispered and smiled. He walked over to his cupboard, pulled out a blanket and returned to cover John. Before he left, he took up his mug once more. Crossing over into the laboratory, Carson off the lights behind him. He passed the tables, microscopes and test tubes, only to stop short before the exit.
The door was closed.
Carson frowned. He hadn’t closed it, had he? Well, he must have. No big deal, then, just open it again. Carson stood motionless while the fingers that touched the mug warmed slowly. At last the heat from the ceramic grew painful and Carson jolted. Foolishness. Good grief, man, would you get a grip, he scolded himself. Reversing the mug from one hand to the other, he opened the door.
The boy stood right in front of it.
It was all Carson could do not to drop his tea. There. There he was again, clear as you please, small head turned to the side. Carson took two steps back, tea spilling over the rim of the mug and onto his cuff. There was no change of expression on the boy’s face, no motion whatsoever on the pale features. He just cast a glance into the laboratory, then turned and walked away, disappearing from the doorframe. Carson remained, shaking.
“What the blazes . . .” His own voice sounded hoarse in the silence. His hand shot to his face, covering his eyes for a second. I’m going mad, Carson thought. That’s it, I’m snapping. Too little sleep . . . brain functions shutting down . . . delusions. God.
He lowered his hand, fearing what he would see. The doorframe was still empty, though, the boy hadn’t reappeared. Carson had wanted to go to his quarters, now he wondered whether he shouldn’t stay at his office. Just for the night. He dismissed the idea almost the second it came to his mind. Hiding in his office — how old was he, ten? Besides, the only couch there was occupied by John Sheppard and to wake the major would mean to explain that he’d been scared out of his wits over . . . Nothing, he told himself. He would go to his room. Now. He would sleep and laugh about his folly in the morning.
He stepped out of the infirmary. On entering the hallway he knew at once that he wasn’t alone and all the comfort of rational explanation fell from him. Instead he felt seized by a wave of cold that left him almost calm. He turned around one more time.
The boy stood in the corridor that led into the deeper recesses of Atlantis. There was no doubting it, he was waiting for Carson. For a delusion, Carson thought, the lad was quite persistent.
“All right,” Carson said, every muscle in his body tensed. He forced himself to look at the child, measure him closely. He wasn’t scary, actually. He was just a wee scrap of boy, wearing a tee-shirt that was at least two sizes too big for him. His eyes didn’t glow or anything, they looked quite normal. A little sleepy, perhaps. In the looming darkness of the corridor, the lad looked quite lost.
Carson decided to give it a shot. “Hullo, there,” he called softly. It felt strange, using his voice in the dormant corridor. The boy didn’t answer either, he only retreated a step into the shadows.
Carson considered his options. If he wasn’t hallucinating, and at this point he was almost sure he wasn’t, then something was going on that needed figuring out. He first considered to get someone else, but then decided not to. By the time anyone got here, the boy could be gone. He’d stayed thus far, but who said that if Carson left, say, to fetch the Major, the child might not bolt? Carson decided to take this into his own hands. If the wee one wanted to show him something, it was probably worth a look. Carson would follow him, only for a little while, and stop as soon as they got too far from the inhabited areas. He could always turn around. Maybe he could even persuade the child to come with him to Elizabeth’s quarters. He certainly couldn’t leave the bairn out here, whoever he was.
It was settled. Carson placed his mug into a niche in the wall, then went to follow the child into the city.
Atlantis, 8:07 a.m.
Dec 23rd
John woke in Carson’s shoebox of an office. Looking at an unfamiliar ceiling, it took him a while to sort out his surroundings. He turned on his side on the surprisingly comfortable sofa and surveyed the room. The doctor was gone, only the chess-board remained on the desk. John let his head sink back against the pillow, scratching his stubbled cheek and stalling the moment when he really had to move. His eyes fell on the blanket that covered him. It was tartan cloth, made of greens and blue. A smile tugged at the corners of John’s mouth. Carson Beckett was a mother-hen if ever he’d seen one. A Scottish mother-hen, which probably meant that he’d go with an axe after anyone who threatened his flock.
John wanted to find it funny and couldn’t. Pushing back the blanket, he slid off the sofa and walked over to the desk. Next to the chess-board sat a mug with some dark liquid that had to be tea. Judging from the colour, it was one of Beckett’s special brews. The man made a tea that would wake the dead. John lifted the mug sceptically, sniffing. It was tea all right. Yet there was also a whiff of something other that tempted John to sip. He regretted the impulse as soon as the liquid touched his lips. Jesus, he’d had cough syrups that tasted better.
Placing the mug on the desk, John went about hiding the evidence of their game practice. Wouldn’t want Rodney to walk in on the scene, he thought with a grin. At last he folded the blanket and placed it back on the couch before he left. The laboratory was already buzzing with people and John looked around for a glimpse of Carson, but no dice. The doctor was nowhere in sight.
* * *
Late morning found him going through the shopping list with Elizabeth. John had snitched a mug of precious coffee and at present scrolled through the items on the palm. Elizabeth watched him from across her desk.
“Laundry soap?” John read aloud and looked up.
Elizabeth shrugged. “We’re running out,” she said. “Just find some ersatz soap if you can.”
“How are we on trade-able goods?”
“Short,” Elizabeth said simply. “Knowledge is our best currency now. We could suggest the support of our engineers. That worked well on M2Z-744. If absolutely necessary, we can talk about hardware.” She narrowed her eyes at him, signalling the whole amount of her trust. “Try not to offer our primary defences.”
“I’ll do my best,” John promised and tried for his Sunday grin. Which Elizabeth didn’t buy for a second.
“My point exactly,” was all she said. But she smiled back, giving him that wry little quirk of her mouth that amused him to no end.
A soft knock issued from the door. John turned to see the short figure of Radek Zelenka standing in the door.
“Excuse me, Dr. Weir?”
On her yes he reluctantly entered the office. John noticed the minute flutter of the doctor’s hands with a speck of amusement. Did he know that he’d begun to copy McKay?
“You know where Dr. Beckett is?” Zelenka asked.
“Not at the moment, no. Why?”
“There might be a problem.”
And there I thought that phrase had gotten old, John reflected with a sinking feeling.
“Is someone hurt?” Elizabeth asked at once.
Zelenka shook his head, but seemed reluctant to continue. Elizabeth leaned forward and John watched her clasp both hands on the table-top. The playfulness had fallen off of her, leaving what he long since expected was a core of steel behind the gestures of calm interest.
“We translated some Ancient pads in one of the labs we’re investigating,” Zelenka began and John sensed he was struggling to speak slow so that his accent wouldn’t show too much. “We learned they are transcripts of some operation, a description of . . . ah . . .devices we found the other day. One of them was a little metallic ball.”
“I fail to see the problem,” Elizabeth said, brows drawn down. John waited.
“I asked Carson to try make it work,” Zelenka said and now the depth of his worry shone clear through. John’s stomach did a lazy turn. “And he tried, but the ball didn’t do anything. I left it with him. I thought it was broken, you understand.”
“I still don’t follow you . . .” Elizabeth said.
Zelenka was almost but not quite wringing his hands. “Is the pads. They explain what the ball does. We don’t understand all yet, but it seems like some tool for meditation. It’s . . .” He faltered, frowning harder as ever.
“Radek,” Elizabeth addressed him calmly. “Keep it simple.”
The scientist shot her a grateful look, then picked up his report in a much firmer voice. “The ball works like projector for the mind. Somehow it picks up images in the head and saves them in order to produce a visual reflection.”
John raised his brows. “It turns thoughts into slides?”
“Not thoughts,” Zelenka corrected. ”Things from places below the mind.”
“The subconscious?” Elizabeth supplied.
Zelenka jerked his head in an emphatic nod. “We know that the Ancients ascended, yes?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“The ball was practice, first facing demons, then letting go. To burn the bridges, you see.” Zelenka clasped his hands until his knuckles cracked. “Thing is, none that comes out of ball is . . . how do you say . . . pleasant. Is all fear, is what the Ancients were interested in.”
“How very Freudian of them,” John muttered. He got a sidelong, pained glance from Zelenka.
“Things from the ball look like real beings,” the scientist went on. “There is an Ancient name, but we couldn’t translate. Dr. Holleran calls them Shadows.”
“Are they dangerous?” John asked, already suspecting the answer. Sure enough Zelenka dropped his eyes, but Elizabeth cut in before he could speak.
“How can they be dangerous? If they are figments of the subconscious . . .”
“They’re not just . . . figments,” Zelenka admitted to his shoes. “The texts speak of wounds that had to be treated. Subjects hurt during the procedure.”
“Are you telling me those apparitions manifest?” Elizabeth said sharply.
“We don’t know.”
“You have the pads!”
Zelenka looked up as if startled and spread his hands in a helpless gesture.
“Is not so simple! If you have a manual for a toaster, it says what the toaster does but it doesn’t explain what bread is. Because every child knows what bread is.”
He paused, his eyes never leaving those of Elizabeth now.
“Every Ancient knew what Shadows are,” he told her quietly.
“We don’t.”
“Exactly.”
John leaned back in his chair, running through a gamut of options in his head. The Ancients were a high culture, extremely intelligent. They wouldn’t fiddle with menace and leave it scattered about. They, okay, trapped man-eating energy. They also experimented with homicidal nanites. But their containment, their childproof safety catch, was faultless. Mostly. Generally. As long as the builders were around.
John briefly asked himself who of the two was more pretentious: the superhuman race courting death or the enthusiasts of the next generation, using lethal gadgets as paperweights. Lethal? But surely that was hasty. If the ball projected only the contents of a person’s mind, how bad could it be?
Bad, John thought. Real bad. He didn’t need Dr. Blonde-and-Inquisitive to tell him that no sane man would want to visit his subconscious. He certainly knew that if he were to produce any permutations of his fears, it sure wouldn’t be squids. The way it seemed, Elizabeth had about the same ideas.
“You say it didn’t activate when Carson touched it,” she said at length.
“Well, we don’t know that,” Zelenka conceded.
Elizabeth’s brows shot up but for once she refrained from speaking. John had a feeling it cost her a great deal.
“The device is very old and possibly used many times,” Zelenka suggested with little conviction. “Could be depleted.”
“Could be?” Elizabeth echoed.
The little Czech shrugged miserably.
John pushed back his chair and stood. Zelenka would have looked in Carson’s room, but chances were he’d missed tracks. It made sense to start there, go were any hints might lead and go quickly. His mind politely reminded him of the city’s size, the vast maze of corridors, but John refused to linger on the thought. He couldn’t explain his sense of urgency. Call it instinct. Call it trust in their bad luck.
“You set up teams,” he said. “Try the biometrical sensors. I’ll look in the likely places.”
He was out the door before Elizabeth had a chance to answer.
Atlantis, 5:30 a.m.
Dec 23rd
During their strange progression, he’d lost sight of the boy a couple of times. Yet anytime Carson even so much as considered turning around, the child appeared again, waiting by a door that needed opening. The boy himself seemed unable to do that. What was stranger still: even though the child seemed eager for Carson to keep up, they didn’t walk side by side. Carson had tried, but every time he came near, the lad ducked and evaded him, as though he were afraid of Carson. Which was more than a little paradox to Carson’s mind.
The boy didn’t talk, either. Carson had tried to speak to him, but so far the only answers he’d got were curious glances. If even that. Carson had spent enough time in the children’s ward to know how to react to that kind of behaviour. The premise was don’t push, just wait. If children’s psychology was worth a dime in the case of apparitions become flesh.
There was something about him, though. Something about the lad that was almost familiar. Indeed Carson had a sense that he’d met the child before. He racked his brain, but didn’t know where to put him, though he did think of Lyon.* It was possible the child resembled one of the small patients there; Carson had locked away a lot of memories from that time. Too often had he looked into exhausted little faces, had told parents that his gene therapy did not yet work in the way they had hoped.
If the boy belonged to that league of forgotten souls, he’d stay anonymous. Carson didn’t much care to open that particular box.
