High Goon

I never saw it coming.

Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes the bad things…the awful things, they sneak up on you. Sometimes, they just come boiling out of the shadows, out of the dark corners and there they are. There they fucking are. I never saw the gun that fired the bullet. I didn’t see the man who pulled the trigger. I was walking and then I was falling. From buildings to blue sky. From walking to lying in the dust. From whole to a little less than. And I never saw it coming.

I should have. It was my job.

“Major!” A body covered mine. A robin’s egg blue and tan clad shoulder and arm hunched protectively over my head, and the sound of a pistol firing came close to my ear. The doc was pretty damn good with a gun, expert in fact. But wait…both of them were doctors weren’t they? Both…but only one healed. The other annoyed. Could you be a doctor in that? Annoying the shit out of people? Hell, if anyone could, this fast-talking son of a bitch would be the one. He never shut up. Hadn’t from minute one. He talked and nagged and jabbered and ordered…Christ. He…my chest hurt. Why did my chest hurt?

He sat up…McKay. That was his name, right? Everything was fuzzy…so damn fuzzy. His cotton shirt was more dark red than blue now. Wet with a coppery smell that hung in the air. I lifted a hand to touch it. The blood clung to my fingertips. “You’re hurt. Rodney….” The fear spiked hot and sharp…Rodney was hurt…and for a fleeting second I almost remembered something. Something important. It was right there. Right goddamn there. Then it faded.

I faded.

“John, no. No. Listen to me. Don’t. It’s not real. Okay? It’s not real. It’s a game. A stupid, damn cliché. You can’t die from a cliché, understand? You can’t, so don’t even try it.” Through the black swimming around the periphery of my vision I could see that his gun had fallen into the dust and his hands were on my chest. They were red too, just like his shirt. “Oh God. Carson!”

Grey vest and coat, gold watch and chain, it swung dizzily before my blurred vision. The doctor…the real one. This one didn’t talk as much. Usually. But then again, who could? Who could possibly get a word in edgewise with that mouthy, smug jackass around…that jackass that had thrown himself over me. To protect me. To save me. Even through the fog I could see that the other one thought it had most likely been in vain. “Rodney,” came the soft Scottish burr. “Move your hands, lad. Let me see.”

Somehow I knew the tone wasn’t always that sympathetic when it came to crazy McKay, and I’d damn sure seen the hell the two had given each other since they’d come to town. The back and forth of it, it spoke of a long companionship or the type of intense camaraderie that forms under fire. Like in the War. I’d fought in the War…hadn’t I? I must’ve. I had friends who had died; I knew that as well as I knew anything. I couldn’t recall if it were the Gray or the Blue I’d worn, but I could feel the hole in me. I could feel the empty, ragged space that had once held friends, warmth…and a mind-boggling naivete that had said the world was a just place. It was like when you lost your baby-teeth when you were a kid. You could poke the tip of your tongue in the raw, bloody space where it had been. I had that same space inside me…I could feel the ragged edges of it even if I couldn’t remember the faces of the men who had once filled it.

“Major? Can you hear me?” It was the Doc and he looked worried. Then again, as far as I could tell, he always looked worried. The worry was sharper now though and focused solely on me. The hands that had gently pushed McKay’s away were working quickly at my shirt. “Damn it, I need a knife. Rodney, get me a knife. Now!” A hand patted my cheek lightly, bringing my meandering gaze back to him. “Major, are you with me, lad?”

There it was…that Major shit again. I’d told them, time and time again. “’s…Sheriff…Doc.” The words swam out of me slowly…bubbles rising sluggishly to the surface of a pond.

“Actually it’s Lieutenant Colonel, but none of us can remember that. I mean, what a mouthful, right? Ridiculous. Impossible. You can’t just change your first name like that. We were used to Major. We liked Major. You think they would think of things like that before tossing out promotions like Mardi Gras beads. Oh Christ, Carson, he’s bleeding everywhere.” McKay again, of course. Three fourths of what the man spouted off I didn’t understand. This was no exception. As he handed over the knife to Doc Beckett, I slid my eyes in his direction. He had blood on his face, a bright streak of it along his jaw from his bellicose chin to his ear, and was so transparently white for a second I thought I could see through him. As if he were a ghost. As if….

He wasn’t really there at all.

I heard the ripping sound as the bowie knife cut away my shirt. There was a brief moment of silence and then Beckett’s quiet voice, “If we die in the game, Rodney, what will happen?”

It’s only a game.

McKay’s impatient words in my head. It’s only a game. When had he said that? When….

“I don’t know,” came the tight answer. “I don’t know, all right? I don’t know. So let’s not test it, okay? Help him. Just…help him”

I don’t know, he’d said. He didn’t know? That wasn’t right…was it?

Rodney always knew everything—everything, anytime, anywhere and wasn’t afraid to let you know it. And there it was again…the double vision. Of seeing one thing and knowing another. Of being here, but…not. “Rodney?” I moved my hand; I wanted to touch him. Poke a dubious finger against his knee to see if he were real or a phantom. But my hand was immediately caught in his, a hard grip that was less of a handclasp and more of a lifeline. Rodney holding my hand…what the fuck? That couldn’t be good. That couldn’t be good at all. I blinked, trying to clear the clouds from my vision. It worked enough that I felt the corner of my mouth quirk up slightly. Blue cotton shirt and suspenders, a long tan duster, holster and six guns…thank God he’d dumped the hat. It’s the Canadian Kid—watch your backs, boys. Quickest calculator west of the Mississippi. “Cowboys…and…Indians.”

“You remember.” From the shadows that roiled behind sharp blue eyes, he didn’t seem too sure that was a positive thing. Another anomaly. Rodney…not sure. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. Rodney was always sure; it was part of the McKay charm, such as it was. My genius…right or wrong, he’d say with a pointed and mocking glance in my direction. There were no mocking glances now. He rubbed the back of his other hand across his chin, smearing the blood to hell and back. “Does that mean you’re done being an asshole?”

“Are….” It hurt now…damn, it hurt. “…you?”

“Like that’s going to happen.” He tried for a pompous smirk but it melted and washed off his face like rain.

The pain was an elephant now, squatting on my chest and squatting hard. Crushing, fiery…all encompassing. I sucked in a breath, ragged and harsh, but there was no where to go. No way to escape it. No relief. “Think…found…the…off switch.” Every word was a sharp and fractured piece of glass, slicing and cutting as they came out of me.

“Don’t say that…you hear me? Just shut up, all right? Just shut the hell up.” I couldn’t feel my legs anymore, couldn’t feel the hand squeezed bloodless white in Rodney’s grip. “Carson, do something.”

I didn’t know what Carson did or didn’t do, because suddenly, I couldn’t see. Black and yellow swam together before closing into one impenetrable murk. I thought I still heard voices, frantic and desperate. Distant and dim. Well known and welcome…but finally gone. Just…gone.

And then I went home.

“Cowboys and Indians?” I said in disbelief.

“No, Maj…Sheppard. I did not say cowboys and Indians,” McKay sniffed. “Not that I’m sure that’s at all a politically correct term anyway.” Like he would know politically correct if it bit him in his arrogant and oblivious ass, I thought with a snort as he continued. “I just said cowboys. He likes cowboys. Westerns. Bang bang. Shoot ‘em up. Yippe ki yay, get along little doggy. That sort of nonsense. I’m sure you can relate perfectly.”

“Me? Westerns? Nah, not so much.” I shook my head. “I was always into planes. I started playing fighter pilot when I was four…long before Top Gun came along and gave me a world class chubby my date thought she was responsible for. Oh, and a little Speed Racer. Fast cars, loose anime women, crazy monkeys with little hats. What more can you want?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A childhood not spent watching the equivalent of cartoon porn? A fantasy life free of simians sporting outerwear? Never knowing Top Gun and its disturbing nay perverse effect on your puddlejumper? That’ll do as starters.” The illustrious Dr. McKay had his panties in a helluva wad today…how could I tell? It was a very subtle difference from all other days, I had to admit, but over the months I’d learned the difference.

“You’re throwing a birthday party, Supergeek,” I said with patient amusement. “Not reverse engineering a Hiveship from scratch. I think you’ll cope.”

“Reverse engineering a Hiveship would be easier,” he grumbled darkly. “It may have escaped your notorious inattention, Maj…Lieu…Sheppard, but I’m not exactly a social butterfly. I mean, honestly, what a colossal waste of time, effort, and sugar based frosting…which, by the way, I’m sure you’d rather have to smear on your hat wearing monkey.”

Okay, now we were getting a little personal. Not that all of Rodney’s insults weren’t personal…they were. Tailor made and ruthless in their efficiency. But this was even a bit much for him. I walked on down the corridor we were mapping and kept a careful eye on Dr. Z and Beckett who were far enough ahead to be out of earshot. “How about I give you a hand? You can boss me around without mercy, Dr. Z gets a nice party, and the rest of Atlantis escapes the wrath of McKay—more or less. It’s a win win.” I cradled the ‘P90’ in the crook of my arm and grinned. “And I’m good at parties. That’s where I got my PhD.”

“I’ll bet,” he said sourly before brightening marginally. “I suppose I could use the help. I don’t need it, mind you, but I can use it…just so I can move on to more enlightening pursuits, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed gravely. The hall was dimly lit, half the lights dead and beyond repair. The green light of McKay’s scanner flickered and illuminated his face. He didn’t seem nervous, and considering how his last mapping expedition had gone, he had every right to be. That episode, nanite induced plague and subsequent deaths, was the reason we had Carson along for this trip. “How’d you get roped into this anyway? I’m surprised you keep track of birthdays, an enormously busy genius such as yourself.”

“You only say it because it’s true.” He lifted his chin and then gave an aggrieved sigh. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to me. “I didn’t have much choice, the Czech bastard. He taped it to my computer. And a copy to the door of my quarters, the door of my lab, my current experiment, and the bathroom I most frequent. Don’t ask me how he knew that because, quite frankly, I don’t want to know.”

I unfolded the paper and held it closer to his scanner for the light. It was a calendar page with a date from next week circled boldly in red marker. Inside the circle was printed in atrocious handwriting, ‘Radek’s birthday. Cowboy theme. Big cake, you stingy son of bitch.’ “Well, okay,” I nodded and grinned again. “I can see how even you could catch a clue from that.”

“He’s gotten even more unbearable since he received the gene therapy last month,” he grumbled. “He spends the vast majority of his time telling me my theories are wrong. My theories. Blatantly stealing uncatalogued Ancient devices from my lab to work on himself. He’s even tries to tell me how to run my experiments, tries to tell me what to do. Me. Head of Science. He’s pushy, oblivious, and smugger than a cat with a bowl of lactose free milk substitute.”

I smothered a laugh with my hand, turning it into a cough. “In other words, he’s you.”

“You must be joking. I’m always sensitive to the needs of my underlings,” he instantly pointed out with the wounded glare of the unjustly accused.

“Maybe if you called them colleagues instead of underlings, I’d be more likely to buy into that,” I snorted. “Nah, forget it. I’d never buy that.” I slung an arm over his shoulder and asked cheerfully, “By the way, how’d that sensitivity training work out for you? Because where I’m standing, you’re the same oh-so-lovable McKay I’ve always known.” There had been an incident a few weeks ago involving a homicidal McKay and a member of the control room staff that had very nearly demolecularized Zelenka and me. As discussions go, it had not ended well for the ‘moron for the ages’ as McKay referred to him. As soon as the man was talked down from the ledge…literally, complaints had been lodged and sensitivity training had begun.

His eyes slid in my direction, then back to the scanner. “Actually,” he said casually. “I haven’t quite finished it yet. The instructors keep runn….ah…something keeps coming up in their personal lives requiring them to leave. Promptly. I’m on my third one.” The glare was quick and pointed. “Besides, I would never have even gone if you didn’t have Bates show up at the lab and drag me there.”

“Orders direct from Dr. Weir,” I responded with a complete and utter lack of sympathy. “And Bates is the only one who’s not afraid of you.”

“Your goons are afraid of me?” He perked up and gave a smug smile. “Really?”

“Well…,” I temporized, “they’re more afraid they’ll lose control and beat you to a bloody pulp. And then they’d have to deal with me. Trust me, in the end, that’s something none of them want to have to do. Touch a geek…lose a hand, my boys know that rule by heart.” I dropped my arm and slapped him on the back. “Come on. Our fearless leaders up there are leaving us behind.”

McKay followed me as I moved into a slow lope. “Amazing. This opens up so many possibilities. No more waiting in the cafeteria line. I’ll always get the couch on movie night. I can just kick Ford right off. And laundry. God, I hate laundry. I can make one of them….”

“Hey, no teasing the goons, McKay,” I warned. “It’s not nice, and me beating the crap out of them probably won’t be much consolation to you if you’re already dead.”

“Spoilsport,” he muttered.

By then we’d reached Zelenka and Beckett who were standing before a door with Ancient script scrolled heavily in black across it. “This looks promising, yes?” Zelenka said as he hooked his scanner to his belt. “Here. I shall open.”

Yeah, Dr. Z was pretty smug about that new gene of his all right. They’d unsuccessfully tried the old gene therapy on him, the one used with Rodney, when we’d first come to Atlantis. Since the Wraith siege Beckett had improved the process, taking the success ratio up from the forties to the sixties. That extra twenty percent had made Zelenka one happy little scientist. “What’s it say on the door?” I asked, moving the ‘P90’ into a ready position. Rodney had been giving me Ancient lessons for a while now, but we were concentrating on words like ZPM, generator, booby trap—kiss your ass goodbye….the more useful terms. This didn’t look even close to any of those.

“Hmmm.” Rodney focused and snapped his fingers a few times, a rapid idle. “Entertainment…no. Amusement…what’s that…facility? Ah, Game Room. Yes, that would be the best equivalent. Game Room.”

“Finally, you find something worthwhile,” I commented with renewed interest. “Game room, eh? This could be fun. Go on, Dr. Z. Open her up.”

He did so with a flourish that had McKay scowling. “Show off.” I caught a handful of his shirt as he started into the room, trying to beat Zelenka, and then I threw out an arm to halt Dr. Z in his tracks as he tried to follow in Rodney’s wake.

“Kids, kids. Let an adult go first.” I tossed a glance at Beckett. “Not rushing in where angels fear to tread, Doc?”

