“Maybe you should be talking to Keller.”
“Could be…” She frowned, thinking hard. “The tumor’s metastasized. It’s spread to other areas of the city, set up new infections there… It’s acting just like a cancer, but a cancer that knows all about us. How does it know so much?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” said McKay, his voice low.
“Rodney,” replied Sheppard, a note of warning in his voice. “Don’t go there.”
McKay rounded on him. “What, you think you’re going to make it not true by not saying it?”
“It doesn’t need to be said!”
“There’s no way she could have kept anything back!” He slammed the laptop screen down in sudden anger. “John, you know as well as I do that they had everything as soon as Oberoth stuck his damned hand into her head!”
“Shut up!” Zelenka had jumped to his feet. “All of you! Just be quiet!”
“He’s right, “ Carter began. “There’s no need —”
“No, you too.” Zelenka had a wild look in his eye, but it wasn’t anger. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but I need everyone not to be talking right now. In fact, it might be best if you and Colonel Sheppard had something else to do.”
“You’re throwing us out?”
“Yes. Rodney, you have to stay. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Everyone else…” He pointed to the two other techs in the room. They were staring at him incredulously. “No, you stay too.”
Carter stood up. “Radek, what’s going on?”
“I think I know how you cure a smart disease,” he told her. Then he waved at the door. “I’m really, really sorry, and you can fire me later if you like. But for now, go.”
Carter had a lot to think about on the way back up to the control room, and she wasn’t disturbed in her thoughts. Although Sheppard accompanied her, he wasn’t saying anything.
He was probably lost in his own reverie, she decided. He had been close friends with Elizabeth Weir, and having to abandon her on Asuras must have been harder on him than anyone.
From what Carter had read in various reports, Weir had been critically injured in the Replicator attack on Lantea. McKay had hinted at it when she first spoke to him about setting up a lab for Angelus — the beam weapon that had carved down through the city, scoring the tower. Weir had been caught by an edge of the blast, and that had almost put an end to her. For a while, she had not been expected to survive.
However, some time previously Weir had been infected with Asuran nanites, and by reactivating those microscopic machines McKay had been able to save her life, reprogramming them into replacing the damaged tissues in her body and brain. In effect, Weir had become a hybrid herself, although — as her purpose was not to replicate herself endlessly through violent assimilation — she bore nothing in common with the intelligent disease writhing out on the west pier. In fact she had worked actively against the Asurans, helping Sheppard and McKay to steal a ZPM from their homeworld to repower Atlantis and save everyone within.
But in doing so, she had sacrificed herself. Discovered by the Replicators, Sheppard had been forced to abandon Elizabeth Weir to them.
Once they had broken down her mental defenses and stripped her mind of its memories, the Asurans would have incorporated them into their own collective database. Although they did not know where Atlantis had relocated to, they knew everything else about it.
And, being part Replicator itself, so did the hybrid.
It would have known how to find Apollo, and how best to disguise itself in such a way as to be taken back to the city. It knew the strengths and weaknesses of the expedition staff. It knew how to make people trust it.
It knew where to hide.
Finally, Carter thought, her mystery file was complete. All the pieces had been arranged into the correct order, and the picture was plain to see.
Unfortunately though, the image it showed was one of unremitting horror.
Carter hadn’t even gotten as far as the transporter when her headset crackled. That alone was enough to tell her that something bad had happened — the prohibition on sending anything but the most urgent information over the communications network hadn’t been lifted.
She didn’t break stride, but raised a hand, letting Sheppard know something was awry. “Carter here.”
“Colonel, this it Teyla. Ronon has been attacked by the hybrid.”
“Is he okay?”
“He is in the infirmary.”
“I’ll be right down. Teyla, where was he attacked?”
“He was patrolling with some marines in the lower accommodation level.”
“Thank you.” She cut the connection and turned to Sheppard. “John, get back to the ZPM lab. I don’t care if Zelenka tries to throw you out again, just see if the biometric sensor picked up any activity on the accommodation levels. Ronon and the hybrid got into it down there.”
“Ronon?” Sheppard’s face hardened. “Is he —?”
“He’s alive, I’m just going to check on him. Go on.” She shooed him away, then ran to the transporter.
When she got to the infirmary, a few minutes later, she heard Dex before she saw him. His voice was carrying out into the corridor, and he didn’t sound pleased.
“I’m fine,” he snarled.
“You’re an idiot.” That sounded like Keller. “Since when did having a dislocated shoulder count as ‘fine’?”
“I’ve had worse. Just pop it back in.”
“There’s tendon damage. It won’t ‘pop back in’.”
“Then hit it with something.”
“You’re insane!”
“All right, I’ll hit it with something!”
There was a yelp, and then sounds of a struggle. Carter increased her pace, and got to the infirmary door in time to see Dex trying to haul a medical lamp off its base with his left hand, while Jennifer Keller held onto his forearm with her entire weight. By the looks of things, he was doing a fair job of lifting both Keller and the lamp.
“Ronon, what are you doing?”
“Hey,” he said, sounding unconcerned. “Keller won’t let me fix my arm.”
Carter smiled. “Put her down. Please.”
