In the mud at his feet glistened a small shard of metal that must have broken off from some piece of the ruined equipment that littered the place. He picked it up, rose, and wandered over to that desk-workstation?-he'd found earlier. Slowly, deliberately, and partly to make sure that he wouldn't forget it again, he began scratching letters into the weather-pitted surface:
Maros.
No. That was wrong. What was he thinking?
He scratched it out, started again.
Dr Meredith Rodney McKay.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Charybdis +32 to Charybdis -4441
he jumper's rear hatch opened, and Major John Sheppard climbed up the ramp, dumped his crutches on a bench in the aft compartment-good riddance-and limped forward to drop into the pilot's seat, feeling whole for the first time in weeks. Who needed two good legs, if you could fly? He gave a small grin, flexed his fingers and closed them around the stick, trying not to think of how it'd felt the last time he'd done that, three weeks ago.
The systems, all nominal, came online without a hitch. Moments later he hovered above the jumper bay door, watched it open on the HUD, and eased the craft down into the control center and in front of the Stargate. Teyla stood near the top of the stairs. He doubted she'd return to the surface. They hadn't talked about it, but he couldn't shake the certainty that she'd remain in Atlantis. It had become her home, too.
His gaze settled on the onboard dialing panel. Rodney probably could have given him the exact number of possible combinations, though after the first million you might as well stop counting. Besides, Rodney wasn't here. For all John knew, some version of Rodney was lying back there among all the other bodies, and he could only hope that the original was still alive. That all the originals were still alive.
If Teyla was right-and John figured that was as likely as just about anything else-then it wouldn't really matter what address he dialed; the gate system would attempt to reassemble the fragmented matrices and take him wherever the original was. Even if she was wrong and it didn't work, at least he wouldn't have to worry about running into the Wraith. The Pegasus galaxy might be dying, but it was one hundred percent Wraith-free. Go, Ikaros!
"Here's to you, Teyla." He punched in the coordinates for Athos again.
Then he held his breath, again taking in the scale of destruction in the control center. Whatever had happened here, the devastation was worse than it had been after the Wraith had laid siege on Atlantis.
One by one the chevrons engaged, and then the event horizon blasted toward him, vaporizing the rest of the debris that had half blocked the gate.
"Okay.. .11
With a deep breath, he nudged the jumper forward and into the wormhole. The freezing flash of disorientation he'd come to expect as a given of wormhole travel escalated to the power of ten, and a last conscious thought screamed that there had to be a malfunction. Then awareness snapped to black, leaving his panic to explode the second he emerged on the other side. Except, whatever scenario he'd pictured, it wasn't this. He instantly nursed a bizarre mental image of Jumper One being flipped over, shaken around a bit, and spat back out in the direction where it'd come from. Which wasn't how it worked. Wormholes were supposed to be strictly one way. Apparently this one hadn't read the manual.
To the best of his knowledge, he'd managed an all-time first; he'd gated from Atlantis to Atlantis.
But eventually facts percolated through; unless somebody had done a record-breaking cleanup job, this wasn't the Atlantis he had left. It was pristine by comparison. As a matter of fact, the control center almost looked as it had when the expedition first arrived; completely deserted and still, dark, consoles and equipment covered with dustsheets. Also, it definitely had that uncanny, slightly muted underwater feel to it. Above, the hangar doors opened, as if extending an invitation. Fine. For the time being, John shelved an inordinate number of questions and, with practiced ease, maneuvered the craft up into the jumper bay.
"What the hell?"
It wasn't so much finding his accustomed parking space taken up by Jumper One Mark II. It was the decor, if that's what you could call it. Somebody had gutted the jumpers' crystal banks, smashed the crystals, and scattered the remains on the floor. The result looked like an explosion in a glass factory, and it couldn't possibly have been accidental. Whoever had done this must have intended to disable every single jumper in the bay-and they'd succeeded spectacularly.
