Author's Chapter Notes: Sorry for the long wait. Please review. : )
Chapter 8: Conflicts
The pain was unimaginable. It was like a thousand knives were stabbing him over and over again, relentless in their mission to inflict as much torture as possible. Bright red lights flashed all around him, blinding him one minute and plunging him into utter darkness the next. There was nothing else but the pain. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. All he could do was scream and wish for it all to be over. Images began to burn themselves into his mind. He saw Elizabeth dead. Over and over again. Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, even himself - dead. Atlantis burning. The images were almost worse than the knives.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t. The pain was too much. He felt his mind stretch to its breaking point, felt his sanity starting to slip away in shreds... and then it was over. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, confusion immediately taking hold. He was back on the floor where the lab was, standing just beyond the start of the short hallway that held the staircase. He felt a hand gripping his left arm, and then suddenly realized that someone was talking. “...hey, John... are you alright?”
He turned to his left to glance at the source of the voice and found a concerned looking Rodney staring at him, waiting for his question to be answered. “No, not really,” said John, still trying to catch his breath. “What the hell happened?”
“It was a Replicator,” said another voice behind him. John felt a sudden dizzying flood of relief just hearing it. “One of the guards on this floor. Rodney says he surprised you when you turned the corner.” John turned around to look at Elizabeth. “I got out here in time to see Ronon pull him off of you.” She gestured to the still body laying at his feet and gave a tiny smile. “That neck snapping thing is an interesting trick. I’m surprised it works.” She smiled again, hesitantly, the expression not managing to hide the familiar look of worry that covered her features.
“See, I told you it shouldn’t work,” John heard Rodney mutter under his breath. He ignored him and ran a hand through his already messy hair.
“So,” he said to no one in particular, trying to straighten out the whole mess for himself, “everything after I turned that corner... from that minute on everything was fake?”
“Yes,” confirmed Elizabeth.
“Right,” he said with a sigh of relief, catching her eye for a brief moment. Elizabeth gave him a strange look, but didn’t say anything. “How long did that thing have its hand in my head?”
“The amount of time it took for the Flash here to realize what was going on, get around you, grab his hand and pull it out,” answered Rodney, jerking his head in Ronon’s direction. “Around ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds?” John shook his head, trying to let sense return to his still somewhat dazed mind. “I really hate Replicators.”
“Believe me I know the feeling,” said Elizabeth fervently, meeting his eyes. “Now come on, we need to get out of the hallway.” She started walking towards the lab. John began to follow her, but Ronon stopped him.
“Here,” he said, and held out John’s P-90 to him. “You dropped this.” John stared at the weapon as if he was seeing a ghost. A split-second later he recovered, nodded and took it out of Ronon’s hands silently, then moved towards the lab. He looked ahead at where Elizabeth was just entering the room, then down at the gleaming black metal of the gun resting on his arm. The Replicator’s illusion flashed unbidden through his memory, and he shuddered involuntarily.
oOo
After everyone had entered the dim lab, Elizabeth sealed the door behind them and moved over to one of the computer consoles. Out of the corner of his eye John saw Rodney glance the closed door warily and share a slightly concerned look with Ronon. John sighed inwardly. So they still hadn’t gotten past their mistrust of her. He didn’t know what else he could say that would convince them. They would just have to see for themselves that he was right.
Ronon steered Shanna into a vacant corner, told her rather sharply to stay put, and positioned himself by the door. Elizabeth turned to look at McKay. “We don’t have much time,” she said. “I know they have the equipment we need, but I don’t know enough to operate all of it myself. I can help, but...”
“But it’s going to fall on me to do most of the work,” Rodney interrupted. “What else is new?”
For a moment she looked like she wanted to be amused at this typical Rodney McKay statement, as she would have been in the past, but his cold tone and distant expression prevented her from responding as she normally would have. Instead, one side of her mouth gave a brief, sad little twitch and she turned back to the console, not looking at him as she spoke. She quickly clued him in on what they had to work with and exactly what the plan called for, pulling up several schematics for him to look at. When that was done, she let Rodney take over that computer and silently moved across the room to another workstation, her face carefully controlled and blank. But John knew her better than that.
