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mensa_auTitle: The Slow and Subtle Art of Drowning
Pairing or Character(s): Mensa!Radek/Mensa!Laura, Rod McKay, Mensa!Elizabeth, Mensa!Sheppard, mention of Mensa!Carson/Mensa!Perna
SGA-verse or MENSA-verse: MENSA-verse
Rating: R
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philosophy_20: 14. Parallel
Warnings: Profanity, death, spoilers for "Grace Under Pressure" and "McKay and Mrs. Miller"
Author's Notes: Thanks go out to the amazing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
duckduck and blue_raven, who beta-checked the story for me, and to lilyayl, who poked and prodded me into finishing this fic, even when I was ready to give up, and helped me get into Mensa!Radek's head. The title is inspired by Billy Collin's poem, "The Art of Drowning," which can be found here.
Length: 21,600 words
When Radek was seven, his father took the family to a lake. Decades later, Radek would remember very little about the trip--save for the last few minutes of it, which he could recall in painful detail. Beyond that, however, the rest of the day was just a handful of memories, mere flickers of sensation really, like how the sun felt caressing their upturned faces and freckling their bare shoulders, or the way he watched the strain ease from his parents’ faces as worldly cares were set aside for a few brief hours.
Mostly, though, he remembered Eliška’s glare as he trailed after her along the edges of the lake, her mouth twisted into a hard, angry line whenever she turned and found him just a step behind her. At the ancient and extremely impatient age of eleven, she hated how Radek followed her around like some imprinted duckling, wanting to go everywhere she went, wanting to see everything she saw.
Even after thirty-odd years, Eliška still went pale and miserable and refused to talk about that day, so Radek could only assume that she decided to teach him a lesson, one that would get him to stop following her around once and for all, because that was the only reason she would have dared him to climb to the top of the cliff that overlooked the lake.
Radek had been quietly uneasy about heights even at the age of seven, never joining the other neighborhood children in climbing trees, and so when Eliška shot him a taunting little smile and marched towards the cliff, he nervously scrambled after her, forward and up that steep, rocky terrain.
It was then that the memory became powerful, intense enough that Radek could recall each and every painful detail. He remembered how his heart felt lodged in his throat as Eliška kicked dust into his face, could sometimes still feel the gritty texture of the dirt under his fingers and the sharp stones beneath his bare feet if he concentrated hard enough.
His head spun when they finally made it to the top and could peer out at that supposedly serene stretch of water. The quiet uneasiness stirred in his belly, coiling into a knot of almost-fear, because the cliff had not seemed half as high when he and Eliška were scaling it. Radek stared down, down, down towards the murky green lake, which suddenly didn’t quite so friendly, his toes curling and digging into the dirt of the cliff as though to get a stronger foothold.
“Maybe we should go back down,” he said, the words turning vinegar-sour in his mouth at his sister’s taunting laugh, and to prove he wasn’t a baby, that he wasn’t scared, he stepped closer to the edge. “It’s just, we’re probably not allowed, and--” At another of his sister’s harsh, barking laughs, he swallowed, ignored the heart lodged at the back of his throat and the knot tight and hot in his belly, and stepped to the very edge. “See, I’m not a baby, I only--”
The edge of the cliff crumbled under his feet and he dropped like a stone, too shocked to make a sound as the water rushed up to meet him. It was his sister who shrieked, her piercing cries following him until he hit the water. If he dropped like a stone, then he sank like he was in a suit of armor, the murky green water swallowing him whole and dragging him swiftly down to the depths.
To this day, he remembered how the water felt as it pressed down, filling his nose and mouth, remembered his feet hitting the bottom and kicking at the sand and silt there frantically as a tendril of something coarse attempted to curl around one ankle and keep him there, remembered the way his lungs burned and his mind screamed the words that his mouth couldn’t voice.
If he sat and remembered long enough, he could still feel a ghost-memory, an ache in his shoulder from when his father’s thick, powerful fingers had grabbed his wrist and yanked him upwards, out of the grip of the weeds, still feel the cool air caress his face as he broke the surface and gasped for air.
Radek had been quietly uneasy about heights before, but afterwards, afterwards he was terrified of both water and heights. Just the mere mention of the lake and he could feel terror wrap its fingers around his throat and squeeze. The terror stayed with him throughout the rest of his childhood. Even as an adult, with his fear easing to mostly manageable levels, he could still feel the thick water burning in his lungs and the sense-memory of the weeds wrapping around his ankles.
To the day of his death, Radek believed that one of the universe’s greatest cosmic jokes was what he would come to Atlantis and fall in love with the city. The city in the middle of an ocean. The city which could fly.
*
“Are you going to be all right?”
Radek looked up, fought back the frown that wanted to twist his lips at the inquiry. He never should have told Rod about his mild anxiety when it came to heights. It had been in a moment of weakness, and he’d regretted it the second the admission escaped his lips. Sure enough, Rod had been his normal, overly helpful self ever since, offering to take all of the missions that involved using puddlejumpers, even going so far as to offer to test-fly all of them for him, as though by ‘mild anxiety’ Radek had actually meant ‘horrible, crippling fear.’
“Of course I am,” he said, raising an eyebrow and forcing his mouth into a bland smile that probably didn’t reach his eyes. “It is a simple test-flight, to make certain Jumper Six is back in working order.”
"Right, right, of course,” Rod said, smiling agreeably and going on as though Radek hadn’t actually spoken. “But you know, if you want, I could go with Griffin instead--”
Radek resisted the urge to curse under his breath. Grumbling in his native tongue had lost much of its appeal the day that Rod had laughed and responded to an insult with a casual, ‘Actually, my parents were married when I was born. And to each other no less.’ (Radek still wanted to know who had taught the man Czech. He had much to say to that person.)
Rather than mutter to himself, he continued packing the equipment he would need for the flight. Without looking over at his fellow scientist, he said firmly, “I will be fine, Rod.”
“Right, right,” Rod said again, tone just as dismissive as before. “Though I was thinking, if you needed an extra pair of eyes, I could--”
“I already have four eyes, remember?” Radek remarked dryly, tapping on the rims of his glasses and earning a slow half-chuckle. “Rod, I can handle this myself. Just because I am a bit uneasy when it comes to heights does not mean I cannot take a jumper out for a test-flight. Please, let me do my job.”
“I know,” Rod said, this time sounding like he actually meant it a little, and that startled Radek into glancing over. Rod wore a rueful smile. “I was really just kind of hoping to get out of the city for a few hours. Get some fresh air. Relax.”
Radek raised an eyebrow, immediately suspicious, because Rod McKay never admitted he needed a break. He was like that rabbit in the battery commercial that went on and on…and on, only unlike that rabbit, Rod occasionally did fall asleep on his feet or in the labs from working too hard. So either Rod was somehow about to snap and no one had noticed, or he was trying to twist the situation and make it seem like Radek was doing him a favor by letting him do the test-flight.
“You have a mission in two days,” he pointed out, and Rod shrugged, the rueful smile deepening into a look of almost boyish mischief.
“Not the same, and you know it.”
Radek stared at the other man for a long moment, taking in his earnest expression and hopeful blue eyes. At last, he sighed, fighting against the voice that whispered in the back of his head that defeat was inevitable when it came to arguing with Rod. He slid his glasses from his nose, scrubbed at his face. “I have already told Elizabeth that I am taking Jumper Six out.”
“Oh, I’ve already spoken to Elizabeth,” Rod said, waving a dismissive hand. “She said that if you didn’t mind, Sheppard and I could take the jumper out.”
Radek’s hand paused where it was pinching at the bridge of his nose, and he stared, irritation warring with confusion. “You and Sheppard? You just said you and Griffin--”
Rod shrugged. “Yes, well, Sheppard needs some fresh air too.”
“Of course he does,” Radek said sourly. He should have known, of course. Sheppard and Rod were as thick as thieves, practically joined at the hip. Why wouldn’t they leap at the chance to run off to the mainland with the excuse of test-flying the jumper? Resettling his glasses on his nose, he scowled. “Griffin and I will be test-flying Jumper Six today, Rod.”
For a barest flicker of a second, Rod’s amiable mask cracked, his eyes narrowing in a mixture of confusion and annoyance, his mouth pursing into a scowl, and then the moment was gone and his expression smoothed out into a good-natured look. “If you feel that’s best,” he said diplomatically. “Well, I’d best be heading off to the control room.”
The unsaid ‘In case you change your mind’ lingered in the air, along with the strong smell of leather as Rod smiled, gave Radek a pat on the shoulder, and strolled away with a casual, “Mnoho štěsti!”
Radek resisted the urge to glare after him. Someday, he would discover who had taught Rod Czech and hurt them. Slowly and painfully.
*
“So, let me ask you something,” Griffin said.
Radek glanced up from the panel, almost grateful for the distraction -- a quiet, frantic voice chanted a mantra along the lines of ‘I am in the air, oh God, I am way, way too high up in the air, where’s the ground, oh God’ in his head, a voice that had been whimpering ever since he first stepped into the jumper. Even his shoulders ached from barely withheld tension. “Yes?”
“As a scientist, does it bother you that most of your work, no matter how brilliant, will eventually be considered misguided? ‘Cause that would bother me.”
Radek blinked, felt himself frown, not certain whether to be amused or insulted by the query. “Excuse me?”
Griffin raised an eyebrow, an easy smile on his face. “Well, given enough time, everything is pretty much proven wrong, right?” When Radek just stared, uncomprehending, the pilot waved a hand. “Well, you know. Everything from the Earth being flat to the sun revolving around us.”
After a moment, he settled for being amused, one corner of his mouth lifting into a half-smile as he thought of what Sheppard’s expression would have been, had he been here for this conversation. “You do realize you’ve just told me my life’s work is pointless, yes?”
"Not pointless,” Griffin objected. “Just…misguided. A stepping stone to the right answer. Scientists get it wrong more times than they get it right.” He shrugged. “Take the tomato.”
"The tomato,” Radek repeated, incredulous, and made a mental note to suggest to Elizabeth that they have Heightmeyer check the relative sanity of the population, starting with Griffin.
That thought must have flickered across his face, because Griffin suddenly looked a little defiant. “Yeah, the tomato. After the conquest of Mexico in 1519, tomatoes were carried eastward to Europe, where they were believed to be poisonous.”
"I see,” Radek said, and the voice in the back of his head worried louder, muttering frantically about insane pilots who were going to get them killed. He licked his lips, anxiously eyeing the blue, blue sky beyond the windshield, and tried to ignore the unease that clenched his stomach. “Could you, ah, possibly concentrate more on flying?”
"I’ve got it covered,” Griffin said easily. “You worry about you.”
By all accounts, Griffin didn’t know Czech, and so Radek allowed himself to be particularly verbose in his mutterings about certain tomato-obsessed pilots who didn’t understand how dangerous flying was and who should have been history teachers instead. “This is the first flight the jumper has had since it was shot down and repaired. It deserves all of your attention, so please, I--” He couldn’t bring himself to look out the window at the endless stretch of ocean and sky anymore, and started towards the back of the ship.
He could almost hear Griffin’s shrug. “It made it to the mainland. If anything was going to go wrong, it would have gone wrong by now.” There was a pause, and then Griffin continued conversationally, “It took the Italians and the Spaniards to realize that tomatoes are, in fact, delicious.”
"How wonderful for them,” Radek deadpanned.
Griffin glanced over his shoulder and grinned a little, presumably at Radek’s sour expression. Continuing on as though Radek was actually interested in the topic, he said, “Columbus was Spanish--he figured out the Earth was round.”
"He was Italian.” The correction slipped out before Radek could bite the words back, a little sharper than he intended, but the muscles in his shoulders were wound too tight, so much so that the tension was spreading down his back and tightening up the muscles there.