He met her gaze for a moment, just a token defiance, then gave a shrug and set Keller back on her feet. He handed her the lamp. “I’ve done this before,” he told her. “That’s all I’m saying. Hit it hard enough, it’ll pop back in.”
“If anyone’s going to do any surgical hitting,” Keller replied, straightening up and sweeping a few stray strands of hair out of her eyes, “it’ll be me.”
“Colonel, I need to get back out there,” Dex said. “Sorry, but those marines don’t know much about fighting Replicators.”
“They haven’t had a lot of practice.” Carter walked over to him, surveying the Satedan’s injuries. His right arm almost lifeless, and when she got closer she could see that long bruises had darkened the right side of his face. He was sitting slightly askew, as well. “Did you crack a rib?”
“Yeah, I guess. Hi Teyla.”
“Ronon.” Teyla had appeared at the doorway, and walked quickly into the infirmary. “Doctor, how is he?”
“Dislocated shoulder, broken rib, a lot of bruises,” Keller replied. “He’ll be out of action for a while.”
Teyla smiled briefly. “I do not think you know Ronon Dex very well, Doctor.”
“Okay,” said Carter. “What happened? Ronon?”
“Are we gonna do anything about my arm?”
“In a minute. I need to know what happened.”
“Huh.” He shrugged again. Carter could see him hide a spike of pain as he did so. “I was on one of the accommodation levels. Some marines were following me around… Anyway, a man came up and asked me where you were.”
“A man?”
“I didn’t recognize him. Anyway, I said I didn’t know and then he hit me.”
“He was knocked through a wall,” Teyla said, interrupting. “It was a hybrid replica.”
Dex nodded languidly. “Well, I knew he wasn’t human.”
“How?” Carter asked, before she could stop herself.
“Because I ripped his arm off,” said Dex. “He didn’t seem all that bothered.”
“Colonel,” said Teyla. “It was Fallon. I heard gunfire and came to help. As soon as Fallon saw me, he ran. I followed, but I lost him.”
Carter shook her head, puzzled. “Why would he ask for me?”
Dex made a sound in the back of his throat, as if the answer had been obvious. “You’re the leader.”
To Carter, that made no sense at all. She didn’t feel much like a leader of anything, at the moment, and even if the hybrid disagreed, what reason would it have to target her specifically? Surely the science staff would have more chance of harming it, not her.
Then again, sowing discord was one of its talents. “Teyla, can you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Go to the ZPM lab. Sheppard should be there with McKay and Zelenka. Tell John to start posting guards with the science personnel — if the hybrid is starting to go after us individually it might try to take them out too.”
Teyla nodded, and ran quickly out of the infirmary. Carter turned back to Keller. “Doctor, is there —?”
From outside in the corridor there was a sudden cry, and the sound of something heavy hitting a wall.
Carter drew her pistol. “Teyla?”
Behind her, Dex got up, and from the corner of her eye Carter saw Keller backing away, the lamp still clutched incongruously in one hand. “Teyla, if you can hear me, answer.”
A heartbeat later, someone came in through the door. But it wasn’t Teyla.
Andrew Fallon, or at least something that looked very much like him, was striding across the infirmary towards Carter. He was fast, far faster than any human should have been: Carter only managed to get three shots into his face before he backhanded her across the room.
She tumbled into the side of a bed, rebounded and crashed onto the floor. The pistol spun out of her grasp, skittering away. She made a futile grab for it, but it was already out of reach, and Fallon’s hand was snapping down to grab her.
She ducked back, rolling under the bed, came up on the other side of it. Her ribcage was singing with pain, the whole side of her face numb from the shock of the blow. Fallon was not unharmed; her shots had unsewn his skull. What remained of his face was twisted in a kind of twitching, mechanical rage.
He reached for her again, but as he did something whipped sideways in a blurring arc from behind. The lamp Keller had been holding; Dex had it now. The blow flipped Fallon clear around, sent a portion of his ruined head flying away. The injury didn’t slow him, though, and Dex didn’t get a second chance. Fallon ripped the lamp from his hand, grabbed the Satedan’s face and simply flung him out of the door.
Carter dropped to her knees, flailed until she found the gun, and then dived past Fallon. As he spun to follow her she fired again, taking off his jaw, then emptied the rest of the bullets into his torso. It was a useless gesture, she knew. Fallon was no longer using eyes to see her. He was no longer anything that could be slowed by the kind of damage that would kill a human — if she tore him in half with weapons fire, both the halves would come after her.
The pistol’s slide locked back. Carter dropped it, looking wildly about for something to fend Fallon off with, but there was nothing within reach, and the replica was already on her. It took her around the neck with one hand, held her up. She felt her feet leave the floor.
The Fallon-thing’s head no longer looked even remotely human. It was changing as she watched, eyes and mouths bubbling up out of the mess her bullets had made, whipping rootlets emerging from its opened skull to flail at the air. The other hand extended towards her, the fingers impossibly long, claws and needles erupting from the tips, and Carter remembered Bennings in the gallery, snatched by such a limb and dragged off to an unseen fate.
