Something Very Wrong (Stargate Atlantis - gen, 3475 words)
Another for the Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon 2014, it's ummm, odd -? Stargate Atlantis, the prompt being 'disease' :)
Something Very Wrong
Oddly enough - and a small, sane, near-silent part of you knows there is something very very wrong with this - Miko Kusanagi makes the most terrifying Wraith of all.
Oh, not that the others aren't terrifying, all of them. Well, of all of them who aren't dead.
And some of them too. You've been finding it harder and harder to remember which are which in the hazy exhausted muddle of time since this started - since Cadman's team (and maybe she is the scariest, all faded blue eyes and big stained teeth and endless endless endless chattering, like the crack and shatter of old bones, where are you McKay? - where are you we just want to help to help to help), yes her team came back from planet Msomethingdevilsnumbersomethingsomething, and they were sick. All of them. They said they didn't meet any Wraith, or bugs, or nasty germ-bearing aliens.... they lied. They must have lied.
(Horrible planet, Msomethingdevilsnumbersomethingsomething, you remember the ash-grey earth and bone-white trees and corpse-coloured flowers and being asked if you were all right, why you were shivering and cold. But you can't remember why you were there when it was Cadman's team who went, who came back, who were sick.)
You didn't know Wraith could turn people into more Wraith. Not your fault, you're not a voodoo doctor, it's Carson should have known (Carson now all thin and twisted and with fingers like needles, whispering like wind through dead trees it's all in your mind Rodney, it was just a wee drop of blood, it's for your own good, it'll all be over soon soon too too soooon... you hit him with your laptop when you ran, you hit the nurse with her coalblackhungry eyes and mottled dark toadsoft skin too). Carson should have known, but he didn't. He couldn't. Not his fault either.
You must have broke the laptop, it still works but the information on the screen doesn't make sense. And if it doesn't make sense how are you going to find out why this is happening?
You're hiding in the dark now, in one of the lower outer parts of the city. There's water puddling on the floor and lapping at the corridors, dank, blue-algae stained water that smells cold and harsh and horrible. You're not safe, you know that, you can't stay here, they will find you, but you can huddle in the dark for a while and breathe the cold, harsh damp air and clutch the laptop that is smeared with blueish something(blood? - Wraith blood, maybe Carson, maybe the nurse, maybe one of the peopleyoudidn'tknowcouldturnintoWraithsbuttheydidtheydidtheydid) and with bits of something worse than blood. You can stop for a little while and try and make the bleached-bone numbers and words on the dead-black screen make sense.
They're all of them Wraith, or dead, or worse. They're all of them wanting to kill you and they will if they catch you. But you're their only hope, and they need you to save them. You need you to save them - and save you - too.
You need to... to... to do something, you can't think what, you can't think, and you wish you wish you wish (and the small, soft, sane part of you doesn't wish) that Sheppard would stop talking, talking, telling you, telling you something you need but don't want to believe.
Where is Sheppard? You don't remember, you don't remember seeing him since, since...
You try to think. Cadman's team turned first. They were sick, they were in the infirmary, they were screaming and fighting and shesheshe... she threw up all over Carson and the nurses. You and Teyla and Elizabeth, you were watching from - behind the glass? - yes, from a safe place (not safe, nowhere safe but it wasn't your fault, you didn’t know that and neither did Elizabeth, Elizabeth all withered and blanched and a thousand years old, skin so dry it turned to dust under your hand) and you could see the bluish, bruiselike (or deathlike) tint of Cadman's face and hands, the dullness of her blonde hair, and her pale eyes.
It was Teyla (oh TeylaTeylaTeyla, you picture her face with that snakesbelly mottling and scars, and reptile eyes, and you want to cry) who first saw it, saw that they were changing. Not like Sheppard and his bug thing - you thought that was scary and horrible and heartbreaking, but this is worseworsewaywayworse - but faster and agonizing and violent and worst of all contagious.
They were sick. There must have been something on planet Msomethingdevilsnumbersomethingsomething, a virus, a bug (different from Sheppard's bug), a... a something that infected them. Carson took samples before she infected him, and you should be able to hook into the medical records and find the data.