Griffin didn’t seem phased at all; instead, his tone became pensive. “Huh. I wonder what it is that makes Spaniards so good at debunking bad science?”
"You will have to ask a Spaniard when we get back to Atlantis,” Radek said, hoping his tone conveyed how deeply he desired an end to this conversation. “I believe there is a new scientist, a, a biologist, if I remember correctly, who is from Madrid--”
The jumper lurched under his feet, and his stomach roiled, sweat breaking out on the back of his neck in a moment of sudden, startled terror. It took him a moment to catch his breath enough to demand, “What is it? Turbulence?” and stumble to the front of the jumper, collapsing into the co-pilot’s seat.
Griffin was frowning, brow knitted in concentration. “The inertial dampeners on this thing should smooth that out,” he muttered, almost to himself, and then a startled, “What the hell?” escaped his lips as the jumper shuddered once more, a convulsive jolt that rattled Radek’s heart from his chest and lodged it in his throat.
He peered at the screens, ignoring how his stomach was still churning and the fact that he felt like he was going to be violently ill. “Right drive pod's intermittently switching to reverse thrust,” he reported, and hoped that Griffin was too distracted to notice how his voice wobbled.
Griffin’s face was tight and drawn, and when he snapped out, “Cut it. I can drive with just the left pod,” his voice was so authoritative that Radek moved to obey his order before he even realized he was heaving himself out of his seat and stumbling over to one of the side panels.
He swore, soft and fervent, a second later, as the jumper trembled and bucked like a startled horse beneath his feet. “It is not recognizing any of my commands!”
"Brace for impact,” was the grim reply, and Radek made a sound that was supposed to be a “What?” but came out as a strangled noise instead. “We’re going down.”
"What? No, no, no,” Radek heard himself babbling, hands still leaping over the panel, looking for something, anything to get this jumper to stop.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday!” Griffin shouted, the urgent calls echoed by the terrified voice in Radek’s head that wailed ‘Falling, falling, falling’--
And then the jumper gave another violent shudder, one that sent Radek flying, and the last thing he heard was another of Griffin’s cries of, “Mayday!” before the floor of the jumper rushed up to meet him and everything went black.
*
"Zelenka and Griffin, come in. Zelenka, Griffin, please respond. Jumper Six, come in,” someone muttered in his ear, low and urgent.
The voice dragged Radek slowly but surely out of the darkness of unconsciousness, returning his senses to him one by one. It was only then that he realized he was on the floor, its coolness permeating his jacket and chilling his back. Opening his eyes, he squinted at the ceiling, vaguely recalling Griffin’s order to brace for impact but not much after that.
His glasses were on the floor alongside him, luckily within arms length, though when he slid them back onto his nose he realized that they’d been bent during impact and now hung crookedly on his face.
"Zelenka and Griffin, come in,” the voice repeated, and this time Radek recognized Rod’s voice. “Zelenka, Griffin--”
"W-we’re here,” Radek said. His temple throbbed, a dull, steady ache, and when he touched the spot, his fingers came away bloody.
"Radek! Thank God!” Rod breathed out, and Radek tried to think of when he’d ever heard the other man sound so relieved. “I thought you were-- We all thought you-- I've been trying to get a hold of you for over an hour.”
An hour? Radek struggled to stand, biting back a sharp sound of pain when his head spun. The throbbing increased tenfold even as he swayed on his feet and made his way to Griffin, who was sprawled over the console. His hand fluttered uncertainly in the air for a moment, then he touched the back of the other man’s neck, the skin moist and cool beneath his fingertips. “Are, are you all right?”
Griffin was motionless under his touch for a long, terrifying second, and then he twitched and groaned, muttering a feeble, “Not so good.”
"Are you both okay?”
"No,” Radek said bitterly, struggling to help Griffin lean back in his chair, the man’s frame mostly dead-weight as the pilot groaned quietly under his breath. “No, we are definitely not okay, not with possible concussions. What happened?”
"The jumper you were flying dropped off our screens. It crashed into the ocean,” Rod informed him, and there was an odd gentleness to his voice that had Radek instinctively bristling and rolling his eyes.
"Yes, of course, I understood that much, Rod, we--” He looked up, caught sight of the world beyond the windshield, and froze for a moment, the same terror from earlier tightening its grip on his throat. “We -- we are underwater.” His voice shook, despite his best intentions.
"Yes, you are,” Rod said in the same gentle tone, and had he been here in the jumper, Radek would have glared at him for being condescending, for speaking to him like he was a terrified child-- well, he certainly would have glared while desperately trying not to vomit from sheer terror.
"How -- how will you find us? How can you find us?”
"We've determined the direction of your radio signal, but not the range.”
Radek stared at the ocean just outside the windshield, swallowing hard even while he reached down to grab his computer tablet from where it had fallen to the floor. “How deep are we?” he asked, not certain if he really wanted to know, and then flinched as the H.U.D. suddenly flickered to life.
"One two zero zero and falling,” Griffin reported.
He resisted the urge to swear softly and fervently under his breath because there was no time, not now, for profanity. Later, later he would curse all he wished. “Rod, you will have to hurry it up. We are already twelve hundred feet deep and sinking at a rate of about, ah--” He paused, struggled to work through the math despite the pounding of his head. “--about twenty feet a minute.”
"Impressive,” came the muttered response.
"Excuse me?” Radek snarled, because it was not impressive, it was fucking terrifying. “I know you must be pleased that your theory that the jumpers could be utilized as submersibles seems to be correct, but now is not the time--”
"I know, I know. Still, twelve hundred feet. That’s almost the maximum depth of a nuclear powered submarine. It’s--”
"Right now, I couldn’t care less, Rod,” Radek said through gritted teeth. “My head hurts, and we are sinking, so if you would stop gloating and just--”
The H.U.D. flickered ominously, and then a loud splintering sound made Radek’s heart jackknife, flutter wildly in his chest, and he could only stare in horror as the H.U.D. died and a crack appeared at the top of the windshield, a crack which rapidly spread downwards.
"That’s a problem,” Griffin muttered beside him, and Radek reached down to help him out of the chair on pure instinct, listing sideways under the pilot’s weight when Griffin lurched to his feet, one arm slung around Radek’s shoulder for support.
"Can you move?” he asked, still listing a little to the side, unable to tear his gaze away from the ever-widening crack on the windshield, much like a man might stare at an oncoming train he had no hope of avoiding.
"Yeah,” Griffin assured him.
"Rod,” Radek said, and he no longer cared that his voice was almost shrill with fear, that he could in fact taste the fear, thick and sour, in the back of his throat as he said, “Rod, the windshield is giving way under the pressure of the ocean.”
He and Griffin had just staggered into the rear compartment when Rod’s voice came, urgent but calm, over the communications link. “Move into the rear compartment -- the seal should be able to hold.”
"One step ahead of you, McKay,” Radek said, feeling a desperate, petty satisfaction at that, that for once he had had an idea before Rod. He jabbed at the button that would close the bulkhead doors and keep them safe, and then stared in a mixture of incredulity and horror as the mechanism made a complaining, grinding noise and the doors refused to close. “No, no!”
He pushed the button again, and again, muttering, “Ne, ne, ne, ne,” in something akin to a whimper under his breath before he bolted to another panel, further back in the rear compartment.
"The crash probably damaged all sorts of systems,” Griffin said, but Radek couldn’t spare a glance for him, too busy clutching at the panel like a drowning man -- oh God, oh God, they were going to drown -- and frantically pressing buttons, searching for one that would close the bulkhead doors.
“Jezisi, prosím, prosím,” he muttered, the panicked Czech spilling from his lips as he finally glanced over at Griffin and watched the other man press the button to shut the bulkhead doors as though maybe the sixth or seventh time was the charm. “It is no use, it is too late,” he said, and his voice cracked on the final word, because this was not how it was supposed to end, not from an accident during a simple test flight, not in a sinking jumper--
“I’ve got an idea,” Griffin said, and half-stumbled, half-ran back into the front section as Radek stared after him.
“What are you doing?”
Griffin turned a little at that, flashed him a grim half-smile. “Good luck, Radek.”
“Good l--” The words died on his lips as Griffin slid onto the pilot’s seat and the bulkhead doors began to close. Moving towards the front compartment on autopilot, eyes on the other man’s back rather than the ever-widening crack on the windshield, he snapped, “Griffin! What are you -- Griffin!”
The bulkhead doors closed just before Radek could get to them and he pounded on them with his free hand, ignoring the way the impact sent dull, throbbing pain shooting up his arm. “Griffin! Griff--” He heard the glass shatter, the sound like an explosion, and then water, all that water rushing into the front compartment, where Griffin--
Radek closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the cool metal of the bulkhead doors, listened as the sound of rushing water quieted and a deadly silence fell.
“Why did you do that?” he whispered as the quiet stretched on, voice cracking halfway through. “Why did you do that?” His throat felt raw, as though he’d been screaming for hours rather than a handful of minutes, and even his bones ached. At last, Radek took a step away from the bulkhead doors and rubbed wearily at his face, feeling the wet, terrible mixture of blood and tears against his skin and staring at his blood-smeared fingers for a long moment.
Then he closed his eyes and simply breathed. His stomach was twisted in knots, his heart pounding loudly in his ears, and he could feel ice-cold sweat on the back of his neck and the palm of his hands, hands which still shook violently. It took a long moment before Radek's breathing didn't catch in his throat, before the violent shaking of his hands eased to more manageable levels. Taking another deep breath, he squared his shoulders and activated his headset.
“McKay.” There was silence, and he waited for a one-two-three-four beat before he cleared his throat and tried again. “Rod? It’s Radek, come in please. Rod?” The silence deepened, darkened, wrapped tendrils of despair around his heart and squeezed anaconda-tight as Rod still didn’t respond.
"Rod?” he repeated, desperation coloring his voice now, and when there was still no reply, felt panic well even as common sense reared its ugly head. The radio transmitter was in the forward section, a section which was currently flooded with water. How was he supposed to contact the surface?
The computer tablet he’d been using earlier was still tucked under one arm and he began to rummage around the compartment, using the feeble light of the tablet and squinting into the murky darkness. He couldn’t quite help the relieved sigh that escaped his lips when his hand closed around the familiar shape of a flashlight and immediately turned it on, blinking as the brighter light temporarily blinded him. One quick glance around the compartment revealed that there were more flashlights, and he arranged them around the compartment, thanking God and Marshall Sumner that the military commander had insisted on emergency kits even on test flights.
Putting plaster on his wound was painful and took a minute or two, a few mumbled curses escaping his lips as he put pressure on the cut, but it wouldn’t do for him to bleed -- albeit sluggishly -- to death while awaiting rescue.
The jumper gave a soft, almost unhappy groan, creaking dangerously, and Radek shivered, the same terror returning that had roiled his stomach and made sweat break out on the back of his neck. He couldn’t help but run the numbers through his mind. He was dropping twenty feet a minute, and pressure increased by one atmosphere every thirty-three feet, so that was an additional atmosphere every minute and a half. Which meant Radek was currently under thirty-seven atmospheres’ worth of pressure, and counting.
"I have to slow down,” he muttered, forcing his nerveless legs to move over to the other side of the compartment, where he activated an open panel of crystals. He probably shouldn't be talking aloud to himself, not when he was all alone in the jumper-- in the back of the jumper-- but it was almost comforting to hear a voice, even if it was only his own. “Just -- I need to stop sinking.” He touched one of the crystals, which was cool and smooth under his still-trembling fingers, and then paused. First, though, he should figure out a way to get the radio transmitter up and running. That way his rescuers could figure out where he was, after all, if he could not figure out a way to stop his descent.
At last, he spied the proper cable and attached the clip-end to a crystal on another panel. He attached the other end to his computer tablet, smiling in relief as the tablet flashed JUMPER INTERFACE ACTIVATED at him. Giving his still-wobbly legs a rest, he sat and peered at the screen. “So, tell me, how is our radio transmitter?” he murmured.