As quietly as she had, he walked to the other side of the room and stood beside her at the console. She didn’t look at him, just continued to stare at the screen in front of her, the blue glow casting shadows along her face in the low light, throwing her features into sharp contrast. A few seconds ticked by as she worked. He waited. Finally, “They still don’t trust me, do they?” she said in a low voice. It wasn’t a question.
He answered anyway. “No,” he said quietly. “No they don’t.”
“But you do.” She turned her head slightly to glance at him. He sent her a small, hopefully reassuring smile. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Her eyes were fraught with sympathy and sadness as she continued. “And by trusting me, you compromise the trust your team has in you. I’m sorry. I know that must be hard.”
“Yeah, well, they’ll come around.”
She flashed him a quick melancholy smile and nodded. “Let’s hope so.” She turned back to the computer and continued to work for half a minute or so in silence. John waited again; he could see that she still had more to say. Sure enough, she soon turned to look at him again, this time hesitating before speaking, as if unsure she should verbalize what was on her mind. “John, what... what did you see, in the hallway? What did the guard show you? I... I understand if you don’t want to tell me, but...”
He saw only concern on her face as she regarded him. But he couldn’t tell her... How could he tell her that in that illusion he had killed her? Watched her die? He couldn’t... But yet he suddenly found himself talking. “It was completely flawless like you said, like it was the first time on Asuras. We were in the hall, surrounded, and had to fight our way into the main corridor. We had taken them all out, I picked up my gun, and... and you came around the corner.” He stared at her, misery in his voice and an apology in his eyes. “I couldn’t see who it was... didn’t think...”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and bowed her head, swallowing deeply as the realization of what must have happened next dawned on her. John wanted to look away, to lose himself in the shadows that clung to every corner in the room, but he kept watching her face, searching for some reaction, some sign that she forgave him for what he had done. It was an irrational need, that wish for her forgiveness, considering the event had never happened, but he felt it anyway.
She opened her eyes, her gaze filled with pity and understanding. He could hardly believe it. He had killed her, and she was feeling sorry for him. Again. As if she didn’t have more than enough sorrow of her own to deal with. He wished she would stop it.
She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was was halted by Rodney’s exclamation from across the room. “Okay, I think I have basically what I need to do this. It won’t be quite as smooth as last time though. Before I was able to use the cloaking field on the jumper to create the ARG field we used to get into the city, and since we don’t happen to have one of those handy, I had to use what was already here. Fortunately for us, these Replicators have some seriously advanced technology at their disposal.” He pressed a series of buttons on the console in front of him and a small force shield appeared around the empty table it was connected to. The lights set into the table’s surface glowed orange and in a matter of seconds Replicator blocks began to form from thin air, merging into a complex looking Ancient device like John had never seen before. When the device was complete, the lights dimmed and the force shield dissipated into nothing, leaving Rodney’s creation sitting unassumingly on the now dull surface. Rodney beamed proudly. “See. Our very own field generator.”
“That’s great, Rodney,” said John impatiently, “now how about powering it up? We’re going to have Replicators beating down the door any minute now.”
“They should have shown up already,” said Ronon from the door. “There’s no way it should have taken this long for them to find us and get here. It doesn’t take ten minutes to walk up a flight of stairs.”
“They’re regrouping,” said Elizabeth. “It took them a few moments for all of them to recognize what was going on.” Her eyes unfocused for a second. “They’re almost here now. In about thirty seconds they’re going to enter this hallway. Rodney...!”
He pressed a button on the device. “It’s on, it’s on!” Several lights around the rim of the device began to glow. The lab’s walls shimmered blue for a second and then returned to normal.
“Did it work?” demanded John. No one answered. The rest of the promised thirty seconds flew by.
