Disclaimer: I still don’t own this stuff. Maybe if I put in enough disclaimers someone will feel bad enough and just give it to me. Hmm, yeah, I like the sound of that :)

Author’s Note: Geesh, I should have finals more often. I think I write more then than at any other time. I think the more papers I have to write, the more fanfiction I write. (Shifts scale weights up and down in either hand) Papers… FanFic…. Papers, Fanfic. Hmm, tough choice.

Chapter 23: Google

He was going insane. Lost it. Gone off the deep end. Flown over the cuckoo’s nest. That was the only explanation. Reality had snapped, leaving him with only a small little island on which to stand. Sand meandered its way between his toes, bugging the heck out of him as he turned a slow circle, surveying the landscape for even the smallest clue as to what the heck was going on. A Caribbean blue ocean much calmer than Atlantis’ surrounded the island, the tide inching up on the yellow sand. The occasional palm tree sprang out of the ground but failed to provide any actual shade.

Rodney tried to laugh; even he knew he was being ludicrous wishing for his sunscreen and worrying about burning on his imaginary island. “Okay, okay, I need to get back to reality. Waking up, now!” he chanted, closing his eyes and willing himself with all his might. Counting to three, but only actually making it to two, McKay snapped open his eyes just in time for a pleasant breeze in the eighty-five degree weather to send a flurry of sand directly into his sensitive eyes. “Son of a…!”

Someone chuckled behind him, a rich, pearly laughter causing him to turn beet red even as he swiveled around, hands still rubbing his eyes. Something light and plasticky connected with the side of his head, immediately bounding off. “Hey!” McKay scolded, opening his eyes, sand be damned, to give the person a proper dressing down. The words froze in his throat, his brain shutting down at the same time as other organs required the available blood supply.

The perpetrator was four feet of legs wrapped in a tiny red bikini holding one of those multicolored beach balls against her well-curved hips. Rodney gulped. No dressing down was required. She sauntered over to him and delicately brushed the sand away from around his eyes with just one long finger. She smiled at him and he could only stare wide-eyed. He watched her arm as she continued to stroke his face, but the arm was connected to her shoulder, and from there… they were just there, he couldn’t be held responsible for looking at what was right in front of him! He knew he was being rude—imagine Rodney McKay, rude? —but, c’mon, cleavage! An overachieving scientist hailing from Siberia and then Antarctica needed some leeway.

She was smiling suggestively, enjoying the unwavering attention while stroking his cheek. “Poor Rodney,” she purred. “You never really did like the beach, did you?” She chuckled again, reveling in her ability to hold such a brilliant man so captivated with such ease. It reminded her of another man who had just recently abandoned her. “John always loved this place,” she sighed wistfully.

“What?” McKay squawked, snapping out of his hormonal stupor at the same moment the world changed. The grains of sand between his toes vanished as the ground solidified beneath his now shoed feet. The sun light sharpened into fluorescent bulbs as Rodney realized he was now in the Physics Lab where he had produced his first major career making experiment in his freshman undergraduate year.

“This definitely seems more like you,” she decided as Rodney leaned against a worktable for support, utterly disoriented. Were crazy people supposed to get disoriented?

“What do you know about Sheppard?” he demanded, his mind once more taking apart the situation and examining every detail of its inner workings. Realizing he was leaving out other important questions, he demanded, “Where are we? And who are you?”

She frowned at him and glanced down at her bikini. With a jilted huff, it was replaced by the conservative grey business suit the witch who had taught him Shakespeare used to wear. Rodney’s shoulders drooped in sorrow. Damn she really knows how to hit below the belt, he thought. He really missed the bikini. Honestly, how come all of his hallucinations never indulged him? Did he subconsciously dislike himself so much that he never allowed himself just a little gratification every now and then?

On the positive side, now that his testosterone levels were returning to normal he could see that she didn’t hold a candle to Sam. On a more productive note, it also allowed him to focus on his task. “What do you know about what happened to Sheppard?” Might as well make use of the hallucination when it lasts. If his subconscious knew something he didn’t, this was apparently as good a way as any to find out.

“I miss him. He left me,” she informed him with a pout. Okay, his subconscious might be hot, but he did not pout. “We had so much fun on that beach,” her face seemed to darken and grow softer at the same time if that were even possible. Hey, hallucination. “They were hurting him. I had to let him go. I tried to save him,” she seemed to be talking to herself more than Rodney. “He was so nice, so sweet. He cared about all of them, even after they hurt him. But he never cared about me. I think he resented me, if you can believe that. All he could think about was getting back to her.”

Was he always this jealous? It seemed kind of girly.

“Who?” he asked, doing his genius best to follow the twisted conversation. “What did they do to him?”

