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Rating: All
Character: McKay, Sheppard
Category: General, Action Adventure maybe? Intrigue? Mystery? Oh no, suspense, that fits!
Summary: Meet Doctor Rodney McKay M.D. & Detective John Sheppard. Sheppard ends up in hospital from a gunshot wound on a failed raid with colleagues Lorne&Dex & finds himself under Dr. McKay's care. Both are experiencing strange flashbacks & memories. Not AU
Part 1, 2, 3
The Program - Part Four
“I take it you have yet to visit the village?” Duyell asked Teyla not long after Ronon had left.
“No, Doctor McKay was rather enthusiastic about the energy readings he found from this building, so we decided to come here first,” she explained.
“I see,” Duyell paused and looked at her contemplatively. “It might be best if you did not visit them. Many of the villagers have taken to,” he paused, “Worshipping the Wraith,” he said with disgust.
“We had heard stories, but thus far only knew of these humans taking up residence onboard hive ships, not settling on planets of their own,” Teyla told him. “Surely they are just as vulnerable to attack as the rest of us if they are not onboard Wraith ships?” she questioned.
“For now the Wraith have agreed to leave them be, if they provide them with information about the goings on in the galaxy. But yes, you are right, eventually they will be culled along with all the other humans,” Duyell replied.
“You do not worship the Wraith?” she asked.
“No,” Duyell chuckled darkly. “I do not.” Teyla opened her mouth to ask another question, but Duyell cut her off. “If the Loranian’s see you and your people travelling through the gate, they will call the Wraith here,” he warned her.
“Why did you not tell us this sooner?” she demanded angrily, knowing there was no way for her to warn the others before their return. Duyell looked at her apologetically but didn’t answer the question.
John watched warily as Rodney entered his room later, wound tight as a spring, storm clouds almost literal above his head.
“How’d it go?” he asked warily. Rodney sighed and ran a hand over his face before looking at John.
“I don’t think we were s’posed to figure it out so soon, if at all,” he said. “Elizabeth tried to convince me I was hallucinating due to fatigue.”
“Well that was stupid, that doesn’t explain me does it?” John responded.
“If I hadn’t known about you, I would have probably bought it,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“Why?” John asked.
“Because I am really, really exhausted,” he admitted. John frowned.
“Me too,” he said and Rodney’s eyes widened.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he demanded.
“I thought it was ‘cause of this!” he said waving his hand at hid midsection. “You said they could simulate pain, why not fatigue!”
“I guess,” Rodney said looking unconvinced. “It just seems unlikely for both of us to be feeling so tired.”
“Well, what could it be then?” John asked, not really wanting to know, but knowing that he had to ask, and that Rodney would probably tell him anyway.
“I can only surmise that the interface between us and the virtual environment is not sophisticated enough, perhaps flawed.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, it’s probably putting great amounts of stress on our minds,” Rodney explained.
“We really need to get out of here,” John said, looking at Rodney earnestly. Looking for the answer that he always seemed to have.
“When you figure out how, let me know,” Rodney said quietly, John heard rather than felt his hopes fall to the simulated hospital floor with an almost audible thunk.
When Ronon, Beckett, Zelenka and Lorne and his team entered the lab it appeared to be empty. Lorne edged into the room carefully and checked behind the various consoles.
“Doc!” he called when he peered behind the one farthest back into the room. Beckett came rushing over.
“Oh my God,” he muttered as he dropped down to Teyla’s side and began examining the side of her head from where blood was trickling down her face and into her hair. When he lifted back her eyelid and shone a penlight in her eyes, she jerked back and blinked furiously, and groaned in pain.
“What happened?” Lorne asked as soon as she had fully regained consciousness.
“Duyell attacked me,” she told them.
“I should’ve shot him,” Ronon said angrily. Teyla frowned at Ronon before continuing.
“He said that he couldn’t allow us to interfere, that it would attract unwanted attention,” she recounted.
“From who?” Carson asked.
“I do not know, he did not say,” she said regretfully. “But he did inform me that the nearby village is occupied by Wraith worshippers, and that if they see us they will likely alert the Wraith to our presence,” she told them. Ronon grunted something angrily and they all looked at him questioningly.
“We were being followed for about five minutes after we arrived through the Stargate,” he told them. “I didn’t think they’d pose a threat.”
“It’s been almost half an hour since we came through the ‘gate,” Beckett said.
“Caughlin, Reed, get back to the gate and radio us if there’s any activity,“ Lorne ordered. “Doctor Zelenka?” Lorne asked Zelenka pointedly.
“Right,” he nodded, looking at the machine’s that imprisoned Sheppard and McKay hesitantly as he approached one of the consoles.
“Rodney,” Sheppard said as Rodney entered his room a few hours later, with two lots of Jell-O and two spoons. “Where’ve you been?” he asked as he gratefully took the Jell-O from Rodney.
“Oh, there was a car accident. Four critical, two minor…” he trailed off as he sat down on the end of the bed.
“Dead?” Sheppard asked gently.
“Yeah,” Rodney paused and looked at his Jell-O before putting it down on the tray. “A little girl. She died on the table while Radek and I were…” he stopped and looked down at his hands.
“Rodney, it’s not real,” Sheppard aid, sitting forward.
“Well it sure as hell feels like it okay?” Rodney said harshly before looking down at his hands again and taking a shaky breath. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Maybe Elizabeth was right, huh?” Sheppard said. Rodney glared at him. “Hey, have you thought about the fact that you know how to do all that doctor stuff?” he asked, changing the topic, but also asking a question which had been bothering him.
“Well, I took pre-med,” he said. “I guess it could be from watching medical television shows,” he mused.
“You learned how to be a doctor from T.V?” Sheppard asked in disbelief.
“You’re forgetting we’re in a virtual environment, it could be adapted to our skills. Or if the programme is this sophisticated, it could have downloaded the information directly into our brains,” he added.
“That’s kind of creepy,” Sheppard said with a frown.
“Actually, it’s fascinating, imagine if we could just download information instead of having to learn it. In fact if a recall, SG1 encountered a society that did just that via nanites in their brains-”
“Rodney,” Sheppard interrupted. “That’s fascinating, but have you had any ideas about how we get the hell out of here?” Rodney rolled his eyes, but answered anyway.
“Well as a matter of fact, I was thinking about it earlier. And it would be only common sense to create some kind of back door to a programme like this.”
“Back door?”
“Yeah, like a hidden exit, in case something went wrong. I don’t know what the programme’s purpose is, but whatever it is it had to have undergone tests, and when the creators were testing it they would have wanted to be able to get out whenever they wanted,” he explained.
“So if we find one of these, hidden exits, then we’re outta’ here,” Sheppard said.
“But to where?” Rodney asked. “I for one have no memory of when or where we are, how ‘bout you?” he asked hopefully.
“Well, no.”
“We could get out only for them to kill us, there could be horrible and painful death. Or they could put us straight back in here again.”
“It’s gotta’ be better than this though, right?” he asked, Rodney shrugged noncommittally. “So how do we find the way out?”
“That’s the thing, it could be absolutely anything,” Rodney sighed.
“Like-?”
“Like a opening a door, pushing a button, turning down a different road, opening a window.”
“So it could be anything,” Sheppard echoed.
“Yeah.”
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