“Yes,” confirmed Elizabeth and Rodney simultaneously. Rodney looked up from the computer screen where he had been watching the sensors, appearing slightly miffed that he hadn’t been the only one to deliver the news. Elizabeth just looked relieved. “The field’s working,” she said. “They’re disintegrating the instant they walk through it.”
John relaxed, tense muscles loosening now that they had time to work with. “That’s great. But...”
“They’re going to figure out how to get through it sooner or later. Probably sooner,” finished Rodney. “Yes, we all know about the Replicator’s irritating tendency to adapt to whatever we throw at them. I suppose this is where the rest of that plan of yours comes in.”
“It’s not that bad of a plan, Rodney,” said John. “I’m a little insulted that you...”
“Oh wait, that’s right. This plan of yours and hers.” He nodded his head in Elizabeth’s direction, not bothering to conceal the suspicion in his voice. Hurt flashed across her face.
“I thought you said you were going to trust me on this, McKay,” said John, a warning running behind his careful words.
Rodney set his jaw and straightened up. He had gotten the message. And he was going to ignore it. “Yeah, well I’m finding it harder to do that.”
“What’s the matter with you?” John snapped angrily. “Everything’s worked so far hasn’t it? Why start now?”
“John,” said Elizabeth quietly, stepping up to stand beside him. “It’s okay. This was going to have to happen eventually. He has every right to be suspicious.”
“We don’t have time...”
“John,” she repeated, putting the slight forcefulness in her tone that she had used as leader of the expedition- the tone that had made even the most stubborn Marine or upset scientist listen to her. “Let him say what he needs to say.”
Rodney was struck dumb for a moment. He obviously hadn’t expected that. He actually seemed slightly shamed by her reasonableness, and when he spoke again he sounded almost contrite. “Look, I want to believe you, I really do. But it’s just... this is all so...” He trailed off, his previous arguments apparently having flown out the window. Then he recovered. “Why weren’t you locked up, huh? Do they just let you roam around wherever you want? If you were really a prisoner here, we should have had to bust you out or something...”
“I’m not a threat to them, Rodney. They know I’m not in any position to do anything to stop them. They’ve made sure of that.”
“Oh, and what do you call what you’re doing now? ‘Cause I think helping us escape definitely qualifies for the ‘stopping them’ category. They would have taken control of your nanites and assimilated you as soon as possible, making you part of their collective. And that means that the only way you could actually be here was if they put you here as a spy! That would be the case even if you’re actually Elizabeth Weir and not just some copy they made to fool us. You’ve admitted that you can tell what they’re doing, what they’re planning. Well I’m guessing that that works both ways!”
Elizabeth sighed heavily. “They’ve been... distracted since you were captured, Kedan in particular, and he’s the one who holds the most control. I’ve been able to hide things from them on a greater level than I’ve ever been able to before, taking advantage of how truly inconsequential I seem to them. Even with you all here, when I would have thought that they would be keeping a closer eye on me, they didn’t even bother.”
Rodney still looked like he didn’t buy it. She nodded and looked at the floor for a few seconds before meeting his gaze. “I am the person I say I am, Rodney. I am Elizabeth Weir. I’m not a copy.” He began to say something, but she held up her hand to stop him. “And I know that, whatever your issues are with me right now, nothing I tell you is going to be able to fully eliminate the doubt in your mind. I know it’s all going to sound like a lie to you, and I don’t know what else I can say that will make you believe me. But, Rodney, in the past you’ve accepted things and trusted people in much more difficult situations to believe than the one we’re in now. Not all of that trust turned out to be misplaced. What is it that’s stopping you this time?” Her voice had been perfectly calm throughout her entire speech, but there was an ever so slight note of pleading in the last question.
Rodney looked away from her, clenching his jaw and swallowing, and was quiet for a moment. Then, “Look, I don’t want to get my hopes up, okay? I don’t want to believe you and then turn around and find out that it was all some big lie and you’re still out there missing somewhere. It’s... it’s easier if I don’t trust you.”