John felt a nasty little chill slither up his spine, engaged the cloaking device, and nudged his craft into the farthest corner of the hangar, mind racing and tactical instincts kicking in with a vengeance. Bad news: he was completely unarmed. Every shred of gear he'd had lay at the bottom of an other-dimensional version of the Lantean Ocean. Good news: from what he'd seen so far, the rampage had been confined to the jumpers, meaning there was a chance that he could pick up what he needed from the small armory by the hangar door. The trick would be getting there.
Then again, maybe not.
If anyone were actually manning the city, incoming gate traffic should have created a slightly stronger response than it had just now, namely zip. Of course, there always was the possibility that they had set a trap and were lying in wait for him. No way of telling for sure without a life-signs detector. He mechanically reached toward the compartment that should have held the device and came up empty. Somebody had removed it. Meaning that the nearest life-signs detector probably could be found-
"In the armory," he grunted in resignation. "And it's not gonna walk over here."
He pushed himself out of the chair, wincing at a stab of pain. The bones had knitted, but the leg was wrecked all the same. Carson Beckett might have been able to fix it, but not Teyla with the means she'd had at hand. She'd barely managed to save his life. Shuffling into the rear compartment, he scowled at the crutches. Teyla had insisted he keep using them, but unless he found occasion to hit somebody over the head with them, they'd only get in the way. That aside, he was sick to death of the things.
The hatch slid open on the chaos in the bay. All over the floor, crystal shards glittered like freshly fallen snow, and the hangar was quiet enough to sustain the illusion. For long moments he stood on the ramp, listening. The stillness remained unbroken, no furtive shuffles from men in hiding, no soft intakes of breath, no accidental clink of weapons. He was alone.
Which didn't change the fact that the distance to the armory and the exit door seemed like a mile.
Too bad, John. Standing here, wanting a skateboard won't shorten it.
A skateboard would be fun, though.
He gimped off the ramp, flinched at the crunch of crystal under his feet, disproportionately loud in the silence of the room. Behind him the hatch closed, concealing that unsettling hole in reality and, with it, Jumper One. He'd made it almost to the front of the hangar when he spotted it; something had been dragged from one of the jumpers, parting the shards like Moses the Red Sea and laying a trail to the exit. Where the concrete was bare it showed a track of dull brown smears and spots.
Somehow he didn't think it was rust. Jaws clenched, he followed the trail back to that jumper. Inside, lying on the floor among more crystal shards, he discovered a bloodstained wrench. The only thing reassuring about it was the fact that whoever had wielded it must have seen themselves forced to resort to to-tech weaponry.
See? Should have taken the crutches, John.
The jumper yielded nothing else, so he headed over to the armory. It seemed untouched alright. Really untouched.
"Damn!" he whispered.
If the armory was anything to go by, the expedition had never reached Atlantis in this timeline. There should have been guns and rifles and ammo crates-in short, samples of the entire arsenal they'd brought with them to the Pegasus Galaxy. What he found were a couple of racks of spare drones and selected other items of Ancient technology. No weapons. At least none he could readily identify or use. On the upside, atop a shelf at the back of the room sat a dozen life-signs dete
ctors. He grabbed one, mentally crossing his fingers.
A heartbeat later he sighed in relief as the small screen lit up. It showed two bright dots as the only inhabitants of the entire city. The dots were engaged in an odd, slow-motion choreography of stop and go. The speed-or lack thereof-was deceptive, and it took him a couple of seconds to realize that he was looking at a hunting pattern; Dot B was stalking Dot A, the scene of the chase gradually moving from the control tower to the storage and maintenance structures on the East Pier, which told him that Dot B had to know its way around-there were thousands of places to hide or set up a nice little ambush out there. Either the dots were stone deaf and hadn't heard the klaxons, or they'd decided that their chase was more important than an incoming wormhole and potential company.
John decided to hook up with Dot B. He'd always had a soft spot for the underdog. Besides, a bit of quid pro quo-assis- tance for information-might help answer the intriguing question of what the hell was going on here. Dot B was headed up toward the generator station at the East Pier. Good thinking. One little dot could wreak a surprising amount of havoc with the systems that were fed through there, even when the city was submerged.
