Mathématique: Chapter 14

“I’m going to make my continued involvement with the stargate program contingent upon you taking a computer literacy class,” Rush snarled.

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Grief. Physical injuries. Mental health challenges. Pain. References to torture.

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 14

Inside the monitoring station on level sixteen, Young braced himself against the wall next to the door and focused on pulling oxygen into his lungs to feed the fire in his back. His hip. His leg. He pressed his fingers into the cool plane of cement at his back. He tasted the air, still acrid with the LA haze. He listened to the sounds of Vala and Rush moving through the room. He tried to think through the pain, but—

“Oh no,” David breathes. “Oh Christ. Oh shit, oh fuck.” Ash falls like snow, covering rock and metal. It settles over David’s hair. “They’re coming.”

“Well.” Rush pulled the word like poisoned toffee. “This isn’t a good sign.”

Young blinked and refocused on the mathematician, bent over the most prominent computer in a room full of the things. Rush was drenched in sweat. His hair was plastered to his temples and his dress shirt clung to his back.

“What?” Young adjusted his grip on his gun.

“Console’s locked.”

Vala prowled the edges of the room, opening drawers, peering into supply closets, kicking the handles off locked cabinets, flipping keyboards, hunting for resources. Good on her.

“Unlock it.” Young held himself still.

“With what? Hope?”

“Rush.”

“Don’t give me a sanctimonious lecture about human social norms, give me any fucking usernames and passwords you have that you think are likely to work. Both a’ya. Now.”

“Hate to break it to you, gorgeous,” Vala came forward with a roll of duct tape, “but I’m not yet a full-fledged member of this organization.”

“Colonel.” Rush snapped his fingers. “User name. Pass—” He broke off as Vala dropped in to a crouch and clamped both hands around his calf, just below the knee. “What are y’doing?”

“Trying not to die!” With theatrical cheer, Vala swept her hands down Rush’s leg, causing a disruption to the white gas that settled thickly near the floor and was flaring a subtle red around the man’s ankles. “What are you doing?” She folded the denim back on itself, then wound a round of duct tape around Rush’s ankle.

Rush quirked an eyebrow, then shifted his attention to Young. “Any time now.”

“Rush, I can’t—”

“Y’can’t what. You asked me to compromise security base-wide in a time-efficient manner and you’re balking at systems access?”

Young grimaced. The enormity of what he’d asked Rush to do settled over him. “Just free up an elevator.”

“And to do that,” Rush said evenly, “I need control of all systems.”

“All systems?”

“This was your idea,” Rush reminded him.

 Young spelled out his username. “Password is Emily1, capital E, number 1.”

Rush stared up at him with a calculated blankness.

“What,” Young muttered.

“Are y’fuckin’ serious.”

“Yes.”

“Right, so we’ll need to discuss your approach to information security.” Rush looked down at his screen as the console unlocked.

“Get us outta here and we’ll do it over dinner,” Young said. “I’ll buy.”

“I’m invited, right?” Vala asked, finishing her tape job.

“Sure.” Young shut his eyes and experimentally shifted his stance. Liquid fire poured from his spine to his heel.

Vala positioned herself with a clear line of sight to the room’s only access point, her Zat out, her stance lateral, so she could watch Rush and the door simultaneously. “Access to the live feeds wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

“Enjoy examining featureless white screens, do you?” Rush replied.

“Audio wouldn’t go amiss.” Vala flung her hair over her shoulder with a haughty swish of turbid air. “We can at least risk turning up the radio.”

Young dialed up the volume on his radio, listening to the chatter. Seemed like the worst of the firefight hadn’t spread above level twenty-seven.

Rush clicked through windows, typing a few words here and there.

“How’s it goin’?” Young held himself motionless against the wall and tried not to picture the LA converging on their single-exit room.

Rush pulled a hard-drive out of his back pocket and connected it to the computer. “Better than expected.”

“You got a time estimate?”

“D’you have any intellectual understanding of what I’m doing?”

“I gave you my password,” Young growled. “What more do you need?”

“For administrative access to the entire SGC? A good deal more than the poorly chosen password of a single colonel, thankfully.”

