Blood Ties

Chapter four

One of the more pedestrian aspects of being stationed in another galaxy was the tendency to lose track of Earthside happenings, such as what season it was in Colorado. Since travel back and forth had become more frequent of late, many of the Atlantis expedition members had started keeping lockers at the SGC to decrease their chances of having to scramble for suitable civilian clothing. Unfortunately, Rodney had left his best cold weather gear, the coat that had seen him through multiple Siberian and Antarctic brushes with hypothermia, in Atlantis.

He cast a baleful gaze at the snowcapped mountains. Typical of the gleeful spite with which the universe seemed to be treating him these days. To compound the situation, a half dozen Marines assigned to accompany them were sporting fleece-lined jackets with `CDC' logos on the front and back.

Valiantly suppressing a shiver, Rodney eyed the crusted rime of ice on the windscreen of the government-issue SUV provided to the rest of the team. "Does it have four-wheel drive?"

"We're going to the coroner's office, not up Pikes Peak," Sheppard replied. "It's not even snowing." He'd gotten the keys to both vehicles from the timid motor pool sergeant simply by virtue of being the only officer in the group, Rodney was sure. Wearing a uniform that looked stiff with disuse as well as starch, the Colonel climbed into a refrigerated biohazard truck also marked `CDC' with an unconscious air of authority. Although Rodney knew the blue dress shirt under that leather aviator jacket wasn't made for warmth, the man didn't even look chilly, damn him.

"That's no predictor of whether or not it will start snowing. And try to remember that Chevrolets don't read your mind."

As if to further taunt him, Sheppard then tossed the SUV keys to Radek.

"Oh for pity's sake," Rodney objected. "At least let Dr. Jackson drive." He pivoted toward the archeologist. "Presumably you've been behind the wheel more recently than six months ago, and in this country?"

"I always enjoy exploring unfamiliar roads," Radek said pleasantly, tugging on a pair of warm-looking gloves; where he'd managed to find them Rodney would very much liked to have known.

As she so often did, Elizabeth put an end to the discussion. She held out a hand to Radek. "If it'll make you feel any better, Rodney, I'll drive." With a tolerant smile, she added, "You don't have any objections to that, do you?"

Taking some comfort from the fact that Elizabeth at least knew the Colorado Springs area, Rodney climbed into the front passenger seat and slammed the door behind him. Just as Elizabeth put the SUV in gear, he noticed Lam, also wearing one of the CDC jackets, climb into the truck beside Sheppard. Rodney supposed it made sense that they would have such vehicles on standby, given the nature of some of the life forms that had made their way through the gate and even, occasionally, escaped.

The thought crossed his mind that a Wraith must have somehow sneaked through the gate or stowed away aboard the Daedalus. It wasn't inconceivable. After all, a Goa'uld had hitched a ride to Pegasus inside Colonel Caldwell. However, that notion died almost before it was born, because if Jackson was correct and the various succubus myths were in fact based on Wraith attacks, it meant that the creatures had been on Earth for centuries, if not longer.

The four of them in the SUV weren't a terribly professional group in appearance; more like a bunch of ill-equipped tourists looking for a ski resort. Rodney wondered exactly what this cover story was supposed to entail. As Elizabeth pulled out of the parking lot, though, he ran out of trivialities to help cover his anxiety over everything they'd just learned. The lead weight that had settled in his stomach upon seeing that footage of Woolsey's cousin quickly made its presence known again.

Somebody had to start the unavoidable conversation, and so Rodney took it upon himself. "If there have been Wraith wandering around here years before we woke up their Pegasus compatriots, we need to seriously reevaluate what we know about their goals and methods °"

"They are not Wraith," Radek stated from the seat behind him. "They are-"

"Oh, and you're basing that assessment on your extensive experience in a hive ship cocoon?" Rodney snapped his fingers. "Wait, no, I'm sorry-that was me."

"Gentlemen, are we really going to have that contest?" Their driver pointedly inclined her head toward the other vehicle in their small caravan.

Rodney conceded Elizabeth's point, albeit not out loud. When it came to Wraith encounters, nobody, not even Ronon, could claim to have had one quite like Sheppard's.

He moved on by twisting around in the seat to glare at Radek. "While we're on the subject of what each of us knows, at what point were you going to clue everyone in on your follow-up to Carson's project?"

"When you stopped grumbling long enough to let me. I am still waiting."

