Written for Vecturist for the Secret Santa challenge, to the prompt: "a gen fic, something focusing on Sheppard and the ATA gene/chair/Atlantis and maybe the ATA gene carriers as well".
Conduit
By the time Jennifer got to the infirmary, another 22 patients had been admitted with the same symptoms and four of the earliest admissions had suffered apparent seizures and lapsed into unconsciousness. Just like Carson and Dr McKay. Every single one of them had the ATA gene.
It was obvious that the problem was spreading, and rapidly, with yet more members of the expedition reporting to the infirmary even as Jennifer conferred urgently with the staff on duty. They were short-handed themselves; three of the current duty shift were ATA-positive and had already taken ill.
"Call in everyone on the medical staff who doesn't have the gene," Jennifer instructed, "and start setting up extra beds in the mess hall. This is going to get worse before it gets better."
She'd checked the personnel records as soon as she reached the infirmary; with routine administration of Carson's gene therapy, which was on average about 48 percent effective, roughly 53 percent of the expedition members were ATA positive.
With Carson incapacitated, responsibility for dealing with this entire mess had fallen to Jennifer and she had to admit, the thought freaked her out just a little. If they didn't find a way to stop this, and soon, half of the expedition would be affected. Trying to stay calm and think on her feet, she quickly ran through everything with her team; projected spread, containment measures, everything she could think of, and then she left them to implement her measures. She would have to trust Carson's staff to manage the outbreak because it was her responsibility to stop it; and the only clue they had was that it was something to do with Colonel Sheppard, and the Chair.
Nothing had changed in the Chair room, at least on the surface. Dr Zelenka and his team were still conferring over the data from the Chair and Lin and her team were gathered around the unconscious Colonel Sheppard. As they couldn't move him from the Chair, they'd had to bring the infirmary to him and a variety of monitors had been set up around the dais, readouts displaying scrolling lines and figures. The Colonel's shirt had been unbuttoned and pushed aside, the black t-shirt underneath sliced up the middle to reveal his bared chest; thin, coloured wires connected the pads on his chest to the heart monitor. More cables dangled from pads placed at his temples, feeding data that registered on the screen of the EEG machine. Jennifer stepped up onto the dais, scanning over the readings on the various monitors as she asked Lin, "How's he doing?"
Lin's lips twitched downwards a little, her voice serious as she told Jennifer quietly, "Not so good. Respiration and blood pressure are slowly declining, pulse is thready. It's as though his body is slowly shutting down."
Jennifer nodded, adding the information to what they already knew. Which, unfortunately, wasn't much. "Any sign of awareness?" she asked.
Lin shook her head. "Nothing. He's completely unresponsive."
Jennifer frowned at the EEG readout. "Have these readings been consistent?" she queried.
"Yes." Lin's voice betrayed her confusion over the readings, mixed with her frustration at not being able to decipher what they meant. Jennifer shared her sentiments. "Given the level of unconsciousness, we would expect delta waves but we're getting a consistent reading of high levels of theta waves."
"Maybe it's something to do with the active connection," Jennifer murmured, her gaze straying to the Colonel's pale face, the faint frown on his face. She wondered if he was in any way aware of what was happening to him, if he was in pain. Pursing her lips thoughtfully, she took one last scan of the readouts before stepping around the dais to where Dr Zelenka was engrossed in a screen of scrolling data.
"Dr Zelenka?"
He actually physically jumped when she spoke, startling from his absorption with a distracted, "Eh? What?"
She couldn't help a small smile as he looked around wildly for a moment. "Oh, Dr Keller," he stuttered, "Sorry. I was, uh… I was checking through…"
"I know," she smiled. "Have you found anything yet?"
He gave a cautious shrug. "Maybe," he admitted reluctantly. "I've been checking through Rodney's data from the test and there are some very odd readings which, if I'm reading the time frame correctly, first appeared just before Rodney called Carson down here."
"So these readings might be connected to whatever is affecting Colonel Sheppard?"
"Almost certainly. I just need to find out what is causing these readings…" He turned back towards the screen, the scrolling data reflecting on his glasses, his words tailing off as he once again lost himself in the flow of figures.