TRANSMITTER INACTIVE, the tablet reported after a few taps to the screen.
"Yes, yes, I know that, so let us activate the emergency transmitter protocol, shall we?” Radek pressed the screen again and smiled at the EMERGENCY TRANSMITTER ACTIVE that appeared on the screen. So now the jumper was broadcasting a signal; all it needed to do was penetrate fourteen hundred feet of ocean--
--Which meant that a grand total of three percent of the signal would reach the surface.
He tried to ignore the dismay that clenched his stomach at the dismal realization. All right, so he needed to boost the signal a bit. That shouldn't be too difficult. Frowning at the screen, though, a thought occurred to him. How much power did he actually have?
REMAINING POWER AT LEVEL OF USE: 3:05.
"Three hours,” Radek repeated flatly. “Three hours, and you expect me to-- What is eating my power?" He scowled at the tablet, skimmed the facts on the screen, and felt his scowl darken into a thunderous look. Why were the inertial dampeners activated?
Plugging in the command to shut down the inertial dampeners, he stared at the response of ACTION NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME. “Ne, ne, I don’t need them! They are draining what little power I have left! Turn off!” He typed in the same command again and growled as the tablet beeped angrily, barely biting back a snarl of frustration as he typed the command one more time, daring the tablet to argue with him yet again.
ACTION NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME, the tablet repeated once more, still beeping irritably.
It took every iota of control he could muster to keep from throwing the tablet across the room in frustration. His would-be rescuers would never be able to find him in three hours. By the time they found the jumper, he would be as dead as Griffin. The earlier despair was returning, wrapping tendrils around his heart and throat, and he couldn't help but mutter bleakly, “Jezisi, I am going to die.”
*
It seemed like hours before the sound of rushing water ebbed into silence, though Rod knew it had to have only been a few seconds. He waited for a moment for Radek's voice to come over the communication link, the other scientist cursing in Czech and snapping at Rod to get a rescue team down here--
But instead the silence stretched on, until Rod cleared his throat and said, "Radek?" There was no response. He kept his voice steady, expression calm, even as Sergeant Campbell's anxious gaze bore into him. "Zelenka, Griffin, come in please."
"Doctor McKay," Campbell began, but stopped at Rod's raised hand.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do, Sergeant," Rod said, ignoring the various scenarios running in the back of his head, the silent voice that was rattling off the statistics regarding Radek and Griffin's chances. "You're going to stay here in case Zelenka and Griffin get through to Atlantis, and let me know if they do. I'm going to get the rescue team ready." He caught Campbell's nod from the corner of his eye.
Then Rod was moving, tapping at the communication link. "Sheppard? We established momentary contact with Zelenka and Griffin, but I'm going to need you to figure out how to get them both into our rescue jumper once we've found them. I'll be with Bryce, figuring out where the jumper is."
"I'll get on it," came the quick response, and Rod could picture Sheppard already on the move towards the jumper bay, mouth twisted downwards into a look of concentration. "Hey, sorry, have to end the game earl--" The connection cut off, Sheppard finally remembering to break the link.
Rod tapped his radio again. "Bryce? I need you in Lab Two, immediately." He barely heard her acknowledgment; instead he focused on making his way towards Lab Two as quickly as possible. There was no time to waste, after all, not with the jumper sinking at twenty feet a minute.
*
It wasn't until his hands started to feel stiff and unwieldy that Radek finally noticed the cold. Setting the tablet down in his lap, he rubbed his hands together briskly, trying to warm them, and frowned as a shiver racked his frame. Why was it so cold? Well, he was under, oh, a billion or so gallons of freezing water. That could just possibly be the problem. Radek resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his own folly, and then clenched and unclenched his fists to force away the stiffness before he set the tablet aside.
He eyed the side of the jumper. “I need to heat this thing, unless you wish me dead,” he informed it, and then set to work at removing the back of one of the bench seats. The needed panel revealed, Radek just looked at it for a moment, praying this wouldn't use up too much of his power even as another shiver rattled his frame.
Disconnecting one end of a cable from a panel above his head, he knelt down and attached it to the panel behind the bench. A few quick commands on the tablet later, he could see the temperature rising on the heat indicator. He all but sighed in relief. Radek was not greedy; he merely wished not to freeze to death while Rod planned some daring rescue and made him look like an--
REMAINING POWER AT LEVEL OF USE: 2:20, the tablet announced, interrupting his thoughts.
"Forty minutes?” he said weakly, and then glowered at the wall. “Forty minutes, you-- you--” He hauled himself upright. “So, I see what this is. You think that the captain should go down with his ship. Well, I am no captain, I am, I am just the navigator if I am anything, and the navigator gets to escape the sinking ship, understand?” He glared down at the tablet and resisted the urge to smack it against the wall.
Still, breaking the tablet would only make matters worse, and so after a moment, Radek scowled at the tablet and contented himself with tapping forcefully on the screen. He couldn't help but smile a little in bitter triumph as the screen shifted and read, REMAINING POWER AT LEVEL OF USE: 2:35. The bitter angle of the smile increased as the number went up to 2:36 and then 2:37. It paused for a moment, as though listening to some drum roll only it could hear, and then settled on 2:39.
He let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding, and gazed up at the jumper. Twenty minutes of power for just enough heat to stave off hypothermia? Radek had the feeling that someone-- an Ascended being, mostly likely-- was watching this entire scene, quietly laughing to him- or herself at Radek's predicament. He started to take in a deep breath and found himself taking in a shallow one instead. Only then was he aware that his lungs were straining to get enough oxygen, that something other than oxygen was bubbling up from his chest and tickling at the inside of his throat. It finally escaped his mouth as a loud laugh -- all right, a loud giggle, one that made him automatically frown, because Radek Zelenka did not giggle, not even from panic.
Still, he found himself giggling again, his mouth twitching upwards into an inane smile. Euphoria, elation, there was something that he vaguely recalled Simon talking about once, some medical condition, but the name escaped him. Still, at least he remembered the source of the condition and hunkered down next to the panel behind the bench, setting the tablet down and peering at the crystals and frowning. Where were the CO2 scrubbers? He had to dial them up before he-- before the CO2--
Another giggle escaped his lips with enough force to scrape his throat on its way out even as he began working on the panel. Radek giggled again, then struggled to get a hold of himself. He had to concentrate. He choked back another giggle, but the soft, hysterical sounds wrenched themselves from his throat even as he got back to work on the panel, his shoulders quivering with out-of-control laughter even as he searched for a way to dial up the scrubbers.
After a long moment, he sighed in relief and reached for the tablet. “CO2 scrubbers operating at -- at one hundred percent.” He couldn’t quite help the cynical snort that escaped his lips. Well, cynicism was better than hysteria, he supposed. “At least something is.” He took a deep breath and began to type.
A new, loud sound filled his ears; it sunk into his very bones and made them ache with its intensity. The noise was a mixture of a groan and a wail, echoing through the jumper. It took Radek a moment to realize that the deep sound was coming from outside, and he ventured a tentative, “Hello?”
The wailing groan seemed to almost swell, though perhaps that was merely Radek’s imagination. He scrambled to his feet, listening intently and trying to ignore the ache in the hollow of his bones. There was definitely something out there, swimming near the jumper. This time, Radek kept quiet, listening for the sound again as his heart pounded and his head swam. What, was he going to be eaten by some monster the Ancients had created out of boredom?
The creature outside groaned again, louder, and this time the sound reminded Radek of whale songs -- Miko was always listening to nature music, and he remembered the eerie songs drifting from her headphones. But why was the whale-creature-- “Oh, of course. The transmitter!" This time he smiled when the whale-creature moaned, remembering Miko perched on the edge of her chair listening to the whales' haunting music. The smile slid from his mouth when the jumper began to shake, convulsing as though something had just sideswiped it. He grabbed onto the side panels to keep his balance, cursing under his breath.
“Look, I am sorry!” Radek shouted, doubting the whale-creature could even hear him, much less understand his words. “I am sorry if the noise, ah, bothers you, but, but I must leave the transmitter on, if I wish to survive!" The whale-creature groaned again, and Radek snapped, “Look, just swim away!” The whale-creature went silent even as a sudden idea struck Radek, and he couldn’t help but laugh a little, this time from relief rather than hysteria.
“Swim,” he murmured to himself, almost like a prayer. “Perhaps the jumper can swim.” He scurried over to the front of the compartment and put his hands against the bulkhead doors, resisting the urge to rest his head against it for just a moment. Time was of the essence, after all. “So, so, cockpit is inaccessible, but most of the control conduits run back here, so if you were really meant to be submersible--” Radek looked up at the ceiling, picked up the tablet, then pulled the cable out of the panel behind the bench. “If you were really meant to be submersible, then your drive pods should function underwater too."
Attaching the ends of the cable to crystals in a panel above his head, he felt like smiling for the first time since before entering the jumper. He could fly the jumper from this compartment, or at least get the jumper to the surface. Pulling up a few images up on the tablet’s screen, he grinned. “Now we are truly getting somewhere.”
*
"All right." Rod studied the faces of the scientists who were gathered in Lab Two. Bryce had asked for Donaldson, who had in turn brought along Kazimierz and Wysocki. All four scientists wore varying looks of worry and concentration, their expressions illuminated in the glow of the screen they'd been studying. "Since we know the direction which the initial radio signal came from--"
"Rod?" When he turned towards the door, he found himself gazing into Elizabeth's cool green eyes. She had on one of her tight-lipped smiles, the one that promised someone was about to get in trouble. When she spoke though, her voice was deceptively mild. "Would you care to explain why I didn't know about the rescue you're apparently planning until Chuck told me?"
Rod mentally grimaced. Technically, yes, he should have let Elizabeth know about the brief contact with Radek and Griffin, not to mention the fact that the windshield had shattered and the two men were now trapped in the rear compartment. Especially since she was the head of the expedition. Still, Elizabeth would have had questions that Rod didn't have time to answer, that Rod still didn't have time to answer. Ignoring the quiet voice in his head that muttered of wasting time, he instead forced a reassuring smile onto his face. "I'm sorry. I was getting the rescue organized and just, well, forgot."
"Forgot," she repeated, flatly, and anyone other than Rod might have cringed at the dangerous expression on her face. As it was, he tinged his smile of reassurance with sheepishness. Her dark expression was replaced by a half-exasperated, half-concerned look. "We'll talk about this later," she informed him, and then visibly squared her shoulders and prepared for news, good or bad. "Catch me up on the situation."
The quiet voice in his head that muttered of wasting time got louder and Rod was hard-pressed to conceal a grimace. "We established brief contact with Radek and Griffin. Based on what they told us before losing contact, we're trying to figure out where they are so we can send a rescue team." Hoping she wouldn't ask for further details such as why Radek and Griffin lost contact once more, Rod nodded towards Bryce and Donaldson. "First we figure out where they are, then we send a jumper down for them."
Bryce cleared her throat and, when Elizabeth looked at her, said in her crisp, matter-of-fact way, "I've been studying the Ancient database in regards to the ocean. Based on our study of ocean currents and the direction of the radio signal, we know they are in this area." Pausing to change the image on the screen, she continued, "It's between two and six thousand feet deep."
"Wait, six thousand?" Donaldson said, blanching. "We could never get that far, not even in a jumper!"
"Yes, I know," Rod said. He kept his voice even and calm, his expression confident, the picture of a man who knew they were going to figure out where Radek and Griffin were and rescue them. "That's why we're going to find them before they reach the ocean floor."
"They were already at twelve hundred feet and falling, what, twenty feet a minute?" Bryce asked, and Rod could feel Elizabeth's shocked and furious gaze on him. Oh yes, he was definitely in for an unpleasant conversation after this was all over.
