02 - Reliquary (28 page)

John cleared his throat and said, “Beckett?”

Beckett looked up, brows lifted, then said something to one of the techs as
he pushed his chair back. He came over to stand beside John’s bed, pulling a
portable scanner out of the pocket of his lab coat. “Ah, Major. Are we coherent
today?”

“Is that a trick question?” He squinted up at Beckett. “How long have I been
out?”

“Six days,” Beckett said, seeming surprised and pleased. Apparently asking if
John was coherent hadn’t been a joke. Beckett set the scanner aside and took out
a small pocket flashlight. “Hold still a moment and let me check your eyes.”

Expecting to hear that it had been a day or so at most, John was too floored
to try to avoid the light. But it was a relief when it just stung a little and
didn’t make him want to punch Beckett and throw himself off the bed. Beckett
confirmed it, picking up the chart and making a note. “Very good. I think your
eyes are quite back to normal.”

“How is everybody?” John didn’t need to ask if he was still dying; he knew
what Beckett looked like when people were dying, and this wasn’t it. “Teyla and
Ford, everybody who had the mind-control drug—”

“Everyone who was given the drug has completely recovered,” Beckett assured
him. “And poor Masterson was the only death from the fighting. There were a
number of injuries from the fighting, but everyone’s doing fine now.”

John pushed himself up a little more. “Hey, I can’t hear the ATA anymore.
Does that mean…?”

Carson pushed him back down again. “Yes, all physical symptoms are gone. You
had us worried for a bit there. We got you on life support just as your body was
in the process of shutting down. But that memory core of Zelenka’s had a good
deal of information on the various genetic treatments and how to tweak them back
to normal for humans and for the Ancients. They did have to pop back to the
planet to pick up that download Rodney took from the bastard’s database to
figure out exactly what you were given, but once we had that, I was able to
start reversing the process.”

John let his head drop back on the pillow. He wasn’t as stiff and sore as he
should be, though he could tell he really needed to shave. “I don’t feel like
I’ve been unconscious for a week.”

“Oh, you haven’t been unconscious for the past few days,” Beckett said,
making some more notes. “We were able to get you up and walking around. But the
Ancient genetic treatments had a bit of a side effect in humans that apparently
made you extremely, shall we say, loopy, so I doubt you remember any of that.”

“Okay. That’s…weird.” He tentatively flexed his hands, feeling a little
residual soreness. “So what happened with the claws? Did they just fall out
during all this?”

“Oh, that. No, that took a wee spot of surgery.” John frowned. Beckett tended
to pull out the “wee” bit when he was flustered or trying to be reassuring. It
was always only a “wee” seizure, a “wee” dose of radiation,
a “wee” chunk of shrapnel in your abdomen. Beckett continued briskly,
“But don’t worry about it. I did it when I first initiated the other
treatments, so your nails would have time to start growing back before you
recovered.”

“Oh.” John suspected he was glad he didn’t remember that. And he kept
thinking of things he wanted to know more about. “Did Zelenka figure out what
was on the memory core that Dorane was so desperate to get?”

“It was his cure, Major.” Beckett’s face turned grim. “Apparently the
Ancients needed antidotes for the victims rescued from the repository, and they
needed them fast. So they infected the bastard with a few altered strains of his
own retrovirus. It was triggered by the altered version of the ATA that he
created, or the absence of it. He couldn’t leave the repository for more than a
day or so without the full effect setting in, and killing him.” Beckett lifted
his brows. “They made a deal with him that if he produced the information they
needed, they would give him the specifics of what they had done to him, so he
could develop his own cure. He fulfilled his part of the bargain, but they were
still trying to decide what to do with him as a permanent solution. There’s no
more information on the core. Rodney suspects they were fully occupied by the
Wraith at that point and just let nature take its course at the repository. But
the recording did have the specifics for the strains of the retrovirus they
used.”

He did say it was a punishment,
John thought, considering it. “I would
have just shot him,” he said finally.

“I’m not a violent man, but it would have saved a lot of trouble,” Beckett
admitted.