He folded his arms and shook his head. “Not me, lad. I’m perfectly happy to let you play tha guinea pig. I’ll just wait here patiently and mop up your remains.”

An infinitely practical man, our Dr. Beckett. I headed into the room, gun up and ready. The lights flickered and stabilized at a dim gloom. The walls were smooth and the floor patterned in blocks of different glowing color. Blue and yellow alternated and lined the walls. The rest of the floor was white with the occasional green square here and there. A console in the curved shape of a C occupied the center of the room. Other than that the room was empty, and no defense systems had come to life when I entered.

Straightening, I beckoned the others. “Looks clean. You can come on in.”

“And what were you going to do if you were infected with some new nanite contaminant?” Rodney sniped, pushing past me to immediately run a reverent hand over the humming console. “Shoot something not much bigger than the size of a molecule?”

“Actually I’m on the look out for another stasis booth. We’ve already found an old Weir. If we find an old McKay, I want to be prepared to nip that Doublemint nightmare in the bud,” I offered, giving my weapon an affectionate pat.

“Would have known when door open,” Dr. Z said absently as began to look over the other end of the console. “Reflection from bald head would have blinded you.”

“Hey!” Rodney snapped, outraged. “Your poodle fuzz isn’t precisely covering the entirety of your head, now is it?”

I ignored the continuing byplay as I walked around the room. Blank walls, blank ceiling, disco lighting floor. I was bored in precisely ten point two seconds. I leaned against one wall as Beckett finally entered, a highly suspicious expression on his face. “Is it safe then, Rodney? That thing you’re puttering about with?” He indicated the console that McKay and Zelenka were still slobbering over in orgasmic geek joy. “Looks dangerous if you ask me. All those red lights, blinking and going on, downright sinister.”

“It’s just a game, Carson,” McKay said impatiently.

Beckett shook his head dubiously and joined me in propping up the wall. Separated from me by a yellow tile, he stood about four feet over and sighed. “Are all your missions this thrilling, then?” From the wink he threw me, I think he welcomed the change. Running a trauma unit wasn’t what the Doc had signed up for, but it was pretty much what he’d gotten. It was an enormous pressure, working side by side with and even being friends with people that one day you might not be able to save. From genetic specialist to wartime doctor, it was a big step, and a helluva difficult one. I knew Carson took every loss very much to heart. And that wasn’t good for him. I could’ve told him that from hard experience, but unfortunately for him, I thought he was beginning to find it out well enough on his own.

“Radek, see if you can find one of the game access ports it’s referring to. Over by Carson,” McKay ordered, waving an arm in our general direction. “It’ll take someone with the gene to trigger it.”

“What am I then? Bluidy chopped liver?” Beckett asked with indignation.

“No, you’re someone who’s too much of a baby to use his gene since you almost blew up Sheppard’s helicopter in Antartica. Why, I don’t know. He didn’t actually die, did he? So get over it already, would you?” Rodney shot back. “The Maj…Lieut…damn it. Sheppard doesn’t have a phobia about it. Why should you?”

I thought, as I’d thought about a hundred times in the past few weeks, of saying, ‘Just go with Colonel, McKay. All right? Colonel. It’s been a month already. Get used to it.’ Yeah, I thought about saying it, but I was having too much damn fun watching him froth over it. Instead, I leaned harder, crossed my ankles and yawned as Zelenka gently shooed Carson away.

Radek stood on the blue block and ran his fingers along the wall with no luck. “Ah, zatracene,” he cursed under his breath. “Where? Little piggy, little piggy…. do haje. Nothing.” He turned and started feeling on the floor. “I’m thinking, Rodney. There is nothing.”

McKay exhaled and pointed at me. “You, Captain Kirk.” Now there was one he hadn’t sprung on me in a week or two. It wasn’t quite as ego lifting as Colonel, but I could go with it. “Try a mental command. Perhaps the both of you together can activate the port.” Catching the skeptical lift of my eyebrow, he added caustically, “Or you could try to trigger it by sheer force of personality, whichever you feel most effective.”

“Yes, your Geeky Eminence.” I bowed slightly before leaning back again and concentrated. From the furrowing of Zelenka’s brows, he was doing the same. McKay had once said the theory of two heads being better than one was a common fallacy. I didn’t know about the fallacy part, but it was a fuckup, and not a common one either. This one was truly spectacular.

The wall opened up behind me, and silver tendrils lashed around my arms and legs to pull me back into a shallow alcove big enough only for the human form. “McKay!” I barked. “What the hell’s going on?” I thrashed futilely as more lithe bands slid out from the wall and wrapped around my chest and thighs. Beside me Zelenka was in the same straits, only his cursing was done in Czech. McKay was dancing unbelievably fast fingers over the console with no luck before he swiveled and ran towards us. I couldn’t see the tendril that wrapped around my head, but I felt the tiny clamps that dug into the flesh at my temples. “Rodney….” It started as a shout, but in the end it was more of a whisper. Lights were flashing behind my eyes, nearly blinding me. Blue and yellow, sky and sun. I could see only bare slices of the room between them. Carson’s shoulder and desperately gesturing hand. Rodney’s eyes…grim, frantic.

And then the lights were in my head, talking to me, scanning through memories as if my brain were a well-thumbed book. Picking, choosing, murmuring, consulting…. It didn’t hurt though. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt.

It didn’t….

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Cowboys.

There were cowboys everywhere.

I blinked and shook my head to dispel the uneasy feeling in my gut. Now that was one damn stupid thing to think. Of course they were everywhere. I slapped my hand lightly against the bar for another one and watched the milling crowd in the Belle Atlantis saloon. Miners, ranchers, gamblers, the occasional guide, they all contributed to the noise, not to mention the smell that filled the room. A glass was set down at my elbow and filled with whiskey or whatever Raddy was passing off as whiskey this week. I wrapped a hand around the glass and grunted, “I think you need to get the girls downstairs and squirt some perfume around. It’s thick in here.”

With small spectacles perched on his nose, Zelenka propped elbows on the bar and rested chin in hand. “Many customers. Business is good. When business is good, stink is worse.” Straightening, he shrugged philosophically. “Stink is like blood. Washes off money like that.” He snapped his fingers.

A snappy dresser in white shirt and brilliant red and gold brocade vest, Raddy Zelenka was from Europe somewhere. He didn’t say where and nobody asked. Asking those sorts of questions around these parts…it wasn’t exactly polite manners. Who he was here was all that mattered. And he did well for himself. He owned the saloon and ran the girls upstairs; and he wasn’t adverse into dipping into his product…both of them. And speaking of that… “I have new girl. Very nice. You want….” He jerked his head towards the upper level and gave a small, happy smile and cheerful wink. “For the Sheriff there is no charge. Redhead, skin like silk. Chaya she is called. You would like her very much, I think.”

I felt the whiskey that had slid down into my stomach threaten to start back up. For some reason that name had the burn of bile in the back of my throat. “No.” God, no. “Maybe another time, Mr. Z.” Resting the heel of my hand on the butt of my gun, I added, “I need to get over to the newspaper for some new wanted posters. I just got a telegram from Cheyenne. Guess who busted themselves out of jail.”

His mouth fell open and the fluffy head shook frantically. “No, do not say so. That is bad for business. Very, very bad.”

“Not much good for the average life expectancy around here either.” I said grimly before tipping my hat. “There’s a stagecoach coming tomorrow. Try keeping the faro tables clean for a few hours then, would you? I don’t have time to listen to any Easterners yelling about losing their money to that sneaky little cheat at the saloon.”

I waved off his sputters of innocence and headed for the door. Outside it was hotter than hell and red dust billowed into the air like brightly colored smoke. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of my reflection and turned to catch it full on. Zelenka had gone all out on the Belle Atlantis. Inside he had all the bells and whistles…red flocked wallpaper, shiny gold cherubs, a glittering chandelier, outside he had the name painted across the second story in letters of blue and gold…along with waves and buxom mermaids. And the plate glass window in front was almost free of bubbles and streaks. It must’ve cost him an arm and a leg and made for a damn exacting mirror on sunny days. Like today. I stared at myself. Dark charcoal duster and white shirt with black hat, black pants and a black vest with silver star…same as I wore every day. Yet for one dizzying moment none of it looked even slightly familiar. I pulled the Smith and Wesson on my hip and studied it intently. Why did it suddenly seem heavy and clunky?

“Sheriff! Sheriff!”

The moment passed as I holstered my gun and turned to see Sam Nelson running towards me with a sheaf of papers . It looked like my wanted posters were ready. Time to start spreading the bad news. I spent the day doing just that. Roy, Virgil, and Jeremiah…they were our town’s claim to fame. Outlaws of the worst stripe—thieves and killers. Men, women, children…they made no distinction. They’d killed more men than the James Gang and Billy the Kid combined and now they were on the loose. Hometown boys done bad, and the first place they would head would be here. I’d helped put them away three years back when I’d been a deputy to Sheriff Sumner. Now Sumner was gone and those sons of bitches, who should’ve been dangling from the end of a rope, were coming back to finish what they started. Wraithwood was their town, or so they thought.

And they were coming to take it back.

The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully. A stolen horse. Some deadbeats who didn’t want to pay the girls at the saloon. A little good old-fashioned husband beating. Martha Kavanagh beat the living shit out of her loving spouse on a near weekly basis, and it was hard giving her a good talking to after meeting the man. Damn if I wasn’t tempted to hold her purse for her while she kicked his worthless ass up one side of the street and down the other. But finally, it was the end of the day and I had my feet up on my desk enjoying a piece of apple pie left over from supper when there was a fist hammering at the door. Sighing, I swung my feet down and pushed the plate away. “Come on in.”

It was Sam again. Round and bald, Sam was one helluva newspaper hound. Rumor, gossip, or genuine news, the man sniffed it out long before anyone else and then promptly blabbed it all over town on the front of his yellow rag. “Sheriff,” he gulped, bright red and breathless. “Some crazy man’s over at the saloon yelling blood murder. He’s trying to drag Raddy off.” Mopping sweat, his eyes gleamed with circulation greed. “I’m putting out an extra edition on it. Man sounds crazier than a bedbug.”

I was already on my feet and pushing past him as he babbled. Messing with Mr. Z wasn’t the smartest thing to do and I was hoping I made it over there before that crazier than a bedbug man was no more. Grabbing my hat, I was out the door and across the street in seconds. I pushed through the swinging doors into the Atlantis just in time to hear my name yelled. And it wasn’t Zelenka who was doing the yelling.

“Sheppard! Major Colonel John Sheppard, where the hell are you!” A head popped up over the bar for a fleeting second only to be nearly nailed by a flung glass. There was a yelp and it disappeared from sight. “Zelenka, you orgy chasing pervert, you are so suspended for this! Goddamn Ancients. Advanced, ha! Advanced my genetically enhanced lily white ass. An advanced race would know enough to avoid the Holodeck curse, but noooo. Here we are, in the worse Star Trek cliché known to man.”

Crazy as a bedbug, Sam’s assessment didn’t sound too far off. But crazy or not, he knew my name…more or less. But what the hell was a Major Colonel?

Zelenka was standing beside one of the tables, breathing heavily and cursing furiously. Grabbing another glass, he tossed it. The glass hit the wood behind the bar and shattered. “Insane son of bitch. You will pay for that.” He threw another glass. “This too. And this, and this!” Two more glasses flew through the air.

I grabbed his hand before he could fling any more. “Whoa, Mr. Z, you’re going to go through your whole stock and shipping them from St. Louis ain’t cheap.”

He glared at me. “Crazy man try to kidnap me. Try to drag me out in street while I was….” He lapsed into whatever his native language was with accompanying hand gestures to get his point across. The thrust of that…literally…along with the fact that he was dressed only in an unbuttoned white shirt and pair of fancy schmancy fine silk underwear painted a clear enough picture. He’d been upstairs dipping the pen in company ink when he’d been so rudely interrupted.

Despite the mysterious nature of the situation, I felt my lips twitch. Those were some spindly white legs if ever I’d seen any. “I’ll handle it,” I promised. “Go on about your…ah…business.” As Zelenka stomped off back upstairs, I turned to walk over to the bar. Peering over the edge, I looked down at a head protected by clasped hands. A tan hat lay abandoned off to one side and the stranger was dressed in a blue shirt, suspenders, brown buckskin pants and a tan duster—all of it sprinkled with shattered glass. I also saw the glint of a gun at his hip. The crazy ones…they always had guns; why was that? Well, crazy or not he did know my name. Even aside from the attempted kidnapping, it would’ve been enough to catch my interest.

“Mister,” I drawled, “I think we need to have a little talk.”

The hands fell and he looked up at me, his mouth falling open in surprise. Aside from a belligerent chin and a slightly crooked mouth, it was an ordinary enough face…if self-important. Brown hair, sharp blue eyes…the skin was damn pale for around these parts, but he could be from back East. It was also the face of a total stranger. He might know me, but I damn sure didn’t know him.

“John?” The mouth snapped shut into what looked like a relieved grin. A flash of teeth and even more crooked than when at rest, it was the grin of a man happy as hell to see me. “Am I glad to see you. Not that I’d admit that to anyone else of course,” he amended immediately.

“John’s a little familiar, my friend.” I reached down and seized a fistful of coat at his neck and yanked him ruthlessly up and over the top of the bar. “Why don’t we stick with Sheriff for a while?”

Arms flailing, he managed to land on his feet and staggered to keep his balance. “What are you….” The words faded as quickly as the relief did from his face. “You don’t know me, do you?” he asked numbly. “Of course you don’t,” he supplied, not waiting for my answer. “I knew it was a possibility. I did. But knowing and seeing…well, they’re two different things, aren’t they?” he finished, swallowing a little heavily. He didn’t protest as I pulled the gun from his holster, but when I started towards the door towing him along behind, he tried to dig his heels in. “Wait. Wait. We can’t go. We have to stay with Radek.” An agitated hand waved in the air. “And find Carson. God knows where he is. I swear that gene would’ve been better off in a Scottish terrier than a Scottish doctor.”