"Uh, yes," he said, forcing his expression and tone not to change. He didn't dare look at Elizabeth. "That's correct."
After a moment, Bryce shrugged. "Well, it's a place to start."
*
The words and numbers on the screen blurred together yet again, and Radek set down the tablet, cursing under his breath at the tiny keypad and attempting to convince his fingers to stop cramping. He didn’t want to take a break, didn’t have time to take one, but he needed to rest his eyes for a moment, just long enough for his vision to clear. He turned towards the panel on the other side of the compartment and squinted up at the crystals, sighing in frustration. “I need a new set of eyes.”
“Let me take a look,” a warm, familiar voice suggested behind him.
Radek froze. Swallowing hard, he didn’t dare glance over his shoulder, because he couldn't possibly have heard-- “Did I just, ah--”
“Yes, you did,” the voice said, in the same gentle tone that always made Radek bristle on pure instinct.
Slowly, he turned around. There was Rod, all smiling blue eyes and trademark leather jacket and slightly lopsided grin. He was casually leaning against the bulkhead doors, and as Radek stared, the other man looked back, the lopsided grin gaining strength.
“Rod.”
Rod’s expression was almost soft at the quietly exhaled name, his eyes bright and earnest. “Don’t worry, Radek. We’re going to get you out of here.”
Radek stared in a mixture of disbelief and astonishment, and finally gathered enough strength to move closer to Rod, even though his legs felt as wobbly as jelly. His heart was fluttering wildly in his chest, and it took him a moment to breathe out a hoarse, “How did you--? How -- how are you--?”
Rod’s mouth quirked into a gently amused grin. “It’s good to see you too, Radek.”
For a moment, Radek just continued to stare, drinking in that amused expression and relaxed slouch, and then he shook his head, once, sharply, and turned away as common sense pointed out that this couldn’t possibly be happening. “Wonderful. I have lost it. I have completely lost it. By the time anyone comes for me, I will be mad--”
“You haven’t lost it, Radek,” Rod said, sounding almost amused.
Radek ignored him, putting the tablet down and pointing at Rod without looking at him. He closed his eyes, fought back the rising hysteria, and muttered, “You are not real. You are not real. You are not real.” He put his hands over his eyes, took in a shallow breath.
Rod made a soft noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Of course I’m not real.”
Radek looked at him at that, blinking at the man’s entertained smile. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m in Atlantis, trying to figure out how to rescue you,” Rod said patiently. “Of course I’m not actually here.” Pushing away from the bulkhead doors, he sauntered over to the bench across from Radek and sat down.
“I see,” Radek said slowly. Weren’t figments of your imagination supposed to try and convince you that they were real? He narrowed his eyes. “Then what are you doing here?”
Rod offered up one of those damnably casual, almost elegant one-shouldered shrugs of his. “You’re hallucinating.”
Radek crossed his arms against his chest, his lips curving in a bitter little smile. “Hallucinating? Why would I--”
The other man’s smile finally dimmed at that, and he grimaced a little before he silently pointed at his own forehead.
“Ah, yes, that would do it,” Radek mumbled, carefully touching the plaster over his wound and making a face as flecks of dried blood clung to his fingers. He brushed the flecks onto his pants. “Is it that bad?”
Another one-shouldered shrug, and then Rod said, “The way I see it, you’re scared. You’re a little panicked, you’re a lot lonely. You knew you could use some help, so your subconscious is manifesting--” He paused, mouth quirking into a smile of totally fake modesty. “--well, me.”
Radek snorted at that, felt his lips curl into a contemptuous sneer. “Oh, I don’t think so, McKay! If my subconscious was going to manifest someone, it would certainly not be you.” He rose to his feet, still sneering.
Rod’s eyebrows rose at that, and he looked torn between amusement and exasperation. “Well, apparently it is me, Radek. Come on, you know I can help--”
“Of course I know you can help!” Radek snapped, throwing up his hands and rolling his eyes. “You are Mister Fix-it, after all. You are always, always right, forever saving the day, always so perfect--”
“Radek,” Rod interrupted, getting to his feet as well. “I know you harbor some sort of, of grudge against me, but really, I’m here to help you, so if we could just get along--”
“You’ve been visiting Heightmeyer too often,” Radek remarked with a touch of bitterness. “Next, you will be telling that I need to set my ‘petty insecurities’ aside.”
Rod sighed, in the way he always did when he thought Radek was being unreasonable. “Look, why else would I be here?”
Radek glowered. Perhaps because he had actually died and gone to Hell without realizing it? “I don’t know!”
Another sigh, and then he said in the same gentle, condescending voice as before, “You’re essentially arguing with yourself. You realize that, right? Your mind is creating me.”
Was it a bad sign that Radek dearly wished to hit the hallucination? Then again, the thought was slightly reassuring, in that it was a familiar sentiment. "If that is true, then I would like a new subconscious," he said dryly. "This one is obviously defective, because never in a million years would I want to hallucinate you. Laura, perhaps, but you? Never."
Rather than looking offended at the insult, Rod half-smiled. "You don't mean that."
Radek snorted but didn't bother arguing. Instead he picked up the tablet and took a few steps over to Rod, gesturing for the other man to sit with him on the bench. Hallucination or not, perhaps Rod would be some help in getting the jumper to the surface. Radek would just have to ignore the implications towards his mental health. He explained his plan quickly, tripping over his words both in his haste and because a headache was blossoming between his eyes, one that had him pausing to rub at the spot every few seconds.
Rod’s expression was unreadable as Radek finished with, “Now -- given I have a limited amount of time to execute my plan before power levels drop too low, but provided that ah, the, the coding is, ah, correct, we surface and at that point they should be able to pick up our regular radio signal and then come pick us -- me up.” He frowned and rubbed at his forehead once more, being careful not to touch the plaster.
There was silence for a long moment, during which Radek took the opportunity to take off his glasses and pinch at the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve some of the pressure. Then Rod cleared his throat. “How much power would that kill?”
Radek blinked at him. “Ah, I have no idea. Most of it?”
Rod’s neutral expression shifted at that and he frowned, shaking his head. It was the same slow, negative shake he used whenever he had bad news about the latest Ancient tech they were fiddling with, how it was actually useless or unsalvageable, the same slight frown he used when he was trying to figure out how to broach the topic. “It’s a bad idea, then,” he said at last.
Radek slid the glasses back on and scowled. Rod was usually not a naysayer. Of course, this was hallucination-Rod. It would be just his luck that he would have to deal with a pessimistic version of the other scientist. “Excuse me? Why is it a bad idea?”
“Well, what if it doesn’t work?”
“Well,” Radek began to snap, and then paused. He hadn’t actually considered the implications of using up most of the power. “Well, then -- then I’m dead.”
Rod nodded. “Exactly. Bad plan.” He got to his feet, rolled his shoulders as though they were stiff from huddling over the tablet, which couldn’t be possible, seeing as he was a hallucination who couldn’t feel a damn thing, and Radek felt irritation surge.
“Oh, you’re right,” he snapped, getting to his feet as well and flavoring each syllable with sarcasm. “I should proceed with one of the other hundreds of possible options available to me.”
Rod sighed and shook his head. “Look, I’m not saying that I have a better idea--”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Nothing?”
“Yes.”
Radek tried to laugh at that, but it came out as more of a harsh, barking sound instead. “Oh, brilliant! How helpful, McKay.”
Rod folded his arms against his chest, expression earnest, almost imploring. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Look, just stay warm, stay breathing, and stay alive as long as you can -- give them the biggest window of opportunity possible.”
“Window of opportunity for what?”
“For rescuing you,” Rod said simply. The unsaid ‘Obviously’ hovered in the air.
Radek folded his arms against his chest, shaking his head and fighting back another bark of laughter. “Even if they could find me -- which, given underwater currents and multiple possible entry sites is next to impossible -- how are they going to get me out of here?”
“They’ll find a way.”
“First, I highly doubt that anyone will be able to even find me before the power levels are depleted and I run out of oxygen. Second, even if they do, how will they get me from one jumper to the other? This seems my day to die, McKay. Not even you could save me.” He paused, swallowed hard. He'd meant to say that last bit only to irritate Rod, not because he actually believed it, but the words held a ring of truth to them that made something in his chest clench with fear.
“Radek,” Rod said in the same gentle, condescending tone he’d used when he'd tried to bribe Radek to let him and Sheppard do the test flight. “Look, I hear what you’re saying and I'm telling you -- you’re wrong. You have some very smart, very motivated people on the surface, and the only thing any of them are working on right now is rescuing you.”
Radek snorted at that. “Oh, please, McKay! They are planning my memorial service.” He glanced down at the tablet, realized he was clutching at it so tightly that his knuckles were white, and barked out another laugh. “I’m certain you’ll think up a lovely eulogy. You did so well for Peter and Brendan--” He stopped at the dark flicker in Rod’s eyes, realizing he’d gone too far even if this was simply a hallucination standing before him.
For a moment, Rod’s jaw tensed, as though working against words that wanted to escape, and then he shook his head, expression smoothing into the familiar mask, and said in a low, sincere voice, “If your plan fails -- and it probably will -- you could jeopardize their plans, Radek. Just -- think about that. Be sensible.”
Radek loosened his death-grip on the tablet, relieving his aching knuckles, and scowled. Sensible? Because having a different opinion than Rod McKay meant you were being foolish, of course. Did the man honestly not realize how arrogant he sounded?
“Will you help me, or not?” he asked, soft, deliberate, and Rod sighed.
“I’ll help you stay alive as long as possible, but no -- I’m not helping you with this plan.”
Another laugh welled up at that, but this time Radek harshly repressed the urge. He settled for shaking his head and tossing out a bitter, “So my own hallucination is saying no to me?”
Rod stared at him, blue eyes solemn. “You must realize subconsciously that you need to be talked out of this.”
“Jezisi, I cannot even hallucinate right today,” Radek muttered under his breath, and then got to work, ignoring the concerned, frustrated look the hallucination was directing at him.
*
"Rod? I'm heading over to you from the jumper bay. How are we doing?" Rod paused at Elizabeth's inquiry, Donaldson and Wysocki blinking at him as he let his half-finished sentence hang in the air. Their expressions shifted to ones of understanding as he tapped his headset and answered, "We're making progress, Elizabeth."
'Slowly,' a dark voice muttered in the back of his head.
"Have you figured out the jumper's location?"
"Uh, we've definitely figured out the area where the jumper is," Rod said, and ignored Bryce's raised eyebrow when he didn't elaborate that the area was in fact even larger than what he'd previously shown Elizabeth. "However, there is still the matter of getting Radek and Griffin from their damaged jumper to our rescue jump--"
"John and Laura are figuring out a grapple system that will be able to raise the jumper," Elizabeth said.
The four scientists peered at Rod, their gazes sharpening with interest, and he quickly schooled his expression into a calm one and wondered what they'd seen in his face. "Really. A grapple system."
"It'll be ready in a couple of hours. I'll need you to be," Elizabeth informed him, a touch of frost creeping into her voice, and Rod was briefly distracted by pondering the future tongue-lashing he was going to receive after all this.
It wasn't until after he'd clapped his hands and reminded everyone to get back to work that he realized Elizabeth had said 'John and Laura.' He resisted the urge to frown. Why was Cadman involved? Okay, well, he knew why she was involved-- Radek was in danger and she wasn't the type to sit idly by and fret. Still, he didn't see how Laura could help Sheppard. It wasn't like they needed to blow anything up.
He set those thoughts aside for the moment, in the box in his head where negative things, like uncharitable thoughts and contemplations of Elizabeth's future rebuke, were kept. If Laura could actually help rescue Radek and Griffin, Rod wouldn't, couldn't object. And besides, he had a downed jumper to locate, and only a few hours in which to do it.