Jennifer watched him for a long moment, a feeling of unaccustomed helplessness washing over her. She was a medical doctor and, if she said so herself, a good one. But right now she had a spreading contagion that she couldn't contain and her primary patient was slowly but steadily declining and there was nothing that she could do about it. The answer, it seemed, lay not in medical science but in the complex coding of the Ancient technology… and that was something she couldn't help with. She was forced to wait, depending on Dr Zelenka and his team to find the answers that would save Colonel Sheppard – and every other gene carrier in the city.
Elizabeth had done all that she could in her office. She'd contacted the SGC and informed them of the crisis; she'd agreed and implemented containment procedures; she'd reviewed all the information they had on the Chair technology and the project Rodney and John were working on when this crisis had struck. And they were still no closer to an answer. More and more people were falling ill, nearly 40 percent of the expedition now, and nothing they did seemed to halt the progression of the contagion. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the spread; it didn't follow any patterns, there was no correlation to air ducts that might suggest an airborne pathogen, it wasn't spread by touch – gene carriers who had isolated themselves and avoided contact with any other expedition members had still fallen ill. And the condition of those affected was still worsening; nearly half of those who had reported to the infirmary had now slipped into comas.
She'd slipped quietly into the infirmary, not wanting to get in the way of the remaining medical staff – those who weren't gene carriers – as they did their best to cope with the growing disaster, and sat for a while with Carson and Rodney. It had scared her to see them so unnaturally still and pale. Unconscious, Rodney looked somehow younger, more vulnerable, his usually animated face slack and relaxed, his perpetual energy missing, his relentless intellect silenced. She'd held his limp hand and found herself thinking almost fondly of his usual strident, acerbic complaints about the standard of care in the infirmary. And usually Carson would be there, calmly ignoring Rodney's griping whilst making sure he got the very best care that Atlantis had to offer, as he did with each and every patient.
Yet more patients had been trailing into the infirmary as she'd left.
In the Chair room the central dais had been transformed into a miniature infirmary, banks of machines arrayed around the Chair, beeping and humming gently, wires and cables trailing. In the centre of it all, John Sheppard lay unmoving on the reclined Chair, his shirt cut open, pads dotting his chest, an IV in his arm. In the blue glow of the Chair, he looked sickly pale. Like a corpse, she thought with a shiver.
She stepped closer, Dr Keller acknowledging her presence with a nod as she moved amongst the banks of machinery that monitored the slow slipping away of John's life. The room was oddly quiet, the medical team around the Chair conversing in the quiet murmurs that seem to be instinctive in hospitals the world over. The huddle of scientists across the room didn't speak at all, utterly absorbed in their work.
"Do prdele!"
Radek's exclamation fractured the hushed atmosphere and every head turned his way. He lurched to his feet, pushing his chair carelessly aside, and hurried over to the Chair pedestal, crouching down beside it with a datapad in his hands. Elizabeth was moving without even thinking, rounding the dais to find Radek fumbling with an array of cables, finally plugging one of them into the datapad.
"Radek? Have you found something?" Dr Keller was hovering too, her open face shining with hope.
"Okamžik!" he muttered. "One moment…" The datapad bleeped and Radek breathed out a heartfelt stream of Czech. Elizabeth's Czech wasn't quite fluent enough to catch every word but the inflection made the meaning more than clear.
"Radek?" she prompted.
He jumped to his feet fast enough to startle her, his face alive with the thrill of realisation, his speech rattling out so fast that it barely sounded English. "It's a trap!" he exclaimed. "A virus, hidden in the coding, waiting for the right circumstances to activate!"
Elizabeth felt her stomach drop. "A virus?"
"Yes!" Radek stared at the datapad almost in wonder. "It's incredibly complex, hidden within the coding itself of the sub-routines that access city-wide systems. This is why Rodney couldn't get his programme to work; the virus blocked any attempts to access those systems and then it reversed the active connection, feeding back through the neural receptors!"
"So this is what is affecting Colonel Sheppard?" Dr Keller asked the question before Elizabeth could.
"Yes. And everyone else with the ATA-gene."
"What do you mean?" Elizabeth demanded.
"The virus has reversed the ATA-connection," Radek explained breathlessly. "Instead of receiving input from the mental link with the gene carrier, the Chair is now broadcasting through the neural link; it's overloading the Colonel's brain and nervous system and creating effectively a neural feedback loop and the virus is using the Chair's connection to the city-wide systems to spread the feedback signal!"