I kept walking, wondering uneasily if craziness was contagious. He squawked in outrage and tried to stop again, but I gave him a hard jerk and we were through the doors. “Sheppard, cut it out! You can’t manhandle me like this,” he snapped, but underneath the imperious tone I thought I caught an undercurrent of, oddly enough, hurt…as if his best buddy had suddenly turned and punched him in the stomach. Did lunatics have friends? Well, I suppose they did. They had a lot of company in the sanitarium.

I curled my lips in a hard, wolfish grin and tapped my star with one finger. “Guess what? This and your little attempt at kidnapping says I can.” And you didn’t kidnap in my town. These were my people and I looked after them. If I did nothing else in my life, I took care of my people. I kept walking pulling him along. “It also says I can throw your ass in jail until Judge Bean passes through. You might want to start working on your story. He’s not an understanding man when it comes to kidnapping.” I considered. “Or littering for that matter. The man likes his work.”

“Jail?” He set his jaw stubbornly. “No, no, no. You can’t put me in jail. I have to save…I have things to do. And I can’t do these things, obviously, if I’m locked up in jail. You…my friends are depending on me. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Like I hadn’t heard that before. “It always is,” I said, bored. I was curious to know how this criminal knew me, but I’d have plenty of time to hear that from him. He’d be around for a while…the Judge wasn’t due for another three or four weeks. “You can tell me all about it over the next month.”

“Month?” He twisted in my grip, pulled free, and turned to run.

I had to admit I was a little surprised at the strength in the attempt. He was tougher than he looked. Quicker too. And as I tackled him instantly, riding him down to the ground with my knee firmly wedged in his back, I told him so. “Good try. Not the smartest thing you could’ve done, but it was a damn good attempt,” I said cheerfully. He wheezed as he tried to suck the air back into his lungs. I rolled him over and put my new handcuffs into use. Fresh from a fancy police department in New York, they were heavy iron and shaped like stirrups. Progress, you just can’t fight it. I pulled him to his feet as he continued to cough and wheeze. His face was red, eyes bright with pained moisture as he bent at the waist trying to regain his breath. For a brief moment, I almost felt…hell, bad for him. Felt bad for a kidnapper. He did seem to have bats swarming in his belfry, but….ah hell. I pounded his back brusquely. “Take a couple of deep breaths for God’s sake.”

“Never…taught me…cough…that move.”

Jesus, he was really struggling for air. I scowled as the inexplicable stab of guilt went through me. I sighed and put a hand under his elbow as he sucked in ragged breaths. “Who never taught you what?” I asked as he recovered.

“Friend.” He pulled in a few more breaths and straightened. “A friend taught me a few defensive moves.” He rubbed at the dirt on his face and narrowed his eyes at the rattle of the chain between the cuffs. “A friend who is going to pay for what he’s done. Trust me. He’s going to pay and pay and rue the day those two mentally challenged first cousins hooked up at the family reunion and spawned his scrawny ass.”

Crazy man had a temper, a razor sharp tongue, and wasn’t afraid to use either one. It must be one helluva friend to put up with that. I put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him into motion, but it was an easy push, which was simple enough to explain away. The man wasn’t right in the head…treating him like an ordinary criminal wouldn’t be right, would weigh heavier on my conscience. Like I said, simple, and I ignored the voice murmuring uneasily that there was more to it than that. “Defensive, eh? That’s why he didn’t teach you then,” I pointed out logically. “There’s nothing defensive about that. Sounds like your friend doesn’t want you chasing people bigger and meaner than you.”

His shoulder shifted under my hand and he muttered, “Probably. He’s like that. Overprotective.” Eyes slanted back towards me, more gray than blue in the dusk. “Not too bright either. Ridiculous hair. Stubborn and flirts with anything that has a circulatory system…and some that don’t. Cheats at poker. Has all the survival skills of a manic-depressed lemming, and he steals my clothes.”

“Not much of a friend,” I observed. “Maybe you should get a new one.” I opened the door to my office and ushered him through.

“I don’t want a new one,” he snapped sharply then exhaled. “I’m used to him. He’s like an old pair of shoes. Stinky and frayed, but familiar. I like familiar. Of course, the stinky I could do without, but what can you do?” There was a gleam in his eye, but it faded as I shrugged and took off my hat. It was as if he were waiting for something…something that didn’t come.

“That’s up to you, Mister.” I opened the jail cell and pushed him firmly in. “What’s your name anyway? I’m sure someone somewhere is looking for you. A head doctor maybe?”

He scowled instantly. “I am not crazy, Sheppard, but I don’t think the same can be said for you right now.” As I closed the door and locked it, he sat down hard on the wooden bench and muttered, “And my name is Rodney McKay. Doctor Rodney McKay. The Doctor Rodney McKay. And before you ask, no, I’m not a doctor of medical voodoo. I’m a doctor of astro…of science, and undoubtedly the most brilliant man you’ll ever meet. Here or in reality.”

“Fascinating,” I said gravely. “A man of letters in my humble jail cell. So tell me, Dr. Rodney McKay, just how is it you know me…since I sure as hell don’t know you?”

Five seconds later I was sorry I’d asked.

There was crazy and then there was crazy. This McKay character left both of those in the dust. He thought he was from the future. Except that wasn’t quite it. That we were actually off in space somewhere, past the moon and beyond, and we were playing a game like charades, I guessed, but we were playing it by accident and the game had altered our memories. Made us forget things. Of course, he was a genius and he’d bypassed…was that the word…yes, bypassed that so he could keep his memories and save Radek and me. Because he knew me and I knew him and I flew planes…I had no idea what planes were, but I flew them through the air. Oh, and I flew them in outer space, too.

If it hadn’t been so damn sad, it would’ve been amusing. The wild tale and this lunatic who couldn’t speak one word without using his hands as punctuation. Up would go the hands, rattle would go the cuffs, and the poor bastard would nearly give himself a black eye before he remembered the restraints. After which, he would remember for an entire two minutes and keep them still, but then up they’d go again...flailing about. From the swearing and the thrashing, it looked like he was seconds from a heel drumming fit and I finally relented. I had him stick his hands through the bars and I uncuffed him.

“You believe me then?” he asked eagerly. “You remember, don’t you? You remember something.”

I nodded soberly. “Sure I do, McKay. Excuse me, Dr. McKay. And don’t you worry about the kidnapping charges. There won’t be any. We’re just going to get you some help. Someone who can get you back to…ah…the future with your smelly friend. Now, you just relax while I go get you some supper. Bucket’s in the corner if the urge strikes you.”

The excitement faded from his face instantly and he dropped his head into his hands. “Shit. Shitshitshit.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Once again…bucket in the corner.”

Lifting his head, he ordered, “Just…shut up, okay? Christ. I’m going to turn the game off. We’re not all together, but at least it’ll get you out and I can come back for Radek, if Carson hasn’t gotten him out by then.”

“You’re going to turn the game off?” I repeated. What he even meant by ‘turn off’, I couldn’t guess. Games end…checkers, chess, they end…but off? What the hell did that mean? Poor deluded bastard; I had an Aunt Bertha like that…talked to her dog. Eventually tried to marry the pup. But for the grace of God….

“Yes,” he with quick impatience. “Obviously, you can’t turn it off if you don’t even know you’re playing it, now can you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Screwing his eyes shut, his face set in an expression of fierce concentration. I sighed and reached over on my desk for the wanted posters. I was hammering them up when he opened his eyes and let out the breath he’d been holding. Blinking, he looked around the room with dread. “Oh no.”

I’d finished with Roy and Virgil’s posters and now went to work on Jeremiah’s. “Don’t worry about it, McKay. I’ll bet you off your game tomorrow. Now, you want meatloaf or roast beef for supper? Lizzy Sue’s place has both on Thursdays.”

When he didn’t reply, I glanced over my shoulder to see him staring, pale and grim, at the Wanted posters. “Oh no,” he repeated, this time more bleakly.

“Ugly sons of bitches, aren’t they?” I said with a grimace. Roy, Virgil and Jeremiah Wraith. The Wraith brothers. They had the same long white hair, pasty skin, dead eyes…brothers through in through. In appearance and sheer love of death and destruction. “They’ll be rolling into town soon.” My hand automatically rested on the butt of my gun and my lips tightened. “And then I’m putting their murderous asses in the ground.”

He jumped up and ran to the small barred window that led out to the dusty street. Pressing his face to it, he shouted desperately, “Carson! Carson!” Hours later he was still yelling.

I eventually ate his meatloaf. After all, would’ve been a shame for it to go to waste.

The next morning wasn’t much an improvement in my new guest’s mood. I walked into the office carrying a plate of eggs, potatoes, and thick bacon. “Rise and shine, McKay. Breakfast is served.”

A face heavy with exhaustion glared at me through the bars. Short brown hair stood on end and dark smudges stood out under annoyed eyes. “Even with amnesia, you won’t give me the respect of my title. You’re an asshole in any reality. Wonderful. And you look ridiculous by the way. Spurs jingling, black hat…all that’s missing is leather chaps and you’d be the posterboy for nutritionally challenged Chippendale dancers everywhere.”

I wasn’t sure what that last half meant, but from the sniping tone, I doubted it was complimentary. I snorted. “You’re lucky you’re crazy. Otherwise I’d be punching you in the face as we speak.”

“No you wouldn’t,” he said with absolute assurance. He didn’t even give it consideration. The insanity never stopped. Even the Wraith brothers knew better than to piss me off. Killing me was on the list, but they weren’t going to poke an anthill with a stick first. “Now,” McKay added imperiously, “I want to make something very clear. When this is all over and I’ve saved your oblivious ass, there will be no mention of that again. Ever. Are we clear?” He pointed at the bucket in the far corner with an expression that was both disgusted and outraged.

“Aren’t you the delicate flower?” I rolled my eyes and opened the cell door to hand him the plate. “Eat up. I had Lizzie Sue load it up since you were too busy throwing a fit to eat supper last night.”

The glare was automatic, but he took the plate eagerly and picked up a thick piece of buttered bread to take a large bite. “What? No Eggs Benedict and orange juice?”

“This ain’t New York.” I sat down at the desk with the new paper…headline: Lunatic Rips Pants off Local Businessman. Shaking my head and grinning as I pictured Zelenka’s face, I added absently, “Besides you’re allergic.”

There was the sound of a fork hitting the floor and a desperate voice saying, “John?”

I looked up and for a moment I felt almost dizzy. An unfamiliar and annoying face suddenly seemed utterly familiar and the annoyance far more affectionate than sincere. The paper fell from my hands and I rubbed my forehead as a headache, fierce and sharp, flared viciously behind my eyes. “Ah, fuck.” Slowly the pain faded and I looked up. Blue eyes were locked on me with what looked worry and, strangely, hope. I frowned. “You get one fork, McKay. Pick it up and wipe it off.”

The hope faded and he silently picked up the utensil and wiped it on his napkin with a muttered, “Virtual reality germs don’t count.” He then dug into the food cheerlessly. “We’re really on IVs now, you know. Catheters too if you truly want to delve into that humiliation. Dr. Biro is poking and prodding us for good veins, assessing the size of our puddlejumpers. I know I have nothing to worry about, but God knows what it’ll do to your reputation. And then there’s her fondness for doing autopsies, I really don’t think we should stay here too long and give her any opportunities.”

“And where’s that friend of yours during all this?” I asked, trying to keep the humoring tone to a minimum as I turned my attention back to the paper. The man was sick; he didn’t deserve to be mocked…too much. “The stinky shoe one. Why isn’t he coming to the rescue?”

He chewed and shifted his shoulders. “I may have…may have…gotten him into a bit of a mess. Probably not my fault at all really,” he added hastily. “Just an on the job hazard, but still, I suppose it’s my obligation to get him out of it.” He stared down at the half empty plate. “Of course, that seems easier said than done.”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” I aimed a jaundiced glance at his plate. “And finish your breakfast. You look a little green.”

“Yes, mother.” He took another bite and complained around it, “God, you’re beyond obtuse.”

Before I could comment, the office door burst open and a well dressed, panting man stood there waving a copy of the Wraithwood Tribune. “I’m luiking for…,” he wheezed before spotting McKay. “Rodney! Where the bluidy hell have you been?”

“Where the hell have I been?” McKay dropped the plate and it shattered into several pieces. Lunging at the bars, he grabbed them and pressed his face close. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I came in on the stagecoach, you bluidy jackass. Not that there was any warning that might happen.” The Scot, and there wasn’t much doubt about that, pulled himself upright and slapped the newspaper on my desk. “Col..ah, Sheriff. I’m this man’s doctor—Doctor Beckett. For his….” He tapped his head lightly with a finger and winked solemnly. “He’s basically harmless. I dinna think he’ll cause any more trouble if you release him into my custody.”

Gray suit and bowler, forthright blue eyes and what looked like a permanent half scruff of stubble. “A doctor, eh?” I folded my paper to lay on top of his. “How’d this one get loose from you, Doc?”

“Och, well, he’s crafty,” he sighed expansively, “for a lunatic, but I’ve my eye on him now, I promise you.”

There was sputtering from the cell, which we both ignored. The doc seemed honest and sincere, and did I really want to keep a crazy man around until the judge showed up to tell me what to do with him? There weren’t too many asylums out this way. If worse came to worse, I’d end up holding his hand until he could be shipped back East. And with the Wraith boys coming, it was likely I might not be around long enough to do that. It’d be nice to get the innocents, especially the insane ones, out of the path of destruction. “I’ll need a quarter for Lizzy Sue’s plate.” I nodded my head at the shattered remains.

“Oh, aye. Of course.” He dug eagerly in his pockets, then took a look at the contents in his hand with confusion before handing it all over. “Er…keep the rest. For your trouble, and I’m quite sure he’s been plenty of that.”

I retrieved the correct amount and handed back the rest with an adamant rap of my knuckles against the desk. “You’ve got that right. So, a doc, eh? Old man Johnson down at the stables has a few mules in dire need of a worming. Think you could stop by?”

“Ha! I knew it!” McKay crowed from behind the bars.

Crazier than a bedbug. Not so difficult to figure out, but what was so difficult was why I was almost sorry to see the irritating son of a bitch go.

Stupid dust, idiotic town, godawful heat.

This was Radek’s fault. The heat, the dust, the town…only he would know handcuffs were available in the Old West, only he would know what the damn money looked like. The man was obsessed with all of it…the West, cowboys, saloons. Why in the world one of the most brilliant men spawned by Eastern Europe would waste his time on this nonsense was beyond me.