Given the dreamlike pace at which the dots were moving, he'd have a good chance of intercepting Dot B at the station. John cut across the control center to the nearest transporter, which brought him out at a terminal within two hundred yards of the pier. The transporter door slid open on a blur of movement.
The round shattered the touch panel on the cabin wall, missing him by a hair. Instinct or a sixth sense had made him spin out of the way. Without stopping to think he dived out of the cabin-a dead end now that the panel was gone-hit the floor like a sack of cement, rolled over, and scrambled for the cover of a pillar.
So much for the dots ignoring the warning klaxons. Well, one dot anyway.
A second shot went wide, ripping stone shrapnel from the floor behind him. He heard a shout of frustration, thought he recognized the voice, and immediately discarded the notion, because it would have been ludicrous. Unless...
"Elizabeth! Don't shoot! It's me. John!"
The reply was another round, wide by a mile but pretty unambiguous.
He ducked reflexively, frowned. If anything the lousy marksmanship confirmed it. After all, Elizabeth hated guns. Though why she'd feel the need to shoot him remained a mystery. Admittedly he'd managed to piss her off big time on a few occasions, but this-
A third shot tore through the hallway. Light, unsteady footfalls told him she was on the move, closing in. Waiting probably wasn't a good idea. Even she couldn't miss at point blank range.
The footfalls stopped, then she fired again.
Staking his life on the fact that the recoil would mess up her aim even worse, John darted from cover and down the corridor at a hobbling run that made him sweat with pain. But pain wouldn't kill him, whereas Elizabeth just might. At the end of the corridor lay a spacious hall and a maze of rooms off several stories of galleries and metal stairways. It probably had been a storage area, though they'd never actually confirmed it. At any rate, it'd provide much better cover and a chance to lay low and get a fix on Dot B, who seemed to have done the smart thing and dropped below the radar.
His bum leg buckled under him and he almost fell. A quick slam into the wall helped him stay upright, but he couldn't run anymore. The storage hall was sixty feet ahead-it might as well have been sixty light years. Not a chance. Deciding he'd rather face her than be shot in the back, he pushed himself off the wall. Who knew, maybe he could talk some sense into her.
Hands raised, he turned around and instantly realized that talk wouldn't save him. She looked like something that had escaped from a medieval bedlam, wild-eyed, haggard, a Medusa's head of gray hair flaring around a skull-like face. Her arms were outstretched, elbows locked, fingers strangling a 9 mm Beretta. The barrel of the gun wavered unsteadily as she staggered toward him. Each time she forced it back on target with a frown of concentration. Itchy trigger finger didn't begin to describe it.
"Elizabeth-"
"I told you I didn't want you to leave!" she spat.
Since she'd never told him anything of the sort, it was a safe assumption that the original John Sheppard and Dot B were one and the same. "Elizabeth-"
"I don't want to hear it!"
The round struck the wall inches in front of him, smashing a light panel and showering him in a hail of splinters. Blinking furiously, John resisted the impulse to protect his face; if he was to achieve anything, he had to maintain eye contact with her. "Look at me, Elizabeth! Do I-"
"Get down!"
The bellow came from the storage area behind, the voice familiar enough for him to obey without hesitation-after all, if you couldn't trust yourself, whom could you trust? Wondering whether he'd ever get to finish a sentence, he hit the deck, heard something whiz overhead.
The something-a rubber ball?-hit Elizabeth squarely in the chest, toppling her. In falling, she lost her grip on the gun. The weapon sailed along the corridor, clattering to a halt within a few yards of John. He launched himself forward, starting to scrabble for it the same time as Elizabeth was recovering. His fingertips just about grazed the barrel. Another half inch and-
"I don't think so!"
A well-placed kick sent the gun spiraling down the corridor and way out of reach. John's alter ego flung himself atop Elizabeth, straddled her. An expert left hook cut off furious screams and flailing by knocking her out cold.