From the other back seat, Jackson leaned forward to address Elizabeth. "They always like this?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "More or less. Rodney's being particularly charming today."

"Your support is heartwarming," Rodney groused. "If I'd had something marginally more nourishing than a Snickers bar for breakfast-"

"Eighteen months ago," Radek said, interrupting, "Carson asked me to write a macro that would allow him to analyze his genetic data more comprehensively." He took off his glasses, which were starting to fog in the rapidly warming SUV. "Some of us are willing to contribute to interdisciplinary research. Some of us even view biological studies as something higher than voodoo."

Objecting almost on instinct, Rodney snapped, "I never called it `voodoo'!"

"More than once," the Czech informed him, unruffled. "Also `farm science' on one occasion."

Had he really dismissed Carson that harshly, and that regularly? Rodney covered a stab ofremorse by pressing his offensive. "If I did, it was only because you were dedicating an unwarranted amount of your time to playing code monkey for a largely theoretical project when you could have been-"

"Working on your research instead'? Were you really so lost without my help'?"

"Radek." Elizabeth already sounded weary. In the rearview mirror, Rodney caught a glimpse of Jackson's rolled eyes. Maybe SG-1 wasn't into the sibling rivalry dynamic.

Coming back to the point, Radek said, "To be accurate, I should say that these attackers are not precisely Wraith."

"It's like I was saying in the briefing," Jackson supplied. "They're succubus, or incubus in the case of males."

Turning to face the road, Rodney tapped impatient fingers on his armrest and wished fervently that he'd gotten at least one more cup of coffee before starting out on this trip. "Aside from the medieval connotations, what exactly does that mean?"

"While Carson worked to isolate the ATA gene, he also found other genes worthy of note," Radek continued. "According to him, not long ago such genes would have been labeled junk DNA, considered useless to our understanding of the human genome. Carson, of course, knew better. The genes he identified-and he was the first to admit that there were many more besides-are actually viral DNA. Geneticists refer to them as endogenous retroviruses."

"Whoa, hold on a minute." That word set off a mental warning bell for Rodney. "Generally speaking, I'm not a big proponent of anything retrovirus related, since that category includes the iratus virus."

"That is so," acknowledged Radek. "Most retroviruses of this type are inactive, however. The term `endogenous' means that the viral DNA actually inserted itself, or was inserted deliberately, into human genetic code."

"Deliberately?" Rodney echoed. Feeling his earlier spike of panic intensify in amplitude, he barely noticed that the snow he'd earlier predicted had in fact started to fall.

"Carson cross-referenced many of his findings with the Mitochondrial Eve project, which traced the matrilineal heritage of all living humans back to a common female ancestor. He discovered that the first incidence of the ATA gene in humans occurred ten thousand years ago-"

"And that fact should come as a shock to precisely no one, since we already know that the Ancients arrived on Earth at that time." He shot a scathing look at Radek. "Can we possibly aim for speed over style in this explanation?"

"With fewer interruptions, perhaps so." Radek's unexpected glower nearly made Rodney wish once more for his winter coat. "The unique gene sequences Carson had found during his ATA research caught his attention again some time later, when he was developing the retrovirus for the Michael experiment."

Everyone in the vehicle, with the exception of Dr. Jackson, looked hardened by the reminder. Amid the incredible strides made as a result of the Atlantis expedition over the past three years, there had been episodes of which the expedition was less than proud. Ethical questions aside, the attempt to reengineer Wraith DNA into human hadn't resulted in the absolute worst catastrophe Rodney had ever witnessed, but it had been a very near thing.

It took a moment for that unpleasant memory to pass before he realized just what Radek had implied. "Wait-are you saying that Carson found a link between actual human DNA and the iratus virus?"

Rodney hoped irrationally for a rapid denial, or at least an assurance that he was on the wrong track, as unlikely as that might be. Instead he got only a solemn, silent glance.

"Oh, God," he murmured, horrified. "That's it, isn't it'? Humans have the virus. We've always had it. Oh, God."

"Rodney, calm down," Elizabeth advised, "and let Radek finish."

"Research shows that the virus was introduced to the human population at the same time and geographical location as the ATA gene," said Radek. "Not all humans possess it, of course-not even all humans with the ATA gene-but about half the population has fragments of the base code. Under certain conditions, gene therapy being one such condition, mutated versions of the iratus virus can become active."

"And something has suddenly triggered the virus in people here, like a kind of iratus time bomb?" Elizabeth started to twist around in the driver's seat.