I looked around at the clapboard buildings, sneezed hard, and glared indiscriminately at whatever crossed my field of vision. Yes, definitely his fault. The Wraith, on the other hand, were John’s fault. It couldn’t have been Yul Brynner, nooo…of course not. Instead we had three Wraith, armed, and no doubt cranky from too tight cowboy boots. If I’d gone into the machine first, this never would’ve happened. We would be in a lab chatting with Einstein, Bohr, and Feynman, all of whom would naturally claim me to be their one true successor. There would be a buffet, Mozart in the corner playing piano, and a blond astrophysicist giving foot massages. If I’d gone in first….

But I hadn’t.

Instead I’d blithely sent Radek over to trigger it. Even told John to jump in there with his Maserati ATA all and help him out. Because, after all, it was just a game. And here we were…it was the Stargate incident all over again. Except this time I was the one who’d shoved them through and locked it behind them.

As months went, the sheer crappiness of this one defied the wildest of crappy expectations.

“Well, Rodney, as rescue parties go, we are rightly screwed now, aren’t we?” Carson blew out a heavy breath and leaned a shoulder against the outer saloon wall. He was wiping the performance sweat generated by his interaction with helpful Sheriff John from his face

“I miscalculated, okay?” I said, throwing my hands up. “Forgive me. Mea culpa. Please totally disregard the ninety nine point nine nine nine nine percentage of other times that I’ve been right. Just focus on the one single solitary time I’m wrong.” Christ, he may as well. I knew I was.

“To be fair, Rodney, it only takes the one to kill us all,” he said with exasperation.

“You think I don’t know that?” I snapped, rubbing the heels of my hands over my eyes. “The Ancients must’ve had a special code word to shut this thing off.”

“A safe word then?” he pursed his lips and nodded.

“Yes, the equivalent,” I replied cautiously, sliding a sideways glance his way, “although that leads me to conclusions about your personal life I’d really rather avoid. You’ve obviously been hanging around Radek too long.” At his look of red-faced indignation, I said hastily, “Never mind, never mind. The Ancients wouldn’t want the monitor shutting down the game inadvertently by thinking a simple ‘off’ in the middle of a shootout…or whatever Ancients were into…out of sheer surprise. Even with the monitors being the only one to retain their memories, some automatic reflexes can’t be controlled, even by Ancients.”

“The Ancients had safeguards you said. And you’re still uncertain about their still being in place?”

“Uncertain. Uncertain is a good word.” My voice went quiet and grim. After all, why should a failsafe work? Very little else did. There was a good chance that if something happened to you here, your body would take it for gospel …but goddamnit I couldn’t know for sure. “But I’d better figure it out quickly. The Wraith are coming. Three of them. Do you think John is just going to stand by while they shoot up the town? As if that would happen in any world. Stupid Boyscout sense of honor. It couldn’t take a break just this once, could it? Damn it.”

I’d been so glad to see the son of a bitch. Only to get the rescue moving along of course…it wasn’t as if I missed his stubborn ass. It wasn’t as if I’d watched him every minute of those first twenty-four never-ending hours hoping for just a twitch, a blink…anything. Anything at all to prove he or Radek might be coming out of it. It was nerve-wracking to see them so still. Radek was usually in constant motion…not the astounding caffeine driven whirlwind in the fashion of yours truly, but he kept a steady enough pace. John, on the other hand, one tended to think of as a sprawler. Slouching in a chair, arm thrown back. Lazing about on the Ancient style sofa in the movie room. He was like every cool kid you saw in high school…leaning against his locker and flirting with the cheerleaders. Although, certain cool kids managed to become one with their locker after a judicious application of industrial strength adhesive…but that’s another story.

To the untrained eye, John seemed at rest. But he was always vibrating beneath the surface. Fiercely alert and able to lunge into action before your eye even saw him move. After the game sucked him in, that was gone. For an entire day, his body reclined limply in the alcove at a slight backward angle, still as death. The only movement was the roaming of his eyes behind the lids. Neither he or Radek responded to external stimuli at all, not even pain.

Well, twenty-four hours of that nonsense was more than enough. If they wouldn’t come out, I would have to go in and get them. As only ATA geners could access the game, Carson volunteered to go in with me. Okay, okay, fine…volunteered is a strong word, but I needed someone to monitor their mental health and Heightmeyer was a no-gener. Probably traded it for all the Kleenex in her office. God knew where she got it all. Not that I’ve ever had occasion to use any, of course.

And here we were. My perfectly simple exit plan shot to hell and back. We survive the Wraith and we possibly die in the Pegasus version of Pac-man. Where’s the justice, I ask you? Where? I guess that sometimes you just have to make your own justice.

But what a pain in the ass.

Rescues and justice, it would all be much easier with a little cooperation from our raving amnesiac friends. Honestly, way to be absolutely no help at all. And with John having summarily ejected me from his little flock, things were going to be even more difficult. It was amazing how that had just…snuck up on me. Getting used to having someone watch out for me…and do it with wholehearted do-or-die enthusiasm as opposed to the usual military ‘ho-hum, here’s your nerd, try not to lose him again. Yeah, he’ s in a couple of pieces. Grab the glue. He’ll be working again in no time.’ John actually cared about me…cared about his geeks with an intensity that was…wow…staggering. I’d grown to depend on that, almost from the very beginning…and now it was like free fall. A solid wall I’d learned to take for granted disappeared from behind my back.

Now I was some lunatic he would feed and pass off to appropriate medical care. He would do his best for me…his indifferent best. I wasn’t a member of his town…I wasn’t in his flock anymore. Not that I was moping over it; that would be beyond stupid. I was a grown man for God’s sake. I didn’t need anyone to lean on. I’d worked my entire life without a safety net; a few months of having one then losing it wasn’t going to throw me for a loop now, not when I needed all of my not inconsiderable wits about me. I was just fine.

Lying to myself, it was a rare indulgence and I really wished I had the time to wallow in it. But I didn’t. I had to make those lies truth. Carson and I could handle this with aplomb. Two wall-less geeks rescuing a goon from the Wraith brothers. Piece of cake.

If we weren’t shot…if the failsafe worked…if Radek didn’t give me a concussion with that shovel he was waving as he headed towards me while cursing a mile a minute.

I yelped and quickly scrambled behind Carson. “I’m crazy! I’m not responsible for my actions. Talk to my doctor.”

“Good God, Rodney, did you run your mouth all over town?” Carson held up placating hands. “Z…er…Sir, it’s truer than true. This man is mentally ill…bluidy well insane if you want the truth of it. I’m his doctor, and there’ll be nae more trouble out of him, that’s my guarantee.”

Radek halted, shovel still cocked in the air and ready for action. With a scowl, he spat, “My pants. Call me pervert. Crazy man come in room, scare girls, and take my pants! Strip me and do not even ask or give chocolates first.”

I scowled back, feeling the flush that burned under my skin. “You hairy Czech liar, I was just trying to hurry you up. Wait…that’s not what I meant.” The saloon had been the first place I’d checked when I’d blinked into the game. I’d seen at least one Western in my life; I knew that was the hub of so-called social activity. Radek’s name was immediately recognized and someone had pointed me upstairs. I’d rushed up to fling doors open right and left. I saw things that made me realize my social life was in serious decline and then I saw others that had to scar me mentally—no way around it. When I’d finally found Radek’s room, I’d been so relieved to see him that the circumstances hadn’t exactly registered at first. And by the time they did, I had a handful of his pants by his ankles to jerk him out of bed. The pants went flying, women were screaming. Yes, women…not woman. There was silk underwear, not a woman’s by the way, cursing, feathers, more screaming, and than a highly pissed Czech chasing and throwing things at me. Naturally, the feathers triggered an allergy attack. It’s hard to run fast while sneezing your enormous brains out. Which is how I’d ended up busted by Sheriff Sheppard.

I’d had better days.

“Lad, he’s not right in the head,” Carson continued to do his best to talk Zelenka out of imminent violence. “I’m frightfully sorry about your pants, but he willna be bothering you again. I’m swearing it to you.”

“Hmph.” Radek straightened and glared past Carson’s shoulder at me. “He does have gleam of madman in eye, plain for anyone to see.” Carson’s elbow hit me hard in the stomach before I could comment. “Very well.” The shovel went down. “But you do not come in saloon, understand? And keep him away from chickens out back.” With that he turned, walked back to the saloon door and disappeared inside.

“What the hell does he think I’m going to do to the chickens?” I muttered, low enough there was no chance the words would reach Radek or his new best friend, Mr. Shovel.

“Give it a rest, Rodney. Being that you ripped the pants off the poor man during an obviously private moment, he’s letting you off lightly.”

“I did not rip his pants off! Not on purpose anyway. Oh, never mind,” I growled and headed into the street. “Let’s find someplace to talk where I don’t have to worry about my head being bashed in by a Czech with a feather fetish.”

As we walked, I was thinking fast and furious. If we couldn’t turn the game off, the only other way might be to follow it to its conclusion. Unfortunately, that had a high probability of being a gunfight in the street. And while Sheppard was damn efficient with a gun, this was three Wraith we were talking about…three Wraith, a six gun instead of a P90, and an Old West construct of giving the bad guys every chance to kill you first. Halfway across the street, I stopped, swiveled and started back, saying darkly, “This time I’ll strip off his pants and strangle him with them.”

I didn’t get far. Carson grabbed my arm and dragged me across. For a man who depended on needles to express his displeasure, he was stronger than he looked. “At least they seem mentally sound,” he murmured more to himself than me. “Despite their memories being mucked about with, they’re still who they were.”

I gave in and let myself be towed along. “You could say that, although there was certainly room for improvement. Radek is still an overly sensitive, perverse little man,” I sniffed. “And Sheppard is still a macho moron with a deathwish.”

“Miss them fiercely, don’t you, lad,” Carson commented with sympathetic amusement.

“Oh shut up, would you?” I snapped irritably. “I’m merely…oh shit.”

“What?” Carson’s grip immediately tightened on my arm at my tone, and then he saw for himself. “Mary Mother of God.”

There was a bluff outside the town. Of course, this so-called town was one street a block long; look in any direction you wanted and you’d be looking outside of the town. I’d been looking down the street when I saw him. Saw the Wraith.

It was too much. Really…just too goddamn much.

The sight of a Wraith always had the ability to freeze my lungs, accelerate my heart to a painful speed. But after Gaul and Abrams…it was different. I’d seen first hand then what only Sheppard, Ford, and the Athosians had seen before. I’d seen the pitiful husk left behind. And I’d seen a husk not quite empty lose a little shred of life every minute until he’d ended it on his own. I’d seen John seconds of ending up the same way, and later I’d seen him almost die of internal injuries from the battle. And then had come the attack on Atlantis….

I’d never seen Wraith the same since those two events. They’d gone from the most terrifying of boogeymen to crawl from your closet at night to an abomination on the face of the universe. They were still terrifying…God, were they. Beyond any nightmare horror you could dream up, but they were worse than that too. They lived solely to take your friends, take your hope, take your life. Take all life. Abomination…it made me wish there was a stronger word. I feared them, but more than that…I hated them. I wanted every last one of them gone from this realm of existence.

The Wraith was on horseback. Wearing all black, even in the far distance his white face and yellow-white hair was stark against the dark apparel of an Old West killer. He should’ve looked ludicrous…a monster playing dress up. He didn’t. He looked like death incarnate. I felt the bile burn the back of my throat with a vicious sting. “Go to the saloon,” I said hoarsely. “Keep Radek busy and keep him inside.”

“But how….” His voice trailed off and he squared his shoulders. “Never mind. I’ll figure something out. I’m sure his…ah…ladies could use a health check up in their line of business. What are you going to do, Rodney?”

“Do the same with Sheppard.”

If the stubborn son of a bitch would let me.

Of course, he didn’t. And that’s how I ended up in the desert dying of a rattlesnake bite, all my brilliance snuffed out like the world’s brightest and most glorious flame.

“For the hundredth time, McKay,” came the exasperated declaration, “you’re not dying. You’re making me wish I was dead, yeah, but you personally are not dying. So give it a rest, would you?”

I leaned awkwardly against a boulder, which was no doubt filthy and crawling with poisonous spiders. Ah, the great outdoors…dirt, Wraith, and deadly wildlife. What fun. “I’m allergic to bees. Did I mention that? Because I am. Really, really allergic. Desperately allergic. Beyond allerg….”

“Does that look like a bee to you?” he cut me off without compunction, looked at the dead gunshot snake several yards away and lifted his eyebrows. “With the scales and fangs and all? And, yeah, you mentioned it—only ninety-nine times though. How about one more time to keep things even?”

I scowled and then winced as I tried shifting my leg only to feel pain lance through my calf, knotting the muscle until it felt as if someone had tried to drive an icepick through it. “This isn’t dying?” I grimaced, then bit viciously at my lower lip. I might have expressed the pain verbally in front of my John Sheppard…who am I kidding? I would’ve screamed like a baby with terminal diaper rash. But this John Sheppard didn’t know me. We had no history. No mutual respect. He already thought I was insane. At least I could be macho and insane, right? I closed my eyes as the pain doubled, and I tasted the blood from my bitten lip.

“Christ, you’re such a pain in the ass.” A hand insinuated itself into my tight fist. “Squeeze as hard as you want. The pain will pass.”

A pain in the ass…it was just like old times—if old times were the day before yesterday. I gripped his hand until I felt the bones creak and, as promised, the pain passed. Opening my eyes, I felt the cold sweat dripping along my hairline as I looked up into a concerned face. His hat was gone. He’d lost it when our horses had dumped us and taken off. The hair was just hair. Nothing special or out of the ordinary and I felt myself inexplicably missing the two-seconds-after-electroshock look. Hazel eyes that were customarily mocking and amused with the glint of a fifteen-year old delinquent in their depths were now calm and sympathetic. “I know,” he said, pulling his hand free and wiggling the fingers to return circulation. “It hurts like a son of a bitch, but you’re going to be fine. It was a dry strike. The snake wasn’t hungry only pissed, and since your horse stepped on his tail, you can’t much blame him.” His eyes dropped and he examined my leg again with a careful touch. “It’ll swell some at the bite and bruise pretty badly, but you’ll be walking again in a few hours.”