They had advanced deep into the belly of the city. Maybe they were already beneath one of the star-tips, the far-end piers. The only thing Carson was remotely sure of was that none of the expedition had set foot in these areas so far. The air was stuffy with the smell of oil and salt. Functioning light columns were rare, too, and shadows ruled the vaults. Sometimes orange light panels flickered to life when Carson passed, only to die down behind him.
At least tiredness was no longer an issue. Carson had overcome the zenith of exhaustion a while ago. Basically he could go on until he dropped. He tried not to think that this would be the conclusion of this walk, though. Whatever did lie at the end, he was resolved to see it. He had to admit he was curious. He knew the saying, of course. But on the other hand — curiosity had been at the bottom of his choice to join this expedition, so hang that.
Still. Deep down he knew that curiosity was the least of factors that had possessed him to come down here. Usually his reason and tendency to doubt kept any airs of emphatic interest in check. Carson might pride himself of a few attributes, but ‘reckless’ was not among them. ‘Foolish’ — well, that was another matter altogether. To venture into deserted and most likely dangerous parts of an alien city, acting merely after some foggy notion of worry — Carson supposed that was foolish enough. Yet the plain truth was that he could not leave the boy. The lad might be a delusion, a ghost in the system, some roguish hologram . . . he could be anything, really, but in the end it made no difference. He couldn’t consign the child to the darkness of the deep city.
They came to yet another door and the boy slipped through after Carson touched it to give them passage. Once he’d crossed the threshold, Carson stepped out onto a meshed mezzanine. Looking down, he saw the floor was about ten feet beneath him. At least it wasn’t dark. Artificial blue light spilled out from several columns at the bottom. Carson was about to join the boy on the stairs, when he heard a familiar swish-sound behind him. He whirled around, only to find that the door in his back had closed again. Not by his order, though, it had shut by itself. What was even more unsettling, when Carson tried to open the door again, it wouldn’t obey. He palmed the opening device a couple of times, but nothing happened.
His first instinct was to reach for his headset. Only when he touched his empty ear did he remember that he forgot to put the damn thing on. It still lay on his desk.
All right, he told himself. Don’t panic. They would come looking for him. Either that or he would find another way out. Of course, Carson mused, if he went looking for other doors he would have to mark his passage somehow. Leave some signs, or he’d get lost in no time. Never a thread when you need one.
He turned from the door. The boy had settled on the uppermost of the stairs. Carson walked up to him and sat down at his side.
“So.” Carson said. “Are we there yet?”
The boy just looked at his toes or looked down through the meshed metal stairs. It was hard to decide which.
“Aren’t you cold, lad?” Carson asked tentatively. The boy shook his head. For a split second, Carson was so surprised to see the boy actually react, that he failed to resume his questioning.
“What are you?” he asked eventually, careful not to sound eager or thrilled.
The boy looked at him sideways. Then he held up first ten fingers, then one.
Eleven. Eleven years old.
Carson sat dumbfounded, speechless under the boy’s earnest gaze. Then, despite the strangeness of the whole situation, Carson grinned. If he wasn’t mistaken, the lad’s mouth quirked a little, too.
* * *
They had descended down the stairs continuing into a rabbit warren of chambers and winding passages. They’d crossed halls which led onto catwalks which led into yet another corridor. The temperature had dropped constantly. Carson suspected that for thousands of years the air down here had not been warmed by human bodies or heating. There was no sound other than his own footsteps and even those seemed muffled. Except . . .
Carson slowed and listened. There. There it was again. The dripping of water. He halted, lifting his gaze to look ahead. The corridor bent sharply some steps further on, effectively blocking his sight. The boy had already vanished around the corner. The way it sounded, the source of the dripping would also be there.
Carson continued warily. As he approached the bend, another strange detail came to his attention: There was water on the ground. A couple inches short of the bend, a large puddle reflected the aquamarine light of the columns. Frowning, Carson walked on. For the first time it came to him that most likely he’d descended below sea-level. More disturbing still, it seemed like Atlantis’ walls weren’t as waterproof as their resident engineers believed. The thought of one leak was unsettling enough. But the prospect that there might be many more all over the deeper levels was downright alarming. Carson made a mental note to tell Elizabeth. Someone had to take care of this and quick. Then he crossed the corner and saw that someone already had.
Beyond the bend, the puddle became a shallow pool in a hall surrounded by light rods. Not far from one of those columns, a man lay propped up against the wall. Carson’s feet continued walking, his eyes took in the blue colour of a shirt and the awkward twist of a shoulder. As he came closer, more details registered. There were dark patches where water soaked the grey BDUs, an Ancient scanner lying by a limp hand . . .
Carson crossed the remaining distance and dropped to his knees, cold water splashing against his thighs. This close, the scene penetrated his mind with violent force, filling him with a storm of information. He still didn’t comprehend.
Wires spilled out of the wall like nerves, touching Rodney’s shoulder where his head had sunk to the side. There was a burn mark on his temple, right where a few frayed filaments coiled like some robotic vine. Racing along at top speed, Carson’s mind was ticking off details, processing damage, following the emergency routine. Deep inside him, terror beat and fluttered like an army of moths, but the commotion was distant, muted.
Carson reached out, half expecting his hand to tremble, but of course it didn’t, fingertips touching the cold skin beneath Rodney’s jaw. No pulse. He waited. One, two, three seconds. No pulse. Four, Five. No pulse. Six. Seven.
Eight.
No pulse.
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was the proclaimed time that a human being could remain in cardiac arrest and still be resuscitated. Fifteen minutes until the brain suffered irreversible damage. Fifteen minutes, if air was moved through the body. Less, if there wasn’t.
Rodney didn’t breathe.
Carson moved swiftly. Voices escalated at the back of his mind and he let them, concentrating only on the succession of measures and surveys.
Too pale, too cold.
It’s been more than fifteen minutes. Far more. Too long.
Carson clutched the front of Rodney’s shirt and pulled him off the wall. Pain exploded in his knees as they took the increased weight and the sleek fabric of the shirt nearly slipped from Carson’s fingers. Gripping harder, Carson managed to turn and drag Rodney with him.
Rodney’s head slid sideways into the water as soon as he was lowered to the ground. Carson turned the unresisting face up again, closed Rodney’s nose with one hand and pulled his chin with the other. He gave two insufflations, then turned for Rodney’s chest.
Agonising. There’s nothing to up his body-temperature!
Murmuring. Would make no difference if there was.
Carson pressed the heels of both hands on Rodney’s chest, shifted his balance so that his shoulders became the centre of his strength, then pushed. Something moist, sweat or tears, ran down the side of his nose and dropped from his chin. He bowed forward, once more covered Rodney’s mouth for respiration, then resumed the chest compressions. Minutes passed, and although Carson wanted nothing more than to ignore the elapsing time, his traitorous eyes strayed to his watch after each respiration. Twenty minutes now. His shoulders ached with the exertion and muscles stiffened painfully. Sweat coursed down his back while his mouth was parched to a point that made swallowing difficult. Twenty-five minutes and no knowing how long Rodney had been collapsed before the CPR. Carson continued, defying the significance of each second that slipped away. The longer he pushed, the quieter the crowd inside his head grew, until they became silent spectators of a grievous play. They watched as Carson breathed air into lungs that would never inhale on their own again.
Stop . . .
They’d had lunch together only a day ago. Rodney had tried to talk Ford out of his last muffin. Carson had teased him with his orange juice.
Stop . . .
They rarely had time to meet at the canteen; yesterday had been a precious exception. Each of them had been tired, nibbling at vegetables that had been cooked too long. Carson remembered Rodney, looking drained but grinning all the same as Ford tossed him the muffin.
— ‘You owe me one, Doc.’
— ‘Ah, I just might suffer some spontaneous memory loss.’
— ‘Dr. Beckett?’
— ‘I’d say chances for that are very small indeed.’
— ‘Back-stabbing traitor.’
Stop . . .
Carson enjoyed their joint meals. They felt like home.
Stop.
On his last push, Carson felt another rib crack under the thrust of his hands. If the heart could’ve come around, it would have by now. Carson knew that, knew it with the certainty of year-long experience, and yet he waited once more for a flutter of pulse. It never came. Rodney didn’t wake, there was nothing left in him to stir.
Carson uttered a sob that barely registered above a breath. He lowered his head, then forced himself to look up again, facing Rodney’s closed eyes and pallid face. His fingertips lingered on Rodney’s chest and Carson imagined the cracked ribs with growing despair. Turning his head, Carson looked across the hall, searching out doors that seemed endlessly far away.
He’s gone. Rodney’s gone.
The light of the columns was now too bright, blurring with the water’s surface and hurting his eyes.
Thirty minutes. Too late.
Carson turned away and didn’t look again. He touched Rodney’s cheek and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. Weeping silently, he waited as though he could transfer his warmth into the dead body beneath him.
* a/n: The Centre León Bérard, Lyon, was among the first hospitals in Europe to try gene therapy on cancer patients.
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Chapter 2: 2/4
Atlantis, 9:24 a.m.
Dec 23rd
“Lieutenant Ford is searching the south-east sectors, and Sergeant Ferman’s team is on its way to the docks.”
“Good,” John answered. After he checked Carson’s room he’d been in and out of the infirmary. Now he was heading to the realm of McKay’s tech cracks. He’d picked up his P90 along the way, switching to full gear without breaking his stride.
“He’s not in any of the inhabited parts, is he?” Elizabeth asked over the com, sounding like she shared his own suspicion.
“No,” John answered, remembering Carson’s empty room and the untouched bed. “No, I don’t think so. We have to make sure, though.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I think we should search the city in circles. We take the gateroom as centre and widen our radius as we go.”
“Sounds good to me,” Elizabeth agreed. “Where are you now?”
“Applied sciences sector.”
“Right, I’ll send Teyla and Reynolds to help you. About the other teams . . .”
“I’ve already radioed Ford and told him to set up the search parties.”
There was a beat of silence, long enough to tell him what she thought about him acting without consulting her first. He hadn’t the time or patience to worry about the faux pas, though. Neither had she, it seemed. At least for now, Elizabeth let it go without comment.
“Okay then,” she said. “Stay in contact.”
“Will do,” John replied and cut off the connection. He’d reached the main lab and crossed the threshold without much preamble.
One look around the room told him who was, and more importantly, who wasn’t there. Not that he’d expected to find Carson that easily. The Asian doctor, whose name he’d trouble remembering, bent over another scientist’s shoulder, showing him something on the screen of his laptop. A couple more blue-shirts were about, fiddling with tools or flipping through clipboards. On one of the larger screens John could see a reproduction of the ball, ancient scripture framing the image. He squinted to read the words in the columns but couldn’t from his place at the door.
Now Dr. Asia had spotted him. She and the other tech wiz - Dr. Holleran was it? — actually came over, both frowning. For reasons unknown to John, they walked in exactly the same way. Brisk and in a straight line, intent eyes trained on him. They didn’t look alike, that would be totally freaksome, but John still felt uneasily reminded of those kids in Children of the Corn. A justified paranoia, he thought. Ever since his ATA gene had been discovered, some of the scientists eyed him like he was an alien apparatus that they’d dearly like to open.
“Have you found Dr. Beckett yet?” Dr. Holleran asked.
“Not yet, no,” John answered. “You know what’s going on?”
Dr. Holleran nodded. “Dr. Zelenka briefed us.” He pointed his chin at the people working behind him. “We’re working on the translation of the pads that came with the globe.”
“Any progress on the pads?”
“Nothing significant,” Holleran answered regretfully. “It’s tough work . . .”
Doc Asia chimed in. “There’s a lot of material and it’s mixed up with other, unrelated sources.” She hesitated. “How will you find Dr. Beckett?”
“No other way but look, I’m afraid,” John said.
“It’s a big city out there,” Dr. Holleran commented. “Supposing he’s still in the city.”
“He is,” John said, firmly. He had the jumper bay checked for lost ships and the gate hadn’t been dialled. Not that this narrowed their search area very much. “Look, is Dr. McKay around?”