“You’re going to have to if we want to get out of here.” He met her eyes, looking almost... afraid. “Please, Rodney,” she urged, “We don’t have a lot of time.”
He opened his mouth, hesitating for several seconds. “Alright. Okay,” he sighed, “I’ll... I’ll do it.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
He nodded briskly and awkwardly, then turned back to the computer screen and began talking very rapidly. “The Replicators still haven’t gotten through the shield yet. It’ll take them a while, I made the program especially complicated just for them. But...” he lifted one hand from the controls and shook a finger in the air, “they will get through it eventually. So... we’ll have to make another generator, on a different frequency, and take it with us for maximum effect. If I try to extend the field from here we won’t have enough time to actually get out before they just figure that one out too.”
John already knew all this. This was the plan that he and Elizabeth had come up with in his head, but he let Rodney talk, simply relieved that he seemed to be finally past his severe mistrust of Elizabeth’s motives. Or at least enough to ignore them for now and concentrate on getting them all out of this damn place.
“... problem will be coming up with one small enough to carry. Like an ARG, but constant...”
“Speaking of ARGs...” interrupted John.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” McKay didn’t even look up from the screen or stop typing. “Make you a couple of those too while I’m at it.”
“I could do that,” offered Elizabeth. Rodney looked up, surprised.
“You could?”
“I’ve been working with them in their labs for months now.” She seemed lightly amused by his reaction and smiled. “I couldn’t help but pick up a few things. I just need to use the program you came up with...”
“Oh. S...sure.” He pressed a button and pointed to another console, still appearing a little shellshocked. “I sent a copy of it over there. You should have everything you need.”
Elizabeth nodded, went over to the assigned computer, and immediately began to work on creating the anti-Replicator guns. The speed at which she worked surprised John. Within minutes, the basic shape of the weapon had begun to form inside a forcefield like the one McKay had used earlier. He wondered just how much of an advantage the nanites inside her gave in regards to using this technology. In the past she had been able to exercise some amount of control over them. Maybe she was still able to do so, even with the alterations made by Kedan.
Knowing he couldn’t do anything to help her at the moment, he turned back to McKay, standing with the console between them. “How’s it coming, Rodney?”
The scientist glanced up at him, annoyed, then focused on his work. “It’s coming,” he said, “although it would be going a little faster if I wasn’t interrupted every five seconds.” He paused expectantly. John didn’t say anything. “And this is very complicated work,” he continued, looking slightly put out at the lack of response, “especially since it has to last long enough for us to get to the main power core too.” He said the last sentence almost accusingly, as if provoking him to argue.
“We can’t leave this place intact, McKay. You know what kind of damage these Replicators could do with the tech they’re developing here. We can’t let them get the chance to use it.”
“And coming back isn’t an option either,” interjected Elizabeth, coming over to them and laying a completed ARG on the table. She faced the physicist. “They’d be long gone by the time we would be able to put anything together. It has to be done now.” A wry smile crossed her face. “We’re not going to get this kind of chance again,” she said, echoing Rodney’s statement of long ago, in the puddle jumper on Asuras. John felt a slight chill at her words. The last time they had had a conversation like this it hadn’t ended well.
“And I know you know all this Rodney.” She smiled knowingly at him, for a moment seeming almost like her old self. “Stop arguing for the sake of it.” She turned to John. “I’ve got the computer creating three more of those,” she said, gesturing to the gun resting on the table between them. “I’m hoping that will be enough.”
“It should be,” said Rodney. A triumphant grin spread across his face. “After all, the ARGs aren’t going to be doing much of the work. This is.” The table’s forcefield snapped off, allowing them to clearly see the second device that Rodney had created, one much smaller than the generator that was currently protecting the lab. It was circular, made of a dull gray colored metal with blue and orange lights set into the smooth surface. “It’s ready.”
“Alright,” said Ronon, straightening up from where he had been leaning against the door. He had been silent for so long, it was startling hearing him speak so suddenly. There was a grin on his face. “Let’s go blow up some Replicators.”