He’d already explained this twice before, and he did it the third time just as patiently. A rattlesnake voluntarily injects venom. It has to want to and usually, unless you’re dinner, it doesn’t want to. Of course, there are always exceptions and John had made sure the old fashioned way. I guess I was lucky it hadn’t bitten me in the ass or I would’ve been on my own.

After it was over, he said he hadn’t tasted any venom and I’d gotten off lucky with just a trace amount of old venom off an unhygienic fang. Of course that had led me to who was responsible for this latest fiasco. The Ancient computer had sucked the Old West knowledge out of Radek’s brain. All snake and wilderness knowledge had to have come out of Sheppard’s. I’m sure it wasn’t his hobby, having the big bad snake phobia and all—I imagined it came from some sort of military wilderness training. I’d have to thank him later. Perhaps I could borrow an alien tarantula from Pyongg and leave it in his bed.

“I still think I’m dying,” I said sullenly and gritted my teeth as another wave of pain rolled through my leg. If you could die in a computer game and I was getting more and more convinced that you could. It was dusk already, and I shivered as the temperature began to drop. We’d been stranded for hours and I’d followed John for hours before that as he chased an elusive Wraith. The moment Carson and I had split up I’d run to the Sheriff’s office. I had no idea what I was going to do or say, although locking Sheppard in his own cell had been a thought both logical and gleeful. That would keep him out of trouble…in theory anyway. Whether I could’ve gotten him in the cell was another story, but I didn’t have a chance to find out. He’d walked out of the door before I could walk in, and he spotted the Wraith instantly. And naturally, like all the survival impaired Captain Kirks before him, he’d leaped into action. I suppose we were just lucky he didn’t strategically rip his shirt first.

He’d run to the stable and grabbed a horse. The next thing I know he’s galloping down the street as if he were born in a saddle. I, on the other hand, was born in a nice, clean hospital and I didn’t like horses. They’re bigger than I am, they have large teeth and aren’t afraid to use them, and they’re more stubborn than I am. I’m not sure how they manage the last, but it’s true. Still, in times of crisis you do what you have to do. I rented a horse by throwing a handful of money on the floor and taking the nearest one with a saddle. The damn thing ran like the wind. I held on to the saddle horn, pointed it after Sheppard’s horse, and mentally revised my last will and testament.

Sheppard lost the Wraith miles and miles from town. It was so far that I couldn’t even begin to guess where the small huddle of buildings might lie. I caught up with the dangerously annoyed Sheriff several minutes later. Before he could yell or shoot me, my horse stepped on a snake, reared, hit the other horse and we all went down in a lethal tangle of thrashing limbs. The horses scrambled up and were gone while I was still curled in a ball waiting for a hoof through the forehead. The snake had used the opportunity to give me a hickey on my calf. All Creatures Great and Small…ha! All Creatures Malicious and Maiming would be more likely.

And here we were.

I folded my arms to conserve heat and shivered as the combination of pain and cold sharpened into true misery. There was a sigh and seconds later a black duster settled over me. Sheppard rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m going to see if I can find any wood for a fire. I’ll be back.” True to his word, he had a fire going in twenty minutes. The wood was scrubby and long dead, so it probably would burn fast and fleeting, but for now it was heat. Or a computer generated impulse to our brain indicating heat. Whichever, I was more than glad of it.

Across the flickering fire, I could see the glitter of a newly annoyed gaze. Or maybe it wasn’t new. John hadn’t really had the chance to yell at me yet. The snakebite had forestalled taking me to task for following him. At least it had until now. “Why’d you follow me, McKay? And where the hell is your keeper?”

“Earning his paycheck,” I said obliquely. Carson checking out the pertinent working parts of Radek’s harem of saloon girls, that had to be a sight to see. “But it’s all right, Sheriff. I’m better.” I beamed with pure honey thick honesty…as much beaming as I could muster with the invisible teeth gnawing at my leg. “Dr. Beckett gave me a pill…oh, what the hell do they call them here? Tonic…he gave me a tonic and I’m well on my way to full sanity. It’s like a miracle. Modern medicine, it’s amazing.” More painful words had never cross my lips. The things you do to save your friends’ oblivious and no doubt ungrateful asses.

He tilted his head questioningly. “So you don’t think you’re from the future anymore? You’re not here to save me and Mr. Zelenka from playing some game?”

I shook my head. “Have a stack of bibles? I’ll swear on them for you.” That had gotten me out of an amazing amount of trouble when I was in elementary school…a lack of conscience and a cheerful disbelief in anything I couldn’t prove in the lab.

“I’ll bet you would,” he snorted skeptically, stirring the fire. “Tell me this, Dr. Rodney McKay.” His eyes were fixed on me now and they seemed much harder to fool than your average fourth grade teacher facing the smoking remains of her desk. “Putting the bats in your belfry aside for the moment, why did you follow me out here?”

It was a truth I could tell and after a brief hesitation I did so. “I wanted to keep you from catching the Wraith…er…the Wraith boy…brother…whatever. A dead sheriff isn’t any use to anyone.” Least of all to his friends.

“Hmmm.” That sounded remarkably familiar and I suddenly recognized it as my hmmm. Noncommittal with a dose of ‘you’re so full of shit that brown is this year’s new pink’, it drove Sheppard crazy. Sitting on the other side of it now, I could see why. Exhaling, he stretched out his legs. “If you actually knew me, that might hurt my feelings, McKay. I’m a fair shot and a good sheriff. I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it.” Yawning, he fished in his vest pocket and pulled out what looked like beef jerky to toss to me. The man did keep trying to feed me…maybe at some level he remembered more than I’d thought. “My horse will probably wander back in the morning. Yours is gone for good, headed for the hills or back to the stable. Either way, we’ll be back in town early tomorrow.”

I studied the strip of leathery mystery meat in my hand, shrugged mentally and gnawed on one end. I’d think of it as a really tough powerbar…or a conglomeration of computer bytes. Another spike of pain hit and I leaned against the boulder, screwed up my eyes and waited for it to pass.

“Hey, McKay,” Sheppard said abruptly, “tell me about that friend of yours. The one you got in a mess. What’s he like?”

It was meant to distract me and I appreciated the effort. Or I would have if I hadn’t been busy cursing Ancients, computers, snakes, and horses that tipped over more easily than your average SUV. “Stubborn,” I said, gritting between clenched teeth. “Has a hero complex bigger than that of Hercules or Charlton Heston. He’s smart, but he doesn’t care if anyone knows it. Can you believe that? Doesn’t care if anyone knows it…and you think I’m crazy.” The pain was fading slowly and I took a deep shaky breath. This time the hand was circling my wrist, a solid and reassuring grip. “He’s a soldier and he’s good at it, but I’m not sure if he likes it or not.” I frowned. “He likes protecting us, I know that, but the killing….” I shook my head and snorted. “Anyway, he’s a pain in the ass…a lot like you really.”

There was an answering snort at my shoulder as he settled beside me, back against the boulder. “He must be a prince then. Hell, a saint to put up with you. How long you two been friends?”

“Since the beginning,” I answered automatically and then blinked. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it had started at the beginning. Since we’d walked through the gate. He’d gone through a minute or two before me. I’d stepped into Atlantis and…there were no words for what that was like. Atlantis…my city. Minutes later I was discussing some astounding bit of Ancient technology with my arms waving, my mouth moving beyond light speed trying to express how beyond astounding it was…and I was doing this with John Sheppard. Not another scientist. Not Elizabeth. With Sheppard. And instead of securing the place with the other grunts, Sheppard was hanging with a geek. Granted, Head Geek, but a geek all the same. Definitely an oil and water situation you would’ve thought, but strangely…it wasn’t. Of course, he’d been pulled away by Colonel Sumner, a remarkably short sighted individual, but it didn’t change the fact that the first person I’d shared the wonders of Atlantis with had been a goon.

The corners of my mouth turned up slight. “Since the very beginning,” I repeated.

“John, no. No. Listen to me. Don’t. It’s not real. Okay? It’s not real. It’s a game. A stupid, damn cliché. You can’t die from a cliché, understand? You can’t, so don’t even try it.” I dropped my gun in the dust. The Wraith, the goddamn monster, had disappeared in the alley too fast and I’d missed him. Missed the son of a bitch who’d just shot my friend. John was blinking up at the sky, eyes hazy and confused, and his chest was red. God, it was red. “Oh God. Carson!” I tried to keep pressure on the wound with my hands but the blood just kept coming, seeping from beneath my palms…through my fingers. The white of his shirt under the vest was quickly disappearing into an onslaught of crimson.

We’d made it back to town twenty minutes before, doubled up on John’s horse. The night had passed more quickly than I would’ve guessed. Exhausted by continuing bouts of pain, I dozed off and slept a good nine hours—nearly twice as long as I normally did. When you bring hope and genius to the galaxy with every minute spent in your lab, you can’t afford to waste much time sleeping. When I woke up my leg was sore and slightly swollen, but better and the stabbing pains were gone. Which was good, great even…because then I could walk. And as I had no intention on getting back up on a four-legged machine of certain death, that’s precisely how I planned to get back to town.

Sheppard had another plan in mind and since I had some minor objections to being tied and tossed across a saddle like a pig to market, I gave in—ever gracious in defeat. At least, I thought I was gracious until he threatened to gag me if I said one more word about bumpy rides, allergies, or eau de equine. There were many things that could be said about Sheppard; that he was one for idle threats wasn’t one of them. I shut up and marked it down on my list along with the snake, the manhandling in the saloon and the ultimate indignity…the bucket. Sooner or later, revenge would be mine. And the proverb had it all wrong…revenge wasn’t best served cold. It was best served in a piping hot mug of Ex-lax cocoa.

We made it to town, left that beast of destruction at the stable and went looking for Carson. For all my self-proclaimed new-found sanity, apparently John just wasn’t buying it. Carson had caught sight of us from the saloon window and came flying out to berate me in the street. Where had I been? Why was I limping? Did I have any idea what he’d been through? Did I understand the hormones that were raging upstairs? Did I know that if this weren’t a game that Zelenka would be facing six paternity suits? Well, did I?

Before I had a chance to explain, the Wraith appeared and shot….

Hands were pushing mine away from John’s chest. The blood…how could there be so much blood in a human being? I found myself with John’s hand crushed in mine as that hazy gaze did its best to focus on me. “Think…found…the…off switch.” His voice was faint, but the warmth in his eyes was bright. Everything else was weak, everything was fading, but the recognition…the affection was as strong as it had ever been. For the past day and a half I would’ve given almost anything to see that back in his eyes again…to see the John who knew me…who liked me instead of the stranger who kept me alive out of sheer duty and nothing else. But I’d been wrong, because seeing it now didn’t mean anything pleasant. It couldn’t.

“Don’t say that…you hear me?” I demanded. “Just shut up, all right? Just shut the hell up.” My grip on his hand was so tight I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. “Carson, do something.”

But it was too late. John’s breath hitched in his throat and suddenly he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was looking past me…through me. His lips turned downward as his fingers clenched around mine and he said, almost casually, “That…can’t be…good.”

And then he was gone. Literally. His hand melted beneath mine. His body shimmered for a second then vanished. All that was left was red stained dirt…and the blood on my hands.

I heard them talking. I could even see them…a little. Flashes and pieces. Their voices were raised…BP is tanking. He’s bradycardic. We’re losing him!

Okay. This was clearly not the way to go. Maybe Rodney didn’t know for sure, but I did…now. Die in the game, die in real life. The safeguards were down for the count…just like I would be. Just like I seemed to be seconds away from being—until the game gave me an option. A new, improved option since Rodney had done some tinkering. And who was I to turn down the McKay 5.0 version?

When I reappeared in the game I was standing in the street staring at the backs of Beckett and McKay. Rodney was on his knees with his head bowed…looking at something I couldn’t see. Carson was crouching beside him speaking quietly and urgently. Immediately my hand went to my chest. It was whole, my shirt white again. Talk about your load off. Damn. All right then…things were looking up. I took a step forward, then another. I could see what Rodney was staring at now—a wide patch of bloody dirt.

“Rodney?” Carson’s hushed voice hung in the air and his hand was on McKay’s shoulder. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Rodney said, voice empty.

“Is he….”

“I don’t know,” McKay cut him off instantly. “We’ve already been over this, haven’t we? There are two possible choices. I think you can figure them out for yourself, all right? Just….” He shook his head before reaching for his fallen gun and saying viciously, “Where did that piece of shit Wraith go? Where the hell did he go?”

Cut off from his toys and his weapons of choice…mass destruction, he was reduced to my world. I’d never liked it before, and I didn’t like it now. Every time I saw him fire his P90 or Zelenka fumble for his nine-mil, I felt less a sense of accomplishment and more like I’d let them down. I taught my geeks to use their guns, but in a perfect universe they wouldn’t have had to. Unfortunately, it was an option the Pegasus galaxy, far from perfect, had taken from us from almost minute one.

“Temper, temper,” I said lightly. “You sound like me, Supergeek. Keep it up and your snooty Mensa group will toss you out on your ass.”

They turned, Carson straightening from his squat and Rodney swiveling on his knees in the dirt. I spread my arms…it was flashy, Fonzie-cool, and it let them see I was unbloodied. Whole. Alive. “Sheriff John T. Sheppard at your service.”

Rodney’s mouth moved soundlessly for a second before he cleared his throat and asked hoarsely, “What’s the T stand for?”

“Oh, come on, McKay. You of all people should know that.” I grinned. “Tiberius.”

His mouth tightened, eyes narrowed, and he seemed to give consideration to pointing his gun at me; it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d resorted to violence after an MIA situation. Rodney was nothing if not in touch with his emotions. He never had a thought he didn’t voice…loudly…or a mood he didn’t spread around like nuclear fall out. I liked it. You always knew where you stood with Rodney. When you can’t be bothered to cater to the socially acceptable norms, you can’t be anything but honest, and I respected the hell out of honesty. As McKay decided whether to gnaw my ankle like a pissed off bulldog, Beckett lunged forward and gave me a quick and exuberant hug. “Good Lord, lad, don’t do that. Leaving me alone here with Rodney and our newly minted Lothario of the saloons, it’s beyond cruel.”