“No,” Dr. Holleran said. “He hasn’t been in today.” He gave a sly little smile. “That’s why you see us working instead of having nervous breakdowns.”
Any other time John would have stored that comment away as amusing. Not now, though. Now he would’ve been glad to see Rodney’s face, or even better, hear him say how they’d been dimbulbs all along . . . just, here, switch this on and adjust that and you have the perfect Scotsman finder. Detects a Quilt fifty miles into rough country.
But Rodney wasn’t available and didn’t answer his com. From what John had gathered, he’d been up early and took a couple of his foot-soldiers with him into one of the unused labs. Lots of screens and buttons there, John wagered, to keep a genius occupied.
“If there’s nothing else you want to ask?” Dr. Holleran interrupted John’s train of thought.
“No, Doc,” John answered. “I’ll leave you to your work. Let me know if anything comes up.” Holleran and his non-identical twin returned to their desk.
John rocked back on his heels, looking out the door. Come on, Teyla. Beat feet.
Atlantis, 6:17 a.m.
Dec 23rd
The water kept on dripping. Somewhere in the Ancient hall, drops continued to splash into the slowly widening pool. It seemed like a long while until the boy appeared at Carson’s side. At the periphery of his vision he could see the striped pyjama legs.
“Take me back,” Carson said softly and as the child did not respond, repeated: “Take me back.”
He’d brushed the soot away from Rodney’s temple and lifted his hands out of the water. The arms, when Carson had tried to move them, were heavy and already reluctant to be shifted. He’d brushed water drops from the fringe of Rodney’s short hair, trying to ignore the fact that the hair was as cold and wet as Rodney’s face.
“Take me back,” he told the boy, but the child didn’t move. At length Carson looked up, seeing the boy watch Rodney with a frown. As Carson raised his head, the boy flinched visibly. His frown smoothed and he took two hesitant steps away from Carson. In direction of the far end of the hall, not toward the corridor through which they’d come.
No, Carson thought. No more. He didn’t move a muscle. The boy retreated another step, looking over his shoulder, then looking back at Carson. He didn’t plead, not openly, but there was a tension in his stance that made him look like a little animal that would like nothing better than break into a run. Still Carson didn’t react.
Suddenly a host of shallow waves rippled across the pool. It was the touch of water to his hand that loosened Carson’s paralysis in spite of himself. He turned to seek out the source of the disturbance. He caught sight of a door, the very same door the child was eyeing with a mixture of hope and apprehension.
It doesn’t matter, Carson told himself. Whatever was happening, it would end right here. It has already ended, a sad and quiet voice added in his mind. Another surge ruffled the pool. It could’ve been a breeze. Only there was no wind in the vaults. The boy clenched his fists.
Carson hesitated. The idea of leaving Rodney for a reason other than getting help was appalling. To let him lie here, any longer than necessary — it was impossible. And yet there was the boy, waiting.
A small voice, a very tiny voice inside Carson’s head urged him to continue. Once he became aware of it, he also noticed a disquiet, growing beneath the hollow space that separated his mind from his emotions. It sickened him, but he almost listened, almost considered to follow the boy. That finally did it. Carson leaned back from Rodney’s body, seizing his curiosity and trampling it out of his system. Going back. Going back had to be the foremost thing in his mind and he clung to it, pushing everything else away.
Carson stood, soaked trousers clinging to his shins. The sore muscles in his back complained with every small movement, his knees ached. He felt like he had aged ten years in . . . thirty minutes . . . no time at all.
He didn’t wait for help. Forget the boy, he’d find his own way. He refused to think about doors that wouldn’t open, corridors that looked alike and silence. The goddamn silence.
He’d almost reached the corridor when another wave lapped against his shoes.
“No!” Carson shouted, startled by his own voice before the second word was out. “I won’t!”
By way of response a sob, small but clear, echoed in the empty hall behind him. It was that sob more than anything which unlocked the grief inside Carson, loosing a surge that threatened to overwhelm him. He felt his throat closing up even as he clenched his jaw and looked back over his shoulder.
“Go away,” he wanted to say. “Go aw. . .” Carson broke off, stunned. While he’d had his back turned the lad had moved to the door as was to be expected, but Rodney . . . Rodney was --
Gone.
Carson stared at the spot where he’d rested his friend. This time there was no sign of either the body or the spilling wires. The walls all around where as smooth as you’d wish. A shiver ran through Carson, chilling him to the bone. He wanted to scream. More than that, he wanted to run. His legs, however, seemed to be miles away from his control.
More ripples on the water. Carson sought out the boy who had withdrawn a mite from the door — quavering between staying and going to Carson, perhaps. He wore a Dodgers’ jersey, Carson noticed for the first time. He’d still need some years growing into it, though. The shirt reached well over his knees. Carson studied his little guide, inner turmoil receding like a wary predator.
You haven’t understood all, the small voice said, now slightly emboldened. Carson considered this. He forced himself to look back at the fatal light column, but Rodney was still gone. Almost as if the whole episode had been a bad dream. No, Carson thought. He’d felt Rodney, really felt the cool skin and lifeless hands. Rodney had been there and he had been dead. Yet what if . . .
Carson cast another glance at the boy, thinking. It was in that moment when another wail issued from — where? The Door, Carson realised. It had come from the door. More confusingly, the boy hadn’t sobbed after all, his lips had not even parted. Yet he had ducked his head on hearing the sound.
He could still head back. Or, the second option, he could in fact go on. Carson considered it for another moment. The truth, however, was simply that he’d gone too far already. There and then he was sobered enough to acknowledge that he was lost. Trying to retrace their steps on his own would only make things worse.
Carson made up his mind and started to walk. As the door behind the boy opened, he tried to loose the notion that he would regret his choice before the end.
Atlantis, 10:07 a.m.
Dec 23rd
Things were going too slow for John’s taste. They had passed Ford’s team once, went on to walk a bigger circle and still no trace of the missing doctor. So far they hadn’t got beyond the inhabited areas and John was itching to search the empty parts of the city. All his instincts told him that there they would find what they sought. Unfortunately his instincts didn’t tell him on which level or in which direction they should start. This was a job for Lassie, not him. He hated groping around in the dark. He needed a goal, a fixed spot that he could decide to steer for. Nothing as bad as flying blind. It was downright annoying.
At the moment, Peter Grodin was on the com, relating his progress. Which, apparently, was going down no better than John’s.
“Biometrical sensors?” John asked.
“Still scanning, but we can only go one parameter at a time. It also appears that the scanners are broken in some of the areas that have been flooded during the rise. Could be he’s there,” Grodin said then added: “Could be he isn’t.”
Fifty-fifty then, John thought dryly. Only not. “Keep looking.”
“Of course, Major.”
John had only just cut the connection when another voice crackled from his headset.
“Major Sheppard?”
Zelenka, John thought with a jolt of hope. “I’m here. Shoot.”
“We translated another source and it’s directly related to the ball.”
“Yes, so?” John said, trying to keep impatience from his voice.
He heard Dr. Zelenka say something in Czech, supposedly to someone else on the other end. Then a second of silence — all bad signs, in John’s opinion. At length Zelenka was back.
“Here, this source speaks of a central room . . . a ritual place for the meditation.”
“Meditation?”
“ Emendatio. Rozjímání. Meditation is close enough!”
“Sorry, go on.”
“It’s a round chamber, one door, no windows,” Zelenka continued. “Basically the text says, you go out the way you came in or you ascend. Not many options there.”
“Does it say where the room is?”
“According to Ancient quadrants, sector gamma zero four.”
“Where’s that?”
“We’ve no idea.”
Was it okay to scream? Probably not. “Great. Just great,” John grumbled, feeling more upbeat by the minute. “Anything else you’ve got?” Silence. John listened. And more silence.
“Doc?” John asked. “Your not-talking is no cause for comfort.”
“There is more,” Zelenka said and there was no mistaking the gloom in his voice. Go on, John urged mentally, out with it.
“We found a protocol of one such meditation,” Zelenka continued. “The person who carried the ball did not . . . complete the procedure very well.”
“He died?”
“Ah, no. She lived. But the protocol says her body came out . . . mangled.”
“Mangled?” John repeated, gooseflesh trickling down his arms. “Mangled how?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Ahead of him, Teyla rounded another corner and John followed, stepping into a long-stretched corridor. From the far end, he could see Ford and his team coming their way. Ford’s fist shot in the air. Zero sighting.
“No,” John said into his com. “I don’t.”
Atlantis, 7:03 a.m.
Dec 23rd
It was like time had frozen around and inside him, suspending all coherent thought. His awareness had shrunk to a narrow space that included only the white noise in his head and Teyla.
Unlike Rodney, she was warm, her body pliant in his arms, pulse fluttering under his fingertips. Carson cradled her face with one hand, resting her head carefully against his chest. Her hair felt smooth against his palm, the white displaying like snow against her old woman’s face. Only it wasn’t the face of a woman grown old in dignity. Lines ran deep around her mouth, her cheeks were fleshless and her brow furrowed like a hag’s. Pigment lesions covered her face, white specks on leathery skin. The worst thing was that her eyes, looking steadfastly at Carson from the sagging hollows, were still young. Young, alert, and full of pain.
She had begged him to help her with brittle words until her voice failed. He couldn’t, though. He couldn’t ever . . .
Carson was crying without being aware of it. His free hand reached up, grasping Teyla’s tattered shirt and trying to hold it together over the crude feeding mark. Teyla lifted her own hand, her drained face distorting with the effort. She grasped his fingers and squeezed. Her grip was like the claw of a bird - Carson could feel every bone of her small hand.
Please, her eyes said. Carson shook his head, clutching her shirt more firmly.
Please.
She let go of him then and closed her eyes. Carson fought, raging against the inevitable, knowing already he had lost. He broke. The bitter taste of bile rose in his throat while he lifted his hand to Teyla’s face. Even as his mind wailed he couldn’t, couldn’t, he forbid himself to stop. Faltering would be a cruelty Teyla didn’t deserve. Still his hand trembled as he covered her mouth and nose. He squeezed his eyes shut against the scream inside his head and pressed down his palm.
Teyla didn’t even struggle, she probably had not the strength to anyway. Her body only tensed once, then she sunk limp against his arm. Carson’s hand fell from her face and he grasped her shoulder, pulling her as close as he could. Let her go, he tried to tell himself. Let her go and it’s over. He had to repeat the words six times until they had any effect.
Carson placed a kiss on Teyla’s hair, then lowered her gently to the floor. As he looked up, his eyes fell on the boy. He was crouching on the floor, hands wrapped around his knees. It was the first time on their dreadful journey that he reacted in such a strong way. There even were tears clinging to the child’s dark lashes.
Beyond the ability to plan or care anymore, Carson reached out his hand. He wasn’t even surprised when the boy took it. He stood, pulling the lad with him. The child stepped gingerly around Teyla’s feet, but even when he was past her, he didn’t let go of Carson. Together they walked away from the woman who Carson had once heard singing to the children of her kin. Her’s had been a dark voice, soft but strong, soothing like the warmth of late sunlight.
Part of Carson knew that the chance for Teyla being drained by a Wraith inside the city was next to nothing, and it was only that part which kept him sane. If only remotely so.
Teyla had died down here and at the same time she hadn’t. Carson had stopped asking how. He was too husked out, too empty to pursue the truth. Because no matter how obvious it was that this place messed with reality, there had been nothing delusional in Teyla’s grip or the feel of her lips against his palm. She’d been no more or less real than young Aiden, sprawling on the floor in his own blood. Lying there one moment, gone the next. Carson proceeded on tired legs, not even turning to see if Teyla had disappeared. The boy shuffled along beside him.
“They scare me,” the child whispered softly. Carson thought he’d never understood anything as well as this. Images of the dead were stuck in his head, haunting him with details like the splatter of scarlet on Aiden’s cheek or the faintly purple tinge of skin beneath Rodney’s closed eyes. Yes, they would be scary. But even as he thought himself burnt out of emotion, Carson felt something inside him reach out for the boy. The uneasiness in the little -one’s voice and the fact that he’d spoken for the first time touched Carson when he thought he couldn’t be touched anymore. “You needn’t be frightened of her,” he said quietly. “She was a kind woman. The way she looked just there wasn’t who or like she was.”