“I need a timetable.”

“And for what, exactly, do you need a timetable? We’re stuck here until I gain system access or we’re killed and/or abducted.”

“He’s got a point,” Vala chimed in.

Young glowered at her.

She shrugged.

They waited. Young and Vala swapped her respirator between them while Rush worked.

Around them, monitors came alive, flickering pale in the dim light.

“I’m in,” Rush announced. “For the moment.”

“Unlock an elevator,” Young growled.

“Hmm,” Rush said. “Curious.”

“What’s curious?” Vala edged forward.

“The gate’s not active,” Rush replied.

Young turned up the chatter on his radio, wishing he had his earpiece.

“Well that’s very interesting, I’m sure,” Vala said, “but—”

“Shh.” Young held up a hand, focusing on the radio.

“I repeat—” the voice was hard to make out over the sound of gunfire, “—they have a hostage. Science staff. He’s—he’s emitting visible light?”

“Do you have an ID on the civilian?” Landry asked.

“Volker. Dale Volker. Astrophysics.”

“The gate is activating,” Rush cut in. “Someone’s dialing out.”

The radio channel exploded into chatter.

“Carter. Carter respond.”

“Sir, they have Volker at the base of the ramp.”

“Carter.”

“Hold your fire, targeting isn’t worth shit.”

“Colonel Carter, please respond.”

“They’re on the south wall. They must know where the manual override is.”

Young turned the volume down and looked at Rush. “Can you disable the gate, hotshot? Cut power from here?”

“With a window of seconds? No.” Rush scanned the screen.

“You’re not gonna attempt it? That guy could be you in ten minutes. They—”

“Gate’s active.” Mitchell’s voice came over the radio. “Repeat, gate is active.”

“Shut it, will you?” Rush snapped, maybe talking to him, maybe to the radio, maybe to the systems he peeled through with virtuosic speed.

“Sir, this is Scott, I can confirm we have iris closure.”

“You do that?” Young asked.

“Yes,” Rush said testily, “of course I did.”

“Nice work,” Young said softly.

“They’ve got another hostage,” Mitchell’s voice crackled from the radio. “Same red glow.”

“ID,” Landry demanded.

“It’s ah. It’s Dr. Lam,” Mitchel said, his tone clipped. “I repeat, hostage two is Carolyn Lam.”

There was an unnatural silence on the open channel. And then—

“Understood,” Landry said.

“Can you tell how many there are, gorgeous?” Vala asked. “How many people are glowing?”

“Yes,” Rush replied, “but not in a time efficient manner.”

“Focus on the elevator.” Young said. “We gotta get out of here. If the LA can’t get through the gate—they’ll be heading in our direction.”

“Possibly,” Rush trailed off, frowning.

“What, Rush,” Young growled.

“Yes, use your words,” Vala added.

“Someone’s in the system trying to override my iris control. They’re unfriendly, I’d say, given they’re trying to open the bloody thing.”

“Great,” Young muttered.

“What’s the number on your badge?” Rush asked.

A bolt of pain ran like an electric shock up and down his back as he shifted to unclip his ID.

“On the back,” Rush’s voice rose, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

Young read the number off.

“Iris is open,” Jackson shouted over the sound of gunfire.

“Oh no you don’t,” Rush hissed.

“Cam, don’t,” Jackson’s voice peaked and crackled over the open channel.

Vala tensed.

“Shut that thing and keep it shut,” Young growled.

“I’m going to make my continued involvement with the stargate program contingent upon you taking a computer literacy class,” Rush snarled. “Y’can skip the motivational speech, all right? What do y’think I’m trying to do?”

“Less McKay more Carter.”

“This is not my typical area of expertise,” Rush snarled, typing furiously. “I’m a cryptographer, not a hacker, so kindly stop speaking.”

“On your left, Colonel Mitchell,” Teal’c shouted over the radio.

“This is Scott, I’m taking heavy fire on twenty-seven.”

“Got you,” Rush hissed.

“What—the iris, or the elevator?” Young asked, not sure which he’d prefer.

“Neither.”

Young’s teeth ached under the strain of his clenched jaw. “Rush—”

“I locked her out.”