John had more questions, but Beckett distracted him with an examination that
involved multiple scanners, the Ancient MRI machine, and questions about how it
felt to be poked in various places. John ended up falling asleep again when they
were changing out the IVs.

John felt a lot more awake by the next day, and while taking the bandages off
his hands, Dr. Biro filled in some more details for him about the past week.

Sergeant Stackhouse, returned safely from his trading mission, had taken a large and heavily armed team back into the repository three
days ago. They had recovered Kolesnikova’s and Boerne’s bodies, and also let
McKay do a brief survey of Dorane’s labs. Now that McKay knew what he was
looking for, he was able to distinguish between Dorane’s altered gene technology
and the real ATA. He had concluded in disgust that most of the equipment that
might have been useful in Atlantis was too tainted with the altered gene to risk
using. They had taken the drained ZPMs on the chance that some day McKay might
figure out how the things were recharged, collected as many spent cartridges as
they could so the techs could use them for making new ammo, and managed to
salvage Ford’s P-90 and John’s tac vest from the wreckage the Koan had made of
their supplies and equipment. Then they had planted C-4 in several strategic
locations and blown up the labs.

Biro also told him that Dorane had never had a chance to send jumpers to the
mainland for the Athosians, so they had fortunately missed the whole thing.
Teyla was out there now, letting them know what had happened, or what had almost
happened.

John had also missed the memorial services for Dr. Kolesnikova, Boerne, and
Masterson, the Marine who had been killed in the ’gate room.

McKay stopped by later, either out of genuine concern or because he heard
John was getting solid food for breakfast, or more probably a combination of
both. This actually worked out for the best, since John could handle most of
what the medlab considered food, but he didn’t even want to be in the same room
with the powdered eggs, and McKay was a convenient means of disposal.

Tucking into the yellow egg mush, McKay told him a lot more about John’s
initial treatment and recovery than Beckett or Biro had. The first few days had
been much worse than any of the medical staff had implied. The way McKay
described it, it had been all out war: Carson Beckett, Earth’s foremost xenobiologist and the man who had invented the ATA gene therapy, against
Dorane, the Dr. Mengele of the Pegasus Galaxy. The first day Beckett had just
struggled to keep John alive, while Zelenka had hurried to finish reconstructing
the damaged portion of the memory core and McKay had set up a copy of Dorane’s
database to get Beckett the information he needed. About midway through the
third day Beckett had managed to produce the right drugs, and the lab mice he
had tested them on had mostly survived, so he had started John on the full
treatment. By that night John was breathing on his own again and the antennae
spines had started to fall out, and Beckett had collapsed in the next bed over
and snored for eight hours.

McKay also filled him in on what the rest of the city had been up to.
“Sergeant Bates had your job for a whole day, during which a petition started
circulating in the science team demanding that we hold free elections for the
position of acting military commander. Apparently Sergeant Stackhouse was a
favored candidate. Then Lieutenant Ford was cleared for duty, so things settled
down.”

John decided not commenting on that was best, so he just said, “So everybody
missed me.”

“Let’s say they prefer your slacker laissez-faire style to Bates’ ‘guilty
until proven innocent’ strategy.”

“At least you guys didn’t try to form a separatist commune again. I don’t
think that would look good on my record.”

Scraping the bowl for the last of the egg mush, Rodney lifted his brows. “And
did they tell you about the operation? Personally, I don’t believe in it for
cats, but after you shredded a diagnostic bed, we thought—”

“Sorry to disappoint you but yes, Carson told me how I got declawed, and
we’ve already made all the ‘Dr. Beckett, Extragalactic Vet’ and
All Creatures
Great and Small
jokes.” John self-consciously tucked his hands under his
armpits.

Dr. Biro picked that moment to swoop in, saying breezily, “It really was
fascinating. You can see if you like, we filmed the whole procedure.” .

John stared at her. “You’re kidding.”

“Of course she’s not kidding,” McKay assured him.

“Why?”

“Oh, because Biology thought it would be fun to show at the Christmas party.”
McKay rolled his eyes. “If we can ever contact Earth again, Carson wants the
first Nobel Prize awarded in xenobiology. Do you really think he’d pass up this
opportunity?”