“Not her,” the boy said, now surprising Carson after all. Perhaps he hadn’t caught the child’s drift after all Carson looked down at the head of mussed black hair, realising that the child might refer to something quite outside his own nightmare. As if on cue, the boy added a single word. “They.”
Carson looked up, just in time to see someone walk across the junction of the corridor. Carson started badly. Not so much because he’d seen another living person in the vaults, but because that person had no face.
The shock ran deep, rooting Carson to the spot. At last he dared to breathe, taking one step back and pulling the boy with him. As he did so, something slipped free of his trousers’ pocket and clanged to the floor. The sudden noise almost jerked a scream from Carson. He let go of the boy’s hand and shrunk back from whatever it was he had lost. The thing rolled ponderously toward the child and came to rest against his toes.
It was the Ancient globe.
Puzzled, Carson stared at the silver sphere. He had forgotten that he carried it, now its sight woke an indistinct suspicion. He bent down and picked the ball carefully off the floor.
When Radek had given him the globe, it had been cold. Now the metal felt almost lukewarm against Carson’s fingertips. He turned the ball, holding it into the dim light. There he saw that not only had the globe’s temperature changed, there was also a difference on its surface. A hair-fine line circled the ball’s complete circumference and glowed faintly blue. A notion formed in Carson’s head, a creeping conviction that grew with every second.
Is it you? he asked the ball, not expecting an answer but preparing for one all the same. When nothing happened, he cast a glance at his guide. The boy stood stock-still, eyeing the ball with a wary frown. That confirmed it for Carson.
“What does it do?” he asked aloud. Nothing. If the boy knew anything, he kept it to himself, but judging by his expression, he was as clueless as Carson.
Easy, Carson told himself. Try to think this through. How could the globe leave a trail of not-quite-real bodies? Leave them, it seemed, for Carson to find and vanish them after he’d got a close enough look?
They scare me. The boy’s sentence echoed in Carson’s memory. Of course. What had Carson seen since this nightmare of a progress began? Only events he dreaded to happen, the deaths of people he cared about. The realisation dropped like a stone into his stomach. Somehow, by means that escaped Carson, the Ancient globe reproduced his fears.
Carson clenched his fist around the ball. He’d known these gadgets were dangerous. He’d known all along.
A whole world of good it did you, he thought angrily. Indeed, he felt far from relieved even though he now discerned the cause of his troubles. For one thing, he didn’t know how to deactivate the globe. Secondly, it would do him no good even if he knew. What would happen, should he shut off the ball? Would he wake from a bad dream, lying on the floor outside his laboratory? Not likely. Carson rather suspected that he would remain in the bowel of the city, only then without any leads to guide him or even the boy.
The boy. Thinking of him brought Carson up short. If the globe manifested fears, then what the hell did it want with a child? Not to mention a child Carson had never seen before. Or at least he was ninety percent sure he hadn’t. So why? Why this boy?
They scare me. Wasn’t that what he’d said? How did that sort with the concept of the ball tapping into Carson’s mind? It made no sense, that’s how. Yes, there was the slim chance Carson had somehow, subconsciously conjured the boy. That possibility, however, felt wrong in many ways.
The boy must have picked up on Carson’s contemplation, or at least sensed something, because he addressed him hesitantly.
“I want to go,” he said, and, more reluctantly still: “Are you coming?”
Carson swayed on the brink of trying to deactivate the globe all the same. In the end he held back and asked a question he’d posed at the very beginning of their odyssey. Back then he was eager for an answer. Now he was almost afraid he might get one. “Where are we going?”
“Dunno,” the boy admitted and in that moment sounded like any small child who was lost and frightened. “I can’t find my room.”
There was no way Carson could turn from him now. Truly, if ever there had been a time when he could have abandoned the boy, it had come and gone. His tongue was heavy in his mouth, and panic was writhing at the back of his mind. Carson guessed that this must be how lemmings felt before they jumped off a cliff. He offered his hand once more.
“Then let’s look for it, shall we?” he asked and the boy slipped his fingers around his. Briefly Carson wondered if all this hadn’t been inevitable from the start. Walking, he slipped the globe back into his pocket.
Atlantis, 10:15 a.m.
Dec 23rd
Zelenka had hailed them on the com, calling them back to the medics’ laboratory. In other words, the place where Carson had last been seen. John didn’t waste time to ask for details on the radio. There must’ve been new leads, else the doc wouldn’t have broken up the search. All the same John had ordered Ford and Ferman to continue. Just in case.
They arrived at the lab before Zelenka was there.
“Do you think Dr. Zelenka has discovered the room he told us about?” Teyla asked.
“Could be,” John said. He’d just spotted something on one of the nooks in the wall. It was a blue mug - blink twice and you’d miss it. He walked over and picked it up. It was still full. Like the tea John had sipped this morning, this one was cold, too. Carson’s mug, no doubt. John sniffed the dark liquid, detecting again a whiff of strong single malt. John’s day would’ve been a lot better if the doctor had left more bredcrumbs like this. Zelenka picked that very moment to dash into the hallway. Two meds followed at his heels, both carrying red emergency kits. The fact Zelenka brought them along could either be a very good or a very bad sign. Zelenka’s brisk gait indicated just as much. The little Czech did not even stop at John’s side, he just continued down the hallway, aiming for the spot where the corridor forked. John took this as cue for his team and him to tag along.
“So you’ve got the room’s location?” John hazarded.
“No,” Zelenka returned, staring feverishly ahead. “But I think I figured how we can track Carson.”
They reached the crossroad and Zelenka stopped, peering down first the left branch, then the right. John knew they hadn’t searched either way — the med lab and these hallways where one level beneath their initial search area.
“See?” Zelenka said eventually, pointing down the left-hand corridor. John looked but didn’t glimpse anything out of the usual. The lights were dimmer down there, but other than that . . . nope.Nothing. He threw a glance back over his shoulder and caught Teyla’s eye. She gave a minute head-shake, indicating she saw nothing, either.
“Doctor,” John set out. “Could you perhaps . . .?”
“Doors,” Zelenka forestalled John’s question, righting his glasses that had come askew in his haste. “We can find him by following the doors.”
That didn’t explain much to John. Zelenka, turning around and realising his listeners had not yet caught up, began to elaborate.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “When the Ancients sank Atlantis and escaped to Earth, they shut down all systems that weren’t crucial to sustain the city. We know that, yes? Now, before they shut down everything, they closed all the doors.”
Finally John realised what Zelenka was on about. Of course. For the first time in their messed-up hide and seek imitation he felt halfways hopeful. This made sense, it really did!
“They created little cells all over the place,” Zelenka continued. “So if the shield failed in places, like we’ve seen it did, the doors would impede the flooding, buying Atlantis as much time as possible.” Zelenka’s hand went to his glasses again. “Like bulkheads on a ship, if you can imagine . . .”
“I know,” John cut him short. “I’ve seen Titanic, too.”
“You did?” Zelenka asked, looking surprised. John gave him a very dirty look and the scientist cringed. “Sorry.”
“That is all good and well,” Teyla cut in, stepping forward. “But how does it help us now?”
“The city’s doors stay close until we come in contact with them,” Zelenka explained. “We haven’t been to every part of the city, so down in the unexplored parts, the doors must still be closed. Except,” Zelenka lifted a finger and smiled, “for those Carson opened as he passed.”
“He’s left us a trail.” John nearly whistled.
“Exactly.”
Teyla nodded. “I see.” She switched on the lamp on her P90 and pointed it down the corridor. The light fell on an empty doorframe some couple of yards in the distance. Yeah, John decided. This topped the mug by far.
“You heard the man,” John told his team. “Let’s move. And make sure you don’t think at the doors.”
Teyla took the lead, Reynolds and the medics falling in line behind her. Zelenka, shifting his glasses once more for good measure, made as if to follow them.
“You don’t have to go, Doc,” John said, seeing how the other man’s eyes were fixed on the hall that grew ever darker the further it went.
“It was I gave him the ball,” Zelenka said simply. “I come.”
* * *
It turned out that Zelenka’s plan worked to a fault. They’d followed Carson’s trail into the desolate underworld of the city, crossing threshold after threshold. They were doing good. If you defined good in a new and unsettling sort of way. John studied a looming crossbeam that was traced with rust, feeling more than a little concerned. He had a hard time connecting these catacombs with the beauty of the Atlantis he knew. It almost felt like they’d crossed some event horizon without realising, now walking through an entirely different city.
Teyla was still at the head of the troop. Not because she knew these halls any better than John did, but because she was a darned good scout. And John, for that matter, was a darned bad one.
Zelenka stuck to John’s shoulder. He hadn’t talked much since they descended into the lower levels. His taciturnity made him unfamiliar company to John, who was used to Rodney’s unstoppable eloquence.
“What else did you find in the pads?” he asked on impulse, vaguely intending to distract Zelenka and himself on the side. It worked, too.
“Oh, plenty of confusing stuff,” Zelenka said. “A recipe for oil against aftermath headaches, some chants, something about a guide. One Shadow to lead you to the centre of your fear.” He shrugged. “It’s all a bit vague. I get the notion that ascension demands a little too much trouble for me to seek it.”
John felt inclined to agree, but didn’t say so. The search-light of his P90 skittered along the ceiling and down the walls of the corridor. The air was unpleasant down here. A while back they’d first noticed some kind of sewer smell that reminded John of the flooded drains in Pathumthani. The farther they went, the stronger it grew. Yet what set John even more on edge was the fact that Teyla seemed nervous. And if you noticed agitation in a woman like Teyla, you knew trouble was boiling.
Did he mention the cold? John lifted one hand from his weapon to briefly rub the other. It was cold. Although not crisp-cold, like it had been in McMurdo. No, that would have been inconvenient but mostly bearable. Down here, it was a moist cold that trickled into your collar and clung to your skin like dirty sweat.
“Did you know that the Chinese picture their hell as an endless maze of ice?” Zelenka mentioned out of the blue.
John winced. “And you thought I needed that information exactly why?”
“Sorry.”
Another beat of silence passed, then Zelenka started to speak again, sounding troubled.
“I really hope . . .” But John never heard what the little Czech hoped. The sentence was cut off right after it started.
“Major!” Reynolds called from ahead. John tensed, picking up his pace until he arrived at the Lieutenant’s side. He saw at once what was wrong. All the same he felt compelled to state the obvious.
“It’s closed,” he informed Zelenka who had stopped right next to it. The scientist was staring at the closed door with a line between his brows that did nothing to console John. “Any other doors?” he asked therefore.
Reynolds shook his head. “None.”
“We must have missed one,” Teyla said, voicing the possibility that John hated to consider. He experienced a sickening rush of resignation This dead-end could render the last hour of their search futile. Come to that, it could easily push them back to square one. .
“I don’t think so,” Zelenka said thoughtfully, making John prick up his ears.
“How’s that, Doc?” he asked.
Zelenka didn’t answer but placed a hand against the door.
“What is it?” John joked, trying to sound easy instead of hopeful. “Is there a disturbance in the force?”
Zelenka ignored him and pulled out his tablet computer instead. Two deft motions of his hand and the husk which covered the door’s control panel came loose. Zelenka linked his computer to the panel and studied the screen for a second and a half.
“I thought so,” he remarked at last.
“Come on, Dr. Z,” Reynolds intervened a split second before John could. “The suspense is killing us and all.”
“This door has been opened recently,” Zelenka explained, fingers hovering over his keyboard before typing a quick sequence of commands. “Five hours and four minutes ago, to be exact.”
“Well, can you open it?” John urged, eager to get going.
Zelenka stood aside, indicating the panel with a distracted flap of his hand. “You try.”
As he stepped up to the door, John thought that lately people felt awfully comfortable with bossing him around. And it really was conspicuous how Zelenka’s gestures mimicked that of a certain other physicist. Maybe, John mused, Zelenka was in truth a camouflaged clone. A mini-me McKay. An advanced rip. John stifled a grin. The thought was extremely amusing. A moment later, though, any notion of comedy fled John’s mind.
