She tumbled into the side of a bed, rebounded and crashed onto the floor. The pistol spun out of her grasp, skittering away. She made a futile grab for it, but it was already out of reach, and Fallon’s hand was snapping down to grab her.
She ducked back, rolling under the bed, came up on the other side of it. Her ribcage was singing with pain, the whole side of her face numb from the shock of the blow. Fallon was not unharmed; her shots had unsewn his skull. What remained of his face was twisted in a kind of twitching, mechanical rage.
He reached for her again, but as he did something whipped sideways in a blurring arc from behind. The lamp Keller had been holding; Dex had it now. The blow flipped Fallon clear around, sent a portion of his ruined head flying away. The injury didn’t slow him, though, and Dex didn’t get a second chance. Fallon ripped the lamp from his hand, grabbed the Satedan’s face and simply flung him out of the door.
Carter dropped to her knees, flailed until she found the gun, and then dived past Fallon. As he spun to follow her she fired again, taking off his jaw, then emptied the rest of the bullets into his torso. It was a useless gesture, she knew. Fallon was no longer using eyes to see her. He was no longer anything that could be slowed by the kind of damage that would kill a human — if she tore him in half with weapons fire, both the halves would come after her.
The pistol’s slide locked back. Carter dropped it, looking wildly about for something to fend Fallon off with, but there was nothing within reach, and the replica was already on her. It took her around the neck with one hand, held her up. She felt her feet leave the floor.
The Fallon-thing’s head no longer looked even remotely human. It was changing as she watched, eyes and mouths bubbling up out of the mess her bullets had made, whipping rootlets emerging from its opened skull to flail at the air. The other hand extended towards her, the fingers impossibly long, claws and needles erupting from the tips, and Carter remembered Bennings in the gallery, snatched by such a limb and dragged off to an unseen fate.
Was this what had happened to him, she wondered? There was a scientific curiosity that wouldn’t leave her, even though her throat was crushed shut over her final breath and the hybrid’s tendrils were worming through the air to spear her. Was this how the process took place? And in time, would a version of her walk the corridors of Atlantis?
She slapped the limb away, but the pain and lack of air had made her feeble. The Fallon-thing didn’t even notice the blow.
And then it froze. She felt a jolt go through it.
The thing on the end of its neck opened all its mouths and screamed.
A second later, she was released. She fell, limp, a stringless puppet. Crumpled on the floor, it was all she could do to roll back and watch the Fallon-thing stagger away from her.
McKay was behind it, holding some piece of equipment in his hands. There was a thick cable extending from it, and the probe at the end was buried in the Fallon-thing’s back.
The replica was still screaming, a single, breathless note of rage and agony. It was an awful noise, a whistling like escaping steam, suddenly liquid, then dry and whispery like the crunching of old leaves. And then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
The replica dropped to its knees. The very structure of it was breaking down in front of Carter’s gaze. She scrambled weakly away from it as it dissolved, the crimson flesh of it splitting and peeling and rotting as she watched, the metal of it dripping and running like mercury. The Fallon-thing swayed on its knees for a few seconds, then its multi-eyed head dropped forwards, and the whole body simply fell in on itself.
Heat, and the reek of spoiled meat and old metal, washed over Carter. She gagged, but the awful stench gave her the impetus to move again. She started to get to her feet, and then Keller reached down to help her.
Dex was already up again, and standing over the thing. Teyla was at the doorway, looking groggy, holding onto the frame for support. And McKay…
Rodney McKay raised a fist in victory. “Yes!” He hissed.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you fight a smart disease!”
Chapter Nineteen
Kill or Cure
By the time Sheppard got to the infirmary, the remains of the Fallon replica had been largely cleared away. A couple of the medical staff were disposing of the last scraps, watched over by armed marines, and an orderly was on his hands and knees with a scrubbing brush and a bucket. The replica’s dissolution had left a stain on the flooring, as though a vat of medical waste had been tipped out there and left to rot. Sheppard stepped carefully past it on his way to see Carter, trying not to breathe in too hard. What he had experienced of the hybrid close up had been less than fragrant when it was intact. Dead, it stank.
Carter was already on her feet, looking pale and bruised. Her jacket was off, and he could see the outline of bandages under her vest — from what Keller had told him, she had been knocked around quite badly in the fray.
When she saw him approaching she managed a weak smile. “John,” she said. “I guess you heard we had some fun down here.”
“Sorry I missed it.” He glanced around, at the other patients. Several marines were being treated around him, mostly minor injuries from various encounters with the hybrid. He knew there were more serious wounds being dealt with as well, but those were hidden from sight. He couldn’t see Dex or Teyla. “How is everyone?”
“Ronon’s going to have a sore shoulder for a few days, but he’ll deny it, of course. Teyla’s fine. Fallon just knocked her out of the way. He was after me.”
“It wasn’t Fallon.”
“I know.” She tilted her head around, flexing her shoulder and wincing. “Even the clothes melted when Rodney jabbed him. But the likeness was frightening.”
Sheppard stepped aside to let nurse Neblett go past him. She had what looked like a partially melted human jaw clasped in a pair of biohazard tongs, her arm outstretched and a look of complete disgust on her face. “Oh,” he muttered. “Nice.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised, really,” Carter went on. “Clarke was running messages for us for, oh, how long?”
Sheppard nodded. “I hear you. The replica situation is one I’ve tried to keep under wraps as much as possible. I don’t like keeping secrets from people around here, but there have been some incidents…”
“What kind of incidents?”
“Just paranoia. But it’s one thing to have a giant squishy monster on the west pier, people can deal with that. Not knowing if the guy standing next to you is human or not affects them in a whole different way.”
“All the more reason to finish this quickly.” She reached for her jacket, but the movement made her gasp quietly. Sheppard picked the garment up and handed it to her. “Thanks.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ve got to be.” She shrugged carefully into the jacket. “John, we’ve all been knocked around. You too, and I don’t see you resting.”
That was a point he had to concede. The very thought of slowing down, of stopping to rest or tend his injuries hadn’t even occurred to him. Compared to some, he had come through the events of the past few days largely intact, although his jaw still throbbed from the beating Dex had given him, and there was a tiredness in him that went into his very bones. But Carter was right — to rest for a minute would be to allow the hybrid an advantage, and that was a concept that bordered on the terrifying.
Especially now. The creature knew it was under threat.
“So,” he asked, stepping around the stain again. It didn’t appear to be coming off all that easily. “Have you spoken to McKay since then?”
“Not really.” She looked a little embarrassed. “I sort of lost consciousness for a bit after that. When I came around he was already gone.”