The pain was unimaginable. It was like a thousand knives were stabbing him over and over again, relentless in their mission to inflict as much torture as possible. Bright red lights flashed all around him, blinding him one minute and plunging him into utter darkness the next. There was nothing else but the pain. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. All he could do was scream and wish for it all to be over. Images began to burn themselves into his mind. He saw Elizabeth dead. Over and over again. Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, even himself - dead. Atlantis burning. The images were almost worse than the knives.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t. The pain was too much. He felt his mind stretch to its breaking point, felt his sanity starting to slip away in shreds... and then it was over. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, confusion immediately taking hold. He was back on the floor where the lab was, standing just beyond the start of the short hallway that held the staircase. He felt a hand gripping his left arm, and then suddenly realized that someone was talking. “...hey, John... are you alright?”
He turned to his left to glance at the source of the voice and found a concerned looking Rodney staring at him, waiting for his question to be answered. “No, not really,” said John, still trying to catch his breath. “What the hell happened?”
“It was a Replicator,” said another voice behind him. John felt a sudden dizzying flood of relief just hearing it. “One of the guards on this floor. Rodney says he surprised you when you turned the corner.” John turned around to look at Elizabeth. “I got out here in time to see Ronon pull him off of you.” She gestured to the still body laying at his feet and gave a tiny smile. “That neck snapping thing is an interesting trick. I’m surprised it works.” She smiled again, hesitantly, the expression not managing to hide the familiar look of worry that covered her features.
“See, I told you it shouldn’t work,” John heard Rodney mutter under his breath. He ignored him and ran a hand through his already messy hair.
“So,” he said to no one in particular, trying to straighten out the whole mess for himself, “everything after I turned that corner... from that minute on everything was fake?”
“Yes,” confirmed Elizabeth.
“Right,” he said with a sigh of relief, catching her eye for a brief moment. Elizabeth gave him a strange look, but didn’t say anything. “How long did that thing have its hand in my head?”
“The amount of time it took for the Flash here to realize what was going on, get around you, grab his hand and pull it out,” answered Rodney, jerking his head in Ronon’s direction. “Around ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds?” John shook his head, trying to let sense return to his still somewhat dazed mind. “I really hate Replicators.”
“Believe me I know the feeling,” said Elizabeth fervently, meeting his eyes. “Now come on, we need to get out of the hallway.” She started walking towards the lab. John began to follow her, but Ronon stopped him.
“Here,” he said, and held out John’s P-90 to him. “You dropped this.” John stared at the weapon as if he was seeing a ghost. A split-second later he recovered, nodded and took it out of Ronon’s hands silently, then moved towards the lab. He looked ahead at where Elizabeth was just entering the room, then down at the gleaming black metal of the gun resting on his arm. The Replicator’s illusion flashed unbidden through his memory, and he shuddered involuntarily.
oOo
After everyone had entered the dim lab, Elizabeth sealed the door behind them and moved over to one of the computer consoles. Out of the corner of his eye John saw Rodney glance the closed door warily and share a slightly concerned look with Ronon. John sighed inwardly. So they still hadn’t gotten past their mistrust of her. He didn’t know what else he could say that would convince them. They would just have to see for themselves that he was right.
Ronon steered Shanna into a vacant corner, told her rather sharply to stay put, and positioned himself by the door. Elizabeth turned to look at McKay. “We don’t have much time,” she said. “I know they have the equipment we need, but I don’t know enough to operate all of it myself. I can help, but...”
“But it’s going to fall on me to do most of the work,” Rodney interrupted. “What else is new?”
For a moment she looked like she wanted to be amused at this typical Rodney McKay statement, as she would have been in the past, but his cold tone and distant expression prevented her from responding as she normally would have. Instead, one side of her mouth gave a brief, sad little twitch and she turned back to the console, not looking at him as she spoke. She quickly clued him in on what they had to work with and exactly what the plan called for, pulling up several schematics for him to look at. When that was done, she let Rodney take over that computer and silently moved across the room to another workstation, her face carefully controlled and blank. But John knew her better than that.