“It doesn’t work,” he announced after touching the panel a third time. John found he was honestly baffled by the refusal. Normally Atlantis answered him before he had barely formed a thought. This time he had to grope for a connection and even as he managed to hook on, the link remained as elusive as a coil of smoke.
Zelenka squinted at the panel for a second, then brushed it with his free hand. Nada.
“Is it broken?” Teyla asked. Zelenka repeated his head-shake.
“No, it’s locked, only how . . .” He bent close to his screen, pressing keys in quick succession. “I think I can work around the code,” he mumbled, pulling a crystal out of the panel and thrusting it in Reynold’s direction. “Hold this.”
John caught Reynold’s eyes, then turned to look at the door. Five hours, he thought with growing unease, was a long time down here.
Back to index
Chapter 3: 3/4
Atlantis, 07:47 a.m.
Dec 23rd
Carson clamped a hand over his mouth, fighting the urge to vomit. He kept away from the walls, avoiding the sticky spray of machine oil that covered every inch of alien steel. It seemed like they had escaped the latest horror, but Carson’s ears still rang with screams and tortured moans. It was like he’d hear it forever - one voice raging against death in a foreign language. That time they’d seen no-one, only shadows in the halls they hurried past. But there had been the clamour and the stench of oil on fire. Briefly it reeked as if flesh was burning, too. As they were pushing on aimlessly, Carson couldn’t shake the impression that they were crossing the courtyard to hell.
The boy was keeping it together in a way that was admirable and worrying at the same time. He’d put his hands over his ears, stumbling along as swiftly as he could. Only God knew what these experiences would do to such a wee mind.
Behind them, the shouting had died down. Carson slowed to a staggering halt and felt his knees give way at once. He was soaked in sweat and black dots flickered before his eyes. His hands were shaking, too, telegraphing the exhaustion of a body worn by lack of sleep and dehydration. He wiped at his face, his hand coming away slick and salty, then sunk sideways against the wall. He leaned his head against the cool metal, no longer able to care what he’d touch. The oil, however, seemed to be gone. Distantly he noticed that there was a new scent in the air, too. And much to his surprise, Carson found he knew it well. It was a mixture of disinfectant and cleaning liquid, a combination Carson had always thought of as dry smell. He’d lived with those sterile vapours for years on end but the familiarity did nothing to console him. If anything, it added to the confusion that shadowed him ever since the whole cirque du macabre began.
He didn’t have much time to analyse this new sensual assault, though.
Just as Carson thought they were given a moment of rest, a person entered the corridor from an adjoining chamber. It seemed to be a woman — as far as you could tell from her dehumanised appearance. Carson recognised a green polo-neck sweater, long, brown hair, but no face. Somehow the absence of eyes made the creature’s staring even worse.
Enough! Carson’s pleaded inside. He couldn’t take much more, he knew. The urge to flee, to run from this place so fast his feet would barely touch the ground — this urge grew stronger by the minute. A few more apparitions and he would run into closed doors so he’d see no more. There seemed no other escape; the ball wouldn’t shut off. By now Carson had tried.
A second faceless figure joined the first, lifting a hand to stroke an errant strand of hair back behind its ear. The presence of these chimeras, their reality-defying solidity, was utterly abhorrent. Looking at them made Carson queasy all over again. Where eyes or mouth or nose should be, there was only a smooth plain of creamy skin.
Carson shivered and grasped the boy’s shoulder, feeling him tremble likewise. They couldn’t go on. One way or another Carson needed to end this or it would end them. He had never been so sure about anything. In his despair, he went down on one knee and tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder. His other hand went to the pocket which held the Ancient globe.
“Look at me, lad,” he implored. “ Only at me.” Then he closed his eyes, concentrating harder than ever he had in his life. He plunged deep, digging into his memories until one stood out in overwhelming clarity. He held on to that one, focused every fibre of his being on it, building it up detail by detail.
Slowly but surely his pulse slowed down. He could even relax the tight control that kept his body terse. He breathed out.
When Carson sniffed the air carefully, the stench of ammonia was gone. It was replaced by a faint but sweet smell that carried a whiff of berries and cinnamon. Carson listened for a while, but no eerie sounds reached his ear. When he’d made sure that the sense of being watched was also gone, Carson opened his eyes.
The boy still stood in front of him, but the scenery above the child’s head had changed. The dark and dank confines of the Atlantean corridor had been converted into a wallpapered staircase. An strikingly old-fashioned staircase, no less. The railing was made of polished cherry-wood, the wallpaper was pastel-coloured and dotted with tiny violets. Carson experienced a wave of relief so strong that it washed everything else away. It left him drained, utterly wearied as the adrenaline rushed from his system, but Carson was grateful all the same.
By all evidence, you didn’t need red shoes after all.
Carson looked down and smiled as he saw the thick auburn carpet beneath him. He had hoped helplessly that his trick would work but he hadn’t expected it to work so well. They’d been transported into the entry hall of a small house. A very small house, as Carson knew very well. Everything was how he remembered him. Behind him he suspected the open door to a living room. There was a tall lamp next to the telephone table and the door to the cellar down the hall.
Just seeing the familiar surroundings, calmed Carson in a profound way. If he paid close attention, he could still sense the walking terrors lurking somewhere nearby. But for the moment, he was content to ignore them.
“That’s blackberry-pie we’re smelling,” Carson told the boy. “Do you like pie?”
The boy gave it a moment’s consideration, then answered: “Only if there’s cream.”
In Carson’s opinion, that was as sensible an answer as he’d ever heard. He reached out and ruffled the boys hair, grateful for this glimpse of normality in his battered state of mind. The boy grinned a little, looking as if he generously indulged Carson’s antics.
Somewhere down the hallway, noises rumbled like distant thunder. Carson made out a stifled moan, followed by a long and devastated keening. It set his teeth on edge.
The boy’s head had turned in direction of the sounds and his hands had once more clenched into fists. Carson was not sure how long the sanctuary he conjured would hold, but he had an inkling it wasn’t exactly made to last. What was more, Carson doubted he’d be able to pull the same hoax again. Even what little control he had right now was about to slip away. As of yet, his consciousness repulsed the idea of returning. Still there was a shapeless dread at the back of his mind, looming like darkness on a withered back porch. Carson turned away from it; if the fear overwhelmed him now it would devour him for good. Instead he concentrated on the boy. Carson would hate to expose the lad to the dead and the disfigured again. Especially since he didn’t and couldn’t know what they would face.
During the last stage of their nightmarish progress Carson had become more and more convinced that the fears they encountered weren’t entirely of his making. For one, the fourth and final body had been a complete stranger to him. Furthermore, despite the ugly and sad situations he’d experienced throughout his time as ward doctor and later, hospitals didn’t scare him. So why the scent of disinfectant, hanging in the wake of the faceless people? Carson thought he knew the answer. Some of the fears made no sense to him because they weren’t his anxieties at all. They belonged to the boy, his own lost guide. Though how that should be remained a mystery to Carson. It was him who’d activated the globe after all.
Or had he?
Carson frowned. A different notion crossed his mind. Was it possible that he was merely a bearer, channelling the residue of another subconscious? But why then the visions of Rodney, Aiden and Teyla? If Carson wasn’t responsible for them then someone else of their expedition must be. But who . . .
Carson stopped, baffled by his own stupidity. It had been staring him in the face all along and he, panicked and confused, had been too daft to see it. The globe, he realised, had never responded to him. Of course it hadn’t.
Carson contemplated the small person in front of him with new understanding. Now, safe from the terrors for the time being, the pieces finally clicked into place. Watching the boy, his mussed black hair and straight wee nose, Carson wondered how he could’ve missed it. Indeed, once you became aware of it, the resemblance was as clear as day.
“John.”
The boy pried his gaze away from the door down the hall and looked at Carson instead. The lad was clearly troubled, but made an impressive effort to hide it. Carson smiled and touched the child’s arm fleetingly. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “You don’t have to go there.”
The relief on the small face was plain, even though Carson saw that the boy didn’t quite trust the peace. This expression was now so familiar that Carson almost laughed.
“I think we’ve earned ourselves a giant piece of that pie,” he said instead with a wink. To his satisfaction he noticed that the child already looked less doubtful. Carson stood and led the boy around the staircase. “You know what,” he said, “you just sit down here and I’ll take care of that door.” He gently shoved the child down onto the steps. “If you’re bored, try to connect the violets on the wall into shapes. There’s a dragon on there somewhere.”
Intrigued, the boy turned to the wallpaper. Carson stepped away from him, but stopped one more time once he was behind the railing. Through the wooden poles he watched the lad, who already seemed to have forgotten that he was there. He touched one finger to a violet posy, at the same time rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his other hand.
Him. It was him they wanted. The roving terrors were tracking down the boy and in all likelihood, Carson only happened to stand in their way.
Well, Carson thought and moved away from the stairway, he was decided to stand in their way a little while longer.
Atlantis, 11:38 a.m.
Dec 23rd
John changed his mind. When Zelenka had gloriously broken the door’s code, he’d thought they would finally be close to their goal. That was an hour ago. Since then John had discarded every hope of a smooth progress. This was now the fourth closed pathway they encountered and each time it had grown harder to wrench them open. The third one would only open a crack. They had to squeeze through, handing their gear to those on the other side and scraping exposed skin. It did not lighten their moods.
Zelenka, to whom fell the task of rewiring the panels, seemed to take the doors’ refusal personall. His polite attitude crumbled with every crystal he had to switch. At the moment he was squatting next to the fourth door, levering a piece of covering metal from the wall and muttering derisively in Czech.
Reynolds waited at the other end of the hall, both medics hovering close. Apparently this kind of field-work wasn’t exactly their thing: They were both looking slightly green around the noses. Teyla’s taint, however, topped theirs by far.
John cast another careful look in her direction. He knew by now that she didn’t like people worrying about her, but her current condition made it hard not to be concerned. Her usual tan was replaced by a sickly pale complexion. Repeatedly he had watched her wipe sweat from her forehead.
A clatter of metal, followed by a string of foreign swearwords issued from the door. John decided to put a safe distance between him and Zelenka. He sidled up to Teyla, considered her need for privacy once more then threw courtesy to the wind.
“How are you?”
She continued to stare into the shadowed corners of the hall, but nevertheless she answered him.
“I feel nauseous.”
“Is it the air?” John asked. “You could take one of the medics and go back.”
Teyla shook her head briefly. “No.” John opened his mouth to argue against pride that could knock you out or worse, but she forestalled his speech, saying: “It is not the air.”
John frowned. “What then?”
Teyla lifted her chin and tilted her head to the side as though she were listening.
“There is a presence down here,” she said. “An energy. It is . . . unpleasant.”
For the second time that day John felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rise. Part of him wanted to ask what she meant, but another part, perhaps the clever part, dared not. Teyla continued all the same.
“When we had our summer camps in the mountains, sometimes there would be storms rolling toward us from the valleys. The air grew very heavy then, and crackled on the skin.” She paused, listening some more, it appeared. “It is like this down here,” she continued. “Only much worse. It goes right through me.”
By now, John sincerely wished she would stop talking. He had a hard time keeping things together without level-headed Teyla turning into a fair-day seer. It also didn’t help that he knew how she felt.
To a certain degree, John was susceptible to those vibes, too. He refused to analyse it, but something lingered down here that altered not only the pressure of the air but also reached for his mind in a way that made the spit in his mouth taste sour.
“I never would have thought that the Ancestors could create a place that felt so dark,” Teyla said softly. She looked back over her shoulder, where Zelenka was still fiddling with the door. As if on cue, the scientist kicked a piece of panelling across the floor.
“Zpropadene!”
John did need no translator to figure out what that meant.
Atlantis, 08:03 a.m.