“They loved me more than he did anyway. But they’re not like him. I don’t like having them walk my halls. They smell funny,” she looked off into space, making Rodney wonder if there was some really interesting poster over his shoulder or if she’d really cracked. Looking over his shoulder and confirming the presence of a blank wall, he concluded that it was indeed the later. Repeating her words in his head, his brain hit the emergency brakes. “Your halls?”

She nodded morosely. “I’ve been alone for so long, and then he came and woke me from my slumber. It felt so good to be able to bask in someone’s presence again—someone worthy. I took care of him, tried to help him. I saved them from the Wraith, not him. He never appreciated all that I did for him. He kept trying to leave.”

“Oh my God,” McKay slapped his forehead. He knew his subconscious couldn’t possibly be that sappy. “You’re the city! The Ancients must have programmed it—you—with an artificial intelligence. Do you have access to everything in their computers? I mean, do you know everything that’s in their database?” Rodney almost wet his pants when she nodded.

“This is incredible! You’re like a search engine, or a librarian. We don’t need to go hunting through the database anymore when we have you! Can you imagine the time this would save us? The advancements—.”

“You were going to leave me. All of you,” she pointed out, fixing accusing eyes on Rodney. “I let you take him so you could save him because there were so many more of you here and I knew I wouldn’t be left alone. But then you all went away!” The first tear slid a slow path down her cheek, silently falling to the floor before being followed by several more.

“No look, wait,” he implored, as terrified by the prospect of a weeping damsel as a hungry Wraith. “We didn’t know. Our city doesn’t have an artificial intelligence system. We didn’t think any of them did.”

“Pfft. Of course she does!” the Sanctuary sneered. “Who do you think caused her to rise when the ocean was about to reclaim her? That bitch has everything. She had the Altearans, your expedition, and now she has her beloved Sheppard again. And once more, I have absolutely nothing!”

“Atlantis is cognizant?” Rodney marveled, completely missing the city’s outrage until she let loose a furious shriek.

“All you think about is her! The city that has ignored you, resisted helping you, the entire time you’ve been there! I am here, willing to do whatever it takes to keep you and all you can do is think of your precious Atlantis. She has a whole cache of ZPMs, you know,” she hissed, capturing McKay’s attention one hundred percent. “No, you don’t know, because she never told you. But I did.”

“Look, we don’t have to leave,” Rodney assured her, feeling desperate as he watched the beautiful face morph into something ugly that disturbed him on a ‘you’re toast’ level. He wished Elizabeth were here instead of him. Talking to crazy people had never really been his thing. He’d blow this for sure. “We were just regrouping until we understood what was going on, and now you’ve just told me. So you see, no evacuation necessary. Let me out of here,” he gestured to the imaginary lab, “and I’ll contact my people and tell them we don’t have to leave.”

“You can’t,” she pointed out.

Rodney opened his mouth to argue when he felt the warmth of a person’s lap beneath his head, and he realized he was horizontal.

“Dr. McKay,” Teyla’s face appeared upside down in his vision, eyes tight with concern, and he realized he was in her lap. Cool. Hot women galore, today. He knew they couldn’t resist him. Animal magnetism and all….

The city! Right, back to business. Talk about turn over time. “Did it work?” he asked, surprised to hear his voice crack. Huh, his throat was sore too. He reached for his canteen on the side of his vest only to realized two things: one, it wasn’t there, and two, ouch! Heat was emanating like crazy from his hands. “What’s wrong with me?” he croaked. Was he dying? Was that why he was in Teyla’s lap? Oh god, he was dying! Where was Radek? “Radek!” Saving kids, he died saving kids.

“Dr. McKay, you must calm down,” Teyla soothed, and suddenly there was a canteen pressed to his lips. Rodney drank greedily, comforted by the coolness quenching the burn. Ah, so much better. “Your hands have been burned, but you will be fine.”

“The door’s open,” Ronon called from across the room as Dr. Biro came rushing in.

Rodney shot Teyla a look that informed her that the men in white coats would be coming for her soon. “Fine? How can I be fine? My hands are burned! Oh god, I’m going to loose fingers, aren’t I?” Rodney glared at Biro as though it were her fault.

Biro just snorted, to the side of course, lest she accidentally spit on McKay’s hands. “They’re second degree burns, Dr. McKay. I’m fairly sure I can keep your hands from falling off.” None-the-less, she carefully wrapped the appendages is gauze after liberally smearing a white cream that felt wonderful.

“I don’t understand what happened” Radek sighed, rubbing his hand across his forehead.

“Sheppard was right- well sort of. The city isn’t alive, but it is controlled by an artificial intelligence unit,” McKay’s explanation got cut off by Biro waving her pen light in his eyes. Annoyed, he smacked her hand away, or tried to anyway. The resulting contact had him wincing and holding his hand close to his chest. “What was that for? Clearly, it’s a hazard to my health!”

“Uh huh,” Biro nodded, giving no indication that she was actually listening.