“Hey, you’ve gotten off easy so far. You weren’t there for the pants incident.” I gave a mock shudder, slapped his shoulder, and took a step to extend a hand down to Rodney. “I never knew the soap opera that went on behind those lab doors.” I gave another grin and waggled my eyebrows at him.

He returned my grin with a frown and with a grip tighter and more desperate than it had to be allowed me to pull him to his feet. “What happened? Why didn’t you d…why didn’t you wake up?” he corrected instantly.

“I hit reset,” I said breezily, tossing my arm over his shoulder and steering him towards the saloon. His hands and shirt were covered in blood. The sooner he got cleaned up the sooner he would be able to realize what happened was an illusion. I wasn’t shot; I’d never been shot. It was only a computer generated hallucination, no matter how genuine it had seemed. “And since you did something to the computer, God knows what, I got to keep my memory. Once again I remember the light and the glory that is McKay. All is right with the universe. I’d genuflect before your blinding intellect, but my knees are getting rusty in my old age.”

“Good, they can keep your brain company,” he retorted instantly, trying to shift my arm off without luck. I was slowly but surely chipping away at this prickle space, but the man wasn’t going down without a fight. He was the one who had refused to let me end our friendship when his death, albeit temporary, on top of so many others had made me think the pain wasn’t worth the reward…a massive case of emotional cold feet. But I wasn’t sure if he knew what he’d gotten himself into. He was stuck with me now, come hell or high water. I didn’t do anything halfway, friendship included…no matter how long it had been since the last one. “What do you mean you hit reset? So if any of us are hurt, we can just pop back unscathed?”

No harm, no foul. Too bad it wasn’t that easy. “No,” I said quietly. “Per the game rules we get one reset only. And the game ends when we defeat the bad guys.”

“Which would be the Scourge of the West, the melanin challenged Wraith brothers,” Rodney said bitingly.

I grimaced at the sheer dorkiness of it. “Sorry about that, guys. I know that had to come from me. If it had been Dr. Z, we’d be facing the Attack of the Fifty-foot Naked Woman now.” Which would be slightly easier to work with than what I had given us. “And, by the way, stay out of the paths of any stray bullets. They might as well be real.”

He tensed under my arm. “How did you get to be Ancient Pac-man champion while we weren’t looking? How do you know all of this when I don’t?”

“Jealous?” I pushed through the doors, dragging him along with Carson on our heels. “When I went back…woke up…whatever, I wasn’t doing so well apparently, so it’s a bit foggy. But it was like getting one of those heads-up displays in the jumper, but it was inside my head. The vague gist of it was one reset per game, did I want it, and that our score was pretty much nonexistent.” I rolled my eyes skyward. “I ask you, God. I’ve got a medical geek, a Czech geek with a hard on for the Old West…among other things, a geekus extraordinarus, and a military brat who lived for video games and we’re losing. So much for a youth wasted in arcades.”

“How were you not doing well, Colonel? Do you have any specifics for me, lad?” Carson aimed a gaze at me, and then pointedly at Rodney’s leg. Nodding, I nudged McKay to a chair and gave him a gentle push. He overbalanced into it with a squawk and scowl.

“Oh, it was pretty random stuff, a bunch of shouting. Something about my blood pressure and being bradycardic and yadda yadda.” The yadda yadda being things Rodney really didn’t need to hear right now. He was feeling guilty enough. I was sure he thought it didn’t show, but it did…even through the customary smugness and arrogance. I looked down at him. “Tex, on the other hand here, has a rattlesnake bite. Trace venom. There was some swelling, pain, and chills. Didn’t hurt his appetite any though.”

The scowl deepened. “I want you to start collating in your tiny mind everything you’ve personally done or caused to be done to me while I was trying to attempt a rescue, because, trust me, they’ll be revisited upon you a thousand times over. It will be apocalyptic in scope, my revenge. You’ll see your un-Maker and he will be me. Me.”

See? It was practically a mea culpa.

“Swelling, pain, chills, and crankiness,” I amended cheerfully. “Oh, shit. There’s Dr. Z. I better head him off at the pass.” I paused and added broadly, “Pardner.”

“Oh, ha ha,” Rodney recited sourly. “Your amusement at our probably fatal predicament had raised my spirits oh so high. Thank you, wise leader.”

I gave his shoulder a quick squeeze as Beckett pulled apart his ripped pant leg to peer at his calf. “By the way…the bucket? So worth it.” I moved over to an already pink-faced Zelenka before Rodney could reply.

It took some doing, but I finally got Radek calmed down. I’d known a temper had lurked under that seemingly benign exterior…Kavanagh’s misfortunes were ample evidence of that…but I’d never imagined the potential for being on the receiving end of that devious pay-back machine. It wasn’t a good place to contemplate. “Yeah, yeah, he’s crazy, I know,” I offered soothingly, because there was no way to get anyone in town to believe the man was sane after the saloon incident. “But he did save my life. Knocked me out of the way of a Wraith bullet.” Not technically true, but McKay had saved my life several times. The spirit of it was true if not the details.

Radek hmphed, folded his arms, and looked generally disgruntled. “I am scarred for life.” A hand crept down to fasten in a firm grip on the waistband of his pants. “I hear sound in hall now…I twitch, I jump, barely able to please two women at once. Three…now beyond me. My concentration…poof…gone.” His other hand made a bird like motion, the fingers fluttering wings flying away.

“He has a lot to answer for,” I said gravely. Man, still waters…did they ever run deep. “But if you could just be the bigger man, I’ll make sure he behaves, promise.” I could’ve ushered McKay and Beckett over to the sheriff’s office, but it was better if all four of us could stay together. I didn’t want a Wraith wandering in, deciding Radek charged too much for a shot of whiskey, and paying him with a bullet.

“Very well, but he even looks at pants, I get shovel,” he gave in with ill grace.

“Fair enough.” Now for the idea that had been swimming around in my head since I’d gotten my memory back. “Mind if I run upstairs for a minute?”

He shrugged and sighed expansively. “Would be a favor. Need someone to satisfy girls now I am shell of former self.”

What do you say to that? I settled for a gingerly pat on his shoulder and made for the stairs. It was a good forty-five minutes before I came back. And from the dark look on Rodney’s face and the permanently raised eyebrows on Beckett’s they’d learned just where those stairs led. Rodney had washed the blood from his hands, but there wasn’t much he could do about his shirt. The large stain on it had dried a dark red-brown. He and Carson were at a table with glasses in front of them. Sasparilla it looked like. Wouldn’t do to get pseudo-buzzed with the Wraith around. I sat at the table with them and before my ass hit the chair, it started. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Of course Rodney would be first.

“Truly, lad. There is a time and a place.”

And there was Beckett, a tad more diplomatic.

Either way, I had bigger things on my mind…like not losing my nonexistent lunch. I swiveled until I was sideways to the table and bent over slightly. With hands on my knees, I swallowed queasily. “Hey.” There was the sound of a chair scooting across the wood floor. “Hey.” A hand rested on the back of my neck. “You okay?”

Pushing the acid bite in my throat back down to my stomach, I looked up to see Rodney looking still pissed, but now worried as well. “There’s a Chaya look-a-like upstairs,” I said quietly. “I thought I could handle seeing it, but….” I’d thought wrong. We’d never figured out precisely how Chaya had gotten that chip in my back, how she’d manipulated several chemicals in my system to get me to the point of drugged and brainwashed oblivion, or what she’d done to me when I’d gone back to Proculus. Weir and Beckett had both tried to get me to agree to Heightmeyer hypnotizing me into recalling the memories behind the now obviously fake one of glowy nookie. I’d flatly refused. Some things you’re just better off not knowing. I wasn’t sure if Rodney believed that or not, but he had backed me up. Right now, it didn’t matter. Even not remembering, I’d only had to see her double to want to turn and run or pull my gun and shoot her. Fight or flight and it was so strong, it had been all I could do to keep from either option.

It had been bad…what she had done. Bad. I didn’t need Heightmeyer to wave something shiny in front of my face to know that.

“Oh.” There was a wealth of understanding. His hand tightened on my neck for a moment, and then dropped as he said briskly, “She ends up in a whorehouse. Why am I not surprised? Space bimbo…Old West whorehouse, okay, it’s a bit of a stretch, but I stand by the statement. Here.” I straightened as he slid his glass in front of me. “It tastes oddly like Dr. Pepper. I guess Radek has never tasted Sasparilla in real life.”

I swallowed it, grateful to clear the bad taste from my mouth. He was right. Dr. Pepper with a sharp bitter hint of Mountain Dew. Figured. Greeks live on Mount Olympus and geeks live on Mountain Dew. It was the espresso of sodas. All bow to the almighty caffeine god. “How’s the leg, Doc?” I asked with an abrupt subject change.

More concerned eyes…concerned, shrewd, and not as likely to let me have my way as Rodney was. Goddamn, I saw more Heightmeyer shit in my future…if I had a future. “Still a wee bit swollen, but it’s coming along nicely. When we get back, there shouldn’t be any residual problems for the computer to translate into real problems. I borrowed some water, whiskey, and bandages from Radek. I’m surprised you didn’t hear Rodney screaming like a baby all the way upstairs.”

“You poured whiskey on the bite,” Rodney said incredulously. “Whiskey. Forgive me if the pain, both physical and mental, of your veterinary skills made me a little vocal.”

“Alcohol is alcohol,” Carson observed impatiently. “Now hush, you great whiny infant. I want to hear what the Colonel was up to upstairs since he obviously wasn’t whiling away the time with the fairer sex.”

“Making allies,” I said indirectly. “I have a feeling I can’t take on three Wraith head on in a gunfight, especially as they’re not playing precisely fair. I’m just seeing if a certain plan might work.”

“You say that like you’d be facing the Wraith alone.” McKay fixed me with an annoyed gaze and snatched his glass back. “So what will Carson and I be doing? Hiding under a bed somewhere? Under the skirts of the ladies upstairs? My, what a high opinion you have of our skills. Thanks so much, Colonel.”

Well, he’d gotten it right that time. If only I’d known that all I had to do was genuinely piss him off, things would’ve gone much easier the past few weeks when it came to my new rank. “Come on, McKay. I’m not even particularly fast with one of these old Smith and Wessons and I have a shitload more experience with guns than you two,” I pointed out. “It just makes sense….”

“Please. Stop right there. If you’re going to start ascribing sense to that empty cavern under your spiky coif, you may as well give up now. You don’t have the slightest knowledge of the word. You couldn’t even find it in a dictionary.” Rodney took Carson’s glass and tipped it back as if to fortify himself against my stupidity. “This is an Old West town, isn’t it? Miners come and go into these sorts of towns, don’t they? Don’t you think there might be some dynamite around somewhere possibly? Do you have the remotest idea what I could do with dynamite? There’s a quarry circa 1980 in Canada called McKay’s Folly. Recreating that seventh grade science fair project won’t be too difficult.” He shook his head and glared at me, muttering, “Christ, it’s like shaving a chimp and giving him an airplane and a rank.”

“I think I was better off upstairs with Chaya,” I murmured in an aside to Beckett.

“And there’s alcohol. Al-co-hol. Bottles and bottles of it. Molotov cocktails are good for more than blowing up your neighbor’s noisy minibike.” McKay coughed once, clearing his throat. “Or so I’ve heard. Guns are for boys, Colonel. High explosives are for men.”

Being put in my place by the master of destruction, and it felt good. I’d forgotten what that was like for a day or so, amnesia and whatnot, but I thought that I might’ve missed it all the same. “And what about all the innocent people in town,” I pointed out. Yeah, I was yanking his chain, but I’d missed that too. After all…it’s what I did. “What if they get blown up in your super-duper Wraith trap?”

“There are no innocent people, only innocent computer bytes, and I’m sure they’ll be happy to give their lives for the greater good,” he shot back promptly. “Theirs is not to wonder why. Theirs is to store data or die.”

I grinned and leaned back in the chair, nausea receding and humor fast returning. “You know, I might’ve been wrong. I think I’m almost sorry about the bucket after all.”

I frowned out of the window at what appeared to be a perfectly empty street. It wasn’t. In actuality it was a field of landmines courtesy of Dr. Destructo. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. Red, green, blue, brown, yellow.”

A finger flicked the back of my head hard. Scowling, I rubbed the area and narrowed my eyes. “That was right, you son of a bitch. What the hell?”

“Yes, it was right,” McKay confirmed, folding his arms. “And now you won’t forget it. I never did believe in the efficacy of positive reinforcement. The negative tends to stick with you much longer. And being that getting this correct means you might…might not get blown sky high, I’d like the sequence to stay with you for a while.”

“Glad to know you care,” I said dryly. “I just hope I can survive all this tender loving concern.” I looked back out of the window again. There were tiny strips of colored cloth pinned with nails to the dirt of the street. Each marked a nasty little McKay special. He would blow one then the other and the other…all the way down the line, each blast separated by three seconds. If I could lure the Wraith close enough, it was possible we could take out all three in seconds. Okay, it wasn’t precisely sporting…but neither is war. Or computer games for that matter. Let the pieces of Wraith fly. My only regret was I had no umbrella. “Now, how’s your throwing arm?”

A superior smirk curved his lips. “I’m a geek. Caffeine is my first God. Nerf basketball my second. I’ll manage.”

“Good.” I accepted the confident statement. If McKay could do it, he’d say so. If he couldn’t, he’d say it was impossible, did we have no grasp of reality at all, and then he would do it anyway. “Where’s Carson?”

“Keeping an eye on Radek.” His eyes rolled. “Better him than me. At least he was able to finagle a clean shirt out of him for me.” He looked down at himself and grimaced. “Czech pimp. It’s an acquired taste.” The shirt was dark blue, silk, and embroidered with silver. Acquired taste was a good way to put it. But it was bloodstain free and I thought Rodney appreciated it for that if not for the fashion statement.

“Yeah, disco really isn’t the look for you.” I left the window to walk over to the bar and reach behind it. “I think you lost this earlier.” I lifted the pale fawn colored cowboy hat and settled it on his head. I stepped back and framed him with my hands to say with a grin, “There isn’t a space bimbo alive who’d look at me now.” He scowled, but before he had time to take me to task someone else did.

“Sheriff.”