Dec 23rd
The noises had returned and risen in volume. Down the hallway, sounds of grief seemed to gather and trickle along the corridor like loosened gravel. Voices groaned and ebbed away, a child was crying and a few times there were words Carson couldn’t make out. The air seemed to breathe with the weeping, reaching out and falling away in despair time and again. What was worse, the sounds seemed to live in the wall itself, opening a netherworld right behind the flowered wallpaper.
Carson stood outside the cellar, eyes fixed on the door’s worn wood and flaking paint. In his childhood, there had been a narrow stairway behind the threshold leading into a dark room that smelt of earth and potatoes. What awaited him now, he couldn’t guess.
His back still ached from the CPR he’d performed on Rodney and even such a simple movement as lifting his hand to the doorknob was painful. Yet it was more than the pain which slowed him down. Inside his chest, his heart was thrumming at an unsteady, hectic beat. The image of Teyla’s lifeless face flashed before his inner eye and for a split second she opened her eyes again, her gaze white and empty. Carson drew his hand back from the knob and his palm left a milky print on the brass. He tried to be calm, tried to be steadfast, but fear seemed to control every fibre of his body. The visions in his head were stronger than reason — as though his mind had already been in that cellar and now dreaded the abyss it had barely escaped the first time.
Carson slipped a hand into his pocket and his fingers closed around the Ancient globe. It was the source of all his trouble, yet it was also the last remaining proof of a truth more solid than this phantom hall. Driven by the forlorn hope that it would anchor him, Carson clung to the one thing that still belonged to a reality that was slipping away from him more and more.
He told himself that he had no alternative. Whatever worked from inside the globe wouldn’t stop until it had reached the end of its course. He could only choose to meet the apparitions before his refuge failed. For if he faltered . . . if he tried to hide . . . even in the darkness behind his hands he would feel the globe’s shadows sweep past him and fall upon their original prey. Would he hear when they found the boy? Carson was sure of it. No matter how hard he’d try to look away, he wouldn’t be spared a single sound. That way lay insanity. He didn’t think he could bear it. He couldn’t live with his own cowardice. Could he?
Carson closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe evenly, inhale one steady breath, exhale another.
He imagined the boy sitting on the stairs, drowsy head on his knees, and for a moment that image blended with the memory of a grown-up John Sheppard, sleeping on Carson’s couch. It also reminded him of another time and another nightly vigil. About a month ago, Sheppard had been fast asleep on an infirmary bed, his neck covered with black bruises where the bug had latched onto him. He’d dreamt badly that night and Carson had lingered for a while, waiting until the tension left the Major’s face and he breathed evenly.
Carson opened his eyes, fingers around the globe relaxing. He grasped the doorknob once more and this time turned it. There was no resistance. Carson gave the door a gentle push and it swung away from him, opening to a dim space.
As he’d expected, there was neither a stairway nor a cellar behind the door. Instead Carson walked into a square room with scorched walls and no windows. The only source of light was a crack in the sooty plaster and the sickly pale light which fell through there barely illuminated anything.
It showed enough, though.
At first, Carson didn’t know exactly what he saw, the picture was that alienating. But slowly and with merciless precision, his mind sorted out the shapes and combined them to a hideous whole that made Carson’s stomach turn. A few steps ahead of him, two faceless bodies lay on the floor, sprawling in a heap of limbs and torn clothing.
Carson recoiled from the sight and his back bumped against a solid barrier. He reached behind him, fingertips brushing scraps of charcoaled wallpaper, fumbling for a handle that wasn’t there anymore. The door was gone. Trapped in full view of this new monstrosity, Carson couldn’t help but stare.
Steady, a timid voice reminded him, you’ve seen worse in your time. Only he hadn’t. All things considered, he really hadn’t.
One blank face was turned in Carson’s direction, exposing a crude mask of agony. Where the lips should be was a gaping hollow. It looked as though a mouth had opened beneath the tight stretch of skin, vainly fighting for a scream that wouldn’t break free. Carson stared at the deformed bodies, petrified. His gaze travelled along twisted arms, showing him shredded sleeves and charred hands. Shuddering, Carson turned his face away.
I wish I hadn’t seen. I wish I hadn’t.
But it was too late to erase the pictures swamping him with illusions he really didn’t want to fathom. Like how such atrocities could grow in a wee lad whose chief delight seemed to be baseball and pie with cream. Carson remembered the boy’s quick agility, then recalled his troubled face and uneasy glances. It came to him that he would never be able to spare the child these nightmares, because one way or another, they were a future the boy had already lived.
What kind of life is that? Carson thought, deeply horrified. Unbidden, the manifestations of this night replayed in his head and he recoiled from the implications. All this loss, all this grief . . . Clenching his jaw, Carson forced himself to survey the room so he might focus on a strip of ground not covered with corpses. That was how he finally saw the man the child on the stairway would become.
It was not who he had expected.
When he embarked on the expedition, Carson knew nothing about Major Sheppard except he was the one who unlocked the command chair. The necessary proximity of daily life on Atlantis, however, had taught Carson a thing or two about the expedition’s head of military. For example, he got bored easily.
He harboured a love for popcorn that bordered on obsession.
He wasn’t keen on needles but would sooner run around naked than let his anxiety show.
For a man as skinny as he, he could polish off huge amounts of food.
When he was on mild sedatives, he sometimes hummed.
He also volunteered very little about his past and Carson respected that. It was a bit of a relief, actually, to have someone around who didn’t talk about home. Sometimes the memories everyone else was sharing threatened to suffocate Carson with a desperate longing for Earth.
John Sheppard was easy company which Carson had come to appreciate. The chess-games, the times he’d patched the other man up had all secured a sense of comfortable familiarity. He knew there was more to Major Sheppard than met the eye, but Carson believed he perceived enough. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t need to see more. Only in retrospective did he realise how right he’d been. In the end, nothing he’d learned or thought he’d learned about Sheppard prepared him for this. Here was a man he’d truly never met before.
The adult John cowered near the wall, face buried in his hands. Knuckles and wrists were covered with grease or soot and something darker that could be blood. He didn’t move, he didn’t even seem to breathe. In the room’s graceless twilight he’d become a broken, unguarded shape, unable to stir or even show his face.
Carson had wondered what might happen to a child exposed to such experiences — now he knew. Knew more than was, perhaps, wise to know about another person. All of a sudden, the thought of the horrors he’d seen didn’t scare Carson anymore. It only made him sad.
He moved a step forward, then hesitated. He had the instinctive feeling that unlike the boy, this John wasn’t to be touched. Not that touching would be a comfort in the first place. If roused, Sheppard would only have to face the gruesome scene before him. Carson didn’t blame the Major for looking away. If fears of this kind lived inside him, Carson doubted he would be able to build walls as strong as these.
Only they weren’t strong, not really. From what he’d seen so far, Carson decided they offered a deceptive safety at most, entrapping part of John Sheppard with all his nightmares. It also seemed more than likely that the enclosure did not only hoard anxieties, it was also a steady reminder of a larger threat outside. Prisons did not only lock things in, they also kept things out. Looking up, Carson sought out the fissure in the opposite wall. Even as he looked, more concrete came loose and bits of mortar crumbled to the ground. Disquiet seemed to spread from the opening. A rumble vibrated through the room until Carson felt a resounding hum in his body. It felt like a call, narrowing his attention to the breach that looked more and more like a pathway.
So this finally was the place he was supposed to find. It reminded him of something, something he had read or seen a long time ago.
(The eyes are not here . . .)
Air swirled around him in a cooling twist, grazing his cheeks and sweat-slickened temples. Carson paid no heed, transfixed by the hole in the barrier. Within the ragged frame of the fissure, he could see a strip of colour, faint purple and ice green.
(There are no eyes here . . .)
Carson unclenched his hands. Pain, short and fierce lanced through his palms but he paid no heed. Slowly, he walked across the room, careful not to touch any of the bodies, be they dead or /paralysed. He stopped at the fissure which was now broad enough to allow a grown man passage. Looking out, Carson placed a hand on the ragged edge to his left. More grout withered beneath his touch. Absently, he rubbed the matter to grains between his thumb and forefinger.
Before him lay a landscape confined by no walls. It was as much empty as it was sublime. Behind was the black, charred cavern of a room. Ahead were endless plains of gravel, rocky dunes and barren trees under a bruise-coloured sky. The view was fascinating even as it filled Carson with a slowly creeping dread. If he stepped out there, no benchmarks would guide him back to his own self or the rueful shelter of his reality. Out there was the centre of the Ancient globe and it was as vast as an entire universe.
( In this valley of dying stars . . . )
( In this hollow valley . . . )
Every part of Carson’s body felt numb and distant. Fatigue had caught up on him and made him slightly dizzy. Dimly Carson reflected that in this state he would simply stop thinking if he saw any more faceless people. Not that he expected to encounter them again. Something told him that out in the open, he wouldn’t be haunted by phantom shapes or dying friends. A desert of stones would reach from horizon to horizon and there would be nothing else. The plains he saw were desolate, devoid of life or memories. Caught in the open he might drown in the wind’s massive silence, dissolve from the inside, until nothing remained of him but the husk of a man. Loneliness could do that to you.
Carson understood that this was the last challenge. He also knew that he’d run out of strength and defences. What hope he had of escaping to his reality slipped through his fingers. He couldn’t even imagine waking up anymore. At that point, he was too exhausted to try. His hand fell away from the jagged wall and he stepped outside.
Gravel clicked beneath his shoes and the wind was almost welcoming.
( . . . This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms )*
*a/n: Lines taken from the fifth segment of T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men.
Back to index
Chapter 4: 4/4
Atlantis, 11:47 a.m.
Dec. 23rd
„That’s it.“ Zelenka moved back from the door. „You should be able to pull it open.“
John stepped forward, slinging his P90 back behind his shoulder.
„Here we go again,“ he muttered and wiped his palms on his pants. He slipped his fingertips into the gap between door-halves, feeling the sharp metal edge bite into his skin.
„On three,“ he told Reynolds, leaning slightly backward and putting all his weight on his right leg. „One, two —“
When the door swished open, it nearly pulled him off his feet. His hands slipped and only a quick and awkward stumble saved him from falling on his six. The entry gaped black before him.
„What the . . „ He skidded another two steps away from the door, bringing up his weapon. One glimpse told him Reynolds was already in position.
„Dr. Zelenka?“ John drawled.
The Czech answered at once, sounding flustered and deeply shaken. „I . . . I didn’t do anything!“
Teyla’s warm and calming voice joined in from behind John’s shoulder: „The door opened on its own accord.“
„Why?“ John asked, glanced at Zelenka. „Why now?“
The scientist shrugged helplessly.
John switched on the flashlight on his P90. The narrow ray barely pierced the darkness in front of him, but as he lowered the muzzle, the light struck a supine human shape further inside the room. A dark sleeve hid any glimpse of the person’s face, but there was no doubt regarding the identity. As the weapon’s light trailed along ruffled hair and a rumpled collar, a scrap of conversation flashed through John’s mind.
The protocol says her body came out . . . mangled.
Mangled? Mangled how?
Do you really want to know?
What waited for them in there, what would he see . . .
There was no use in guessing. John deliberately cleared his mind of any expectations. None of them were good anyway.
“Wait here,” he told the others, “I’ll make sure the coast is clear.” Securing the grip on his P90, he stepped over the threshold.
The room reacted immediately. Light sprung to life beneath John’s feet, shooting away from the tip of his shoe and across the floor in shallow grooves. Within seconds the room was radiant with an intricate pattern of Ancient symmetry. John’s eyes followed the fluorescent rills up the wall and along the ceiling, watching the turquoise light trickle along the ornaments like water. Finally he dropped his gaze to the motionless body lying in the middle of the room. They’d found their missing doctor at last.
