Sheppard stared up at the remnant for a long moment. The hybrid could still be lying. Maybe it needed a jolt of blood to kick-start its recovery. Maybe everything Angelus had told him was more lies.
But if it was true, then Angelus was right. Elizabeth should not be used this way.
He stepped forwards. “Do it.”
The hand clasped his. The metal of it was warm, and the needle-tips of the worms frighteningly sharp. “This will cause you pain,” Angelus told him gently. “I am sorry.”
The worms slithered into the flesh of Sheppard’s forearm.
He cried out, tried to yank his hand away on reflex, but Angelus was holding him too tight. The remnant’s arm, for all its frail appearance, was machine-strong. Sheppard could no more have pulled himself free of that gleaming hand than he could from locked handcuff. All he could do was sink to his knees, staring at the pulsing worms sliding deeper and deeper under his skin.
His flesh was alive with them. He could feel them draining him, gnawing at him, drawing his blood away into their metal throats. Angelus had lied, he thought wildly. He was a vampire, sucking down one last draught of hot blood…
The worms snapped back, out of him and away. He fell.
“Sheppard?”
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the pulsing ceiling. He penlight was spinning on the floor, strobing crazy shadows.
“John? It is done. You have to leave now.”
Sheppard struggled up, onto his knees. “I don’t think I can.”
“You can.” The Ancient’s voice was weaker, thinner. It sounded as though it were coming from far away. “I’ll help.”
The hybrid had already started to die when Sheppard made it out. Angelus had taken control of some more of its structure, opening a way for him in the same way as it had cocooned him for the fall from the tower. The false Ancient’s control failed in the last few meters, leaving him to struggle out though a liquefying mass of flesh and metal before he finally reached a gap in the armor plating and freedom.
He emerged, according to what he was told later, in front of several terrified marines, covered in bloody slime and making incoherent bubbling noises. It was only by luck, and the fact that he had collapsed unconscious almost immediately, that he hadn’t been shot dead on sight. If he had continued towards the marines, they would have thought him some kind of birthing from the stricken hybrid, and ended him.
It took the hybrid a long time to die, and even longer to fully disintegrate. While Sheppard lay insensate in the infirmary, Carter had the nauseating mass pushed close to the edge of the pier, so that its oozings could drain off into the ocean. It was pollution of the worst kind, but there was nothing else to be done. Hopefully the ecosystem of M35-117 was pristine enough to recover from such a slight.
As it was, the slick of dissolved hybrid was visible for days, and the reek of it drove the inhabitants of Atlantis to stay inside with the windows closed for longer than that.
Gradually, Sheppard recovered. Angelus had taken more than two liters of blood from him, which was a worrying amount, and he had suffered multiple injuries from the crash and the fall. Under Keller’s care, though, he became himself again, and within a short time was finding the enforced bed-rest distasteful. It was then, Keller told him, that she had known he was going to be all right.
Later, his friends and colleagues came to deliver news to him and to wish him well. McKay arrived and told him that the hangar space was damaged beyond repair, and would have to be welded shut. Not only that, but the city’s antibody system had shut down completely after it had been boosted by McKay’s signal, and could no longer be reactivated. That might have been because there was no longer a threat, or because it had been overloaded and destroyed. No-one knew.
Teyla brought him a portable DVD player and a selection of movies to watch, and told him that contact had been re-established with the Apollo. Ronon Dex challenged him a to stick-fight as soon as he was fit enough, and let him know that the Atlantis security protocols were being revised completely in view of what had occurred. There would be a lot of work for them both when Sheppard’s stay in hospital was done.
Eventually, when she had a free moment, Carter arrived.
They spoke of many things, some pleasant, many somber. The casualty figures had to be discussed — twenty-eight dead, thirty-six injured, not counting casualties that had occurred on the Apollo. Apparently, McKay’s fears for the ship had been justified. Ellis had suffered a hybrid outbreak of his own.
There were also some personnel for whom the experience had been too much. Nineteen members of the Pegasus expedition were ending their tours early. Alexa Cassidy was going home on medical leave. There were high hopes for her recovery, but she would not be returning to Atlantis.
Finally, Carter brought up the subject of Angelus. “So, he was telling us the truth after all.”
“What he thought was the truth, sure.” Sheppard closed his eyes for a moment, but all he could see was the pain in the Ancient’s tattered face, so he opened them again. “Poor bastard. He lost them twice.”
“Hm?”
“The Eraavi. He lost them when the Replicators killed them all, then again when he discovered they were never real in the first place.” He sighed. “Sam? How the hell do we tell people he wasn’t the bad guy?”
She shook her head. “We don’t, not the IOA. It’s too risky. If we tell them the truth about him, they might be more inclined to believe the next fake Ancient that turns up on our doorstep.” She smiled. “Besides, I know for a fact that most of them just wouldn’t get it.”
“Yeah, well. It’s pretty hard to get. I keep thinking, all the different things he told us… He believed them all, and none of them were true.” Another memory jolted him. “Hey, that’s it. The weapon he was going to build… What was he actually doing down there?”
Carter shrugged. “Most of it was lost when the lockdown happened. McKay saved some of it — a big chunk of the science looks like stuff the Replicators already knew, and there was a lot of random gibberish.”
Sheppard laid back, staring up at the ceiling. “Rodney’s gonna hate that.”
“Yeah, he does.” She stood up. “Anyway, Keller says you’re ready to be discharged tomorrow. I’ll leave you to your final night of peace.”
“Why’d you say that?”
“Because one of the buildings that got cooked was right outside your quarters. You’re going to be hearing the repairs crews there for weeks.” She went to the door, and waved as she stepped out. “Goodnight!”
“Thanks a bunch.” He settled back.
Slowly, the stillness surrounded him, settled on him like a membrane.
Even now, out in Atlantis, panels were being replaced, walls repaired, wiring checked and fixed. The city would, over a period of weeks, return to how it had been before. The gaping holes in the west and southwest piers would be covered. The events of the past few days would pass into history, just like the people that had been lost to them.
Which was worse, he wondered: killing twenty-eight people, or killing an entire planetary population that had never existed? To him, the former, without question. To Angelus?
He didn’t know. And he found that he could not speak for the man, even though he too had never been. A false man mourning false children. The death of a lie breaking the heart of a man who was only a lie himself.
It was beyond him, a paradox without answer. Maybe, one day, he might be able to ask the opinion of the only person he felt might know its solution.
Until he found her, though, he would have to let the matter rest.
Epilogue
Fire from Heaven Redux
Apollo was different. There was a strangeness to the vessel now.