-Onto Part Two-
Pairing or Character(s): Mensa!Radek/Mensa!Laura, Rod McKay, Mensa!Elizabeth, Mensa!Sheppard, mention of Mensa!Carson/Mensa!Perna
SGA-verse or MENSA-verse: MENSA-verse
Rating: R
philosophy_20: 14. Parallel Warnings: Profanity, death, spoilers for "Grace Under Pressure" and "McKay and Mrs. Miller"
Author's Notes: Thanks go out to the amazing
duckduck and blue_raven, who beta-checked the story for me, and to lilyayl, who poked and prodded me into finishing this fic, even when I was ready to give up, and helped me get into Mensa!Radek's head. The title is inspired by Billy Collin's poem, "The Art of Drowning," which can be found here.Length: 21,600 words
When Radek was seven, his father took the family to a lake. Decades later, Radek would remember very little about the trip--save for the last few minutes of it, which he could recall in painful detail. Beyond that, however, the rest of the day was just a handful of memories, mere flickers of sensation really, like how the sun felt caressing their upturned faces and freckling their bare shoulders, or the way he watched the strain ease from his parents’ faces as worldly cares were set aside for a few brief hours.
Mostly, though, he remembered Eliška’s glare as he trailed after her along the edges of the lake, her mouth twisted into a hard, angry line whenever she turned and found him just a step behind her. At the ancient and extremely impatient age of eleven, she hated how Radek followed her around like some imprinted duckling, wanting to go everywhere she went, wanting to see everything she saw.
Even after thirty-odd years, Eliška still went pale and miserable and refused to talk about that day, so Radek could only assume that she decided to teach him a lesson, one that would get him to stop following her around once and for all, because that was the only reason she would have dared him to climb to the top of the cliff that overlooked the lake.
Radek had been quietly uneasy about heights even at the age of seven, never joining the other neighborhood children in climbing trees, and so when Eliška shot him a taunting little smile and marched towards the cliff, he nervously scrambled after her, forward and up that steep, rocky terrain.
It was then that the memory became powerful, intense enough that Radek could recall each and every painful detail. He remembered how his heart felt lodged in his throat as Eliška kicked dust into his face, could sometimes still feel the gritty texture of the dirt under his fingers and the sharp stones beneath his bare feet if he concentrated hard enough.
His head spun when they finally made it to the top and could peer out at that supposedly serene stretch of water. The quiet uneasiness stirred in his belly, coiling into a knot of almost-fear, because the cliff had not seemed half as high when he and Eliška were scaling it. Radek stared down, down, down towards the murky green lake, which suddenly didn’t quite so friendly, his toes curling and digging into the dirt of the cliff as though to get a stronger foothold.
“Maybe we should go back down,” he said, the words turning vinegar-sour in his mouth at his sister’s taunting laugh, and to prove he wasn’t a baby, that he wasn’t scared, he stepped closer to the edge. “It’s just, we’re probably not allowed, and--” At another of his sister’s harsh, barking laughs, he swallowed, ignored the heart lodged at the back of his throat and the knot tight and hot in his belly, and stepped to the very edge. “See, I’m not a baby, I only--”
The edge of the cliff crumbled under his feet and he dropped like a stone, too shocked to make a sound as the water rushed up to meet him. It was his sister who shrieked, her piercing cries following him until he hit the water. If he dropped like a stone, then he sank like he was in a suit of armor, the murky green water swallowing him whole and dragging him swiftly down to the depths.
To this day, he remembered how the water felt as it pressed down, filling his nose and mouth, remembered his feet hitting the bottom and kicking at the sand and silt there frantically as a tendril of something coarse attempted to curl around one ankle and keep him there, remembered the way his lungs burned and his mind screamed the words that his mouth couldn’t voice.
If he sat and remembered long enough, he could still feel a ghost-memory, an ache in his shoulder from when his father’s thick, powerful fingers had grabbed his wrist and yanked him upwards, out of the grip of the weeds, still feel the cool air caress his face as he broke the surface and gasped for air.
Radek had been quietly uneasy about heights before, but afterwards, afterwards he was terrified of both water and heights. Just the mere mention of the lake and he could feel terror wrap its fingers around his throat and squeeze. The terror stayed with him throughout the rest of his childhood. Even as an adult, with his fear easing to mostly manageable levels, he could still feel the thick water burning in his lungs and the sense-memory of the weeds wrapping around his ankles.
To the day of his death, Radek believed that one of the universe’s greatest cosmic jokes was what he would come to Atlantis and fall in love with the city. The city in the middle of an ocean. The city which could fly.
“Are you going to be all right?”
Radek looked up, fought back the frown that wanted to twist his lips at the inquiry. He never should have told Rod about his mild anxiety when it came to heights. It had been in a moment of weakness, and he’d regretted it the second the admission escaped his lips. Sure enough, Rod had been his normal, overly helpful self ever since, offering to take all of the missions that involved using puddlejumpers, even going so far as to offer to test-fly all of them for him, as though by ‘mild anxiety’ Radek had actually meant ‘horrible, crippling fear.’
“Of course I am,” he said, raising an eyebrow and forcing his mouth into a bland smile that probably didn’t reach his eyes. “It is a simple test-flight, to make certain Jumper Six is back in working order.”
"Right, right, of course,” Rod said, smiling agreeably and going on as though Radek hadn’t actually spoken. “But you know, if you want, I could go with Griffin instead--”
Radek resisted the urge to curse under his breath. Grumbling in his native tongue had lost much of its appeal the day that Rod had laughed and responded to an insult with a casual, ‘Actually, my parents were married when I was born. And to each other no less.’ (Radek still wanted to know who had taught the man Czech. He had much to say to that person.)
Rather than mutter to himself, he continued packing the equipment he would need for the flight. Without looking over at his fellow scientist, he said firmly, “I will be fine, Rod.”
“Right, right,” Rod said again, tone just as dismissive as before. “Though I was thinking, if you needed an extra pair of eyes, I could--”
“I already have four eyes, remember?” Radek remarked dryly, tapping on the rims of his glasses and earning a slow half-chuckle. “Rod, I can handle this myself. Just because I am a bit uneasy when it comes to heights does not mean I cannot take a jumper out for a test-flight. Please, let me do my job.”
“I know,” Rod said, this time sounding like he actually meant it a little, and that startled Radek into glancing over. Rod wore a rueful smile. “I was really just kind of hoping to get out of the city for a few hours. Get some fresh air. Relax.”
Radek raised an eyebrow, immediately suspicious, because Rod McKay never admitted he needed a break. He was like that rabbit in the battery commercial that went on and on…and on, only unlike that rabbit, Rod occasionally did fall asleep on his feet or in the labs from working too hard. So either Rod was somehow about to snap and no one had noticed, or he was trying to twist the situation and make it seem like Radek was doing him a favor by letting him do the test-flight.
“You have a mission in two days,” he pointed out, and Rod shrugged, the rueful smile deepening into a look of almost boyish mischief.
“Not the same, and you know it.”
Radek stared at the other man for a long moment, taking in his earnest expression and hopeful blue eyes. At last, he sighed, fighting against the voice that whispered in the back of his head that defeat was inevitable when it came to arguing with Rod. He slid his glasses from his nose, scrubbed at his face. “I have already told Elizabeth that I am taking Jumper Six out.”
“Oh, I’ve already spoken to Elizabeth,” Rod said, waving a dismissive hand. “She said that if you didn’t mind, Sheppard and I could take the jumper out.”
Radek’s hand paused where it was pinching at the bridge of his nose, and he stared, irritation warring with confusion. “You and Sheppard? You just said you and Griffin--”
Rod shrugged. “Yes, well, Sheppard needs some fresh air too.”
“Of course he does,” Radek said sourly. He should have known, of course. Sheppard and Rod were as thick as thieves, practically joined at the hip. Why wouldn’t they leap at the chance to run off to the mainland with the excuse of test-flying the jumper? Resettling his glasses on his nose, he scowled. “Griffin and I will be test-flying Jumper Six today, Rod.”
For a barest flicker of a second, Rod’s amiable mask cracked, his eyes narrowing in a mixture of confusion and annoyance, his mouth pursing into a scowl, and then the moment was gone and his expression smoothed out into a good-natured look. “If you feel that’s best,” he said diplomatically. “Well, I’d best be heading off to the control room.”
The unsaid ‘In case you change your mind’ lingered in the air, along with the strong smell of leather as Rod smiled, gave Radek a pat on the shoulder, and strolled away with a casual, “Mnoho štěsti!”
Radek resisted the urge to glare after him. Someday, he would discover who had taught Rod Czech and hurt them. Slowly and painfully.
“So, let me ask you something,” Griffin said.
Radek glanced up from the panel, almost grateful for the distraction -- a quiet, frantic voice chanted a mantra along the lines of ‘I am in the air, oh God, I am way, way too high up in the air, where’s the ground, oh God’ in his head, a voice that had been whimpering ever since he first stepped into the jumper. Even his shoulders ached from barely withheld tension. “Yes?”
“As a scientist, does it bother you that most of your work, no matter how brilliant, will eventually be considered misguided? ‘Cause that would bother me.”
Radek blinked, felt himself frown, not certain whether to be amused or insulted by the query. “Excuse me?”
Griffin raised an eyebrow, an easy smile on his face. “Well, given enough time, everything is pretty much proven wrong, right?” When Radek just stared, uncomprehending, the pilot waved a hand. “Well, you know. Everything from the Earth being flat to the sun revolving around us.”
After a moment, he settled for being amused, one corner of his mouth lifting into a half-smile as he thought of what Sheppard’s expression would have been, had he been here for this conversation. “You do realize you’ve just told me my life’s work is pointless, yes?”
"Not pointless,” Griffin objected. “Just…misguided. A stepping stone to the right answer. Scientists get it wrong more times than they get it right.” He shrugged. “Take the tomato.”
"The tomato,” Radek repeated, incredulous, and made a mental note to suggest to Elizabeth that they have Heightmeyer check the relative sanity of the population, starting with Griffin.
That thought must have flickered across his face, because Griffin suddenly looked a little defiant. “Yeah, the tomato. After the conquest of Mexico in 1519, tomatoes were carried eastward to Europe, where they were believed to be poisonous.”
"I see,” Radek said, and the voice in the back of his head worried louder, muttering frantically about insane pilots who were going to get them killed. He licked his lips, anxiously eyeing the blue, blue sky beyond the windshield, and tried to ignore the unease that clenched his stomach. “Could you, ah, possibly concentrate more on flying?”
"I’ve got it covered,” Griffin said easily. “You worry about you.”
By all accounts, Griffin didn’t know Czech, and so Radek allowed himself to be particularly verbose in his mutterings about certain tomato-obsessed pilots who didn’t understand how dangerous flying was and who should have been history teachers instead. “This is the first flight the jumper has had since it was shot down and repaired. It deserves all of your attention, so please, I--” He couldn’t bring himself to look out the window at the endless stretch of ocean and sky anymore, and started towards the back of the ship.
He could almost hear Griffin’s shrug. “It made it to the mainland. If anything was going to go wrong, it would have gone wrong by now.” There was a pause, and then Griffin continued conversationally, “It took the Italians and the Spaniards to realize that tomatoes are, in fact, delicious.”
"How wonderful for them,” Radek deadpanned.
Griffin glanced over his shoulder and grinned a little, presumably at Radek’s sour expression. Continuing on as though Radek was actually interested in the topic, he said, “Columbus was Spanish--he figured out the Earth was round.”
"He was Italian.” The correction slipped out before Radek could bite the words back, a little sharper than he intended, but the muscles in his shoulders were wound too tight, so much so that the tension was spreading down his back and tightening up the muscles there.