John switched off his targeting light, jogged to the spot where Beckett lay and squatted down at his side. Casting another wary look around the room, he picked up Beckett’s wrist with his free hand. As he felt for a pulse, he sought out the doctor’s face. To his surprise, Beckett’s eyes were wide open. John flinched, for whatever looked out at him wasn’t Carson Beckett at all. No pupils, barely any whites . . . The eyes didn’t even have Beckett’s natural colour, instead they were glacier blue and pale. It looked almost as though the surrounding light pooled into Carson’s empty gaze. John felt an unpleasant shiver run down his spine.To avoid the other man’s unseeing stare, John focused on the wrist he was holding. It was then that he noticed blood between Beckett’s fingers and turned the hand a little. The palm revealed purpling crescents where the doctor’s finger nails had dug into skin. John winced at the sight and carefully placed the hand back on the floor. He was about to call for the medics when he became aware of a sparkle at the periphery of his vision. It was the silver sphere he’d seen in Carson’s office, the Ancient globe. It lay an arm’s length from Beckett’s shoulder, looking exactly the way John remembered it, the smooth surface unblemished.
John reached out with the vague notion of pocketing the thing. Better not having it lie around like that. His fingertips had not even touched the globe when Beckett’s hand suddenly shot forward and clamped around his wrist in a vise-like grip. Startled, John nearly lost his balance. For a second the bright blue eyes seemed eerily aware, transfixing John like a pinned butterfly, then Beckett blinked and the unnatural gleam was gone. The doctor’s own eyes looked back at John, darkened with exhaustion.
His lips parted, half-formed a word, but no sound came out. John watched as Beckett let go of him and stretched out his hand for the globe instead. His fingers closed around the device, then pulled it close to his chest, hiding the silver gleam behind his sleeve. For another moment John remained unmoving, petrified by the strange scene he’d just witnessed. Then the need for urgency rushed back into his head.
„Clear!“ he called back over his shoulder. „Bring the stretcher!“
As he turned back, Beckett had closed his eyes. Whatever supernatural vibe had possessed him, it seemed gone now. What remained was plain human body, utterly depleted of strength. The blue-black stubble on Beckett’s chin and cheeks seemed more pronounced, shadows darkened the skin beneath his eyes and the lips seemed cracked from dehydration. He looked aged, frail somehow.
Throughout the past months John had been content to believe that Beckett was one of the few fix points on their expedition. He was the presence you went to and woke to after you’d escaped death by the skin of your teeth. The doctor was safe company, neutral ground. John didn’t have to see the reflection of a culling beam or Gaul’s death in Beckett’s eyes. Atlantis, this galaxy, had not reached into the Scotsman yet. Apart from the inevitable signs of fatigue, he’d remained untouched.
John looked at Beckett’s ashen, haggard face. That’s what you got for your illusions.
John reached out to assure himself once more of the doctor’s pulse. It was still there. The man had only blacked out. The next second, the medics were there, urging him unceremoniously out of the way.
John slowly rose to his feet and retreated. As the medics unfolded the stretcher on the ground, John’s gaze wandered once more over the walls and their symmetrical, glowing veins. The hazy feeling of unease wouldn’t leave him. John couldn’t pin it down, but something inside this room made him feel downright uncomfortable. His instincts didn’t warn him of any imminent danger, but they were alert all the same. Almost as though they sensed an invisible watcher who was looking the other way just now. John tested that notion. It seemed valid. The presence he’d felt outside, the shadow that had troubled Teyla, seemed to be asleep.
John looked down at his wrist and the crimson prints Beckett’s grip had left there. Something had been going on, he was sure of that. The quiet of the room was deceptive; some immense being had moved inside here and had just now returned into hibernation. John couldn’t shake the impression that he had arrived a moment too late. Or was he lucky to not have come any sooner?
Deep down he felt like something had brushed past him, looked for him, and only missed him by an inch.
The Stone Desert
The tree looked almost like a human being, petrified into black wood. Carson stared at holes in the bark that could have crawled out of a Munch painting. Gravel-dust was on his shoes and trousers. Pebbles rolled past him on the ground, rattling like tiny bird bones. Up ahead, the purple sky was stained yellow along the horizon. It seemed like he had walked for an eternity, at the same time it felt like he hadn’t moved at all. Cold air scythed across the plains and perfused his skin. Somewhere along the way he’d lost the border between his own beliefs and the emptiness of this desert. Now the wind loosened bits of his self and carried them away like sand from northern beaches.
Carson sunk to his knees, bowed down by the bleak truths of this place. Here was a landscape of abandonment, born of the knowledge that everyone you loved was eventually bound to leave. Perhaps, if you thought about it, they were never really with you at all.
Confused, Carson tried to tell himself that this wasn’t what he believed at all. He found that his own voice was getting weaker, turning into little more than a distant echo. It was the wind, carrying a strange contagion and he was fully exposed to it. He lay down on the ground, fingers touching the chalky gravel. In the arid cold, his face grew numb and dry. He tasted the stony dust in his mouth now, felt it cling to his cheek and the side of his hand.
No ties. No bounds. No one to remember his name.
Give into it.
Be devoured by the quiet. Dissolve.
Carson stopped seeing. The stone desert was still around him, but he closed himself off, guarding the small remaining part of his consciousness. He retreated deep into his mind, where he found a spider’s thread of identity, leading him back to a string of past moments.
Carson recalled one night on leave, when he’d gone off to McMurdo to grab a few beers with Radek and Rodney. The pub had been a gritty little place with a dartboard and a stuffed polar bear as its only decoration. They’d left way past midnight, Radek and him hauling their mate out of the bar while a very drunk Rodney explained to them why the WARP engine would never work in real life.
He thought of spring back home and working his mum’s patch of a garden. He remembered cleaning away dead ivy from the brick wall that enclosed their backyard while his mother planted pansies. by the kitchen-door. After long weeks at the hospital, he welcomed the scent of new green, the moist soil on his hands and the sound of his mother, singing along with Tony Christy on the radio.
There was the memory of some dinner party with a bunch of pompous military chaps and their wives. Elizabeth had been there, too, looking gorgeous in a sleeveless silk top. They’d stood apart from the other guests for a while, bristling with stifled laughter over their champagne flutes. Elizabeth’s connections and knack for listening usually put a wealth of gossip at her hands. Sometimes she didn’t mind to share.
Carson drifted deeper into unfolding recollections, gathering image after image. He set his memories around him like cornerstones until he was so far removed from the outside that its influence didn’t matter any more. He’d known and cared for many people in his time. They were all back with him now. When darkness came — sleep or death, he didn’t know — he comforted himself with the thought that he need not go alone.
Atlantis, 6:35 p.m.
Dec. 24th
He surfaced from a vast grey void to the soft sound of music. Somewhere in the distance, a piano was playing, accompanied by the mellow thump of a double bass.
Carson opened his eyes to blurred shapes, light and shadow running into each other like water-colours. He blinked once and his vision cleared, showing him the familiar interior of his infirmary. The desk beside him was unoccupied, the curtain pulled back and the next cot empty. Carson’s eyes strayed further, looking for the source of the music.
Carson shifted on his bed, fingers flexing. He frowned in confusion as his fingertips brushed rough cloth. Squinting down, he saw his hands were wrapped in white bandages. On his left hands, just above the gauze, two tiny dots marked the place where a drip had been attached.
He swallowed, feeling his dry throat work and tasting stale saliva in his mouth. Moving gingerly with the weight of a good night’s rest still mulling his mind, Carson turned his head to the other side. Someone had transferred the candle from his office to his bedside-table. It was lit, too, glowing steadily and chasing long shadows up the wall. The small flame flickered as the person on the other side turned a page in his book.
John Sheppard sat next to Carson’s bed, legs stretched on a second chair, immersed in a dog-eared paperback. One glance at the jacket told Carson that the Major was giving the Ecco a second try. A small line had formed between the other man’s brows, giving his face a rare look of absorption. He’d put on casual wear, a black shirt without insignia and some washed-out denims. Reading with abandon, the Major looked completely at ease, unaware of his surroundings or the shadows looming beyond the candle’s gleam.
Watching Sheppard, the last trace of sleep fell from Carson and the weight of memory descended on him like a heavy blanket. The quiet of the desert was still inside him, reaching out from a door in his mind and spreading the cold of the plains. Carson stroked the bed’s sheet with his fingertips, feeling the texture of fine linen. He’d woken from the nightmare, alive and sane it seemed, but no matter how cautiously he tried, he could feel no elation. For the moment he only knew that while he might have escaped the wasteland, part of it was now anchored in his very being. It was a sobering realisation.
John — Major Sheppard — became aware of him then. Lowering the book, he turned his head to meet Carson’s gaze. The look of rapt concentration vanished at once and the Major’s face smoothed into its usual tranquility.
„Found out who did it yet?“ Carson asked, carefully testing the strength of his own voice.
„I’ll make a wild guess and say it wasn’t the butler.“ Slipping a piece of paper between the pages, Sheppard closed the book. „How’re you feeling?“ he asked.
„Rested.“
„You should be,“ another voice cut in from the left side of the bed. „You slept for thirty-one hours straight.“
Carson turned to see that Max Goldstein had interrupted his dance and approached the bedside. The quiet music in the background was turned off and Louise was gone for the moment. „Up at last I see,“ Max said, „You had us worried there for a while.“
Before Carson could come up with an adequate reply, Max felt for his pulse and flashed a penlight in his eyes. Carson half welcomed the procedure because it meant he didn’t have to talk just yet. Speaking — conversation — felt strange. Louise returned and brought a glass of water. Carson took it with heartfelt thanks and drank thirstily.
„Any headache?“ Max asked, pocketing his penlight.
„No.“
„Other complaints?“
„No,“ Carson said, then added as reluctant afterthought: „The shoulders ache a little.“
His muscles were quite sore, actually. The lingering tension in his neck told him he shouldn’t move excessively. His immobility along with the bandages around his hands made him feel more than a little self-conscious. He wasn’t used to this reversal of positions. Max blessedly didn’t show whether or not he was aware of Carson’s discomfort.
„I’ve been told the Ancient device might’ve tampered with your head a bit,“ he said. „Let’s see if everything is still in place.“ He strapped a blood pressure cuff around Carson’s arm and took out his stethoscope. „You know your name?“
„Carson Beckett.“
„Remember where you are?“
„Atlantis, Pegasus Galaxy.“
„Favourite football club?“
Carson grinned. „ Celtic Glasgow, as you know damn well.“
Max snorted dismissively. „Well, apart from a case of serious bad taste,“ he announced with a glance at the cuff’s display, „you seem to be fit as a fiddle. I advise you to take it easy for a while, though.“ He took off the cuff and placed it on the nearby desk. „No work for the next two days at least. I can take care of things until you’re up on your feet again. Now, if you’ll excuse me,“ he stepped back and put the stethoscope back in his coat’s pocket. „I owe a lady a dance.“
„Do I know the woman?“ Louise returned, gave Carson’s hand a squeeze and stood. Unfazed, Goldstein offered her his arm. Louise tipped Carson a wink, joined Goldstein and walked away with him.
Carson sank back into the pillow. Despite feeling awkward in the role of a patient, he was quite fine with the prospect of lying in bed a little while longer. The sheets were incredibly soft and comfortable. A huge pillow might be nothing extraordinary in other places — it seemed like unknown luxury here. Carson turned back to Sheppard who’d been quiet throughout the whole examination.
„What happened?“ Carson asked, indicating his punctured and bandaged left hand
„You had a little clash with Ancient technology,“ Sheppard answered. „Again.“
Carson sighed. „Somehow, ‘I told you so’ doesn’t even come close.“
Sheppard’s grin seemed genuinely chagrined. „We traced you to one of the rooms at the bottom of the city,“ he told Carson. „You were unconscious when we found you. Seemed like you were still under the influence of the globe.“
The globe. Carson’s hands clenched in a spasm, firing pain through his palms. „Where is it?“
„Dr. Zelenka took care of it,“ Sheppard answered. He must’ve seen something on Carson’s face, since he was in a rather uncharacteristic hurry to add: „He was very careful this time. Anyway, turns out the globe is now depleted for good.“ A new expression appeared on the Major’s face as he watched Carson with seemingly casual interest. Carson knew what would come next and braced himself. Questions about what he’d seen, what he’d done . . . he already heard them in his head but had no idea what he could possibly answer. Yet Sheppard took his time and before he asked anything, they got company.
