Author's Note: My sincerest apologies about the obscenely long wait. A number of things came up in the last while that negated whatever free time I did have to write. They are now gone and I am vigorously reviewing the next few episodes of the first season again to make sure I know where I'm going with this. I've got a plan for the next few - I've been building up to a particular episode that we're just a few installments away from.

This installment is a little bit different from the others. Whether it's a good different or a bad different I haven't decided, but I'll be reverting back to character development now.

Tempest in a Teacup, Part 3 of 3: Vanishing Act

"Where are we going again?" Frustration with his more science-oriented teammate was not something unknown to Aiden Ford. Indeed, confusion about what McKay was talking about was the standard, not an uncommon occurrence.

Why it was always him that got roped into escorting the maniac around on his typical mad scientist quests, though... that was the question. Damn the Major, foisting him off on me again.

The storm that had struck Atlantis in the days prior to his and McKay's romping through the lower, largely unexplored levels of Atlantis had flooded huge areas of the city, many which had never been fully explored. With only a team of a few hundred, and a city which was large enough to support a population of many thousands, exploring the entirety of the city had been out of the question.

And unnecessary, it had seemed. But with the flooding damage, McKay had been convinced it was necessary to view a number of the areas that had not yet been explored and fully mapped. Of course, he needed an escort, and of course, Ford drew the duty. As usual.

"We're going down."

"Down?"

"Are you having problems with your hearing?"

Ford gritted his teeth, lovingly cradling his P90 to his chest and, for just a second, let himself fantasize about shooting his colleague.

"Here we are!" McKay exclaimed. "This is the area that Dumais said had been flooded and we haven't gotten around to exploring at all." McKay paused, glancing down the hall. The length of corridor they stood in was still sloshing around about their boots, two inches of water still sitting relatively still on the abandoned floor. Empty shelves and storage lockers littered the sides of the walls. "You first," McKay muttered, staring down into the darkness that was ahead of them.

Ford, again gritting his teeth, shook his head in disdain and stepped into the room off the corridor. He snapped his flashlight up and around, a second beam lancing out from McKay's hand to illuminate the darkness. There was less water here - maybe a quarter of an inch - and Ford noted a number of dead light emplacements and still more shelves. "Look at all this equipment!" McKay exclaimed, all fear of the unknown gone from him at the sight of abandoned Ancient technology. "Most of it I've seen before, of course, but... this is amazing!"

Ford slowly turned, taking in the entire room slowly. He frowned slightly. This was, it seemed, entirely a storage area for old and discarded equipment. Relaxing slightly, he sighed, noting a second door through to another room. He poked his head through, flashing the light around... and stopped suddenly.

McKay came up behind him. "Yes, I know that! No, I haven't seen another of those Ancient personal shields. I'm always looking... Zelenka, you're even more annoying than I..." McKay stopped suddenly, his hand falling limp at his side. "Oh..." McKay's eyes were wide as he saw what had stopped Ford short."

"Rodney?" Ford could hear through the headphone that was lying limply on McKay's shoulder. "Rodney, are you all right?"

"Yes. I am without a doubt all right. In fact, I dare say I've never in my life been better than I am at this moment," McKay replied, his eyes still locked on the center of the next room. "We just found an Ancient control chair."

"You what?"

"We found a control chair."

Zelenka was uncharacteristically speechless for several seconds, before he started babbling on about the significance of the discovery. McKay knew all that of course - the absence of a control chair in Atlantis had long been speculated on by the science crews. One theory had been it had been taken with the Atlantians when they left, to ensure that the city's still potent defense system couldn't be abused. Others had postulated that the chair was somewhere in the city - although why it wouldn't have been in the control room, nobody could explain.

McKay, mind running rampant with the possibilities of having a control chair with which they could run Atlantis' defense systems - assuming they found a ZedPM to power it with - started walking fowards slowly, his hand outstretched slightly, afraid to move, afraid even to breathe for fear that his new toy would disappear.

"Wait!" Ford exclaimed. He grabbed McKay's shoulder. "We can't go barreling in there without making sure it's safe first!"

McKay scoffed at him, indignant at having his musings interrupted. "We'll be fine." He stepped through the doorway, his flashlight still trained on the chair, Ford following half a step behind. The military man's flashlight swept the room, searching for any potential threats he could foresee, but nothing stood out. McKay knelt down next to the chair, tapping the place were a ZedPM should be - but the slot where it would go was empty. "No ZedPM," he commented into his mic, ostensibly talking to Zelenka. "No power." He sighed.

