“Maybe their schedule was booked up for the day.” It was the best explanation John had, which wasn’t saying much. “That’s of course assuming that your ‘they’ is the same ‘they’ that I’m thinking put us in here.”
“It has become somewhat difficult to distinguish who’s who in the revolutionary scheme of things.” Rodney looked as though he saw some merit in John’s suggestion, though. “Everyone’s probably either fighting to get their hands on some of the gene therapy or fighting the ones who’ve already gotten it.”
As if to bear that theory out, scattered sounds reached them from some distance away. It all ran together, making it difficult to piece together what was happening, but it sure wasn’t anything orderly. “Not to mention killing the Chosen,” John added. Rodney winced at that. “Or the guys who were actually running this place.”
“Whom, if memory serves correctly, Kesun labeled as barbarians,” Rodney supplied. “In short, it’s complete and utter anarchy.” He snorted. “I’ve never been known to do anything by halves.”
John fixed his gaze on his teammate again. Rodney was staring off into space, but this didn’t appear to be a ‘solving the mysteries of the universe’ trance. It looked more like he was wondering how everything had fallen to pieces so damned fast. “I can hear the wheels in your head turning from here.”
Shaking himself, Rodney glanced down at him. “Devising a brilliant plan of escape will go a lot faster without interruptions.”
So he didn’t want to chat. That was new. “Whatever you say.”
After a moment, the scientist seemed to slump a little. “No, it won’t,” he admitted quietly. “It won’t go faster, because there’s nothing to work with and nowhere to go.”
“Hey, we’re still alive. I’ll take that for the moment.”
A guttural yell from somewhere far beyond the cell’s walls cut into the discussion, mixing in with other rising voices and the occasional clash of metal. It didn’t take an advanced degree to realize what was going on outside. Rodney had a few of those anyway and, from his expression, that hyper-critical brain of his was obviously cranking out some nasty answers. John sighed. “Look—”
“What?” The harsh tone surprised them both, and Rodney went back to staring at the wall, this time looking more sullen. “Excuse me if I’m having a little trouble accepting this whole mess. I’m just now learning that in dismantling the social construct of this world, something I championed rather enthusiastically based on a set of completely false assumptions, we may have gotten people killed. I have the right to take a moment, don’t I?”
John shook his head, a cold sensation creeping into his thoughts. “Join the club. I’m considering printing up T-shirts.”
That seemed to throw Rodney off. They looked at each other for a few seconds. At last, he asked hesitantly, “How do you—?”
“I woke the damn Wraith, Rodney. Responsibility doesn’t come much heavier than that.”
“It wasn’t just you. And it wasn’t…” He abandoned the sentiment, doubtless recognizing that they’d both heard it all before, and that it would always ring a little hollow. “What I meant was, knowing that, how do you manage to keep from losing it?”
“By repeatedly telling myself that having no way of knowing the consequences counts as a satisfactory excuse.”
“How’s that working out?” The interest on Rodney’s face contained a slightly desperate edge, as if he were hoping to glean some enlightening crumb from the reply.
“Not that great so far.” John forcibly shifted his thoughts into another direction. “Listen, there’s stuff we can control and stuff we can’t. All we can do is deal with what’s in front of us.”
“Yeah.” The scientist dropped his gaze to the floor, visibly deflated. “Good pep talk.”
“Now who’s being a jackass?”
Rodney ignored the comment. “Friday, huh? You couldn’t have suggested to Elizabeth that we’d be back, oh, maybe tonight?”
“I said we’d check in sooner, but to wait until dark on Friday before sending in the troops.”
“And by troops, you meant…?”
“Two jumpers and twelve Marines.”
“Comforting numbers, but the odds of these nouveaux Jacobins, or whoever ends up pulling the strings around here, waiting until Saturday morning to execute us are…well, not good.”
“I know. I’m hoping that this uprising burns itself out before Markham and Stackhouse show up.” His teammate looked skeptical, so John explained. “We weren’t sure how all this was going to go down, and I didn’t like the idea of our guys walking into the middle of a full-scale revolution, so I asked Dr Weir to give us some time. Now that things have gone pretty well south, there could be any number of newly invested Chosen running around outside the Citadel with Shields, and any one of them could disable our jumper or the others without too much trouble.”
“While that makes sense, it doesn’t provide us with a way to avoid our respective death sentences.”
“Not really, no. But if it comes to that, I’d rather the four of us die here than lose twelve more trying to bust us out.”
“Except, of course, that our failure to return will in fact prompt a rescue, in which case—”
“We’re back to trying to figure out how to save ourselves before that happens.”
Rodney said nothing, but picked up the tattered blanket lying on the bench, and stood. Fingers fumbling due to his bound wrists, he managed to fold the fabric and lay it on the floor beside his teammate. John looked up at him, not comprehending. The scientist gave an impatient tap of his foot. “The floor’s cold and wet. You do realize that the single most common form of death that resulted from prolonged incarceration in assorted species of dungeons was pneumonia? At least if you lay on that you won’t go hypothermic.”
Although he was hardly in any real danger, John couldn’t repress a small smile. “Thanks.” He awkwardly shuffled his way onto the blanket. “Did I mention that I feel ridiculous down here?”
“You don’t want to know how you look, then.”
Aiden let out a stream of invectives and, snatching up some loose pebbles in his bound hands, tossed them at the rat. He supposed it was a rat, although it was more the size of a small housecat, and there was green fur on its back and tail. The animal disappeared through the bars into the cell opposite theirs, where it began scratching around in some unidentifiable sludge that might once have been clothing.
“I would not be so hasty,” Teyla commented. “We might need the animal for food if we are incarcerated in here for any length of time.”
One thing about being stuck in prison with Teyla: she wasn’t exactly wimpish. He wondered how the Major was faring with Dr McKay as a cellmate. “Yeah. Maybe we could tame it or something. Get it to gnaw through these.” He lifted his hands and smiled ruefully.
“No need.” The Athosian had managed to loosen her bindings and now pulled her hands free.
“Hey! How’d you do that?”
Outside, a loud explosion abruptly overwhelmed the sounds of fighting. They both instinctually ducked, but the damp stones that made up the tiny cell only shuddered. It was frustrating as all hell not to be able to see what was going on, but this time around their room didn’t exactly come with a view. “They must’ve figured out how to use the C-4. Wonder what they blew up?” Just as the words were out of his mouth, a series of increasingly loud rumbles warned him that something big was collapsing.
Teyla quickly untied the rope around his wrists. “It is likely that some of those who now rebel against the leaders of this Citadel already had the means of destruction at their disposal.”
“Wraithcraft?”
Nodding, Teyla began exploring the damp walls for some means of escape. “Remember when we were in the marketplace, Yann spoke of blackpowder to remove unwanted tree stumps from their fields.”
“Same deal wherever you go.” He examined the way the set of bars opened and closed. The locking mechanism was about three yards away, along the wall. Even with their bindings tied together to form a lasso, there was no way they’d get enough leverage going to force it open. And digging the bars out from the floor was not an option, given the hardness of the black stone.