“We were gonna put headcams on them,” MacReady told her, looking at the vent with just a raised hand between his retinas and the unbelievable light of the plasma torch. “Then we remembered the output would have to come through the comms net just like voice.”
“So that could end up hacked too…” Carter wasn’t sure whether she was displeased about that or not. Given her experience with the surveillance footage, she wondered if she could have actually trusted anything the head-mounted cameras might have shown. Not only that, but the thought of watching the marines as they inched their way through the flat maze of pipes and cables made her ribs feel tight.
On the other hand, now that the three were away inside the crawlspace, no-one had any idea of exactly where they were or what they were doing. If they did get into danger, how would anyone know?
“Maybe we should have tied something to them,” she muttered. “Had a mic cable running back to the vent…”
“Would have gotten snagged.”
“I guess.” Carter took a deep breath, partly to remind herself that she could. “Okay, I’m going to head back up to the control room. If we hear anything from Apollo or Sheppard’s team I’d like to be —”
Several hard, flat bangs issued from the vent.
“That’s a goddamn Colt,” yelled MacReady, running towards the blast doors. Carter followed him, protecting her eyes with her hand until the light of the cutting torch went out. More shots sounded as she got close, sounding short and metallic through the confined space. Some of the shots were so close together that they must have come from more than one weapon.
And then Carter heard voices.
Shouts at first, their actual words lost to distance and the crawlspace’s multiple obstructions. Sounds of impact, more shots. Carter found herself staring at MacReady, him at her, as they both strained to hear what was going on above the lockdown zone.
Something large moved past her, inside the vent.
She started as she heard it: the sound of its passing was unmistakable. It was a brushing, a slithering, a succession of metallic rings and tears as whatever moved did so without allowance for the obstructions in is path.
A scream echoed out of the vent, faint and shrill.
In an instant, Carter was listening to an unholy cacophony from inside the crawlspace. There were no more shots — the marines must have emptied their weapons in that first fusillade, and there was no room to reload — but there were more screams, shouts, hammering impacts. A high, unearthly bellowing.
“My God,” whispered MacReady. “What is that?”
Abruptly, the sounds ceased. Carter strained to listen, but only heard the sighing sea and the beat of her own rapid pulse in her ears.
“They’re gone,” she breathed.
Beneath her feet, the floor moved.
She jumped back. Something had slid under her, like the back of some great beast; she had felt its vibration, its heat. She heard a long, mournful groan of overstressed metal, saw MacReady’s eyes widen as he realized what was happening, and then the gallery erupted into shouts and movement.
“Get out of here!” she yelled. “Everyone, drop what you’re doing and go!”
There were five marines on the gallery with her, as well as MacReady and the two technicians. Most were on Carter’s side of the gallery; she stepped aside to let them go past ahead of her, hurrying them with hard slaps as they went past. Once they were gone, she and MacReady bolted after them.
She could feel the floor moving as she ran, could hear shuddering impacts against the walls. There wasn’t just one source of it, but many. It felt like the very stuff of Atlantis was springing to violent life around her.
The two technicians had moved to the other side of the gallery, along with one marine. The three of them were actually ahead of Carter on their way out: she saw them flinging their welding masks aside as they ran, the marine shouting at them, telling them to move faster…
The floor ahead of them burst like trodden fruit, splitting upwards in shards. From within came something whipping, a blur of movement, a great nest of mindless, thrashing serpents, looping and coiling and lashing too fast for her to see. Norris skidded right into the heart of it, and was gone in an instant. Behind him, Bennings and the other marine went scrambling back the way they had come.
Carter hadn’t realized she had stopped to watch until MacReady dragged her out of the way. She felt herself being shoved bodily into the corridor, the Major taking up position in front of her, dropping to one knee and firing his P90 back into the gallery. She saw the flailing things struck, sparks and fragments whipping away over the rail.
She snapped her own sidearm up, flicked off the safety and emptied the gun into the mass.
Bennings and the last marine were running up the other side of the gallery. Carter could feel the drumming of their feet as they ran.
And then she remembered that the deck was far too solid for her too feel that. Something else was making the floor shake.
From the corners of her vision, metal appeared.
“Blast doors! Everybody get back!”
The end of the corridor was shrinking, cut into an octagon by the sliding doors. Bennings was almost there, she could see his terrified face as he saw the octagon contract into a diamond ahead of him. If he dived for it, Carter thought wildly, he might make it. He might almost make it.
He wasn’t going to make it.
A gout of matter splashed from the wall beside him, ripping the metal as it vomited out into the air. Carter saw it shine wetly in the morning sunlight for a split second; it was a limb of raw flesh and pulsing metal, of silver and gristle, and it had Bennings off his feet before he could scream. It lashed at him, coiled around him, wrenched him off the deck and into mid-air.
He reached out to her, in those final seconds before the blast doors met, hands clawed, face imploring. Had there been breath in his lungs he would have shrieked, Carter had no doubt of that, but the limb was around him too tight. All he could do was flail and squirm, twist in its awful grip as it dragged him away.
And then he was gone, sealed away behind the smooth, silver wall of the blast doors. All Carter could see now was her own reflection, white with horror.
It was some time before Macready could pull her free of its gaze.
Up in the control room, several minutes later, Carter and Zelenka stood at the sensor terminal and watched Palmer’s city map swoop towards the lockdown zone again. It stopped swooping a lot earlier this time.
“It’s grown,” he told them quietly. “Almost exactly doubled in size. And that unknown functionality we detected has increased as well.”
“What about the…” Carter searched for suitable words, ones stripped of emotion. “What’s in there?”
“It seems quiet now. Nothing on visual.”
“A runner from my lab says that the vibrations have dropped back to their previous levels,” said Zelenka. “So really, all we did was get its attention.”
“Maybe.” Carter undid the straps on the tactical vest and shrugged out of it, glad to be free of its weight, its constriction. “On the other hand, maybe it was about to do that anyway. Expand its territory, I mean.”
Zelenka frowned. “That’s a scary thought. If the lockdown area has doubled in size in about… How long has it been? Five hours? If it’s a geometric progression, that would mean…”
“Oh God,” Carter muttered. “Thirty hours. It would enclose the city core in thirty hours.”
There was no way that could be allowed to happen. The core contained everything that allowed Atlantis to function — the control room, the ZPMs, even the infirmary and most of the living quarters.
And the Stargate.
“We’d lose control of the city,” she whispered. “Everything. This… Tumor, would take Atlantis right out from under us.”
“What can we do?”
Carter thought for a moment, then tilted her head towards the internal balcony overlooking the Stargate. “Out here.”