"I hate hitting women," Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard observed to no one in particular. Then he straightened up, flipped her over, and used the simple sling that had converted a piece of rubber into a missile to tie Elizabeth's hands securely behind her back. That done, he turned around. "And who the hell are y-" His jaw dropped.
"Please don't tell me I always look that stupid when I'm surprised."
To find somebody else unable to finish his thought proved unexpectedly satisfying. John had aimed for a grin, figured he didn't quite make it, and saw what had to be an identical half grimace on the face staring at him. Conversing with one's own mirror image was just a little on the disconcerting side. Though, admittedly, the mirror image looked nearly as bad as he felt, right down to the rough, homespun outfit. Unshaven and filthy and unsteady on his feet now, his reflection was pale as a sheet, his eyes a little unfocused. Together with a scabbed-over gash on his temple, calling to mind the bloodstained wrench in the jumper, it suggested a severe concussion. That aside, food must have been in extremely short supply around this version of Atlantis. John himself looked a tad less than well-fed-an inevitable result of the infamous tuttleroot soup diet-but the original was a hair shy of emaciation. So was Elizabeth, come to think of it.
They continued staring at each other for a moment, then the original-John felt a little inconsequential, like having a starathlete, four-point-zero-GPA older brother who was reaping all the glory-said, "I'm guessing this is another one of the numerous entertaining side-effects of Charybdis?"
"Oh yes "
"So, who... uh..." The implications were starting to sink in. One of the few things nobody had ever accused him of was being slow on the uptake. Looking less confident than a superior officer should, the Lieutenant Colonel cleared his throat. "Which one of us is-"
"The original?"
"Yeah."
.,you are.,,
"How do you know?"
"You outrank me. Sir." John startled himself by sounding rather more acrimonious than he'd meant to sound and suppressed a wince. Things really didn't get any more idiotic than being jealous of yourself.
"I got lucky," offered John the Elder. "When we managed to return Earthside the brass informed Elizabeth that, while I'd been performing competently, the job of military leader of Atlantis was a colonel's billet. Elizabeth... Elizabeth refused to have Colonel Caldwell foisted on her and insisted they fix the problem the easy way."
John read the guilt and regret in his eyes-his eyes-and felt a flash of it chur
ning in his own stomach. Casting a wry look at that hag-like figure muttering and writhing on the floor, he murmured, "You probably saved my life, and if it's any consolation, I very much doubt she's the original. Besides, you seem to have won the grand prize. You're the lucky guy who gets to fix it all."
"Says who?"
"Teyla."
"Teyla is alive?"
"A version of her. She may be your Teyla. At any rate, she assures me that all the originals survived."
It brought a first cautious smile-surprise, relief, and maybe brittle hope. "So, how about I pull rank and debrief you, Major?"
Charybdis +32
After the watery murmur of the event horizon had sucked back in on itself and told her that the wormhole had disengaged, Teyla sat on the stairs leading down to the Stargate for a long time, listening to the silence, conjuring up the many different voices that had once filled Atlantis. Funny how she'd suddenly hear people she hadn't thought of in years, decades even, simply because she'd never known them well enough. Which wasn't their fault, and they didn't deserve to be forgotten. John Sheppard's presence had brought them back to her.
And now she'd lay them to rest. All of them.
They, like this Atlantis, reeked of death, and she'd smelled enough of that.
She rose, stretched stiff limbs, wiggled her toes and pumped her fists to force some circulation back into them. It was the cold. Before now she'd never realized how freezing cold this place was. She wondered if there was a plume of condensation each time she exhaled. Probably. At last, pins and needles bit her fingers and toes, announcing that blood flow was restored, and she cautiously felt her way back up the steps and toward the corridor. For once she didn't navigate the obstacle course of debris and dead on autopilot. She couldn't afford to. She had to find the right body.
There was no telling when exactly she'd come to the decision, though she believed that it must have been brewing in her subconscious for quite some time. When the notion had hatched during her silent vigil just now, it had done so fully formed. She took it as an omen that she was meant to obey the impulse and, after all, it wouldn't make a difference in the end. Not for her, not for the people in the village above.
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