"Eyes on the road!" Rodney barked, turning to face the front. Suddenly the cramped interior of the SUV was too warm, too constricting. He put his head down and tried to breathe deeply, but his lungs didn't seem interested in complying. Wide open fields…clear blue skies…

Rodney heard his name dimly, over the hammering of his heart, and couldn't have cared less. "Pull over," he panted. "Dammit, pull over!"

One of Elizabeth's many admirable traits was her willingness to act without hesitation when it mattered. No sooner had Rodney made his plea than the SUV made a swift right turn and came to a halt.

Barely lifting his head, Rodney shoved the door open and flung himself out of the vehicle. He sucked in a lungful of cold air and, ignoring the splashes of half-frozen mud, sat down hard on the rear bumper, trying to get himself back under control.

Other doors opened and closed, and before long he found himself surrounded by his colleagues. He noticed that the faux CDC truck had pulled up behind them. A hand came down to rest on his shoulder. "Dr. Lam's gone to get you something to drink," Elizabeth said calmly, as if this sort of thing happened every day. "Just take it easy for a minute."

"Take it easy?" Rodney offered a harsh laugh, still bent low and examining the cracked pavement and dirty slush piled in the gutter. The bracing chill and random snowflakes barely registered when compared with the icy tendrils that gripped his stomach. "That gene therapy worked on me, remember'? I probably have some variant of this damned bug. We created a whole group of iratus carriers ourselves, and any number of them must be hidden in the human population, just waiting to be switched on!"

Seeing Sheppard's polished shoes approach the huddle, he was about to add something further, but the Colonel, who must have received a similar briefing from Lam, got in first. "I need Ronon and Teyla here," he said, his tone matter of fact. "If there's some sort of clue on M1M-316 as to the Ancient who let this gene loose on Earth, then Rodney and Radek should have been the ones to go there with Lorne. Meanwhile, if we've got Wraith, or Wraith wannabes, on the loose on Earth, I can't track them down without Teyla and Ronon. No offense, Rodney. It's just that Teyla can sense them coming, and Ronon's been taking them on longer than anyone we've got."

"Oh, is that your grand strategy?" Rodney drew another frigid breath, quashing a vague twinge of guilt for not paying more attention to the activities of his other two teammates. "Do you really think you can contain this with a couple of hunting trips'? You can't simply round up a few pasty-looking people and call it a day. The virus is in our DNA. It's part of us!"

When Elizabeth's fingers tightened, digging into his shoulder, Rodney glanced up and identified their stopping point as a gas station, complete with a line of snowboard-topped SUVs and various travelers. Several were looking in the direction of the `CDC' van and the cluster of people hovering around him.

"Let's maybe talk about this somewhere less public, shall we?" Jackson suggested.

You're not dead yet, Rodney told himself. And you 're not a Wraith. Deal with everything else one step at a time.

Lam held out a bottle of some kind of sports drink without comment. Rodney accepted it despite its strong resemblance to antifreeze. After a couple of swallows, he felt marginally human again-although apparently that was a relative concept now.

"Claustrophobia," he mumbled weakly. "Uh, please continue, Radek."

"I have told you all I know at this point," Radek replied, standing there with an infuriatingly masked expression.

Rearing up off the bumper, Rodney insisted, "That can't be all."

The other scientist unfolded his arms and, raising his gloved hands in surrender. "The research was, as you said, one of many projects, and not terribly high on the priority list."

"Not a priority'? You went far enough to identify the problem and decided to take a lunch break before investigating a solution?"

"Rodney!" Elizabeth's admonishment was less effective than Sheppard's abrupt grip on his arm, hauling him upright and into the backseat of the SUV, then shutting the door behind him.

Once everyone had belted in, this time with Jackson in front, and they were in motion again, Elizabeth finally spoke. "Rodney, try to remember that not everyone in Colorado Springs has the same level of security as you. Carson notified me of his findings and submitted a report to the SGC last year. At that point we had no reason to think there was a problem. Until these killings, nothing had happened on Earth to suggest that any Wraith traits were present in humans. I did recognize some similarities to the succubus myths and possibly some old vampire tales, but that's all. To be honest, based on the manner in which many other myths have played out, including the existence of Merlin and even Atlantis itself, it seemed reasonable to assume that such legendary creatures existed only in the Pegasus Galaxy."

Rubbing his arm, which was certain to bruise, Rodney asked, "And what are those myths-besides the Hollywood version, I mean?"