Griffin didn’t seem phased at all; instead, his tone became pensive. “Huh. I wonder what it is that makes Spaniards so good at debunking bad science?”
"You will have to ask a Spaniard when we get back to Atlantis,” Radek said, hoping his tone conveyed how deeply he desired an end to this conversation. “I believe there is a new scientist, a, a biologist, if I remember correctly, who is from Madrid--”
The jumper lurched under his feet, and his stomach roiled, sweat breaking out on the back of his neck in a moment of sudden, startled terror. It took him a moment to catch his breath enough to demand, “What is it? Turbulence?” and stumble to the front of the jumper, collapsing into the co-pilot’s seat.
Griffin was frowning, brow knitted in concentration. “The inertial dampeners on this thing should smooth that out,” he muttered, almost to himself, and then a startled, “What the hell?” escaped his lips as the jumper shuddered once more, a convulsive jolt that rattled Radek’s heart from his chest and lodged it in his throat.
He peered at the screens, ignoring how his stomach was still churning and the fact that he felt like he was going to be violently ill. “Right drive pod's intermittently switching to reverse thrust,” he reported, and hoped that Griffin was too distracted to notice how his voice wobbled.
Griffin’s face was tight and drawn, and when he snapped out, “Cut it. I can drive with just the left pod,” his voice was so authoritative that Radek moved to obey his order before he even realized he was heaving himself out of his seat and stumbling over to one of the side panels.
He swore, soft and fervent, a second later, as the jumper trembled and bucked like a startled horse beneath his feet. “It is not recognizing any of my commands!”
"Brace for impact,” was the grim reply, and Radek made a sound that was supposed to be a “What?” but came out as a strangled noise instead. “We’re going down.”
"What? No, no, no,” Radek heard himself babbling, hands still leaping over the panel, looking for something, anything to get this jumper to stop.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday!” Griffin shouted, the urgent calls echoed by the terrified voice in Radek’s head that wailed ‘Falling, falling, falling’--
And then the jumper gave another violent shudder, one that sent Radek flying, and the last thing he heard was another of Griffin’s cries of, “Mayday!” before the floor of the jumper rushed up to meet him and everything went black.
"Zelenka and Griffin, come in. Zelenka, Griffin, please respond. Jumper Six, come in,” someone muttered in his ear, low and urgent.
The voice dragged Radek slowly but surely out of the darkness of unconsciousness, returning his senses to him one by one. It was only then that he realized he was on the floor, its coolness permeating his jacket and chilling his back. Opening his eyes, he squinted at the ceiling, vaguely recalling Griffin’s order to brace for impact but not much after that.
His glasses were on the floor alongside him, luckily within arms length, though when he slid them back onto his nose he realized that they’d been bent during impact and now hung crookedly on his face.
"Zelenka and Griffin, come in,” the voice repeated, and this time Radek recognized Rod’s voice. “Zelenka, Griffin--”
"W-we’re here,” Radek said. His temple throbbed, a dull, steady ache, and when he touched the spot, his fingers came away bloody.
"Radek! Thank God!” Rod breathed out, and Radek tried to think of when he’d ever heard the other man sound so relieved. “I thought you were-- We all thought you-- I've been trying to get a hold of you for over an hour.”
An hour? Radek struggled to stand, biting back a sharp sound of pain when his head spun. The throbbing increased tenfold even as he swayed on his feet and made his way to Griffin, who was sprawled over the console. His hand fluttered uncertainly in the air for a moment, then he touched the back of the other man’s neck, the skin moist and cool beneath his fingertips. “Are, are you all right?”
Griffin was motionless under his touch for a long, terrifying second, and then he twitched and groaned, muttering a feeble, “Not so good.”
"Are you both okay?”
"No,” Radek said bitterly, struggling to help Griffin lean back in his chair, the man’s frame mostly dead-weight as the pilot groaned quietly under his breath. “No, we are definitely not okay, not with possible concussions. What happened?”
"The jumper you were flying dropped off our screens. It crashed into the ocean,” Rod informed him, and there was an odd gentleness to his voice that had Radek instinctively bristling and rolling his eyes.
"Yes, of course, I understood that much, Rod, we--” He looked up, caught sight of the world beyond the windshield, and froze for a moment, the same terror from earlier tightening its grip on his throat. “We -- we are underwater.” His voice shook, despite his best intentions.
"Yes, you are,” Rod said in the same gentle tone, and had he been here in the jumper, Radek would have glared at him for being condescending, for speaking to him like he was a terrified child-- well, he certainly would have glared while desperately trying not to vomit from sheer terror.
"How -- how will you find us? How can you find us?”
"We've determined the direction of your radio signal, but not the range.”
Radek stared at the ocean just outside the windshield, swallowing hard even while he reached down to grab his computer tablet from where it had fallen to the floor. “How deep are we?” he asked, not certain if he really wanted to know, and then flinched as the H.U.D. suddenly flickered to life.
"One two zero zero and falling,” Griffin reported.
He resisted the urge to swear softly and fervently under his breath because there was no time, not now, for profanity. Later, later he would curse all he wished. “Rod, you will have to hurry it up. We are already twelve hundred feet deep and sinking at a rate of about, ah--” He paused, struggled to work through the math despite the pounding of his head. “--about twenty feet a minute.”
"Impressive,” came the muttered response.
"Excuse me?” Radek snarled, because it was not impressive, it was fucking terrifying. “I know you must be pleased that your theory that the jumpers could be utilized as submersibles seems to be correct, but now is not the time--”
"I know, I know. Still, twelve hundred feet. That’s almost the maximum depth of a nuclear powered submarine. It’s--”
"Right now, I couldn’t care less, Rod,” Radek said through gritted teeth. “My head hurts, and we are sinking, so if you would stop gloating and just--”
The H.U.D. flickered ominously, and then a loud splintering sound made Radek’s heart jackknife, flutter wildly in his chest, and he could only stare in horror as the H.U.D. died and a crack appeared at the top of the windshield, a crack which rapidly spread downwards.
"That’s a problem,” Griffin muttered beside him, and Radek reached down to help him out of the chair on pure instinct, listing sideways under the pilot’s weight when Griffin lurched to his feet, one arm slung around Radek’s shoulder for support.
"Can you move?” he asked, still listing a little to the side, unable to tear his gaze away from the ever-widening crack on the windshield, much like a man might stare at an oncoming train he had no hope of avoiding.
"Yeah,” Griffin assured him.
"Rod,” Radek said, and he no longer cared that his voice was almost shrill with fear, that he could in fact taste the fear, thick and sour, in the back of his throat as he said, “Rod, the windshield is giving way under the pressure of the ocean.”
He and Griffin had just staggered into the rear compartment when Rod’s voice came, urgent but calm, over the communications link. “Move into the rear compartment -- the seal should be able to hold.”
"One step ahead of you, McKay,” Radek said, feeling a desperate, petty satisfaction at that, that for once he had had an idea before Rod. He jabbed at the button that would close the bulkhead doors and keep them safe, and then stared in a mixture of incredulity and horror as the mechanism made a complaining, grinding noise and the doors refused to close. “No, no!”
He pushed the button again, and again, muttering, “Ne, ne, ne, ne,” in something akin to a whimper under his breath before he bolted to another panel, further back in the rear compartment.
"The crash probably damaged all sorts of systems,” Griffin said, but Radek couldn’t spare a glance for him, too busy clutching at the panel like a drowning man -- oh God, oh God, they were going to drown -- and frantically pressing buttons, searching for one that would close the bulkhead doors.
“Jezisi, prosím, prosím,” he muttered, the panicked Czech spilling from his lips as he finally glanced over at Griffin and watched the other man press the button to shut the bulkhead doors as though maybe the sixth or seventh time was the charm. “It is no use, it is too late,” he said, and his voice cracked on the final word, because this was not how it was supposed to end, not from an accident during a simple test flight, not in a sinking jumper--
“I’ve got an idea,” Griffin said, and half-stumbled, half-ran back into the front section as Radek stared after him.
“What are you doing?”
Griffin turned a little at that, flashed him a grim half-smile. “Good luck, Radek.”
“Good l--” The words died on his lips as Griffin slid onto the pilot’s seat and the bulkhead doors began to close. Moving towards the front compartment on autopilot, eyes on the other man’s back rather than the ever-widening crack on the windshield, he snapped, “Griffin! What are you -- Griffin!”
The bulkhead doors closed just before Radek could get to them and he pounded on them with his free hand, ignoring the way the impact sent dull, throbbing pain shooting up his arm. “Griffin! Griff--” He heard the glass shatter, the sound like an explosion, and then water, all that water rushing into the front compartment, where Griffin--
Radek closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the cool metal of the bulkhead doors, listened as the sound of rushing water quieted and a deadly silence fell.
“Why did you do that?” he whispered as the quiet stretched on, voice cracking halfway through. “Why did you do that?” His throat felt raw, as though he’d been screaming for hours rather than a handful of minutes, and even his bones ached. At last, Radek took a step away from the bulkhead doors and rubbed wearily at his face, feeling the wet, terrible mixture of blood and tears against his skin and staring at his blood-smeared fingers for a long moment.
Then he closed his eyes and simply breathed. His stomach was twisted in knots, his heart pounding loudly in his ears, and he could feel ice-cold sweat on the back of his neck and the palm of his hands, hands which still shook violently. It took a long moment before Radek's breathing didn't catch in his throat, before the violent shaking of his hands eased to more manageable levels. Taking another deep breath, he squared his shoulders and activated his headset.
“McKay.” There was silence, and he waited for a one-two-three-four beat before he cleared his throat and tried again. “Rod? It’s Radek, come in please. Rod?” The silence deepened, darkened, wrapped tendrils of despair around his heart and squeezed anaconda-tight as Rod still didn’t respond.
"Rod?” he repeated, desperation coloring his voice now, and when there was still no reply, felt panic well even as common sense reared its ugly head. The radio transmitter was in the forward section, a section which was currently flooded with water. How was he supposed to contact the surface?
The computer tablet he’d been using earlier was still tucked under one arm and he began to rummage around the compartment, using the feeble light of the tablet and squinting into the murky darkness. He couldn’t quite help the relieved sigh that escaped his lips when his hand closed around the familiar shape of a flashlight and immediately turned it on, blinking as the brighter light temporarily blinded him. One quick glance around the compartment revealed that there were more flashlights, and he arranged them around the compartment, thanking God and Marshall Sumner that the military commander had insisted on emergency kits even on test flights.
Putting plaster on his wound was painful and took a minute or two, a few mumbled curses escaping his lips as he put pressure on the cut, but it wouldn’t do for him to bleed -- albeit sluggishly -- to death while awaiting rescue.
The jumper gave a soft, almost unhappy groan, creaking dangerously, and Radek shivered, the same terror returning that had roiled his stomach and made sweat break out on the back of his neck. He couldn’t help but run the numbers through his mind. He was dropping twenty feet a minute, and pressure increased by one atmosphere every thirty-three feet, so that was an additional atmosphere every minute and a half. Which meant Radek was currently under thirty-seven atmospheres’ worth of pressure, and counting.
"I have to slow down,” he muttered, forcing his nerveless legs to move over to the other side of the compartment, where he activated an open panel of crystals. He probably shouldn't be talking aloud to himself, not when he was all alone in the jumper-- in the back of the jumper-- but it was almost comforting to hear a voice, even if it was only his own. “Just -- I need to stop sinking.” He touched one of the crystals, which was cool and smooth under his still-trembling fingers, and then paused. First, though, he should figure out a way to get the radio transmitter up and running. That way his rescuers could figure out where he was, after all, if he could not figure out a way to stop his descent.
At last, he spied the proper cable and attached the clip-end to a crystal on another panel. He attached the other end to his computer tablet, smiling in relief as the tablet flashed JUMPER INTERFACE ACTIVATED at him. Giving his still-wobbly legs a rest, he sat and peered at the screen. “So, tell me, how is our radio transmitter?” he murmured.