"My god," Elizabeth realised, "that's how it's spreading. The conduits spread throughout the entire city, inside the walls, and the Chair is connected to the network…"
"Exactly! It's like… like…" Radek struggled for the words and Elizabeth felt a momentary pang of absence for Rodney; so many times she'd been confronted by the two of them, bouncing ideas off each other and practically finishing each other's sentences as they bombarded her with rapid-fire explanations.
"It's like a radio signal!" Radek blurted at last. "It's like the Chair is broadcasting white noise through the city's systems and the signal is being picked up by any radio tuned to the right channel… anyone with the ATA gene," he explained.
"What's it doing to them?" Keller demanded and Radek shrugged helplessly.
"It's hard to say. The feedback loop is… is like a sensory overload in their brains, like… like the white noise is cancelling out the normal functions of the radios that pick up the signal."
"It's going to affect every single gene carrier in the city," Elizabeth stated. "So how do we stop it?"
"There is only one way to stop it," he explained solemnly, "…at the source. We have to disable the primary connection, the conduit that is transmitting the signal."
Radek's expression was grave as he told her regretfully, "We have to disconnect Colonel Sheppard."
"You said it would be dangerous to disconnect him…" Dr Weir's face was pale, betraying her concern, but her voice was calm and confident and Jennifer found herself envying the other woman's composure. Her mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to fit what Dr Zelenka had told them into the symptoms she had observed in her patient, trying to look for solutions, treatment options.
"Nevertheless," Dr Zelenka replied, "it is the only way to break the feedback loop. The longer he is connected, the more the signal spreads and the more people fall ill…"
"Dr Keller," Jennifer tried not to jump when Dr Weir unexpectedly turned to her, "what is Colonel Sheppard's condition?"
Jennifer grimaced a little. "It's not great," she admitted. "He's non-responsive to stimuli and his blood pressure and respirations are continuing to drop. The longer he is exposed to this… this feedback loop, the weaker he becomes. It's like his body is just slowly shutting down."
"And the other gene carriers?"
"Similar progression," Jennifer confirmed, "although it seems to be affecting them more slowly than the Colonel."
"Perhaps the signal is attenuated somewhat by distance," Radek suggested. "The further it has to travel through the conduits, the more it weakens, and the slower its effects accumulate?"
"And John is ground zero," Dr Weir murmured, her gaze straying to the Chair's silent occupant. When she looked up her face was set, her lips thinned with determination. "Okay, assuming Dr Zelenka's theory is correct, lets take advantage of that. We need to move all those affected, get them to a location as far away from this room as possible. The further this signal has to travel to get to them, the more time we have to find a way to stop it."
Jennifer hurriedly radioed the infirmary and passed on the instructions, conferring briefly with Dr Cole on the logistics of moving so many patients, many of them already comatose. She didn't voice the lingering concern that this move, whilst buying more time for the rest of the gene carriers, wouldn't help Colonel Sheppard; one look at Dr Weir's face as she discussed ideas with Radek, made it clear that she was well aware of that.
"Is there any way to shut down the virus and disconnect John that way?" Weir asked.
Dr Zelenka was scrolling furiously through the information on his datapad, his face a frown of concentration. "I don't know…" He sighed as he scanned the data, scrubbing a hand through his untidy hair. "It's possible," he acknowledged, " but it will take hours to work through the coding and find a way to deactivate the programme."
Dr Weir looked over at Jennifer, a silent question in her eyes and Jennifer shook her head unhappily. Colonel Sheppard didn't have hours. IV drugs were barely keeping his blood pressure stable and if his respiration dropped much further, they'd be forced to ventilate him.
"We can't wait that long," Dr Weir decided.
"I'd suggest we don't wait at all," Jennifer suggested, meeting the two surprised gazes with all the composure she could muster. "Colonel Sheppard is getting weaker and weaker as time goes by – if disconnecting him is risky now, it's only going to be more risky the longer we wait."
She met Dr Weir's gaze confidently; this was her area of expertise, this was where she could take action instead of standing uselessly by waiting for someone else to find a solution. Dr Weir nodded.
"So how can we disconnect him with the least amount of risk?" she asked. "Can we simply remove him from the Chair?"
Dr Zelenka shook his head. "Not a good idea. There may be failsafes written into the virus; we've no idea what might be triggered if we try to separate him from the neural receptors while the virus is still in control."