Ford let out a tense breath, forcing himself to relax. There didn't seem to be any immediate dangers...

There was a flash of green light behind him and Ford spun around. The chair was where it had been an instant before, but... McKay wasn't. He cocked his head, tension churning in his gut. "McKay? Come on, this isn't funny."

He took a step forwards towards the chair and there was a second flash of green light, and suddenly he wasn't there anymore either.

Back in the control room, a perplexed Radek Zelenka stared at his computer. "Rodney? Rodney, are you there?"

-Stargate Atlåntis-

"How long has it been since we lost contact with Ford and McKay?" Major John Sheppard was leaning forwards over the conference table, his face a picture of concern, brow furrowed. Across from him, Zelenka shrugged helplessly.

"It's been almost an hour since we lost contact. They just..." Zelenka waved his hand helplessly, words failing him.

Sheppard turned to Weir. "I'm taking a team down there."

"No you're not, Major, not until we know more about what happened. The last thing we need is for you to go missing too." Aside Weir, Teyla nodded her assent. The last person at the table, Sergeant Bates, just frowned. Weir addressed Zelenka. "Doctor, I understand that just before they went missing, they reported finding an Ancient control chair?"

Zelenka nodded haphazardly. "Ah... yes. We'd been wondering where the chair was - we knew there had to be one somewhere."

Sheppard huffed, his frustration evident. "Could that be related to the disappearance of Ford and McKay?"

"It's possible. It's impossible to say for sure without exploring more of the room in question, although Rodney did report that the chair was inactive at the time of discovery. There was no ZPM, so I can't say for sure whether or not it was some kind of defense mechanism for the chair or what could have occurred, but-"

Sheppard cut him off. "All right. I'm going to take a team down there and do a little reconnaissance."

Weir eyed him sideways, obviously pondering the pros and cons of objecting to his proposal. Finally, she relented. "Who's the second foremost expert on Ancient technology here on Atlantis?" she asked.

"Well..."

"What Doctor Zelenka is trying to say, Doctor Weir, is that he is the person you're looking for," Teyla interjected.

"Doctor Pederson is very good as well," Zelenka commented. "And Grodin is highly skilled when it comes to-"

"We'll take Zelenka and Pederson," Sheppard interrupted. "Bates, you stay here. Teyla, you're with me." Sheppard nodded at Zelenka. "Go get suited up, Doctor."

"We'll have Peter coordinate the efforts from the control room," Weir agreed. "Very well. Let's go find out what happened to our people and bring them back."

Sheppard was already out the door.

-Stargate Atlåntis-

"Are you sure I'm the best one for this?" Doctor Pederson stuttered as he slowly velcroed his oversized BDU into place. "I mean, Dumais knows Ancient computer systems even better than I do, and Kavanagh is the best person on Atlantis for determining potential dangers to-"

"His own safety," Sheppard supplied. He snapped a round into his P90 and slung it over a shoulder, the weapon falling limp at his side. "You're coming, Pederson. Let's move."

Zelenka shook his head in consternation at Pederson. "That's not what you said the other day."

"This isn't a job for a scientist! This is a job for the military! They're the ones who are supposed to go into the dangerous situations and figure out how to save everyone! We're supposed to stay in our labs and figure out how to help them, not go with them!"

"Today, the best way you can help us is to come with us," Sheppard replied. "Let's go!" Shaking his head, he slammed open the door to the locker room and stormed out. Zelenka followed with only slight hesitation.

Pederson stood shock still until Sheppard stuck his head back into the room. "Now!"

-Stargate Atlåntis-

"Are you sure we're going in the right direction?"

"I'm sure, Major. Continue down that corridor. There will be a door on your right that will lead to a room that Lieutenant Ford described as a storage room. Through that room will be a second room. The chair will be located there." Grodin's steady voice was reassuring to the still shaky Pederson, while Zelenka curiously examined everything they came across in search of a control panel.

Sheppard just tromped through the inches of water at his feet, sending little waves out in every direction as he hurried onwards. At the rear, Teyla switched from sending concerned glances in Sheppard's direction to sending threatening glances in Pederson's direction.

Pederson was trudging slowly through the waves, small steps whenever possible and disgruntled glances between what he evidently saw as his two oppressors, Sheppard and Teyla. He saved a few glances for the clueless Zelenka, a colleague who had, in his mind, offered him up for the slaughter. Every few minutes Teyla found herself nudging the reluctant scientist, forcing him forwards. Her attempts at reassurance had gone unacknowledged.