TRANSMITTER INACTIVE, the tablet reported after a few taps to the screen.
"Yes, yes, I know that, so let us activate the emergency transmitter protocol, shall we?” Radek pressed the screen again and smiled at the EMERGENCY TRANSMITTER ACTIVE that appeared on the screen. So now the jumper was broadcasting a signal; all it needed to do was penetrate fourteen hundred feet of ocean--
--Which meant that a grand total of three percent of the signal would reach the surface.
He tried to ignore the dismay that clenched his stomach at the dismal realization. All right, so he needed to boost the signal a bit. That shouldn't be too difficult. Frowning at the screen, though, a thought occurred to him. How much power did he actually have?
REMAINING POWER AT LEVEL OF USE: 3:05.
"Three hours,” Radek repeated flatly. “Three hours, and you expect me to-- What is eating my power?" He scowled at the tablet, skimmed the facts on the screen, and felt his scowl darken into a thunderous look. Why were the inertial dampeners activated?
Plugging in the command to shut down the inertial dampeners, he stared at the response of ACTION NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME. “Ne, ne, I don’t need them! They are draining what little power I have left! Turn off!” He typed in the same command again and growled as the tablet beeped angrily, barely biting back a snarl of frustration as he typed the command one more time, daring the tablet to argue with him yet again.
ACTION NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME, the tablet repeated once more, still beeping irritably.
It took every iota of control he could muster to keep from throwing the tablet across the room in frustration. His would-be rescuers would never be able to find him in three hours. By the time they found the jumper, he would be as dead as Griffin. The earlier despair was returning, wrapping tendrils around his heart and throat, and he couldn't help but mutter bleakly, “Jezisi, I am going to die.”
It seemed like hours before the sound of rushing water ebbed into silence, though Rod knew it had to have only been a few seconds. He waited for a moment for Radek's voice to come over the communication link, the other scientist cursing in Czech and snapping at Rod to get a rescue team down here--
But instead the silence stretched on, until Rod cleared his throat and said, "Radek?" There was no response. He kept his voice steady, expression calm, even as Sergeant Campbell's anxious gaze bore into him. "Zelenka, Griffin, come in please."
"Doctor McKay," Campbell began, but stopped at Rod's raised hand.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do, Sergeant," Rod said, ignoring the various scenarios running in the back of his head, the silent voice that was rattling off the statistics regarding Radek and Griffin's chances. "You're going to stay here in case Zelenka and Griffin get through to Atlantis, and let me know if they do. I'm going to get the rescue team ready." He caught Campbell's nod from the corner of his eye.
Then Rod was moving, tapping at the communication link. "Sheppard? We established momentary contact with Zelenka and Griffin, but I'm going to need you to figure out how to get them both into our rescue jumper once we've found them. I'll be with Bryce, figuring out where the jumper is."
"I'll get on it," came the quick response, and Rod could picture Sheppard already on the move towards the jumper bay, mouth twisted downwards into a look of concentration. "Hey, sorry, have to end the game earl--" The connection cut off, Sheppard finally remembering to break the link.
Rod tapped his radio again. "Bryce? I need you in Lab Two, immediately." He barely heard her acknowledgment; instead he focused on making his way towards Lab Two as quickly as possible. There was no time to waste, after all, not with the jumper sinking at twenty feet a minute.
It wasn't until his hands started to feel stiff and unwieldy that Radek finally noticed the cold. Setting the tablet down in his lap, he rubbed his hands together briskly, trying to warm them, and frowned as a shiver racked his frame. Why was it so cold? Well, he was under, oh, a billion or so gallons of freezing water. That could just possibly be the problem. Radek resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his own folly, and then clenched and unclenched his fists to force away the stiffness before he set the tablet aside.
He eyed the side of the jumper. “I need to heat this thing, unless you wish me dead,” he informed it, and then set to work at removing the back of one of the bench seats. The needed panel revealed, Radek just looked at it for a moment, praying this wouldn't use up too much of his power even as another shiver rattled his frame.
Disconnecting one end of a cable from a panel above his head, he knelt down and attached it to the panel behind the bench. A few quick commands on the tablet later, he could see the temperature rising on the heat indicator. He all but sighed in relief. Radek was not greedy; he merely wished not to freeze to death while Rod planned some daring rescue and made him look like an--
REMAINING POWER AT LEVEL OF USE: 2:20, the tablet announced, interrupting his thoughts.
"Forty minutes?” he said weakly, and then glowered at the wall. “Forty minutes, you-- you--” He hauled himself upright. “So, I see what this is. You think that the captain should go down with his ship. Well, I am no captain, I am, I am just the navigator if I am anything, and the navigator gets to escape the sinking ship, understand?” He glared down at the tablet and resisted the urge to smack it against the wall.
Still, breaking the tablet would only make matters worse, and so after a moment, Radek scowled at the tablet and contented himself with tapping forcefully on the screen. He couldn't help but smile a little in bitter triumph as the screen shifted and read, REMAINING POWER AT LEVEL OF USE: 2:35. The bitter angle of the smile increased as the number went up to 2:36 and then 2:37. It paused for a moment, as though listening to some drum roll only it could hear, and then settled on 2:39.
He let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding, and gazed up at the jumper. Twenty minutes of power for just enough heat to stave off hypothermia? Radek had the feeling that someone-- an Ascended being, mostly likely-- was watching this entire scene, quietly laughing to him- or herself at Radek's predicament. He started to take in a deep breath and found himself taking in a shallow one instead. Only then was he aware that his lungs were straining to get enough oxygen, that something other than oxygen was bubbling up from his chest and tickling at the inside of his throat. It finally escaped his mouth as a loud laugh -- all right, a loud giggle, one that made him automatically frown, because Radek Zelenka did not giggle, not even from panic.
Still, he found himself giggling again, his mouth twitching upwards into an inane smile. Euphoria, elation, there was something that he vaguely recalled Simon talking about once, some medical condition, but the name escaped him. Still, at least he remembered the source of the condition and hunkered down next to the panel behind the bench, setting the tablet down and peering at the crystals and frowning. Where were the CO2 scrubbers? He had to dial them up before he-- before the CO2--
Another giggle escaped his lips with enough force to scrape his throat on its way out even as he began working on the panel. Radek giggled again, then struggled to get a hold of himself. He had to concentrate. He choked back another giggle, but the soft, hysterical sounds wrenched themselves from his throat even as he got back to work on the panel, his shoulders quivering with out-of-control laughter even as he searched for a way to dial up the scrubbers.
After a long moment, he sighed in relief and reached for the tablet. “CO2 scrubbers operating at -- at one hundred percent.” He couldn’t quite help the cynical snort that escaped his lips. Well, cynicism was better than hysteria, he supposed. “At least something is.” He took a deep breath and began to type.
A new, loud sound filled his ears; it sunk into his very bones and made them ache with its intensity. The noise was a mixture of a groan and a wail, echoing through the jumper. It took Radek a moment to realize that the deep sound was coming from outside, and he ventured a tentative, “Hello?”
The wailing groan seemed to almost swell, though perhaps that was merely Radek’s imagination. He scrambled to his feet, listening intently and trying to ignore the ache in the hollow of his bones. There was definitely something out there, swimming near the jumper. This time, Radek kept quiet, listening for the sound again as his heart pounded and his head swam. What, was he going to be eaten by some monster the Ancients had created out of boredom?
The creature outside groaned again, louder, and this time the sound reminded Radek of whale songs -- Miko was always listening to nature music, and he remembered the eerie songs drifting from her headphones. But why was the whale-creature-- “Oh, of course. The transmitter!" This time he smiled when the whale-creature moaned, remembering Miko perched on the edge of her chair listening to the whales' haunting music. The smile slid from his mouth when the jumper began to shake, convulsing as though something had just sideswiped it. He grabbed onto the side panels to keep his balance, cursing under his breath.
“Look, I am sorry!” Radek shouted, doubting the whale-creature could even hear him, much less understand his words. “I am sorry if the noise, ah, bothers you, but, but I must leave the transmitter on, if I wish to survive!" The whale-creature groaned again, and Radek snapped, “Look, just swim away!” The whale-creature went silent even as a sudden idea struck Radek, and he couldn’t help but laugh a little, this time from relief rather than hysteria.
“Swim,” he murmured to himself, almost like a prayer. “Perhaps the jumper can swim.” He scurried over to the front of the compartment and put his hands against the bulkhead doors, resisting the urge to rest his head against it for just a moment. Time was of the essence, after all. “So, so, cockpit is inaccessible, but most of the control conduits run back here, so if you were really meant to be submersible--” Radek looked up at the ceiling, picked up the tablet, then pulled the cable out of the panel behind the bench. “If you were really meant to be submersible, then your drive pods should function underwater too."
Attaching the ends of the cable to crystals in a panel above his head, he felt like smiling for the first time since before entering the jumper. He could fly the jumper from this compartment, or at least get the jumper to the surface. Pulling up a few images up on the tablet’s screen, he grinned. “Now we are truly getting somewhere.”
"All right." Rod studied the faces of the scientists who were gathered in Lab Two. Bryce had asked for Donaldson, who had in turn brought along Kazimierz and Wysocki. All four scientists wore varying looks of worry and concentration, their expressions illuminated in the glow of the screen they'd been studying. "Since we know the direction which the initial radio signal came from--"
"Rod?" When he turned towards the door, he found himself gazing into Elizabeth's cool green eyes. She had on one of her tight-lipped smiles, the one that promised someone was about to get in trouble. When she spoke though, her voice was deceptively mild. "Would you care to explain why I didn't know about the rescue you're apparently planning until Chuck told me?"
Rod mentally grimaced. Technically, yes, he should have let Elizabeth know about the brief contact with Radek and Griffin, not to mention the fact that the windshield had shattered and the two men were now trapped in the rear compartment. Especially since she was the head of the expedition. Still, Elizabeth would have had questions that Rod didn't have time to answer, that Rod still didn't have time to answer. Ignoring the quiet voice in his head that muttered of wasting time, he instead forced a reassuring smile onto his face. "I'm sorry. I was getting the rescue organized and just, well, forgot."
"Forgot," she repeated, flatly, and anyone other than Rod might have cringed at the dangerous expression on her face. As it was, he tinged his smile of reassurance with sheepishness. Her dark expression was replaced by a half-exasperated, half-concerned look. "We'll talk about this later," she informed him, and then visibly squared her shoulders and prepared for news, good or bad. "Catch me up on the situation."
The quiet voice in his head that muttered of wasting time got louder and Rod was hard-pressed to conceal a grimace. "We established brief contact with Radek and Griffin. Based on what they told us before losing contact, we're trying to figure out where they are so we can send a rescue team." Hoping she wouldn't ask for further details such as why Radek and Griffin lost contact once more, Rod nodded towards Bryce and Donaldson. "First we figure out where they are, then we send a jumper down for them."
Bryce cleared her throat and, when Elizabeth looked at her, said in her crisp, matter-of-fact way, "I've been studying the Ancient database in regards to the ocean. Based on our study of ocean currents and the direction of the radio signal, we know they are in this area." Pausing to change the image on the screen, she continued, "It's between two and six thousand feet deep."
"Wait, six thousand?" Donaldson said, blanching. "We could never get that far, not even in a jumper!"
"Yes, I know," Rod said. He kept his voice even and calm, his expression confident, the picture of a man who knew they were going to figure out where Radek and Griffin were and rescue them. "That's why we're going to find them before they reach the ocean floor."
"They were already at twelve hundred feet and falling, what, twenty feet a minute?" Bryce asked, and Rod could feel Elizabeth's shocked and furious gaze on him. Oh yes, he was definitely in for an unpleasant conversation after this was all over.