"Then what do you suggest?"
"A full systems shutdown."
Dr Weir frowned. "Is that even possible?"
Zelenka nodded. "It will take some time but it's the only way to sever the connection and shut down the virus at once. Like with the Wraith virus on the Daedalus," he reminded her. "The only way to regain control of the systems was to shut down everything and do a clean reboot."
"And you can reboot the Chair?"
"Effectively, yes. As I said, it's going to take a bit of time to set up the protocols; it's not like there is simply an off switch…"
"Okay. Then get started. Let me know as soon as you're ready." Zelenka was moving almost before Weir had finished speaking and Dr Weir turned quickly to Jennifer, her expression grave. "What's likely to happen to John when the system is shut down?" she asked quietly.
Jennifer shook her head. "It's hard to say," she temporised. "We don't even know for certain what this connection, this signal, is doing to his brain. Severing that connection abruptly is going to be a severe shock; it could even cause his heart to stop."
Dr Weir nodded, processing the information, her eyes straying once again to Colonel Sheppard, lying still and pale in the glowing Chair. Jennifer let the moment stretch, unwilling to intrude, and then Dr Weir seemed to gather herself, offering Jennifer a warm, if strained, smile and stepping back from the dais. "Do what you need to, Dr Keller. Let's be ready."
Jennifer turned back to her team, knowing they had overheard the gist of what was about to happen, and together they ran through what they knew, what they could expect, trying to anticipate every possible complication and prepare for it, if not forestall it. Now that the waiting was over, now that they had a course of action decided, the atmosphere within the Chair room had altered dramatically. The subdued hush of anticipation was gone, replaced by a noisy hubbub as the scientists and medics gathered into two distinct groups, each working on their part of the process, preparing for the moment of truth; kill or cure.
Dr Weir, Jennifer noticed, hovered in the background, keeping out of everyone's way but carefully observing, taking everything in, keeping abreast of developments.
It took Dr Zelenka and his team nearly 40 minutes to prepare the shut down protocols for the Chair room and by the time they announced they were ready, Jennifer was practically grinding her teeth with impatience. They were doing their best to keep him stabilised but with every passing moment, Colonel Sheppard's condition gradually declined and if they left it too much longer, his body would be too weak to cope with the kind of shock the shutdown was liable to cause.
"If we're going to do this, it has to be now!" she warned them.
Dr Zelenka signalled that he was ready and Dr Weir nodded. It was now or never.
Her team were in position and everyone knew their role in this; if they were lucky, most of the preparations they'd made wouldn't be needed. If the worst came to the worst, everyone had to be prepared to play their part without hesitation.
"Remember," she murmured quietly, "as soon as the connection is broken, I want him on the gurney and Beth, you're ready to intubate if necessary."
Jennifer stood beside the Chair, taking one last look at her patient, one last check of the readouts. He was white as a sheet, his skin cool and clammy, his limbs splayed loosely, his head drooping to one side. He was festooned with wires and cables and IVs. With a sigh, Jennifer looked up and saw Dr Weir looking at Colonel Sheppard, her face drawn and pale. As though sensing Jennifer's gaze, Dr Weir turned her head and their eyes met for a moment.
"Okay." Announced Dr Zelenka. "Initiating shut down… now!"
There was a hum of fading power, a flickering of the overhead lights, and then, abruptly the chair went dark. The blue glow cut off and the body of the Chair shifted, tilting into an upright position.
Hands were waiting to continue the motion the Chair had begun, pulling Colonel Sheppard forward and out of the seat, lifting him quickly and swinging him over to the waiting gurney. The whole procedure took less than 5 seconds; alarms began to blare before they'd even laid him down on the gurney. Jennifer scanned the monitors urgently; blood pressure dropping rapidly, pulse erratic, respiration intermittent. His breathing was stuttering, his throat working as he choked and hiccupped.
"Intubate. Now," she ordered.
Beth was quick and efficient, tilting the Colonel's head carefully back and opening his mouth to insert the laryngoscope. She'd only got it part way into his mouth when suddenly his jaw clamped shut and his entire body began to jerk and shake, the gurney rattling noisily.
"He's seizing! Ativan! 5mg!"
Dr Cole pushed the dose into the Colonel's IV but still he continued to shake helplessly. "Another dose, 5mg!" Jennifer shouted.