As quietly as she had, he walked to the other side of the room and stood beside her at the console. She didn’t look at him, just continued to stare at the screen in front of her, the blue glow casting shadows along her face in the low light, throwing her features into sharp contrast. A few seconds ticked by as she worked. He waited. Finally, “They still don’t trust me, do they?” she said in a low voice. It wasn’t a question.
He answered anyway. “No,” he said quietly. “No they don’t.”
“But you do.” She turned her head slightly to glance at him. He sent her a small, hopefully reassuring smile. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Her eyes were fraught with sympathy and sadness as she continued. “And by trusting me, you compromise the trust your team has in you. I’m sorry. I know that must be hard.”
“Yeah, well, they’ll come around.”
She flashed him a quick melancholy smile and nodded. “Let’s hope so.” She turned back to the computer and continued to work for half a minute or so in silence. John waited again; he could see that she still had more to say. Sure enough, she soon turned to look at him again, this time hesitating before speaking, as if unsure she should verbalize what was on her mind. “John, what... what did you see, in the hallway? What did the guard show you? I... I understand if you don’t want to tell me, but...”
He saw only concern on her face as she regarded him. But he couldn’t tell her... How could he tell her that in that illusion he had killed her? Watched her die? He couldn’t... But yet he suddenly found himself talking. “It was completely flawless like you said, like it was the first time on Asuras. We were in the hall, surrounded, and had to fight our way into the main corridor. We had taken them all out, I picked up my gun, and... and you came around the corner.” He stared at her, misery in his voice and an apology in his eyes. “I couldn’t see who it was... didn’t think...”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and bowed her head, swallowing deeply as the realization of what must have happened next dawned on her. John wanted to look away, to lose himself in the shadows that clung to every corner in the room, but he kept watching her face, searching for some reaction, some sign that she forgave him for what he had done. It was an irrational need, that wish for her forgiveness, considering the event had never happened, but he felt it anyway.
She opened her eyes, her gaze filled with pity and understanding. He could hardly believe it. He had killed her, and she was feeling sorry for him. Again. As if she didn’t have more than enough sorrow of her own to deal with. He wished she would stop it.
She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was was halted by Rodney’s exclamation from across the room. “Okay, I think I have basically what I need to do this. It won’t be quite as smooth as last time though. Before I was able to use the cloaking field on the jumper to create the ARG field we used to get into the city, and since we don’t happen to have one of those handy, I had to use what was already here. Fortunately for us, these Replicators have some seriously advanced technology at their disposal.” He pressed a series of buttons on the console in front of him and a small force shield appeared around the empty table it was connected to. The lights set into the table’s surface glowed orange and in a matter of seconds Replicator blocks began to form from thin air, merging into a complex looking Ancient device like John had never seen before. When the device was complete, the lights dimmed and the force shield dissipated into nothing, leaving Rodney’s creation sitting unassumingly on the now dull surface. Rodney beamed proudly. “See. Our very own field generator.”
“That’s great, Rodney,” said John impatiently, “now how about powering it up? We’re going to have Replicators beating down the door any minute now.”
“They should have shown up already,” said Ronon from the door. “There’s no way it should have taken this long for them to find us and get here. It doesn’t take ten minutes to walk up a flight of stairs.”
“They’re regrouping,” said Elizabeth. “It took them a few moments for all of them to recognize what was going on.” Her eyes unfocused for a second. “They’re almost here now. In about thirty seconds they’re going to enter this hallway. Rodney...!”
He pressed a button on the device. “It’s on, it’s on!” Several lights around the rim of the device began to glow. The lab’s walls shimmered blue for a second and then returned to normal.
“Did it work?” demanded John. No one answered. The rest of the promised thirty seconds flew by.