It was a sharp contrast between Pederson and Sheppard. Sheppard was as determined as she could ever remember seeing him. The sudden unexpected disappearance of half his team had sent him into a state of semi-panic and determination. He'd run roughshod over anyone who had attempted to prevent him from going after his friends.

"You've reached the storage room, Major."

"Yeah, I got it," Sheppard replied. He took only a second before stepping into the room. It was much as it had been described - the water level fell slightly, the many old storage cases and empty supply boxes that the Atlanteans had left behind littering the floors as well as the shelves the decorated the walls. "It was next room, right?" Sheppard asked, his flashlight pointed at the adjacent door.

"I wouldn't go in there yet," Zelenka murmured. "That's where Rodney and Lieutenant Ford disappeared."

"Let us find out what happened to them," Teyla commented. "We need to search for anything that might give us a clue as to what occurred here.

Surprisingly, it was Pederson who supplied the first piece of useful information. Once he had come to the conclusion that this room, at least, was safe, he returned to a state of semi-coherance and started using his admittedly brilliant mind. "There's still power flowing through this room," he murmured.

Zelenka's head turned around, his a look of consternation. "There's no power here," he returned.

"Yes there is." Pederson pushed a box off of one of the shelves against the wall adjacent to the control chair room. With the space he now how to access the wall, he started prying off a large segment, a rectangular piece of covering. Sheppard handed his P90 to Teyla. Pushing several more crates violently to the side, he helped Pederson pry the panel free.

Pederson immediately grabbed his flashlight and used it to illuminate the exposed wall. Behind the panel was a collection of piping, wiring, and electrical cables. He pointed his flashlight at one particularly thick collection of wiring. "That's an active power line," he said.

Zelenka, now leaning in over his shoulder, nodded agreement. "It appears to be." He turned slightly to Pederson. "How'd you know there was still power here?"

"That particular wall panel is identical to ones we have in the rooms adjacent to the control room. Behind all of them is a similar setup of power lines," Pederson said. "Unlike the rest of the station, this room is shielded against power flowing through the station's corridors."

"So it was of similar importance to the control room?" Teyla asked.

"Makes sense, there is a control chair in there," Sheppard pointed out. He gestured to the now exposed power conduit. "So what's this thing powering?"

Pederson shook his head. "I don't know."

Sheppard turned to Zelenka. "Can we go in that room? Ford and McKay were both inside near the chair before they disappeared."

Zelenka shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."

On the intercom, Grodin piped up. "We've tracked that power line, but we're not sure exactly where it's getting its power from. Dumais and Gaul are working on tracking it down."

"Great," Sheppard sighed. "Let's do it."

Teyla handed Sheppard back his P90 before glancing into the control chair room. Nodding at Sheppard, she shouldered her way through the open doorway, water splashing at her feet.

Once inside, she straightened and turned back to face Sheppard, who was just emerging into the room. "It appears that our caution was unwarrant-"

Teyla disappeared in a bright green flash.

Startled, Sheppard froze for just an instant, then threw himself out of the room and back to the relative safety of the storage room. Tripping, he fell and slammed his jaw into the floor, Zelenka immediately falling to his side to pull him into the room while Pederson cowered in a far corner.

Ignoring Grodin's frantic commentary in his ear, Sheppard struggled to his feet, one hand automatically going to his damaged jaw. "What happened?" he said before grimacing and bracing his jaw with his hand.

"I don't know," Zelenka replied, his eyes wide.

"I'm getting really sick of that answer!" Sheppard spat. He flipped his radio. "Grodin, we've lost Teyla. She vanished like the others when she went into the room."

It was Weir on the far end of the radio. "Are you all right, John?"

"Not really," Sheppard muttered. Glancing around the room, he rolled his eyes. "Pederson, get your ass moving and start trying to figure this out!"

"John?"

"Not now Elizabeth!" Sheppard's hand clenched around his P90. Now three members of his team were missing. He shied away from adding "presumed lost" to his description of their current condition. They'd disappeared, that was all. They'd get them back.

"Maybe they triggered some kind of security system," Zelenka mused, having already regained his composure. "It just... prevents people from getting close to the control chair unless they follow the proper procedure."

"Yeah, well that prevention has cost me three members of my team!" Sheppard, seemingly remembering his current situation and that he wasn't going to be able to shoot his way out of this one, took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay. Okay. Does anyone have an idea as to what the 'proper procedure' for approaching that damned chair would be?"