Jackson turned around to face him. "Dr. Beckett's report traced the first occurrences of the iratus virus to the E'din Valley, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in ancient Persia, the area fabled to be the location of the Garden of Eden-what's now Iraq."

"Still nothing I'd call surprising." Couldn't anyone process or disseminate information as quickly as Rodney? "We've already discussed the Ancients' evacuation to Earth ten millennia ago. They made that return through the Egyptian gate. And?"

As the SUV coasted to a stop at a traffic light, Jackson slouched back in his seat. "You can't imagine how I've missed working with you, McKay," he remarked under his breath, the words still perfectly audible. More loudly, he continued, "The Ancients' presence in that region explains the appearance of the ATA gene, but not the appearance of the iratus virus. Based on the mythology and what we saw on the tape Woolsey discovered, though, I think I have an idea what might have happened."

In the next car over, a mother leaned into the backseat to hand her young child a juice box. Rodney wondered if they carried the retrovirus and if their bright-faced ignorance would end up costing the entire planet dearly.

"Carson had a theory as well," Radek pointed out. "He believed the Ancients were pursuing a method of manipulating the iratus virus, either to disable it in the Wraith popula tion or to make others immune to the feeding process °"

"Like Ronon's immunity," Elizabeth said, accelerating when the light turned green.

"Or the Hoffan vaccine." One side of Radek's mouth curled upward in a wistful half smile. "It gave Carson a measure of peace to know that our failures were not unique to us.

Rodney took another sip of his drink, wishing they didn't have to face this issue with the ghost of his friend hovering over their shoulders.

"Dr. Geisler recently discovered records in the city database associated with one specific researcher named Lilith," Radek continued. "A number of planets were referenced in conjunction with the projectfiles-possibly some testing was conducted on those worlds. One file in particular looked most promising, because it appeared to contain several references to Earth long before the Ancients left Antarctica for Lantea."

"Which is why General Landry ordered Major Lorne, Ronon and Teyla to check out Ml M-316," explained Elizabeth. "We're hoping they'll locate Lilith's research laboratory."

The name set off a chime of familiarity in Rodney's memory, taking the edge off his terror and giving him something on which to focus. "Lilith is the researcher? That can hardly be coincidental."

The SUV swung into the parking lot of the county sheriff's office, which looked entirely too sedate and tranquil to contain a morgue. Jackson's head turned toward him. "Since when did you become a scholar of Talmudic texts, McKay?"

That threw him off. "What? I'm talking about the name-I've run across it in the Ancient database. What are you talking about?"

"I believe Lilith was also the name of Adam's first wife," Radek contributed, earning a surprised glance from both Jackson and Rodney.

"As in Adam and Eve?" Elizabeth parked the vehicle and switched off the ignition. "There was a first wife?" She glanced over her shoulder.

"And you picked up that piece of trivia where exactly?" Rodney followed her gaze and watched as Sheppard's `CDC' vehicle passed them, heading for the rear of the building.

Radek's response seemed to be directed at Jackson rather than Rodney. "Carson believed the Ancient Lilith continued her retrovirus research after relocating from 316 to Earth. Possibly the virus escaped, or else she intentionally released it into the population."

"I'm beginning to find myself agreeing with John's assessment of the Ancients," Elizabeth declared, sounding drained. "They created some staggering messes and made little or no attempt to clean them up"

Radek nodded his agreement. "Wraith, Asurans, succubus-"

"Succubi in the plural," said Jackson. "And we should include incubi, the male version, since, according to the profiler, a male was responsible for the Colorado Springs murders."

As if the FBI's profiler could have even the slightest clue what they were dealing with here. Rodney climbed out of the SUV and pulled his lightweight jacket tight around himself, uninterested in the details Elizabeth was providing on the profiler and the tall tale they'd be feeding her. He was focused on only one thing. "What do we know about this Lilith so far?"

He'd asked Radek, but it was Jackson who answered. "`Her gates are gates of death, and from the entrance of the house she sets out towards Sheol. None of those who enter there will ever return, and all who possess her will descend to the Pit."'

"Talmud?" Radek inquired.

The archeologist shook his head and started walking. "Dead Sea Scrolls."

Rodney stared at the neatly lettered sign near the front door of the building, helpfully directing coroner business to the lower level. The panic that had earlier threatened to overwhelm him now settled into a tight ball of nausea in the pit of his stomach. He doubted it would disappear any time soon.