(Your laptop already has the information from Msomethingdevilsnumbersomethingsomething, doesn't it? The information from the dead village, you know there was a dead village and how can you see it so clearly when Cadman didn't get a chance to tell you?)
What you will do with the data when you do, you don't know, you probably wouldn't know even if you could think, but you have to do something and this is all you can think of. Find the something, find a way to kill it, cure it, fix it.
And to do that, you have to stay safe from everyone who's infected, who's turned into Wraith, who's looking for you, who'll feed on you, who'll kill you, until you do fix it.
You can't remember - well you could if your head would stop hurting and you could think - how Cadman and her team got out of the infirmary, how she got to you and Elizabeth and how Elizabeth died (she killed her she killed her Elizabeth was all twisted and dried up with her eyes and mouth wide open) and how there was nothing you could do but try and save yourself and Teyla, and how Teyla, she tried to save you too, and you failed. And she was turning, turning, tarnishing and blotched with alien colour, and she was looking at you with those hungryhungryhungry eyes and reaching with that thin, grasping, scarring hand even as she told you to run, to run, before she....
And Carson tried to stop you, Carson and his nurse (whispering to you like a serpent hiss Rodney it's all right it's all right it's not real), and you hit them both and hit anyone who tried to stop you from running. You tried to alert the control room, didn't you? - didn't you? - you're sure you did, you remember speaking to Zelenka (Zelenka, Radek, brownandgreyandso-so-small, tattered with unimaginable age, huddled in on himself in the darkened corridor, he must have tried to run too) but it was already too late. The sickness was already in the airways, it spread so fast, so fast, so horrifyingly fast, his city couldn't or wouldn't quarantine it, and people were being infected, turned, killed.
There was no one you could think of you could trust, except your team, and Teyla was gone and Ronon was somewhere, you don't know where, probably killing your own people because they weren't people any more, and Sheppard... where the hell was Sheppard? Why hadn't he been there to protect you and Elizabeth and...
Pleasepleaseplease don't let the virusinsectsomething get Sheppard. And also, pleasepleaseplease if he has to talk to you from wherever he is, as he still is, make the words make sense...
You made it to the corridors deep under Atlantis, which was good. You don't remember how, which isn't good... but not as not good as how well you remember the people you found. Most of them fed on, most of them dead (Stackhouse, a shrunken muddle of uniform and kevlar and weapons you should have grabbed) some of them dying (Kavanagh, oh god Kavanagh, trying to crawl away on skeletal limbs from what age-blinded eyes couldn't see) and some that had fed, that you had to run from (Miko, terrifying little Miko but you can't think of Miko, you don't dare think of Miko... and her scratching honorable Doctor Mckay...)
Down here, no Wraith should be able to find you. Yet. You could still hear them through the radios as you ran, at least you thought it was the radios, it sounded all wrong, but how else could you hear them -? Rodney, Rodney, listen to us, listen, it's not what you think. Carson again, but you didn't answer, you knew they'd find you in time, but you thought you could use that time to work out what was wrong.
You were wrong... it happens sometimes. At bad times.
Now the puddles of water are larger, you can't stay here, the ocean is getting in and it's slimy with waterweeds - alien waterweeds, slippery and slowly twisting in the dank wetness as if alive and dully aware - and some sort of oily mould.
It's getting colder, and you're shaking as if with fever, but you keep trying to work on the data that scrolls in dirty white, confusing letters across a dirty black screen. You should be able to work it out, you're a genius, after all, and it's only medicine, voodoo, not a real science... and they made sense before. Cadman, you think it was Cadman who told you they made sense on the alien computer in the dead village (though how would she know, how would she know anything, she doesn't read Ancient or alien or whatever! - but you can hear her voice, saying you don't look well, do you feel all right? as you try to get at the data from the machine in that village hut smelling of death) yes, it was Cadman.
Unless it wasn't.
Someone, then, told you the data made sense. And whoever it was, you are much much smarter than them, so why won't it make sense for you? You can't think why, but you can't give up trying. Your life, a lot of lives depend on it. You think they do, anyway.