The call came from the street. It wasn’t a shout or a yell; it was a hiss. I shouldn’t have been able to hear it inside the saloon. Shouldn’t have, but I could. Cold and empty, it was the voice of a Wraith, every Wraith, even that of the scarlet haired ball-buster, although my balls hadn’t been what had interested her. She’d drained Sumner, and she would’ve drained me, and not once would an ounce of emotion have entered the picture. Yeah, there was disdain and a predatory hunger, but it was all on the surface. Beneath that was nothing. No anger or rage. A race without a rival or any true resistance for ten thousand years…there was no need to waste emotion on the likes of us. You don’t get pissed at your cheeseburger, right? And that’s all we were to them. Food. Meat.

I moved back to the window as behind me I heard chairs skittering across the floor as men threw themselves under the tables. It was like every bad Western ever made. Black Bart shows up and the saloon patrons become one cowardly whole. But instead of one Black Bart, we had three.

And there they were, waiting in the street.

Steve, Bob, and the Superwraith that had killed Gaul and Abrams. I’d never named him, had I? Fred. Fred would’ve been good, but with the memory of Abrams empty shell and the picture of Gaul’s shattered head tattooed on the back of my eyelids, it was hard to be breezy. To be facetious. I’d tagged and bagged Gaul myself. I’d owed him that much, and I would never forget the ruin that had once been a sly and cheerfully smug junior geek. A McKay-in-training, really…the arrogance not quite fully grown, but the humor almost as sarcastic—although with a softer edge. Hard to say Fred in the face of that loss…in the face of my big, fat, fucking failure.

There was an abrupt inhalation at my shoulder and fingers digging into my shoulder. “I know you’re not into hypnosis,” Rodney said tightly. “But you might want to see Heightmeyer at least once, you know…just to chat, because obviously your subconscious hates you with a passion.”

They were all dressed in villain black, dusters, vests and shirts, hats, the gloves on their large hands. It should’ve been hokey; it wasn’t. It made them appear even more pale, if possible, except for the Superwraith. He was still the yellow of aged ivory. And he was the one who stepped forward and spoke again. “Sheriff.” Empty eyes found me at the window. “Your time has come. You’re not hiding, are you? Not someone like you.” And then he smiled coldly, revealing the flash of sharp teeth and the gleam of bloodless gums. “Your kind can’t hide. You have a duty. To protect. To defend. To place yourself between the wolf and the herd. You live only to die in that service. And now the wolf is at your door.”

“All right. One visit obviously isn’t going to get it. Daily sessions, around the clock psychological supervision, for a few years or so. At least,” McKay muttered. “You never learn, do you? Not even riding a nuclear bomb to hell a la Dr. Strangelove could teach you anything. Wolves are everywhere, Colonel, but that doesn’t mean the herd isn’t capable of taking care of itself once in a while. And you can’t be everywhere at once. You’re not God. God, if he existed, would have better hair, and he might even cut himself a little slack once in a while.”

“McKay, as fun as your armchair psychoanalysis is, I do have other things on my mind, okay?” I growled. Then raising my voice, I shouted, “I’m coming out.” I turned from the window and met Rodney’s eyes grimly. “All right then, Lambert, show me your stuff.”

“No wonder there’s no room for common sense in there,” he snapped. “It’s stuffed full of cartoons and porn.” He squared his shoulders and let it go to focus on the situation at hand. “Okay, all right.” He blew out a breath. “First, tell me you won’t get yourself blown up. I can’t afford for command to take you out of my paycheck. And they would. That O’Neill is a penny-pinching bastard.” His hand was still on my shoulder and his fingers pressed deep enough that I felt the pressure to the bone.

“I won’t get blown up,” I repeated obediently before curling up the corner of my mouth. It was meant to be reassuring, but I’m not sure I pulled it off. “I’d say so long, but I don’t think another punch in the nose would improve my shooting skills any.” Reaching up, I tapped a finger on the brim of his hat. “Come on, Supergeek. Let’s kick some pasty Wraith ass.”

I was at the door before I knew it and then out under an orange-red sky. Sunset, how cliched could you get? Hell, Rodney was right.

Dr. Z needed a new goddamn hobby.

So long. He actually said it. Well, not said it, but said he shouldn’t say it. Whichever. It didn’t matter. The words were there. So long.

Forget the punch. It was all I could do not to strangle him.

And then he went. Just like that. Like he was out for a stroll in the park, frisbee in one hand and bottle of beer in the other. Joe Hero…doing a John Travolta strut into the street as if he was meeting the Wraith for lunch to catch up on old times. Hey, Steve…sorry about that whole killing you with germ warfare. Bob, seriously…let me apologize for that entire clip I emptied in you. My bad. I have no idea what I was thinking.

He was like that, John…the original never let ‘em see you sweat. Personally, I was sweating enough for the both of us. I had had no idea how much trouble we were in. I mean…yes, I knew were in trouble. I’m a genius. Of course, I thought I knew how much trouble we were in. I could’ve calculated odds on survival to an infinite number of decimal points….given enough time. I’m not a math idiot savant like the Colonel. I spread my genius among all fields after all, it requires some sacrifice. So, yes, I knew we were in trouble. Wraith, snakes, a Czech determined to die of a heart attack mid cyber-coitus…trouble. But I hadn’t factored in Dr. Sheppard’s Mr. Hyde. I hadn’t focused on the fact that his compulsion for self-sacrifice would be his own worst enemy in this place.

What was I saying? It was his own worst enemy in every place.

He needed a leash. He honestly did. Or maybe a nice shock collar. Then when I saw that man-hath-no-greater-love gleam in his eye, I could give him a zap. It would be in his best interest. Honestly. It would do more good than harm, and the next time certain inner Sheriffs were sucked into a computer game, maybe they’d be flying the friendly skies or riding the world’s largest Ferris wheel. Maybe they wouldn’t be facing triple death on a dusty street.

“Goddamn it,” I gritted and ran to the detonator…what used to be known as a blasting box, which was rather interesting really. Radek had an amazing amount of useless knowledge floating under that fuzzy skull of his. The computer had picked his brain clean and come up with a genuine piece of explosive history. It was amazing primitive of course. I could’ve built better with my Lego set when I was two, but regardless, it was rather fascinating how far we’d come in matters of destruction.

I’d buried the fuses under the street. That sort of thing wasn’t difficult when the street in question is made of equal portions dirt and horse manure. Once again, proof positive equines are the most evil, vindictive creatures on the face of the Earth…excepting certain near-sighted beasts—classification Asshole-American, genus Kavanagh. With Carson and John’s help it had gone fairly quickly. The only downside, besides pervasive filth, tetanus germs, and a smell whose memory I would carry to my grave, was that Radek had come to the conclusion that we were all insane. I’d been calmly directing the work, not raving like Mussolini on the balcony as some had maligned, when I’d looked up to see Radek on a balcony of his own. It was a widow’s walk affair on the second floor of the saloon and my once esteemed colleague was leaning over the rail to fork the evil eye at us.

I’d been thought the most brilliant man alive most of my life…or if I wasn’t I should’ve been; so it was getting quite tiresome having my sanity questioned at every turn. Sighing in exasperation, I pulled a stick of dynamite from my coat pocket and waved it in the air, then pointed at the fuses my flunkies…ah…my valued team members were burying. “Big boom,” I’d said tersely.

For a moment, he had stood silent, and then his eyes had gleamed as he took off his spectacles to salute me with them. “I underestimate you. I give my apologies.” Replacing his glasses, he ruined the bonding moment by adding, “But am surprised you don’t try stealing pants of Wraith brothers instead of dynamiting them to Kingdom Come. That much more your style.” He straightened and started back inside, then paused to say over his shoulder, “Still to stay away from chickens out back.”

In any world, the real one or this one, Radek was a smart man. Not as smart as me of course and obviously far too invested in his chickens, but still…. He’d known instantly who and what our trap was for. I toyed with the idea of bringing him into the plan, but reluctantly decided against it. Although he wielded a mean shovel, in this incarnation he was obviously a lover not a fighter. It was better to keep the oblivious and amnesiac libido with legs safe and out of sight. It would be just one less thing to worry about, and I was all about less things to worry about right now.

“Well, boys,” John’s voice was a distant drawl through the glass. “Here I am. Did you need something? Tickets to the Sheriff’s ball? Want me to fix a parking ticket? I’m totally at your service.”

“Ah, Christ. The lad canna help himself, can he?” Carson said with annoyance and despair at my shoulder. “Sometimes I think he has even less control of his bluidy mouth than you do. Highly improbable as it seems. ”

“Where’s Radek?” I demanded, ignoring the slanderous remarks about my mouth.

“I told him to stay upstairs and do the honorable thing: watch out for his lasses.”

“Yes, watch them. I’m sure that’s what he’s doing. I hope you provided him with a gallon of Gatorade and a vitamin B shot,” I snorted as I kept my eyes glued on the unfolding scene in the street.

Steve and Bob, bowel-churningly frightening in their own right, faded to shadows as they flanked the Superwraith. I remembered with exquisite clarity the way my gun had felt as it had bucked in my hand. I’d hit him with ten bullets, and then with ten more. And that wasn’t counting what John had put in him. But that albino catfish on steroids had kept coming. It had taken a missile to stop that monster. John knew that, his subconscious knew it, and consequently the computer knew it too. I just didn’t know which it would rely on more…Sheppard’s memories or Radek’s knowledge of Old West villains. It would be nice if just once…just once…that the universe erred on the side of the one less likely to be able to kill us.

“Is that….” I felt Carson’s breath on my neck as he leaned closer. “It canna be. Damn, it is, the two of them.” His shoulder was resting against mine from behind and it tensed to iron. Steve and Bob, he recognized them, but it was Steve that had his breathing suddenly unsteady. There were many, many bad associations there for him. Perna, being involved in work that his conscience had never approved of…the Hoffans had done a lot of damage with their scheme. To their own people…to Carson. I spared a little bit of hatred for them for that. I had big chunks ladled out between the Wraith and the Genii, but the Hoffans made my list too. Carson wasn’t much the type to hate, despite his gruff and bossy bedside manner. But that was all right because I didn’t have a problem doing it for him. I had an ample supply of ill will to spread around. Kavanagh couldn’t handle it all.

He cleared his throat and said a little thickly, “Who’s the third fellow? The big one?”

Maybe he felt me tense that time, like he had. I tightened my lips and kept my eyes grimly on the street. “Gaul and Abrams,” I said flatly. And John very nearly dying of internal injuries, but I didn’t need to say that. I didn’t even need to think it. I couldn’t afford to think of anything but explosions and split second timing.

“Sheriff.” The monster’s voice was so clear, not distant and muffled like John’s. Like it was here and John was fading fast. “When you fall, we will tear this town down to the ground. We will splinter every board, shatter every window, and then we’ll start on your people. We’ll kill them all, but we’ll hurt them first. We’ll hurt them so very badly. Until they are nothing but raw meat and blood and screams.” The dark yellow lips peeled back in a smile so cold that it gave zero degrees Kelvin a run for its money. “And all of this because you failed them. Failed to protect. Failed at your duty. Failed at your one purpose.”

Maybe I should save some ill will for my best friend’s subconscious while I was at it. It didn’t seem to have any good will for him.

Sheppard was rocking back and forth on his heels and after a moment or two of silence, he said lightly, “Oh, you’re done? You sure? I can wait if you want to gnash your teeth a little more. Big bad ass like you could probably go on for hours.”

Then again, John seemed to be handling his own psychological mutiny just fine.

“Or better yet, let’s just get this show on the road. I’ve got better things to do than listen to an overgrown tick in a cowboy hat.” His grin was hard and bright. “Too bad I left my can of Raid at home.” He took a step towards all three. “Come on, come on. I don’t have all day.”

He was trying to back them up, maneuver them closer to the explosives. I thought for one frozen moment it was going to backfire on him. The Superwraith growled, its hand curving in the air before it as it moved towards Sheppard’s throat, but then the hand balled into a fist and the three turned to walk down the street. Gunfight etiquette. Oh, well, fine, they can shoot you from an alley and run, but if they’re going to call it a gunfight, they want the proscribed distance, the wind whipping their dusters, the people huddled at the windows watching…like I was. You had to have the look…the feel. Lights, camera, action. Once again, I spared a split second to mourn what could’ve been. A fantasy lab, the world’s most brilliant scientists, and a toe-sucking blond astrophysicist. It truly was to weep.

The three pale figures stopped almost precisely in the midst of my homemade mine field. “Beautiful,” I muttered. “Carson, get the lantern and the bottles. Be ready.” The bottles, for which Radek had written up a bill of outrageous proportions, were full of alcohol and topped off with a twisted cloth wick. It didn’t even count as technology of course, but sometimes you have to embrace the simple pleasures in life. Not everything has to be nuclear to give you a satisfying level of destruction.

Almost as one, the Wraith pulled their coats to the side and hovered hands above the guns on their hip. That was my signal. John had wanted to give me one, but I told him that things had to go precisely right and quite frankly when it came to explosions, I was the expert. A certain rank amateur who had nearly died from a nuclear bomb of my construction obviously was an idiot of the highest caliber and could please do his best to stay out of the way. He disagreed; we discussed it and I, as I most frequently do, won. I would decide what the signal was, and three bloodthirsty, risen from the dead Wraith even thinking about getting near their guns was it. I slammed the handle of the detonator down, feeling oddly like a long forgotten childhood hero: Wily E. Coyote. I only hoped I was at least mildly more successful.

The first charge blew instantly and Bob disappeared in a geyser of dirt and flaming horse manure. I thought that rather fitting. A torrent of shit for a piece of shit. It was almost poetic…if your tastes weren’t too refined. Sheppard had already begun to run back towards the saloon, firing as he went. Despite the billowing smoke and dust, I saw several rounds hit the Superwraith mid-chest. It staggered, howled, and instead of, oh, falling and dying, it pulled its gun. Great. Wonderful. Now we knew. The computer was listening to the subconscious from hell in this instance and not to our favorite ambulatory libido.

Color me so very not surprised.