Was this what had happened to him, she wondered? There was a scientific curiosity that wouldn’t leave her, even though her throat was crushed shut over her final breath and the hybrid’s tendrils were worming through the air to spear her. Was this how the process took place? And in time, would a version of her walk the corridors of Atlantis?
She slapped the limb away, but the pain and lack of air had made her feeble. The Fallon-thing didn’t even notice the blow.
And then it froze. She felt a jolt go through it.
The thing on the end of its neck opened all its mouths and screamed.
A second later, she was released. She fell, limp, a stringless puppet. Crumpled on the floor, it was all she could do to roll back and watch the Fallon-thing stagger away from her.
McKay was behind it, holding some piece of equipment in his hands. There was a thick cable extending from it, and the probe at the end was buried in the Fallon-thing’s back.
The replica was still screaming, a single, breathless note of rage and agony. It was an awful noise, a whistling like escaping steam, suddenly liquid, then dry and whispery like the crunching of old leaves. And then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
The replica dropped to its knees. The very structure of it was breaking down in front of Carter’s gaze. She scrambled weakly away from it as it dissolved, the crimson flesh of it splitting and peeling and rotting as she watched, the metal of it dripping and running like mercury. The Fallon-thing swayed on its knees for a few seconds, then its multi-eyed head dropped forwards, and the whole body simply fell in on itself.
Heat, and the reek of spoiled meat and old metal, washed over Carter. She gagged, but the awful stench gave her the impetus to move again. She started to get to her feet, and then Keller reached down to help her.
Dex was already up again, and standing over the thing. Teyla was at the doorway, looking groggy, holding onto the frame for support. And McKay…
Rodney McKay raised a fist in victory. “Yes!” He hissed.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you fight a smart disease!”
Chapter Nineteen
Kill or Cure
By the time Sheppard got to the infirmary, the remains of the Fallon replica had been largely cleared away. A couple of the medical staff were disposing of the last scraps, watched over by armed marines, and an orderly was on his hands and knees with a scrubbing brush and a bucket. The replica’s dissolution had left a stain on the flooring, as though a vat of medical waste had been tipped out there and left to rot. Sheppard stepped carefully past it on his way to see Carter, trying not to breathe in too hard. What he had experienced of the hybrid close up had been less than fragrant when it was intact. Dead, it stank.
Carter was already on her feet, looking pale and bruised. Her jacket was off, and he could see the outline of bandages under her vest — from what Keller had told him, she had been knocked around quite badly in the fray.
When she saw him approaching she managed a weak smile. “John,” she said. “I guess you heard we had some fun down here.”
“Sorry I missed it.” He glanced around, at the other patients. Several marines were being treated around him, mostly minor injuries from various encounters with the hybrid. He knew there were more serious wounds being dealt with as well, but those were hidden from sight. He couldn’t see Dex or Teyla. “How is everyone?”
“Ronon’s going to have a sore shoulder for a few days, but he’ll deny it, of course. Teyla’s fine. Fallon just knocked her out of the way. He was after me.”
“It wasn’t Fallon.”
“I know.” She tilted her head around, flexing her shoulder and wincing. “Even the clothes melted when Rodney jabbed him. But the likeness was frightening.”
Sheppard stepped aside to let nurse Neblett go past him. She had what looked like a partially melted human jaw clasped in a pair of biohazard tongs, her arm outstretched and a look of complete disgust on her face. “Oh,” he muttered. “Nice.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised, really,” C
arter went on. “Clarke was running messages for us for, oh, how long?”
Sheppard nodded. “I hear you. The replica situation is one I’ve tried to keep under wraps as much as possible. I don’t like keeping secrets from people around here, but there have been some incidents…”
“What kind of incidents?”
“Just paranoia. But it’s one thing to have a giant squishy monster on the west pier, people can deal with that. Not knowing if the guy standing next to you is human or not affects them in a whole different way.”
“All the more reason to finish this quickly.” She reached for her jacket, but the movement made her gasp quietly. Sheppard picked the garment up and handed it to her. “Thanks.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ve got to be.” She shrugged carefully into the jacket. “John, we’ve all been knocked around. You too, and I don’t see you resting.”
That was a point he had to concede. The very thought of slowing down, of stopping to rest or tend his injuries hadn’t even occurred to him. Compared to some, he had come through the events of the past few days largely intact, although his jaw still throbbed from the beating Dex had given him, and there was a tiredness in him that went into his very bones. But Carter was right — to rest for a minute would be to allow the hybrid an advantage, and that was a concept that bordered on the terrifying.
Especially now. The creature knew it was under threat.
“So,” he asked, stepping around the stain again. It didn’t appear to be coming off all that easily. “Have you spoken to McKay since then?”
“Not really.” She looked a little embarrassed. “I sort of lost consciousness for a bit after that. When I came around he was already gone.”
“So you don’t know exactly what he’s been up to either?”
“Not precisely, no. But he’s up in the control room, I know that. Hopefully he can fill us in when we get there.”
“Hopefully?” Sheppard gave her a wry smile. “Do you actually think he’d be able to resist?”
STARGATE ATLANTIS: Angelus Page 30