The water - that dark, slimy water - is getting closer. You pull yourself up, still shaking, and hug the laptop closer. You'll hit any Wraith that gets too close with it again, it's pathetic - and will break it even more - but it's all you've got.
The path to the western laboratory system - the older, more primitive part of the city - is drier but dirtier, and the thick air makes your throat hurt. The voices in your hear - or radio, you're still not sure which - are making your headache worse, but you can't take it off, you have to know what they're saying, even if it's just come back Rodney it's safe it's safe you don't understand McKay listen you need help help help need help... that last need help sounds like Elizabeth but it can't be, it can't be, she's dead she's dead Cadman killed her and made Teyla a Wraith Dr McKay listen and oh god that sounded like WraithTeyla trying to sound like real Teyla but you're not fooled.
And you can still hear Sheppard. He's talking to someone, might be you, but the words aren't the ones you want to hear so you don't listen, they vanish into in the muddle of lies way that everyone else's words make.
You don't want to listen. You're not going to listen. You want so badly to listen and to believe Sheppard is telling you what to do to fix it.
The data still doesn't make sense, but you're nearly there you're nearly there you're alone in the darkness of a long-abandoned lab and it's safe and if you can just have a little longer just a little longer you might be able to save yourself and a few, just a few please please god a few like Sheppard and Ronon and McKay it's me you feel the shock like a stunner gun, Ronon's own or the Wraiths', you don't know.
What you do know is that Ronon's standing in front of you, and he looks, he looks, ohgodhelooksdeadanddriedupandfedon and he's not dead how can he not be dead? - he looks a million years old, ratty dreadlocks grey and brittle, face skeletal and dull and the colour of mud and he'd got to be dead but he's staring at you as you hide in the shadows. You don't remember hiding in the shadows, why don't you remember - it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter any more.
Ronon is dead, and he's staring at you with milky-white dead eyes and his mouth is moving but the words don't match how it moves what are you staring at... McKay it's okay it's okay you're gonna be and you can't take this, you can't, you never wanted to see him like this, and you throw the laptop at him and you miss and you run anyway, he's faster than you evendeadohgodhe'sfasterthanyou but you know these passages and you run and run and fall and and and -
He's not there.
You're suddenly not sure if he ever was. You've lost the laptop and you don't know what to do, maybe you should go back McKay come back no one is gonna hurt you nonononono you can't. You can't. You are so screwed.
You head back into the darkness, stumbling because your headache, and the shaking from the cold or fever, whatever, and your fear and helplessness and whatever that is making you feel as sick as Cadman looked at the start of all of this, whenever it was, feels like it's been forever but it can't have been it can't and Elizabeth and Radek and Stackhouse and Ronon are dead, and Cadman and Teyla and Miko oh god Miko... one of them will find you and kill you and it's not your fault, it's not your fault, but it has to be your fault because you can't fix it. You're supposed to fix it.
You're not a doctor, not that kind of doctor, and you can't fix it.
You can't hear the voices now, either. You close your eyes, slide down a dank, grimy wall and curl up a little, shaking and freezing and wishing Sheppard would talk again. But he won't, he's probably gone like the rest, you're alone and you're going to die and you just hope it's not someone you love who finds and kills you.
Before the sickness does.
It feels like hours but it's probably nothing like that. You finally haul yourself up and stumble back the way you came, looking for the laptop. You've got an idea this is a mistake, that there's something horrible that made you run, but your mind is so fuzzy, hurts so much, you can't remember what or who it was. You can't quite recall what happened to everyone now, only that there were Wraith and dead people and it's all too much but you need to fix it. Your job is to fix it. You just need the lapt-
You find it, and it's really broken now, casing and screen cracked clear across where it hit the wall, or someone's head. Someone threw it, that much you think you can remember, but who it was who threw it...
Oh yes it was you. Stupid you.
"Rodney."
Sheppard.
He's alone. It's just you and him in the darkness, and you should be afraid. You clutch the laptop a little harder, you'll hit him with it if you have to, like you hit the others. But you don't want to have to.