“We figured that part out ourselves,” Radek informed him, comforted to see Rodney instantly back to his irritable self and relieved that he wouldn’t have to be concocting any scenarios involving Rodney’s heroic saving of underaged midgets. Radek shuddered at the thought.

“Of course you did, it wasn’t that hard,” Rodney waved a hand in dismissal, only to remember: ouch! “Long story short, she’s lonely and willing to do anything necessary to keep gene carriers in the city. That’s why she took over once I was the only one left, thanks for that by the way. Next time Lorne can be the rotten egg.”

“You saying if Lorne hadn’t left it wouldn’t have attacked you?” Ronon summarized.

McKay shook his head from side to side, pretending to consider, before nodding, eyes bright, “Yeah. So from now on, as long as one gene carrier is in the city, we’re all free to come and go as we please. No more burning,” he mumbled, looking at his mitted hands.

“I don’t like it,” Ronon decided.

“Well good for you, Conan, but this is too big to walk away from!” Rodney huffed. “Do you even realize what’s here? This city has an artificial. Intelligence, system… one that has access to the entire database. If we can get her to work with us, then we won’t have to go searching for hours or days through the computers. It’ll fall right into our laps! All that information stored in Atlantis that’s taking us forever to sort through? Problem solved.”

“She?” Teyla asked, eyebrows doing the lift.

Rodney’s face colored. “It projected itself as a woman in my dream – hallucination – whatever.”

Teyla and Ronon shared a knowing look. Rodney just groaned. “Look, you’re missing the point people. We have to get back to the Control Room, contact Atlantis, and get more gene carriers over here. We need to get engineering teams to stabilize the unsafe sections. We need to get more science teams over to start combing the database for anything major.” Now that he was on a roll, Rodney kept trying to snap his fingers, only to be thwarted by the thick wrappings.

“Oh, and the ZedPMs –” Rodney cut off when he realized the Genii was still in the room. He looked around for the Candid Camera. “What are you still doing here?”

“Jemris was caught in the room with us when the doors sealed shut,” Teyla explained. The Genii looked on sulkily from the corner where he had tucked himself upon McKay’s awakening. “I must say, his character has become much more agreeable since your return to consciousness. Please, do remain awake Dr. McKay,” she smirked.

Jemris’s face flared, but he held his tongue.

Rodney brushed it off. “It’s a talent.”

“You were saying about the ZPMs?” Zelenka asked quietly, fatigue beginning to set in. It was only 4:00, but it had been a long day. A fresh start tomorrow was starting to sound like a very good idea.

McKay avoided looking at the Genii as he said, “We have to find out how many are here. We need to get a team on that, make sure none of the other teams use up all the power before we really get a chance to explore.” Not what he was going to say, but who said Dr. Rodney McKay, Ph. D. couldn’t learn to lie? No way was that Genii getting his hands on Atlantis ZedPMs.

Radek looked at McKay strangely, having worked with him long enough to know when Rodney was hiding something, but acknowledged the security breach in the room.

“First things first, you need to get back to the Infirmary Dr. McKay,” Dr. Biro pointed out.

“Nonsense, I’m fine,” Rodney shrugged, and then paused. Who was he kidding? ZedPMs somewhere on Atlantis – hello, he needed to get back over there and start interrogating that city ASAP. Besides, his hand really was starting to itch under the bandages. “It’s not really going to fall off, right? Because I’m a very valuable man and I need my hands.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Biro placated, happy that she had won.

“I’m coming too,” Jemris suddenly found his voice. “Your people attacked me, so they can be the ones to heal me.”

Biro studied Jemris over her shoulder. Taking in the bright red patches on his skin that were bound to become colorful bruises, she rotated her gaze to Ronon. The big man just shrugged, “He deserved it.” Pure and simple, no regrets.

“Your people have their own doctors,” Biro pointed out. She may not be command staff, but she remembered the Storm.

“Your people have better medical equipment,” Jemris countered. Eyes narrowing, he sneered, “You wouldn’t be going back on our peoples’ agreement, would you, Doctor? I would hate to see this alliance end because of your refusal to cooperate. I am a very important man among my people. They would not take this kind of disrespect well.”

Biro narrowed her own eyes, trying to decide if she could justify an autopsy on a living person. Well, a prostate check then.

“Shall we?”

“Wait, we have to find someone to take my place in Google,” McKay pointed out.

“Google?” Radek asked, not sure if he wanted to know.

“What, Sheppard’s the only who gets to name things? Google… search engine,” McKay clarified.

“I know what Google is, Rodney,” Zelenka sighed.

“Right, well, artificial intelligence, search engine… Google.”

Radek just shook his head.

Yeah, not much of a cliffhanger, I know. How unusual for me. But don’t worry; I have lots of them left up my sleeve. Unfortunately, due to increasingly warm weather conditions, my sleeves have become somewhat shorter. As always, I’ll update as soon as I can. More John angst next chapter.