The main door opened and Aiden Ford walked into the infirmary, carrying a tray on legs. Teyla followed a short distance behind him, holding a steaming mug in her hands.
„Good to see you awake, Doc,“ Ford offered with a grin. Carson sat up gingerly and Ford placed the tray across his lap. Looking down, a single thought formed in Carson’s head: Food. There was a small bowl with what looked like whipped cream, apple sauce, three sandwiches piled on a plate and a wee metallic pitcher filled with milk. Carson realised he was starving.
Chuckling, Ford retreated. „Hey,“ he added, „Merry Christmas.“
„Christmas,“ Carson repeated. He’d completely forgotten.
Teyla stepped forward, carefully balancing the mug onto the tray.
„Major Sheppard told us you like a strong tea,“ she explained. „We put in two bags of herbs. I hope it will suit you.“
Carson looked at the pitch black liquid and suppressed a grin. It was true, he appreciated a strong tea. But two bags of the English blend in one mug was overkill. This tea would be bitter enough to murder every existent taste-bud in his mouth. Carson secretly decided to add a lot of milk when no-one was watching.
„That’s lovely, dear,“ he told Teyla. „Thank you.“
She smiled and Carson felt a wave of strange emotions wash through him. He would’ve liked to reach out and take her hand, feel its warmth and assure himself that this was real. His throat constricted painfully as he was looking from Teyla to Aiden Ford. For a brief, fierce moment he wished they would go away. The sight of them made him only more keenly aware of how it had felt to lose them. Even what gratitude and relief he felt was too strong. He couldn’t tell what scared him more right now: the numb solitude of the desert or this confused intensity of hope and apprehension. It was enough to make him feel trapped in his own body. Carson stroked the linen beneath his thumb again, took a secret breath and looked down at the tray. This wasn’t his conflict, he told himself. It wasn’t how he thought at all. It never had been. It never should be.
The moment passed, but once it did, Carson’s appetite was gone as well.
„Come on, Doc,“ Aiden urged. „Dig in.“
Carson picked up one corner of a sandwich. He caught a glimpse of Sheppard watching him and ignored it stoically. He took a half-hearted bite when the infirmary door opened a second time. Rodney and Radek walked in, the latter caring a plate laden with what looked like several pieces of saffron-coloured, fist-sized cauliflower.
„We come bearing muffins,“ Rodney said, clasping his hands behind his back and looking fondly at the pile of sweet snacks. Ford, who was closest, immediately grabbed one of the muffins.
„You have the manners of a wolverine,“ Rodney remarked with indignation, took the plate from Radek and turned it out of Aiden’s reach.
„Look who’s talking,“ John cut in pleasantly, took a muffin and offered a second one to Teyla.
„Go on, mock, I don’t care,“ Rodney declared and sat both himself and the tray onto the neighbouring bed. Carson caught Radek’s gaze who, in turn, looked quickly at the floor and pushed his glasses up his nose. Carson frowned, then realised what was going on.
„My Gran used to make great lemon muffins,“ Ford said, munching away happily. „Real sweet, with frosting about three inches high.“
Rodney, who’d been about to tackle his own muffin, hesitated, then glared alternately at Ford and the suspicious food in his own hand.
„These are almond muffins,“ Radek ventured. „Or something like almond. No citrus.“
Apparently, Rodney wasn’t ready to gamble his life merely on Radek’s assurance. He nibbled carefully at the muffin’s crust, sniffed it, turned it and apparently waited for it to jump into his face and bite. Radek cast a sheepish glance in Carson’s direction and Carson on his part offered a smile. The relief that flashed over the scientist’s face soothed some of Carson’s own tension. He picked up the sandwich again.
„So, Carson,“ Rodney spoke up, „I see you decided to stay with us. How very loyal of you not to ascend.“
„Ascend?“ Carson repeated.
„What?“ Rodney flared. „Has nobody told him yet?“
„Apparently the globe was a device for perfunctory meditation,“ Radek explained. „The Ancients used it to prepare themselves for Ascension. It’s supposed to work as a cleansing of fears. Very spiritual.“
Spiritual. Inside, Carson shuddered with revulsion. To imagine that the Ancients invented that device, used it on purpose, knowing exactly what it did . . .
„It is a remarkable invention,“ Rodney said. „I always thought that neural projection was more fiction than science. But think of the possibilities! If we understood the technology we could design our own holo-deck, have it depict everything we imagine.“ He turned to Carson, eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. „Was it like a movie? Or more holographic?“
It was Teyla who reacted first. „I do not think Dr. Beckett should relate his experience in front of us all,“ she said. „The visions he had are private.“
„Well, yes, of course,“ Rodney admitted eagerly. „But for the cause of science . . .“
„Rodney,“ Carson interrupted, „I’d rather not tell just yet, if it’s all the same to you.“
„Oh. Oh, yes,“ Rodney amended, giving Carson an uneasy look. „I mean, certainly, you don’t have to.“
A beat of embarrassed silence followed and Carson began to feel truly miserable. For heaven’s sake. It wasn’t his nature to wall people out. But how could he tell them that he didn’t ascend because the fears he cleaned out weren’t his own?
„The globe is depleted anyway,“ Radek said eventually. „And we didn’t find another one. There’s no practical use in the information.“
„Unless there is a way to use the technology as weapon,“ Sheppard threw in.
Crush it, Carson wanted to yell. Melt it down. Throw it into the ocean. And that would barely be enough.
„No,“ he said quietly. „No, there’s not.“
He was well aware that Sheppard looked at him and this time, he returned the gaze. Carson realised that he dreaded the moment when he had to reveal all that had happened. He’d spared Sheppard a confrontation of his fears. Would it do less harm to show him another had faced them instead? That a stranger had seen what Sheppard kept so deep inside that he might not even know its true face? How would it be for him, to be stripped of his nonchalance, his guard and dignity?
Carson scrutinised Sheppard thoughtfully. As he did, the Major’s forehead wrinkled into a small, speculative frown.
Let it go, lad, Carson wanted to tell the other man and at the same time, made up his mind.
„Seriously, Doc,“ Ford remarked with a nod at the sandwiches. „Are you just gonna stare at them, or what?“
„For your information,“ Rodney cut in, „most people don’t just wolf down every bit of food that comes their way.“
„Yeah, I guess that makes you a rare breed,“ Ford quipped with a smirk.
It was the kind of challenge Rodney couldn’t pass. While he and Ford engaged in wordy crossfire, Carson turned his attention back to Sheppard. The Major did no longer watch him, instead he was looking at his muffin, not eating it, but rotating it wistfully in his hand. Carson believed he saw a glimpse of regret in the Major’s eyes. Wordlessly, he picked up the bowl of whipped cream and held it out. Sheppard raised his brows, evidently surprised. Carson shoved the bowl into his free hand. With a grin he seemed unable to suppress, Sheppard broke a crumb from his muffin and dipped it into the cream. For a moment the resemblance to his childhood self was so strong that Carson had to smile. He wondered what had become of the Dodgers jersey.
In the end, Carson decided to keep the truth to himself. He wouldn’t drag the Major’s demons into glaring daylight. He wouldn’t expose him, not even to himself. Given time, he might find other ways to help Sheppard. Make him see, perhaps, that walls weren’t always necessary. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to rid the Major of his fears. That was impossible and not healthy anyway, no matter what the Ancients might’ve thought. But there was at least one anxiety that Sheppard could do without. It was a fear Carson didn’t share, a difference which had most likely saved him. Carson firmly believed that loneliness wasn’t a state of being. It was a frame of mind. You could feel lonely inside a crowd. Or you could know you belonged no matter what distance parted you from the ones you cared about.
Maybe he could show John that. In a roundabout way.
Or then again . . . Carson considered the circle of his visitors, musing. Maybe John was already learning.
Rodney had broken off his exchange with Ford, attention caught by the bowl in Sheppard’s hand.
„Is that whipped cream?“ he asked, sounding awed.
„Yep.“ Sheppard used the last crumb of muffin to scoop up a minor mountain of cream. Then he calmly turned to Ford, offering him the half-empty bowl. „You want some?“
„Sure,“ Ford returned. „I’ll take my time, though. Wouldn’t want to wolf it down.“
„This is so first grade,“ Rodney remarked, narrowing his eyes at them.
Leaving the men to their banter, Carson settled back against his pillow and closed his eyes for a second. He found that the apparitions he’d endured were still present, but at last he could feel them retreat a bit and loose some colour. It would take more distance to make things right, but for now he could believe the worst was over.
Someone touched his wrist. When he opened his eyes, Teyla was beside him, looking worried.
„Are we wearying you?“ she asked softly.
Carson chuckled. For the first time since he’d woken, he felt completely himself. He took her hand, held it briefly and smiled at her.
„No, love,“ he said. „Not at all.
Atlantis, 7:27 p.m.
Jan. 3rd
Carson cleared away the files from his desk, stowing disks and print-outs in the cabinet. For once, he was done early with his paperwork and no patients waited in the ward. It seemed like his Christmas wish had come true after all, if a little belatedly.
He chanced a glimpse at his watch. Still two hours until his appointment with Dr. Heightmeyer. Enough time to see what the kitchen had in store today. Maybe he’d take a hot shower, too. Spoil himself.
Slowly but surely, everything was settling back to normal. He’d stopped seeing moving shadows in the dark. He could open doors without his whole body tensing.
So far, he’d had two sessions with Dr. Heightmeyer, which had helped. He still had nightmares, mostly about Teyla and what he’d done for her. But talking about her, Rodney and Aiden made coping with it easier. Carson also trusted that whatever he said within the psychiatrist’s office, stayed there. The assurance allowed him to voice some anxieties which would’ve embarrassed him otherwise. He never mentioned the desert, however, or the faceless people. Those secrets weren’t his to share.
Carson closed his cabinet with a reminiscent little smile. Sometimes when he was in one room with Major Sheppard he remembered the boy the Major had been. Sometimes he wondered what the lad’s story was. Sometimes he almost asked the grown-up John.
Someone cleared his throat and Carson turned around. Speak of the devil, he thought, spotting John Sheppard in his doorway.
„Major,“ he greeted. „Hello, come in.“
Sheppard ambled into the room, holding up the familiar paperback.
„I came to return your book,“ he said. „Got any more of these?“
„I’m afraid not,“ Carson replied. „But Peter has a nice stack of Noah Gordon. You might want to try these.“
„Yeah, I might.“
Carson opened a drawer, put away the paperback and took out the small travel-chessboard. He held it up so the Major could see it. „Have a seat?“
Sheppard walked over and pulled up a chair. „In broad daylight?“ he asked, mouth quirking. „I never knew you were that fearless.“
„Well, I try not to boast.“
They began to set out the chessmen, Carson’s side dark, Sheppard’s light as usual.
„So how’s life in the suburbs?“ Carson asked, moving a pawn.
„Peaceful,“ John returned and mirrored Carson’s move. „Quiet.“
„In other words . . .“
„Boring.“
Carson smiled. „What a rare constitution.“
„Tell me about it,“ John said. „Hey, are you going for a Portuguese opening?“
It was exactly what Carson had had in mind. He really had to work on his subtlety.
„Neat,“ John acknowledged. „One of these days I’ll show you the Elephant Gambit. Rodney’s got the old tactics down to a pinch, but he isn’t up to date with the modern stuff.“
The words were barely out of his mouth when the door to Carson’s office slid open and Rodney himself strode into the room.
„Carson! I was wondering if you could . . .“
That was about as far as he got before his eyes caught up with his mouth. He stopped mid-stride, perhaps surprised to find Sheppard here, then he saw the chessboard and an expression of jaw-dropping comprehension dawned on his face.
Carson fought down a laugh that he knew he wouldn’t be able to suppress for long. On Rodney’s sudden entry, Major Sheppard had ducked his head. Now he slid back into his chair and sported a grin that showed just how much he enjoyed himself.
Rodney’s eyes widened, his index finger rose and stabbed the air in Sheppard’s direction.
„You!“
fin
_________________________________
beta by eretria & auburnnothenna
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