He looks... okay. You've seen him fed on before, and you've seen him, if not Wraith-coloured, mottled and blue and infected by that damn bug. He doesn't look like that now, just weary and worried and of course he's worried, if he's not a Wraith he might soon be, you can't let that happen.
"I'm going to fix it," you try to tell him, but the voice you hear doesn't sound much like you. Maybe you're infected too? - but really, no Wraith you've ever known sounded that dismal and weak. You try again. "I am. I know it's not my fault -"
"I know."
"- That people got sick, but it is my fault if they die. It's in here..." You hold up the laptop, and stare at it for a moment, a fuzzy thought taking shape. "Is it, Sheppard?"
"The answer?" He's not looking at it, he's looking at you, and the tiredness and the worry is all focused on you. Which is wrong, because people are dead and people are Wraith and he needs to worry about them. About him. But the small, sane part of you is glad it's you. "Maybe."
"Did you see them?" You're not sure who you mean by them - Elizabeth and Radek and Stackhouse, maybe, or Carson and Teyla. Or Ronon. Whichever it was, it hurts to think he saw them like that, almost as bad as it did when you saw, you saw...
Miko.
Who would have thought the most terrifying would be Miko?
When Sheppard cocks his head at you, you wonder if you said that aloud.
"Yes," he says, "you said that aloud."
"It's not Carson's fault, you know," you tell him. "Or Cadman's, even if I want it to be. It's a sickness. It's not anyone's fault."
"Not even yours -?"
"I..."
"You're sick too, Rodney," he says quietly, and you freeze. "You, Cadman, her team. You were sick on M56-72G, don't you remember?"
No, you don't... you didn't go there, you're sure you didn't, but you can still hear Cadman and her you don't look well, do you feel all right? as you try to download anything that might explain why... "Everyone was dead."
"Not everyone, no."
"Everyone."
"Some of them were sick, Rodney, and Cadman brought you back as fast as she could, but not fast enough. You were in quarantine, all of you, but keeping even an addled McKay from breaking out -" Sheppard sighs.
"Is Cadman a Wraith?"
"No. She thought you were a Go'ould."
"That's stupid."
"Yeah." Sheppard pauses, comes a little closer. "That's what you were seeing, huh?"
"Cadman and Carson and Teyla," your breath hitches, you hurt just to say it, "and I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay."
"I wouldn't have thought they could, you know? Look and sound like... I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay, Rodney."
"And Elizabeth and Radek are dead. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't stop it. People got sick, people were Wraiths and they, they, they - don't." You try to hold up a hand, even though it's shaking worse and worse. "Don't tell me they're not dead. You weren't there, you weren't there, you didn't see..."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"And Ronon..." You look at him, and wonder if he even knows about Ronon. He'd be even sorrier about Teyla and Ronon.
You're suddenly, unbelievably tired, and you hurt even more, all over. You're not sure what it real and what isn't any more.
"Sheppard?" You whisper as you feel yourself sliding into the darkness. You're afraid, you're terrified, and even as you slide you can feel the laptop loosen in your grasp. "What were you trying to tell me?"
"You weren't listening, were you?'
"I didn't want..."
"I was telling you it's safe, Rodney," he says softly, holding out a hand, a brown, strong, normal hand. "It's all right, it's not real, it's not what you think."
Which, you know, is what everyone was saying. But they were Wraith or dead, and you're too smart to believe Wraith or dead people.
You're not too smart to believe Sheppard, are you? Are you? You stare at him trying to see something different, anything, anything that would look Wraith blue. Or fed-on dead. You can't, but you don't know you don't know your head hurts even more and you don't know...
Your fingers tighten on the laptop. If you believe him and you're wrong, if he's about to turn into a Wraith, hitting him with what's left of the laptop won't help and you will lose any chance of fixing this. If you believe him and he's right... you are the one who needs fixing.
If you don't believe him, if you hit him hard enough, you probably can't get away any more anyway...
The small, sane, near-silent part of you is screaming that something is terribly terribly wrong with all of this, but you don't know what to do.
You reach out - your hand is shaking, shaking so bad, you can't stop it - and brush his fingers, and for a moment before everything fades out... you think ohgodohgodohgod your own hand looks...
-the end-