Using the butt of the gun John had returned to me, I shattered the glass of the window. “Light one, Carson,” I rapped hurriedly. Despite my skills at Nerf basketball, we’d decided to let Beckett do the pitching. He’d played cricket back in the day, when he wasn’t learning his medical trade on sheep, and was used to throwing further than six feet…which is always a plus with Molotov cocktails. A brisk wind and my Nerf days might be over with my throwing arm. But I had other skills. Extending my arm, I fired, missing the Superwraith by a good ten feet. I did come close to John though, who seemed to think that the any target counts wasn’t a valid supposition.

“McKay, I have enough people trying to kill me already. Give me a break!” He was still running. Hitting the wooden walk, he dived behind the obligatory water trough.

Frowning, I tried again. The sight was so off as to be completely useless, the gun felt heavy and clunky in my hand, and it had a stronger kick on it than our standard issue nine millimeter. It took some getting used to. I narrowed my eyes, did some fast and dirty visual measurements…physics, it was all physics…and fired again. This time I hit the Wraith dead center. It was a gorgeous shot. Clean and beautiful. And the son of a bitch just kept walking.

“Duck, Rodney. I hae the other one.” As I did, Carson threw the bottle with flaming wick with enough force that it brought a harsh grunt from him. I raised my head just in time to see Steve go up like a torch. It was less of a beautiful thing. The flames engulfed him. That long white hair, oddly elfin and fine, turned to red and then yellow. A second later it was gone, burned down to the skull. He screamed, but it was less a scream of pain and more one of unadulterated rage. Turning, he fired at Carson and me. We both hit the floor and I banged my elbow and knee as I went. Unfortunately for Carson, he was the one I banged them against. My elbow caught him in the chin and my knee caught him…elsewhere. It was the type of thing you see in movies…a moment to lighten the grim reality of death outside your window. In real life, it didn’t quite work out the same way. I didn’t feel lightened in the slightest, although I couldn’t speak for Carson on the matter. And he didn’t look quite up to speaking for himself.

There was a fusillade of shots outside, and I scrambled for the gun I’d dropped when I hit the floor. Steve was…. Before I could finish the thought, I heard Sheppard yell, “I got Steve. McKay, Beckett, run!”

Run. He actually said run. As in ‘run and leave me to my noble death. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Home of Unwanted Space Bimbos.’ I’d said I wanted to strangle him. No, I was wrong. Strangle was too mild an assault. Perhaps he deserved intentionally what I’d done to Carson accidentally. Grabbing the gun, I popped back up in the window. The second explosion had gone off before I went down and the third was going off now. The still burning and twitching body of Steve, which had fallen under Sheppard’s gun, happened to be lying over that third charge. Suddenly, it was raining char-broiled Wraith and if that wasn’t some religion’s sign of the End of Days, it should’ve been.

The Superwraith was still coming…naturally. And he’d stepped out of the minefield. All we had left was bullets and fire. And speaking of fire, Carson, gray faced and wheezing, managed to get to his knees beside me, light another bottle and toss it. This one had a little less force on it…yes, yes, my fault…but it still was right on the money. Flames raced over the huge figure, but he didn’t scream as Steve had. Instead, he laughed. Laughed. I felt my stomach flip-flop and the acid zip up towards my throat. It was every monster movie made. He kept walking, a slow and measured pace, while the fire burned. His hair, his clothes, it was all disintegrating and his flesh began to run like wax. It didn’t matter. He just kept walking…towards John, who had reloaded and was firing again from behind the trough. Every bullet hit that broad chest and every one was as useless as a gnat with delusions of grandeur.

Damn it. I jumped up and ran for the swinging doors. I was in the street before I realized the action might be considered mildly suicidal. Swallowing hard, I was raising my gun when multiple blasts filled the air. I looked up at the widow’s walk to see four women with shotguns. They were wreathed in gunsmoke, but one was a familiar figure…red hair and coldly beautiful face. I tried not to hold it against her, as her gun was one of those that knocked the Superwraith sideways under the onslaught. And this time…this time he went down. There was a sizzling sound as blood escaped the sponge of his chest and instantly turned to smoke as it hit the fire. Blackened hands, the gloves long burned away, clawed at the ground and then slowly stilled. The chest stopped moving and the most frightening creature I’ve ever come across…twice now…became a self-cremating corpse.

I looked from the Wraith to John to the saloon girls and back to John. He was winking and blowing a kiss to the women. “Ladies, you’re beautiful. Thank you.”

My mouth, which had dropped open, snapped shut. So that’s what he’d been discussing while he was upstairs with Radek’s girls, and of course, Sheppard being Sheppard, they had jumped at the opportunity to help him out. I suppose I should be thankful they weren’t ripping off their panties and throwing them at him from above. “You’re quite the legend in your own mind, aren’t you?” I sniped. “Because, trust me, even in your Captain Kirk reality, this would never happen.”

He holstered his gun and came around from behind the trough as I moved over to meet him. His grin was so boyish and triumphantly relieved that it almost made me not want to hurt him. Almost. “Run?” I spat. “Is that what you said, you son of a bitch? Run?”

He ignored me, which he knows I hate beyond all things. “Where’s Carson?”

“Er….” I looked back uneasily at the gaping window frame to see a pair of murderous blue eyes staring back at me. “There was a slight…accident. He’ll be out in a minute. Of course, you may not be here to enjoy the reunion.” I flexed my hands and pictured them happily locked around his neck.

“Accident? What kind of …hey.” Sheppard frowned and looked around. “Why isn’t the game over? We killed the bad guys. Why….”

Six shots rang out behind us. We both whirled just in time to see the head of the once again upright Superwraith change shape radically. The gun fell from its burnt claw and it swayed to one side and then the other before plummeting facedown into the street. The back of its head was gone…just gone. All that was left was edges of shattered bone and a hole big enough to put both fists in. My eyes slowly rose from that sight to the figure standing down the street.

With thistledown hair drifting about his head in the twilight breeze and red and gold vest gleaming, Radek twirled both guns with ridiculous speed and ease and reholstered them in a movement so fast that I barely even saw it. Folding his arms, he shook his head and clucked a tongue. “Never send boys to do man’s job.”

And that’s when the lights went out.

I opened my eyes a millimeter at a time. Hazy and confused, I managed to get them all the way open only to see blue eyes staring back from about five inches away. “What the hell?” I yelped, trying to pull backwards only to slam the back of my head against something cushioned but still firm enough to hurt.

“How do you feel…,” there was a pause and the quirk of a smugly crooked mouth, “…Sheriff?”

The confusion began to fade quickly. “Funny, McKay.” I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them again there was a different face in front of me. Dr. Biro. She was flashing a penlight in my eyes and resting fingers against my carotid pulse. This was despite the familiar beeping of a heart monitor in the background. Whatever she felt seemed to reassure her.

“You woke up just in time. We were getting ready to move you to the infirmary. But you are doing much better, Colonel.” She put the penlight in her pocket and produced a clipboard that she began to make scribble on. “We had quite a time with your blood pressure and heart rate earlier, but you’ve done an amazing turn around.”

“Those resets will fix you up every time,” I said a little hoarsely. My throat was dry, but if we’d been in the game for two to three days, I could understand why. I looked around to see we were still in the game room and I was still in the alcove. I glanced down to see my uniform was gone. I was wearing a hospital gown and was host to a number of wires and IVs and…oh shit. I grimaced and turned my head to fix my gaze on Rodney again. “Everyone’s okay?”

He was in his own hospital gown and apparently unaware of the horrific trauma it was causing to everyone standing behind him…nurses, Weir, Bates, and Teyla. Heightmeyer wouldn’t have time to bug me. She was going to have her plate full. The lucky bastard did seem to be free of all the medical paraphernalia that I was cursed with. “Yes, yes, thanks to Quickdraw Zelenka, everyone is fine.” He seemed vaguely disgruntled by that and I wasn’t the only one to catch it.

“Such petty little man. I have business, women, and amazing skill with gun, and you nothing but crazy man molesting chickens,” Dr. Z said complacently as he walked up. Apparently more fashion conscious, he was swathed in a blanket. “You jealous like ugly stepsister.”

“I didn’t touch your damn chickens, “Rodney snapped. “Stop saying that! If there were any perverts in that scenario it was a certain Czech who apparently has a thing for orgies.”

“Three women not perverse,” Radek sniffed. “Is a result of charm, wit, and attractiveness of a god. I can see how you have no experience in this area. I have only pity in my heart for you, Rodney. Vast pity.”

I interrupted before McKay could fire back. “What about Beckett?”

Rodney waved a hand towards the open door to the room. “He’s on a gurney in the hall, icing a psychosomatic injury. He would be here to welcome you home I’m sure, but he’s having a bit of trouble…ah…walking. He’s being quite the baby about it.”

“You bluidy liar.” Carson’s outraged voice drifted in the door. “And I actually wanted children some day, you heartless, clumsy bastard. Only God himself knows if that’s possible now.”

McKay rolled his eyes and made the universal sign of blah blah with his hand. “He’s been like that since we woke up.” He moved closer as Dr. Biro motioned a nurse and pulled a curtained partition on wheels in place around me. “Thank God you woke up when you did. I don’t think I could take much more without my ears beginning to bleed. Maybe they’ll wheel him off now that you’ve rejoined the waking world.”

“We’re going to remove your IV and catheter now, Colonel,” the nurse said crisply.

Leaning one elbow against the side of my alcove, Rodney went on, “They were still having some trouble stabilizing your blood pressure and what not even after the game ended, a residual from before the reset. Dr. Biro says that’s why you woke up nearly thirty minutes after the rest of us. Then again she is a doctor, so take it with a grain of salt or a whole shaker if you have one available.”

“That’s fascinating, McKay, really.” I looked from him to the tube trailing from the bottom of my gown and back again, raising my eyebrows. The nurse fixed him with an annoyed gaze and tapped a foot.

“Oh.” He pursed his lips. “Sorry.” Funny, he didn’t look sorry. In fact he looked a little gleeful. “Enjoy. Try not to hyperventilate if you can help it. I know you treasure that above all things.” Stepping back, he moved the partition and then pushed it back as he disappeared from sight.

An hour later the four of us were in the infirmary for a few hours of observation. Three of us were eating the first food we’d had in days. That kind of hunger makes even the Atlantis cafeteria food bearable. I had no idea what Carson was doing. He had claimed the isolation room for himself…it was the Scottish version of Manifest Destiny. I didn’t blame him. If McKay had kneed me in the nuts, I wouldn’t want to have to look at him either. Swallowing a forkful of some squashed turnipy thing from the mainland, I turned towards Zelenka to ask the one question that had been bugging me since we woke up. “Dr. Z.” He was in the bed next to mine and happily going through his tray like a scythe through wheat. “How the hell did you get so good with a six-gun. You’re…well…kind of crappy with a nine mil.” And a P-90 and a Wraith stun staff…and pretty much anything that involved ballistics, energy sources, and/or aiming. I’d done my best with him. Drilled him time and time again after Geek bootcamp and he’d never improved much. Of all the geeks, he was probably the worst shot…and that was being generous.

“Oh, am not good,” he said placidly around a mouthful of fish stew. “I only think I’m good. Computer does rest.”

“You only think you’re good,” I echoed, more than a little lost.

“Yes, yes.” He waved the spoon about in punctuation. “I wake up in game and am Raddie Zelenka. Ladies man, saloon owner, gambler, gunfighter extraordinaire. Is game, yes? If computer is to pick through subconscious and form character, it all comes from me…even if I’m not aware. My wants, my desires. My self-image. If Rodney had character built instead of taking on Monitor role, he probably would have walked on water.” He snorted. “At very least.”

Great. The subconscious. I felt a glare scorching the back of my neck and I purposely didn’t turn around to face the still simmering wrath of McKay. He was going to have a shitload to say on the subject, I had no doubt. But there was no reason I couldn’t put it off as long as I could. “So,” I said uneasily, wondering if my skin was actually burning under the stare. “I hear you’ve got a birthday coming up, Dr. Z.” Yeah, it was weak, but at the moment it was the best I could do.

“Yes,” he beamed. “Cowboy theme with big cake. Perhaps, Rodney, since we have time, we can discuss details.”

I heard the thump of silverware hitting a tray and had to turn to see this. McKay’s face was beet-red, edging towards apoplectic purple. “You’re not getting any damn cowboy party. That was your party, you son of a bitch. I was thrown in jail, labeled insane, humiliated with a bucket, bitten by a rattlesnake, almost killed by Wraith and oh, let’s not forget, nearly pummeled to death by you and your shovel. Happy goddamn birthday, because that, Dr. Zelenka, is all you’re getting.”

“Pish.” Radek began to peel a piece of fruit. “You’re such cranky man. One to think you had no fun at all playing game.”

I caught Rodney by the back of his scrub top in mid-lunge as he came across my bed heading for Zelenka. I spared a second to be grateful as hell we’d changed out of the gowns. “Hey, hold on, Supergeek. No violence on my watch.” I grinned. “After all, I’m Sheriff of these here parts.”

“Oh, do shut up,” he huffed, struggling upright to sit on the edge of my bed. To calm himself, he nabbed my brownie and took a large bite. “Forget it, you sneaky Czech bastard. No party. No cake. No balloons. Nothing. I hate you now. I hate you more than the Genii, the Wraith, and Kavanagh combined. In fact, I may trade you to the Athosians for a new blanket. Mine’s not as warm as I’d like.”

That didn’t seem to worry Radek too much if his snort and eye roll was any indication. Something did seem to disturb him, however. “No strippers?” he asked, eyes wistfully mournful behind his glasses.

“Ha. That’ll be the day.” The brownie was gone and Rodney began to scavenge the rest of my tray. He snatched up a muffin before I could stop him. A few weeks ago he’d been worried I was underweight, now he was stealing my food. Where does the love go, people? Where does it go? I curved a protective arm around my plate prison-fashion as another question came to mind.

“That reminds me, McKay,” I drawled. “When you were in the cell, you said I looked like a Chippendale’s dancer.”

“A nutritionally challenged Chippendale’s dancer,” he corrected. He then frowned and, with a wistful sigh, pushed the muffin back into my hand.

“Whatever,” I said with a jaundiced glare, getting back to the task at hand…giving him a hard time. Not only was it a good way to blow off stress after a life threatening ordeal, but I just enjoyed it so damn much “So, tell us,” I asked mockingly, “how do you know so much about male strippers?”

He waggled his eyebrows and smiled smugly. “How do you think I put myself through grad school?”

The End