“Who?”

“My LA counterpart. I closed her access ports. Should hold her for maybe ten minutes. Less if she’s a quick learner.”

“Great. Now do something useful.”

Rush’s fingers flew over the keys, and then—

“The iris is shut,” Mitchell’s said over the open channel. “I repeat. The iris is shut.”

“You’re welcome,” Rush snapped before Young could say anything. “The central elevator is back online and keyed only to your ID card.”

Young nodded. “Time to go. Good work, hotshot.”

“Yes,” Vala whispered, “Fantastic job. Unfortunately, I’d say there’s a ninety-nine percent chance we’ve got company right outside this room.” Vala edged toward Young, indicating the closed door with her eyes. “There’s been some quiet movement in the hall.”

He and Vala locked eyes. She stepped in close, and when she spoke, her voice was low and didn’t carry. “It’s time to him your card, handsome,” she murmured, “don’t you think?”

He nodded.

She smiled, brash and bright, then turned to Rush. “Come on, gorgeous, clock’s ticking.”

“I’m aware.” Rush disconnected his hard drive and slid it into his back pocket.

“Oh sure.” Young coughed in the misty air. “He remembers his hard drive, but leaves his damn signal scrambler god knows where.”

“Mandy Perry’s desk, I think.” Rush picked up his Zat.

Young motioned Rush over to the wall, then put himself between the mathematician and the door. He unclipped his ID card and offered it to the other man.

Rush looked at it, but made no move to take it.

Young clipped it to his shirt. “I’d say don’t be stupid—”

“But talking to oneself isn’t situationally appropriate,” Rush said sympathetically.

Young gave him the ghost of a smile. “You’ve done a great job, hotshot. But if I tell you to go—you go.”

Rush nodded.

“If we get separated,” he whispered, “you make for the elevator. You hit level one, but throw the emergency stop at level three and force the doors.”

Rush quirked an eyebrow.

“Go left when you leave the elevator on three. That’s west. You’re gonna look for the westernmost wall of the level.”

“Are y’seriously—”

“Listen,” Young said. “You’ll be looking for a metal hatch along the western wall. Inside is a ladder that stretches the vertical span of the base. Climb up two levels. It’ll put you about a quarter of a klick from the main road. Do not report to the evacuation point. Do not go back to your apartment. Ditch your phone.” He pulled out his pocketknife and passed it to Rush. “Once you’re out, cut out your transponder, but don’t destroy it. Plant it somewhere, if you can. Throw it down a ravine. Somewhere that’ll take hours to search.” He gave Rush an appraising look. “Can you handle all of that?”

“If I’m honest,” Rush began.

“Answer’s yes.” Young said. “You can handle that.”

“Oh all right,” Rush muttered.

Young looked at Vala, posted on the opposite side of the door. “You ready?”

Vala squared her shoulders, both hands on her Zat. She nodded, short and determined, her hair a dark curtain in the dim light.

Young unlocked the door and flung it wide.

Vala advanced, firing her Zat. The blue glare of energy discharges shone off her mask and off her hair.

In the corridor, a body hit the floor.

Young waited, one hand on his weapon, one hand flat against Rush’s chest, pressing the other man into the wall. He couldn’t see around the frame of the door, but the trajectory of an incoming energy blast broke Vala’s firing rhythm and gave him an approximate fix on an enemy position.

He released the safety on his sidearm.

Vala rebalanced and kicked the closing door with enough force to knock back an advancing member of the LA.

Young fired, taking down a man who edged past Vala. The kickback ricocheted down his injured leg. He followed Vala into the hazy corridor, dragging Rush past the dead LA operative.

“Don’t look,” Young said, his fingers wrenched into the material of Rush’s shirt, trying for leverage with one good leg. “You don’t need that in your head.”

Rush stepped in and took some of Young’s weight. The guy was a math professor. Young was leaning on him like he was a professional soldier.

He was definitely gonna need to buy the guy dinner after this.

His breath burned in his lungs as they advanced. The quarters were close and the visuals were poor and the only thing they had going for them was the thin mist and Vala’s tape job. There was no glow to give Rush away, and in the absence of that—

They weren’t shooting to kill.