Zelenka shrugged helplessly.

Surprisingly, it was Pederson who was the first to speak. Having decided that Teyla's disappearance proved that it was the adjacent room, and not this storage room, that was dangerous, his intellectual calm had returned to him. "McKay said that the control chair was inactive, right?"

Zelenka nodded. "That's right," Grodin supplied helpfully through the radio.

"When they went in there, they triggered the security system to activate, but it's obviously not linked to the chair itself..." Pederson gestured at the still-exposed power conduit he'd discovered earlier. "That power must be going to the security system." He shrugged. "What if we cut the power? That should deactivate the security system."

"Wouldn't there be other precautions in place to prevent that?" Grodin asked.

"Not necessarily," Zelenka murmured. "Not necessarily. With all the power in Atlantis diverted away from this part of the city except that power cable, chances are the security system itself is all that's active." He glanced up to Sheppard. "There is a problem, though."

"Such as?"

"Well, there are three possibilities for what happened to Rodney and the others. First, it transported them somewhere else on Atlantis, like the transporters here on the city or the Asgard personal trasporter."

"That makes sense, Doctor. What are the other possibilities?" Weir asked.

"Well... one is that they're simply... gone," Zelenka admitted. "If they're gone, then shutting down the system would be the obvious course of action and solve all our immediate problems."

"They're not gone," Sheppard said flatly.

"I don't think they are either," Zelenka replied slowly. He shrugged. "My best guess is that this security system acts like the Wraith transport fields on their darts. They've been..." Zelenka paused as he searched for the right word... "put into electronic stasis in the security system. They're being stored as data in the computer. If we shut it down..."

"We might lose the data." Pederson finished. "They really would be gone."

"So we need to access the security system itself and convince it to release them before we shut it down."

"But the system is in the room with the control chair..."

"And we can't get in there."

Zelenka nodded. "It's quite a problem."

Sheppard sighed heavily. "Well, I was in there and it didn't snatch me away," he pointed out.

Zelenka frowned. "And it didn't take Ford at the same time it took McKay."

"Maybe it can only take one person at a time. Maybe it's damaged after all this time, or doesn't have enough power," Grodin suggested.

"Okay... How long do you think you'd need to get that security system to release McKay, Ford, and Teyla?" Sheppard asked Zelenka.

Zelenka shrugged helplessly. "It's impossible to say, really."

"I have an idea," Grodin said over the radio. "When Atlantis was fully operational, the security system was probably connected to Atlantis' central computer, right? They'd have control over it from the control room."

"Probably," Zelenka replied. "But with all the damage to the city, there's no way for us to be certain, and since I've never seen this system in any of the diagnostics I've run from the control room, it's almost certainly been cut off from the control room."

"But maybe we can hook it back into the Atlantis central computer," Grodin continued. "If we gave you an Atlantis compatible information cable and a laptop, we might be able to get the security system onto our wireless network. We'd jury-rig a replacement connection to temporarily return control of the system to the control room."

"But we'd still have to get inside," Pederson pointed out. "We'd have to hook the security system directly into the wireless system and that could only be done from the computer system itself."

"I'll do it," Sheppard noted. "I'd... vanish... like the others, but if I had enough time I could hook it all up."

"No offense, Major," Zelenka replied, cutting off Weir's immediate negative response, "but you don't have enough experience with Ancient computer technology to create an interface between it and our technology quickly enough. You'd vanish long before you got it set up." He paused. "I'll do it."

"I'll bring the equipment down," Grodin commented over a rustle of papers and equipment.

"I'm going in with you," Sheppard said. "We know it can only take one person at a time..."

"We think it can only take one person at a time," interjected Pederson.

"So I'll go in first and make a nuisance of myself. It'll take me and that should give you enough time to finish the job."

"Am I the only person who recognizes that we have no way of knowing if our people really are in the security computer and aren't just... gone?" Weir said quietly.

Sheppad glanced at Zelenka, who nodded at him. "We're willing to take that risk, Doctor."

"I'm not sure I'm willing to let you take that risk, Major."

"Elizabeth... we're doing this."

There was a long pause on the other end of the radio. "You better not get yourselves killed, John."

-Stargate Atlåntis-

Grodin knelt next to the laptop, the extended and modified information cable plugged into its right side. At the far end was a plug which would never be seen in commercial use on Earth - it had been modified designed by Samantha Carter some years before to interface Earth technology with Ancient technology. He also brought along a large device, a transmitter/receiver of sorts intended to keep the laptop in contact with their jury-rigged computer system. "I'm ready," he said.