John looked at Dr. Biro for help, which was probably a mistake. She smiled
winningly. “Oh, don’t worry, you can’t really see your face. You were
intubated.”

“Oh, well, that’s good.”

McKay looked at him pityingly. “Right, no one’s going to figure out who
‘Patient X, Major, Acting Military Commander, Atlantis Expedition’ was.”

“Rodney, shut up and go away.”

Ford came by later to see how John was, and to report that the Koan who had
fled the fighting after Dorane’s death were more interested in running away than
in attacking anybody, so on Dr. Weir’s advice he had implemented a “catch and
release” policy where the security details stunned and collected them to toss
back through the Stargate to the repository’s planet. He was pretty sure they
had found all of them by now, though you never knew. With a regretful shrug, he
added, “Dr. Weir and Dr. Beckett talked about trying to give them some
assistance, but we don’t have the resources to do much more than throw a few
crates of food through the ’gate after them. And Dr. Beckett thinks trying to
mess around any more with their genetics would just make it worse, that now that
Dorane’s not there to mess with their minds that they’ve got a good chance of
being okay.”

John had to agree. “I think they’ve had about all the ‘help’ they can stand.”

Ford also wanted to apologize for anything he had done while under the
influence. He said there was a lot of mutual apologizing going around the city for things people had done to friends and
co-workers during the situation. John said in that case he was dropping the
charges, so that was okay.

The next day, John got to say goodbye to all the IV stands and escape from
the medlab. He was supposed to go to his quarters and rest, but he didn’t think
anybody really expected that to happen, so he headed up to the operations tower.
John was willing to admit he needed another day or two to recover and he kind of
liked padding around in a t-shirt, sweatpants, and old sneakers while everybody
else was in uniform and working. But Beckett didn’t want to clear him for duty
for another week, which was ridiculous.

Beckett had also told him that he didn’t think anything that had happened
would affect the way John’s natural Ancient gene worked, the way the ATA
responded to him. John knew he should go up to the jumper bay and make certain,
but instead he found himself stopping off in Elizabeth’s office. And once there
it seemed like a good time to talk her out of this crazy off-duty for a whole
week idea.

Elizabeth, however, refused to budge. John tried everything from rational and
pragmatic arguments to wheedling to the cute but wounded puppy expression that
had gotten him the go-ahead to do some really crazy things in the past, but
nothing worked.

They were in her office, one transparent wall providing a view over the
control gallery. Elizabeth was sitting at her desk, her head propped on one
hand, and when John realized she was watching his performance as if this was the
most entertainment she had had in a month, he decided to give in for now.

“So how’s Dr. Kavanagh? Is McKay riding him into the ground with this?” John
noticed Sergeant Bates standing on the gallery outside with a clipboard tucked
under one arm, apparently waiting to talk to Elizabeth. John gave him a
she
likes me best
smirk and settled into the chair a little more comfortably, intending to take his time.

“I’m a little concerned about that,” Elizabeth admitted cautiously, from
which John inferred that for the past few days that section of the labs had been
like a combination snake pit and bear-baiting show. She eyed him a moment. “I’ve
recommended that everyone who was affected see Dr. Heightmeyer.”

Kate Heightmeyer was the expedition’s psychologist; John decided not to take
the broad hint. He suggested helpfully, “We could all go together, and do that
encounter group thing where we talk to each other with hand puppets.”

“That would make a great threat, wouldn’t it?” Elizabeth looked thoughtful.
“By the way, I never bought the story that you were cooperating with Dorane.
Neither did Peter.” Lifting a brow, she added ruefully, “For one thing, it was
exactly the kind of plan you and Rodney would have come up with, like something
out of a movie.”

John was actually kind of touched to hear that, but all he said was, “Which
movie? One of those old ones with Sydney Poitier and Tony Curtis?”

Her mouth quirked. “I have no idea. But you’re lucky you didn’t have to fool
anyone who knew you well and still had possession of their critical faculties.”