Vala’s silhouette flared as she took a hit to the shoulder from an energy weapon. She staggered sideways with a muffled cry. The LA operative who’d shot her closed with her, forcing her down into the mist.

At his side, Rush fired at a target closing from a side corridor.

Young took aim at Vala’s assailant.

Vala pulled her hands inside her sleeves, trying to avoid any contact between her skin and the white, alien gas, but the LA member was on top of her, his knee driving into her back, his hand over her neck, pressing her shoulders then her face into the floor where the mist ran thick and opaque.

Young’s finger tightened on the trigger, but his shot went wide when Rush was tackled. Young shifted his weight, let his neighbor take the brunt of the hit, steadied himself, then hauled Rush up before he could light up the mist.

Vala bit off a scream as the LA operative wrenched her hair back, exposing her throat.

Young shot the man as he pulled his knife.

Rush kicked the body of the LA member off of Vala and reached down to haul her up.

Young’s eyes swept the corridor. The bodies of six LA soldiers lay on the ground, dead or stunned.

The hallway was silent.

Next to him, Rush shook with adrenaline.

Vala straightened, her Zat in her left hand, her right arm held against her ribs. Her breathing came ragged and fast. She bent to retrieve the breathing unit from the LA operative at her feet.

Wordlessly, she held it out to Young.

He took it. “How bad?” He glanced at her shoulder.

“Not bad. Let’s go, shall we, boys?” Vala’s voice trembled.

They moved through the corridor, weapons out, creating turbid swirls over the mist-covered floor.

When they reached the elevator, Rush opened it with a fluid swipe of Young’s ID. The doors slid wide, revealing a lightless interior.

“Should it be this dark, gorgeous?” Vala asked, her mask distorting the low melody of her voice.

“Didn’t want to pull more power than necessary,” Rush said.

“Right,” Vala whispered. She stepped into the elevator, hit the button for the NORAD exit and scanned the wall panel, like she was trying to memorize it before they lost the corridor light.

“We gonna get a floor count?” Young leaned into Rush as they stepped into the elevator.

“It’s at the top,” Vala whispered, looking up. “Very dim.”

The doors slid shut and the darkness pressed against Young’s eyes. The only thing he could see was the faint red of the number sixteen. He felt the elevator’s ascent in his hip and back.

“It’s a good thing that no one here is claustrophopic,” Vala whispered, high and breathless. “It’d be sooooo awkward if, say, one of us had been buried alive?”

“What the fuck?” Rush hissed.

“Vala,” Young growled in warning, in sympathy, in reprimand.

“But, fortunately, that happened to no one here,” Vala said, her voice unsteady and disembodied in the darkness. “No one here,” she repeated, a little stronger.

Young grimaced, his expression invisible in the darkness.

“It was, if you want to know,” Vala continued, “a plot point in the movie Kill Bill. The pinnacle of human cinematic achievement.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Rush demanded.

“Take it easy.” Young leaned into the guy for emphasis.

“Say what you like, gorgeous, Quentin Tarantino’s made a real effort to capture female rage.”

Silence.

“What?” Rush breathed.

“We’ll watch it together,” Vala whispered into the dark.

“Sure,” Young said. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

“Wednesdays are good for me,” Vala said unsteadily. “I’ve got a whole library of cocktails I’ve been wanting to try.”

“Great,” Young said. “We’re in.”

“You’re confusing your pronouns,” Rush replied.

“Everyone wants to watch movies with yours truly, gorgeous. I’m terribly charming. My commentary is very witty. Ask SG-1. Ask anyone.”

Young hit the emergency stop on the elevator. Gears ground in the dark, deceleration pressed on his inner ear, the metal in his spine. He reached forward for the seam in the doors and felt Rush do the same.

“I think I’ll move to a different building,” Rush said.

“Not gonna solve your problems, hotshot.” Young dug his fingers into the gap between the doors.

“I’ll tell ya one problem it’ll solve.” Rush braced himself and started prying at the doors. “Overbearing,” he grunted, “meddlesome neighbors with an unseemly gift for convincing me to cook dinner.”