"As am I," Zelenka commented.

Pederson just stood silently, then he nodded and leaned over the laptop. "I'll monitor your progress."

Sheppard turned to him, frowning. "I thought Grodin was doing that."

"I'm coming with you," Grodin said. "One person might not give Radek enough time. We can be sure with two."

Sheppard nodded. "All right. Are we ready?"

Zelenka took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Follow my lead," Sheppard ordered, then he stepped into the control chair room. Moving quickly, he stepped in a large circle towards the chair, subtly approaching it while maintaining his distance. Grodin stepped in after him, turning around quickly and scanning the room with his eyes for the security system terminal.

Zelenka made a beeline for the side wall, the one adjacent to the storage room and roughly opposite from the power cable Pederson had discovered . Sure enough, on the side wall there was a control panel the likes of which he'd never seen before. In his hand he held the long cable that connected to the laptop Pederson was watching, the Ancient adapter on the end. With his flashlight he scanned the console for the appropriate computer jack.

There was a flash of green light behind him, behind Grodin who was standing behind him. Neither of them turned to check on Sheppard's presence, both sure that he was now gone.

His eyes also scanning the console, Grodin gasped. "There!"

Zelenka reached forward, stabbing the cable into the appropriate slot. "Pederson, do you have access to the security system?" he called, turning around.

Grodin wasn't there.

"I'm connecting the security system to the control room now!" Pederson called back. There wasn't a reply. Pederson, finishing the system refresh that now showed the security system as under the control of the Atlantis central control room, grinned in relief. "Radek?" He stood and moved to the door. Zelenka wasn't inside.

-Stargate Atlåntis-

"Doctor Pederson, what happened?" Doctor Elizabeth Weir spoke somberly into her radio. "Doctor Pederson?"

"They're all gone," the reply came back.

Weir closed her eyes. God, I hope I didn't just kill those men. "Chuck?"

The Canadian technician who had taken Grodin's place at the operations console grinned at her. "I've got control! There appear to be several different settings..." Chuck's eyes widened. "One is lethal," he whispered.

"Was it on lethal?"

Chuck suddenly released a huge breath of air. "No. No, thank God. Radek was right. Hold on." He pressed a few buttons on his control console.

"This is amazing! I can't believe we found... wait, where did you come from?" the welcome voice of Rodney McKay echoed through the radio. "Grodin? Zelenka? Sheppard? What's going on here?"

Weir slumped into her chair. "I'm glad you're okay, Rodney."

"What's that supposed to mean? Of course I'm okay. I've never been better, in fact. But that still doesn't answer where everyone came from!"

"You are an idiot," came Ford's voice. "Complete numbskull."

"I was going to say dingbat," added Sheppard.

"What's a dingbat?"

Weir laughed, the last of her tension draining away.

-Stargate Atlåntis-

"I'm actually quite amazed," Rodney McKay said, sitting in the conference room chair across from the rest of Sheppard's team, Grodin, Zelenka, and Pederson.

"You would be," Zelenka muttered.

"Not only did you guys manage to figure out what had happened to us, but you manage to figure out how to fix it, all without my help."

Sheppard shook his head. "No thank you?"

"Beyond his comprehension," said Zelenka.

"I'm just glad everyone is all right," Weir noted. "Good job, everyone. Although I hope to never take such drastic risks again."

"It's all his fault," said Ford, brow furrowed at McKay.

"I agree," added Zelenka.

"It's always his fault," Sheppard put in.

Weir stopped him on the way out, her hand on his arm. "I'm never letting you do that again."

"Do what, Doctor?"

"Throw yourself into a situation where there is a huge chance you are sacrificing your own life and the lives of other good people on the off chance it might, maybe, save other lives."

"They volunteered."

Weir locked her eyes on his. "Never again, John."

All she could do after he'd gone was sigh. With three members of his team missing, he was going to do whatever it took to bring them back. Lecturing him on it would achieve nothing. Grodin and Zelenka's willingness to throw themselves into the fire to help him was surprising, but not incredibly so.

Eventually, John's willingness to disregard his own life - to throw himself under the bus in what he considered necessary attempts to save or protect the lives of others - would get himself and maybe others killed.

Weir sighed. She had to find a way to head that off.

At least they all came back this time. There really wasn't anything more she could ask.