“Yes,” confirmed Elizabeth and Rodney simultaneously. Rodney looked up from the computer screen where he had been watching the sensors, appearing slightly miffed that he hadn’t been the only one to deliver the news. Elizabeth just looked relieved. “The field’s working,” she said. “They’re disintegrating the instant they walk through it.”
John relaxed, tense muscles loosening now that they had time to work with. “That’s great. But...”
“They’re going to figure out how to get through it sooner or later. Probably sooner,” finished Rodney. “Yes, we all know about the Replicator’s irritating tendency to adapt to whatever we throw at them. I suppose this is where the rest of that plan of yours comes in.”
“It’s not that bad of a plan, Rodney,” said John. “I’m a little insulted that you...”
“Oh wait, that’s right. This plan of yours and hers.” He nodded his head in Elizabeth’s direction, not bothering to conceal the suspicion in his voice. Hurt flashed across her face.
“I thought you said you were going to trust me on this, McKay,” said John, a warning running behind his careful words.
Rodney set his jaw and straightened up. He had gotten the message. And he was going to ignore it. “Yeah, well I’m finding it harder to do that.”
“What’s the matter with you?” John snapped angrily. “Everything’s worked so far hasn’t it? Why start now?”
“John,” said Elizabeth quietly, stepping up to stand beside him. “It’s okay. This was going to have to happen eventually. He has every right to be suspicious.”
“We don’t have time...”
“John,” she repeated, putting the slight forcefulness in her tone that she had used as leader of the expedition- the tone that had made even the most stubborn Marine or upset scientist listen to her. “Let him say what he needs to say.”
Rodney was struck dumb for a moment. He obviously hadn’t expected that. He actually seemed slightly shamed by her reasonableness, and when he spoke again he sounded almost contrite. “Look, I want to believe you, I really do. But it’s just... this is all so...” He trailed off, his previous arguments apparently having flown out the window. Then he recovered. “Why weren’t you locked up, huh? Do they just let you roam around wherever you want? If you were really a prisoner here, we should have had to bust you out or something...”
“I’m not a threat to them, Rodney. They know I’m not in any position to do anything to stop them. They’ve made sure of that.”
“Oh, and what do you call what you’re doing now? ‘Cause I think helping us escape definitely qualifies for the ‘stopping them’ category. They would have taken control of your nanites and assimilated you as soon as possible, making you part of their collective. And that means that the only way you could actually be here was if they put you here as a spy! That would be the case even if you’re actually Elizabeth Weir and not just some copy they made to fool us. You’ve admitted that you can tell what they’re doing, what they’re planning. Well I’m guessing that that works both ways!”
Elizabeth sighed heavily. “They’ve been... distracted since you were captured, Kedan in particular, and he’s the one who holds the most control. I’ve been able to hide things from them on a greater level than I’ve ever been able to before, taking advantage of how truly inconsequential I seem to them. Even with you all here, when I would have thought that they would be keeping a closer eye on me, they didn’t even bother.”
Rodney still looked like he didn’t buy it. She nodded and looked at the floor for a few seconds before meeting his gaze. “I am the person I say I am, Rodney. I am Elizabeth Weir. I’m not a copy.” He began to say something, but she held up her hand to stop him. “And I know that, whatever your issues are with me right now, nothing I tell you is going to be able to fully eliminate the doubt in your mind. I know it’s all going to sound like a lie to you, and I don’t know what else I can say that will make you believe me. But, Rodney, in the past you’ve accepted things and trusted people in much more difficult situations to believe than the one we’re in now. Not all of that trust turned out to be misplaced. What is it that’s stopping you this time?” Her voice had been perfectly calm throughout her entire speech, but there was an ever so slight note of pleading in the last question.
Rodney looked away from her, clenching his jaw and swallowing, and was quiet for a moment. Then, “Look, I don’t want to get my hopes up, okay? I don’t want to believe you and then turn around and find out that it was all some big lie and you’re still out there missing somewhere. It’s... it’s easier if I don’t trust you.”