The seizure lasted a frighteningly long time, despite repeated doses of Ativan, and the team were forced to use brute force to pin him to the bed, struggling to hold onto his flailing limbs to prevent him from injuring himself in his uncontrolled jerking. Finally, slowly, the spasms eased and Colonel Sheppard's muscles relaxed as he breathed out in an audible sigh. And didn't breath in again.
Beth continued where she had left off without being prompted, tilting his head back again into the proper position and prying his jaw open to slide the laryngoscope into place. Her movements were precise and efficient and within seconds she had the tube in place and was connecting an ambu-bag.
For a long moment there was an almost calm, everyone carrying out their duties quietly and effectively, the alarms quieted, the monitors' regular beeping a reassuring sound, as Jennifer listened carefully to the Colonel's chest and abdomen. Everything seemed fine. She straightened, settling the stethoscope around her neck and breathed a cautious sigh of relief.
Then his heart stopped.
The shrilling alarm was loud, piercing, and suddenly the room was full of noise once again, voices shouting.
"Charging to 200!"
"Clear!"
"Check for pulse."
"No pulse."
"Charging to 300."
"Clear!"
The repeated snap of the electrical discharge made her heart jump in sympathy, adrenalin running hot in her veins, and she found herself murmuring under her breath, "Come on, come on, come on!"
A they fought to stabilise him, Jennifer was only peripherally aware of their audience; Drs Weir and Zelenka, and the rest of the science team, hung back silently, staying out of the way. One way or another, the attention of every person in that room was focused on Colonel Sheppard.
"We have a pulse!"
The beeping on the monitor started off slowly but quickly picked up pace, a reassuring beat telling them that they'd done it, they'd staved off death for another moment, another hour, another day.
"Okay, let's get him to the infirmary as quickly as possible please!"
Equipment was quickly packed up and the gurney rolled out of the room surrounded by a cluster of medics, people holding IV bags aloft, rhythmically squeezing the ambu-bag, pushing the gurney along with them. Jennifer moved with them, her attention focused on her patient. They'd done it, they'd disconnected him from the Chair, severed the connection that had slowly been killing him. All that remained to do now was to keep him alive… and to find out just what, if any, damage had been done.
The first thing John was aware of was pain. His head was pounding horribly, a thumping, throbbing beat that made him want to whimper. He settled for a groan.
He slowly became aware of things other than the pain; a soft mattress under him, crisp sheets pulled up to his chest, a sterile, antiseptic smell. And voices, the murmur of voices nearby. After while his aching brain out those pieces together and came up with infirmary.
He thought about that for a moment and realised he didn't remember coming to the infirmary.
The pain in his head spiked and expanded and he groaned again. The sound came out muffled. Something… something on his face.
Then the voices were nearby and they were talking to him.
"Colonel Sheppard? Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes for me, Colonel?"
He growled his displeasure, wanting the voices to leave him alone, let him slip back into the darkness where the pain couldn't follow.
Fingers on his face and then bright, too bright, spiking into his brain and the pain roared and snarled and this time it was definitely more a whimper than a groan.
His body had tensed instinctively, cringing from the pain, and it seemed like an eternity had passed before his muscles began to relax, almost against his will. He shivered, feeling suddenly cold, his limbs heavy and unresponsive. He tried to move but nothing happened. He thought about this, and decided he should be scared by that but oddly he wasn't. Everything felt distant, muffled, and he realised with relief that the pain was slowly receding, becoming distant and muffled too. He breathed out gratefully.
"Colonel? I've given you something for the pain. Can you hear me, Colonel?"
He grunted tiredly.
"Can you open your eyes for me, Colonel?"
He really didn't want to, he wanted nothing more than to float away on this nice cloud of numbness, slip into the darkness before the pain came back. But the voice was insistent; it kept on asking him, kept on saying his name.
And there was another voice, asking different questions.
"Is he going to be alright?"
"Rodney. A moment, please… Come on, John. Open your eyes for me please."
With a gargantuan effort, he managed to blink his eyes open just a crack. Enough to see pale green walls and a worried face hovering nearby.
"Hey! You're back! How're you feeling?" The worried face split into a pleased smile. John watched the face for a moment and saw the smile fade. He blinked drowsily.
"Colonel Sheppard?" The voice again. With superhuman effort, he rolled his head a little to the side and found another face. This one had bright blue eyes. "Welcome back, Colonel," the face smiled cautiously. "You're in the infirmary."