"Uh, yes," he said, forcing his expression and tone not to change. He didn't dare look at Elizabeth. "That's correct."
After a moment, Bryce shrugged. "Well, it's a place to start."
The words and numbers on the screen blurred together yet again, and Radek set down the tablet, cursing under his breath at the tiny keypad and attempting to convince his fingers to stop cramping. He didn’t want to take a break, didn’t have time to take one, but he needed to rest his eyes for a moment, just long enough for his vision to clear. He turned towards the panel on the other side of the compartment and squinted up at the crystals, sighing in frustration. “I need a new set of eyes.”
“Let me take a look,” a warm, familiar voice suggested behind him.
Radek froze. Swallowing hard, he didn’t dare glance over his shoulder, because he couldn't possibly have heard-- “Did I just, ah--”
“Yes, you did,” the voice said, in the same gentle tone that always made Radek bristle on pure instinct.
Slowly, he turned around. There was Rod, all smiling blue eyes and trademark leather jacket and slightly lopsided grin. He was casually leaning against the bulkhead doors, and as Radek stared, the other man looked back, the lopsided grin gaining strength.
“Rod.”
Rod’s expression was almost soft at the quietly exhaled name, his eyes bright and earnest. “Don’t worry, Radek. We’re going to get you out of here.”
Radek stared in a mixture of disbelief and astonishment, and finally gathered enough strength to move closer to Rod, even though his legs felt as wobbly as jelly. His heart was fluttering wildly in his chest, and it took him a moment to breathe out a hoarse, “How did you--? How -- how are you--?”
Rod’s mouth quirked into a gently amused grin. “It’s good to see you too, Radek.”
For a moment, Radek just continued to stare, drinking in that amused expression and relaxed slouch, and then he shook his head, once, sharply, and turned away as common sense pointed out that this couldn’t possibly be happening. “Wonderful. I have lost it. I have completely lost it. By the time anyone comes for me, I will be mad--”
“You haven’t lost it, Radek,” Rod said, sounding almost amused.
Radek ignored him, putting the tablet down and pointing at Rod without looking at him. He closed his eyes, fought back the rising hysteria, and muttered, “You are not real. You are not real. You are not real.” He put his hands over his eyes, took in a shallow breath.
Rod made a soft noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Of course I’m not real.”
Radek looked at him at that, blinking at the man’s entertained smile. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m in Atlantis, trying to figure out how to rescue you,” Rod said patiently. “Of course I’m not actually here.” Pushing away from the bulkhead doors, he sauntered over to the bench across from Radek and sat down.
“I see,” Radek said slowly. Weren’t figments of your imagination supposed to try and convince you that they were real? He narrowed his eyes. “Then what are you doing here?”
Rod offered up one of those damnably casual, almost elegant one-shouldered shrugs of his. “You’re hallucinating.”
Radek crossed his arms against his chest, his lips curving in a bitter little smile. “Hallucinating? Why would I--”
The other man’s smile finally dimmed at that, and he grimaced a little before he silently pointed at his own forehead.
“Ah, yes, that would do it,” Radek mumbled, carefully touching the plaster over his wound and making a face as flecks of dried blood clung to his fingers. He brushed the flecks onto his pants. “Is it that bad?”
Another one-shouldered shrug, and then Rod said, “The way I see it, you’re scared. You’re a little panicked, you’re a lot lonely. You knew you could use some help, so your subconscious is manifesting--” He paused, mouth quirking into a smile of totally fake modesty. “--well, me.”
Radek snorted at that, felt his lips curl into a contemptuous sneer. “Oh, I don’t think so, McKay! If my subconscious was going to manifest someone, it would certainly not be you.” He rose to his feet, still sneering.
Rod’s eyebrows rose at that, and he looked torn between amusement and exasperation. “Well, apparently it is me, Radek. Come on, you know I can help--”
“Of course I know you can help!” Radek snapped, throwing up his hands and rolling his eyes. “You are Mister Fix-it, after all. You are always, always right, forever saving the day, always so perfect--”
“Radek,” Rod interrupted, getting to his feet as well. “I know you harbor some sort of, of grudge against me, but really, I’m here to help you, so if we could just get along--”
“You’ve been visiting Heightmeyer too often,” Radek remarked with a touch of bitterness. “Next, you will be telling that I need to set my ‘petty insecurities’ aside.”
Rod sighed, in the way he always did when he thought Radek was being unreasonable. “Look, why else would I be here?”
Radek glowered. Perhaps because he had actually died and gone to Hell without realizing it? “I don’t know!”
Another sigh, and then he said in the same gentle, condescending voice as before, “You’re essentially arguing with yourself. You realize that, right? Your mind is creating me.”
Was it a bad sign that Radek dearly wished to hit the hallucination? Then again, the thought was slightly reassuring, in that it was a familiar sentiment. "If that is true, then I would like a new subconscious," he said dryly. "This one is obviously defective, because never in a million years would I want to hallucinate you. Laura, perhaps, but you? Never."
Rather than looking offended at the insult, Rod half-smiled. "You don't mean that."
Radek snorted but didn't bother arguing. Instead he picked up the tablet and took a few steps over to Rod, gesturing for the other man to sit with him on the bench. Hallucination or not, perhaps Rod would be some help in getting the jumper to the surface. Radek would just have to ignore the implications towards his mental health. He explained his plan quickly, tripping over his words both in his haste and because a headache was blossoming between his eyes, one that had him pausing to rub at the spot every few seconds.
Rod’s expression was unreadable as Radek finished with, “Now -- given I have a limited amount of time to execute my plan before power levels drop too low, but provided that ah, the, the coding is, ah, correct, we surface and at that point they should be able to pick up our regular radio signal and then come pick us -- me up.” He frowned and rubbed at his forehead once more, being careful not to touch the plaster.
There was silence for a long moment, during which Radek took the opportunity to take off his glasses and pinch at the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve some of the pressure. Then Rod cleared his throat. “How much power would that kill?”
Radek blinked at him. “Ah, I have no idea. Most of it?”
Rod’s neutral expression shifted at that and he frowned, shaking his head. It was the same slow, negative shake he used whenever he had bad news about the latest Ancient tech they were fiddling with, how it was actually useless or unsalvageable, the same slight frown he used when he was trying to figure out how to broach the topic. “It’s a bad idea, then,” he said at last.
Radek slid the glasses back on and scowled. Rod was usually not a naysayer. Of course, this was hallucination-Rod. It would be just his luck that he would have to deal with a pessimistic version of the other scientist. “Excuse me? Why is it a bad idea?”
“Well, what if it doesn’t work?”
“Well,” Radek began to snap, and then paused. He hadn’t actually considered the implications of using up most of the power. “Well, then -- then I’m dead.”
Rod nodded. “Exactly. Bad plan.” He got to his feet, rolled his shoulders as though they were stiff from huddling over the tablet, which couldn’t be possible, seeing as he was a hallucination who couldn’t feel a damn thing, and Radek felt irritation surge.
“Oh, you’re right,” he snapped, getting to his feet as well and flavoring each syllable with sarcasm. “I should proceed with one of the other hundreds of possible options available to me.”
Rod sighed and shook his head. “Look, I’m not saying that I have a better idea--”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Nothing?”
“Yes.”
Radek tried to laugh at that, but it came out as more of a harsh, barking sound instead. “Oh, brilliant! How helpful, McKay.”
Rod folded his arms against his chest, expression earnest, almost imploring. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Look, just stay warm, stay breathing, and stay alive as long as you can -- give them the biggest window of opportunity possible.”
“Window of opportunity for what?”
“For rescuing you,” Rod said simply. The unsaid ‘Obviously’ hovered in the air.
Radek folded his arms against his chest, shaking his head and fighting back another bark of laughter. “Even if they could find me -- which, given underwater currents and multiple possible entry sites is next to impossible -- how are they going to get me out of here?”
“They’ll find a way.”
“First, I highly doubt that anyone will be able to even find me before the power levels are depleted and I run out of oxygen. Second, even if they do, how will they get me from one jumper to the other? This seems my day to die, McKay. Not even you could save me.” He paused, swallowed hard. He'd meant to say that last bit only to irritate Rod, not because he actually believed it, but the words held a ring of truth to them that made something in his chest clench with fear.
“Radek,” Rod said in the same gentle, condescending tone he’d used when he'd tried to bribe Radek to let him and Sheppard do the test flight. “Look, I hear what you’re saying and I'm telling you -- you’re wrong. You have some very smart, very motivated people on the surface, and the only thing any of them are working on right now is rescuing you.”
Radek snorted at that. “Oh, please, McKay! They are planning my memorial service.” He glanced down at the tablet, realized he was clutching at it so tightly that his knuckles were white, and barked out another laugh. “I’m certain you’ll think up a lovely eulogy. You did so well for Peter and Brendan--” He stopped at the dark flicker in Rod’s eyes, realizing he’d gone too far even if this was simply a hallucination standing before him.
For a moment, Rod’s jaw tensed, as though working against words that wanted to escape, and then he shook his head, expression smoothing into the familiar mask, and said in a low, sincere voice, “If your plan fails -- and it probably will -- you could jeopardize their plans, Radek. Just -- think about that. Be sensible.”
Radek loosened his death-grip on the tablet, relieving his aching knuckles, and scowled. Sensible? Because having a different opinion than Rod McKay meant you were being foolish, of course. Did the man honestly not realize how arrogant he sounded?
“Will you help me, or not?” he asked, soft, deliberate, and Rod sighed.
“I’ll help you stay alive as long as possible, but no -- I’m not helping you with this plan.”
Another laugh welled up at that, but this time Radek harshly repressed the urge. He settled for shaking his head and tossing out a bitter, “So my own hallucination is saying no to me?”
Rod stared at him, blue eyes solemn. “You must realize subconsciously that you need to be talked out of this.”
“Jezisi, I cannot even hallucinate right today,” Radek muttered under his breath, and then got to work, ignoring the concerned, frustrated look the hallucination was directing at him.
"Rod? I'm heading over to you from the jumper bay. How are we doing?" Rod paused at Elizabeth's inquiry, Donaldson and Wysocki blinking at him as he let his half-finished sentence hang in the air. Their expressions shifted to ones of understanding as he tapped his headset and answered, "We're making progress, Elizabeth."
'Slowly,' a dark voice muttered in the back of his head.
"Have you figured out the jumper's location?"
"Uh, we've definitely figured out the area where the jumper is," Rod said, and ignored Bryce's raised eyebrow when he didn't elaborate that the area was in fact even larger than what he'd previously shown Elizabeth. "However, there is still the matter of getting Radek and Griffin from their damaged jumper to our rescue jump--"
"John and Laura are figuring out a grapple system that will be able to raise the jumper," Elizabeth said.
The four scientists peered at Rod, their gazes sharpening with interest, and he quickly schooled his expression into a calm one and wondered what they'd seen in his face. "Really. A grapple system."
"It'll be ready in a couple of hours. I'll need you to be," Elizabeth informed him, a touch of frost creeping into her voice, and Rod was briefly distracted by pondering the future tongue-lashing he was going to receive after all this.
It wasn't until after he'd clapped his hands and reminded everyone to get back to work that he realized Elizabeth had said 'John and Laura.' He resisted the urge to frown. Why was Cadman involved? Okay, well, he knew why she was involved-- Radek was in danger and she wasn't the type to sit idly by and fret. Still, he didn't see how Laura could help Sheppard. It wasn't like they needed to blow anything up.
He set those thoughts aside for the moment, in the box in his head where negative things, like uncharitable thoughts and contemplations of Elizabeth's future rebuke, were kept. If Laura could actually help rescue Radek and Griffin, Rod wouldn't, couldn't object. And besides, he had a downed jumper to locate, and only a few hours in which to do it.
-Onto Part Two-
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