“You’re going to have to if we want to get out of here.” He met her eyes, looking almost... afraid. “Please, Rodney,” she urged, “We don’t have a lot of time.”
He opened his mouth, hesitating for several seconds. “Alright. Okay,” he sighed, “I’ll... I’ll do it.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
He nodded briskly and awkwardly, then turned back to the computer screen and began talking very rapidly. “The Replicators still haven’t gotten through the shield yet. It’ll take them a while, I made the program especially complicated just for them. But...” he lifted one hand from the controls and shook a finger in the air, “they will get through it eventually. So... we’ll have to make another generator, on a different frequency, and take it with us for maximum effect. If I try to extend the field from here we won’t have enough time to actually get out before they just figure that one out too.”
John already knew all this. This was the plan that he and Elizabeth had come up with in his head, but he let Rodney talk, simply relieved that he seemed to be finally past his severe mistrust of Elizabeth’s motives. Or at least enough to ignore them for now and concentrate on getting them all out of this damn place.
“... problem will be coming up with one small enough to carry. Like an ARG, but constant...”
“Speaking of ARGs...” interrupted John.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” McKay didn’t even look up from the screen or stop typing. “Make you a couple of those too while I’m at it.”
“I could do that,” offered Elizabeth. Rodney looked up, surprised.
“You could?”
“I’ve been working with them in their labs for months now.” She seemed lightly amused by his reaction and smiled. “I couldn’t help but pick up a few things. I just need to use the program you came up with...”
“Oh. S...sure.” He pressed a button and pointed to another console, still appearing a little shellshocked. “I sent a copy of it over there. You should have everything you need.”
Elizabeth nodded, went over to the assigned computer, and immediately began to work on creating the anti-Replicator guns. The speed at which she worked surprised John. Within minutes, the basic shape of the weapon had begun to form inside a forcefield like the one McKay had used earlier. He wondered just how much of an advantage the nanites inside her gave in regards to using this technology. In the past she had been able to exercise some amount of control over them. Maybe she was still able to do so, even with the alterations made by Kedan.
Knowing he couldn’t do anything to help her at the moment, he turned back to McKay, standing with the console between them. “How’s it coming, Rodney?”
The scientist glanced up at him, annoyed, then focused on his work. “It’s coming,” he said, “although it would be going a little faster if I wasn’t interrupted every five seconds.” He paused expectantly. John didn’t say anything. “And this is very complicated work,” he continued, looking slightly put out at the lack of response, “especially since it has to last long enough for us to get to the main power core too.” He said the last sentence almost accusingly, as if provoking him to argue.
“We can’t leave this place intact, McKay. You know what kind of damage these Replicators could do with the tech they’re developing here. We can’t let them get the chance to use it.”
“And coming back isn’t an option either,” interjected Elizabeth, coming over to them and laying a completed ARG on the table. She faced the physicist. “They’d be long gone by the time we would be able to put anything together. It has to be done now.” A wry smile crossed her face. “We’re not going to get this kind of chance again,” she said, echoing Rodney’s statement of long ago, in the puddle jumper on Asuras. John felt a slight chill at her words. The last time they had had a conversation like this it hadn’t ended well.
“And I know you know all this Rodney.” She smiled knowingly at him, for a moment seeming almost like her old self. “Stop arguing for the sake of it.” She turned to John. “I’ve got the computer creating three more of those,” she said, gesturing to the gun resting on the table between them. “I’m hoping that will be enough.”
“It should be,” said Rodney. A triumphant grin spread across his face. “After all, the ARGs aren’t going to be doing much of the work. This is.” The table’s forcefield snapped off, allowing them to clearly see the second device that Rodney had created, one much smaller than the generator that was currently protecting the lab. It was circular, made of a dull gray colored metal with blue and orange lights set into the smooth surface. “It’s ready.”
“Alright,” said Ronon, straightening up from where he had been leaning against the door. He had been silent for so long, it was startling hearing him speak so suddenly. There was a grin on his face. “Let’s go blow up some Replicators.”