John blinked. I know that, he thought mildly.
The blue eyes were piercing, the face serious now. "D'you know what day it is, Colonel?"
He thought about that for a moment. Then a moment more. "No," he mumbled. It came out muffled and his breath misted around his mouth, a warm, cloying sensation. Plastic. A mask over his mouth and nose. He grimaced, wanted to move it, but his arm was too heavy to lift. He sighed.
"Okay." The voice had an odd lilt to it, something he recognised, something he knew somewhere deep inside was not the way most voices sounded. He frowned. That lilting sound had a word that went with it; Carson.
"What's the last thing you do remember, son?"
That was an odd question. John couldn't remember not remembering. What did he remember? There was… mmm, headache. Headache now. No. Not headache now. Headache before. Tylenol. Sleep.
He breathed the word out on a puff of warm air. "Tylenol."
"Tylenol? What does that mean?" The other face wasn't smiling anymore. Its mouth slanted downwards and John rolled the word Rodney around in his mind.
"He had a headache the morning of the test. I gave him Tylenol."
"What?! That was… he doesn't remember anything since then? The Chair, everything that happened?"
"Rodney. He's been unconscious for nearly a week, give him some time. In any case, it's not uncommon in cases of trauma for the patient never to remember the accident or events just before…"
"Hardly an accident, Carson!"
None of it made any sense to John and he frowned. He didn't remember not remembering. He didn't remember anything about a Chair…
…and suddenly a shiver of pain ran through him, a phantom of a memory of a flood of information, drilling into his brain, pushing consciousness aside. He cried out, sucking in a shuddering breath.
"Colonel?"
"Sheppard? Are you okay?"
"Carson…" His lips felt numb, the name coming out slurred, but things were making more sense now and the names were wrapping around the faces and binding with them and becoming Carson and Rodney and…
"Whthappnd?"
"There was a problem with the Chair, Colonel. Do you remember?"
The Chair. John had a fleeting sensation of his hands spread on the interfaces on the arms of the control Chair. "Mmmm," he murmured noncommittally.
"A virus," Rodney clarified, "a really nasty one too. See? I told you there was nothing wrong with my programme!"
"Rodney…"
Programme. Programme wouldn't run, Chair wouldn't work. "Gave m'headche," he muttered.
"That's right, son," Carson smiled.
John looked up at Rodney, feeling a drowsy grin on his face, "You fix the virus?"
Rodney didn't smile back, instead sharing a look with Carson. "No," he said quietly. "I didn't fix it. Zelenka did. I was busy being in a coma at the time."
John was feeling more awake by the minute. He frowned. "What? What coma?"
Carson glared at Rodney before quickly explaining, "The virus used the Chair as a conduit, John – used you as a conduit. It spread throughout the city and affected every ATA gene carrier. They all developed headaches and dizziness, just as you did, and as time went on they began to lose consciousness."
John had a vague memory of intense pain followed swiftly by the darkness. He looked up at his friends and saw the same memory in their eyes.
"All the gene carriers?" he whispered. "How did you stop it?"
"We weren't around at the time," Rodney assured him, "but apparently the only solution was to manually disconnect you from the Chair by performing a complete systems shut down. They risked frying your brain of course, or a billion other complications, but amazingly it seems they managed not to kill you…"
"Rodney!"
John was still stuck on the part where every gene carrier in the city had been affected. "Is everyone okay?" he breathed.
Rodney huffed like he'd been personally offended and Carson just smiled. "Everyone is fine, son. Once the connection was broken, symptoms began to improve immediately and for people woke up naturally, on their own."
"What about him?" Rodney demanded, pointing at him imperiously. "How much of his brain did they melt?"
Carson ignored Rodney and addressed his answer to John. "You're going to be fine. Your scans look good, there's no scarring or tissue damage. I'd like to run through a few neurological tests with you, if you feel up to it, just to be sure."
John murmured his consent and Carson promised he'd be with him in just a moment as he moved around the bed to chase away a still-hovering McKay. Then a thought occurred to John.
"McKay?"
Carson and Rodney paused in their argument.
"Where did the virus come from? And how did it get in the control Chair?"
Rodney's mouth twisted and his voice was quiet as he said. "We don't know. We just don't know."
Fin.