“Huh.” Young gritted his teeth and pulled at the doors. “I don’t remember it that way.”

“You cook?” Vala asked, as a sliver of light shone through the darkness between the slowly yielding doors. “Because I wouldn’t be averse to dinner and a movie.”

“No,” Rush said, “I do not ‘cook’.”

“I think he, like, creates works of culinary genius,” Young grunted. “Or something.” He wrested a few more inches out of the door.

“That’s—” Rush wedged a shoulder into the crack in the doors, “—an acceptable description, yes.”

“Well, I would not mind appreciating a work of culinary genius with my movie.” Vala stepped back and pulled out her Zat as Rush and Young wrenched the doors back, revealing the offset edge of the third floor, about four and a half feet above where it should be.

Vala stepped to the doors. “Give us a boost, gorgeous?”

Rush interlaced his fingers and Vala planted a boot in his palms, twisting to protect her injured shoulder as she sprang onto the third floor. She scanned the hallway, then dropped into a crouch, her good hand extended down.

“Go.” Young shook his head at Rush’s interlocked fingers and arched eyebrow.

“Don’t give in to the allure of your own machismo, please?” Rush didn’t move. “This is the only option that makes sense.”

“Not a fan of the attitude,” Young growled, even though he was. He shifted his weight onto his bad leg, grabbed Vala’s hand, and let Rush boost him out of the elevator.

Rush scrambled out behind him, and they headed for the western wall. The air was clear and the floor was quiet. With a swipe of Young’s ID, they opened the thick metal of the access hatch to reveal the rungs of the ladder.

Vala leaned inside and scanned up and down the shaft. Her Zat followed her line of sight. “It looks clear,” she said, “but I can’t get a good visual of anything on the lower levels—the mist is too thick. It’s sitting in a well-defined border, maybe seven or eight levels down.”

“Seven levels?” Young asked. “Seems high.”

“No air recirculation in your cinematic escape shaft?” Rush asked.

“Guess not,” Young replied quietly.

“Well if the air recirculators don’t operate in there,” Rush pointed at the ladder with two fingers, “why is their chemical tag layering at level ten?”

Young wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical or not.

“Someone was in there,” Vala concluded. “The hatch was opened on at least one flooded level.”

“A logical assumption,” Rush whispered. “But what I would not assume,” he paused, his eyes flicking from Vala to Young and then back again, “is there’s no one currently in the shaft.”

Young nodded. “We go quickly.”

“Remind me why we can’t leave the normal way?” Rush asked.

“Because then we can’t avoid the NORAD checkpoint. There’s been a catastrophic security breach and we can’t advertise your location, hotshot.” Young took a breath to steady himself, then looked at Vala. “You’re on point. I’ll take our six. Do not wait for me.” He gave both of them a hard look. “Either of you.”

Vala nodded.

“This is a terrible idea,” Rush said. “People pay you to navigate situations like this? This is your literal job?”

Young glared at him.

Vala hooked her Zat to her belt and crawled through the hatch in the wall, wincing at the weight on her shoulder. She balanced on the platform, then grabbed a ladder rung and began the climb.

Young waited for Rush to follow, then climbed through himself, pulling the hatch shut with his good leg.

The shaft was silent.

Below, a layer of white lined the shaft like milk in a shot glass.

He looked up and began to climb.

Good hand, good leg.

Good hand, bad leg.

Good hand, good leg.

Good hand, bad leg.

It wasn’t a rhythm because a ‘rhythm’ implied something more than a lurching, painful advance, his bad side only coming even with his good side, never extending. His breath burned in his throat. The air from his stolen breathing apparatus was dry and sterile.

“Oh no,” Telford breathes. “Oh Christ. Oh shit, oh fuck.” Ash falls like snow, covering rock and metal. It settles over Telford’s hair. “They’re coming.”

The land is red. Like rust. Like old blood. Debris-flakes fall in waves.

“They’re coming,” Telford repeats, and his voice is calmer. Harder. “Where’d you leave the ship?”

Young spits blood into the red dirt and swallows. “Where do you think?” His eyes flick toward the steep slope of the active volcano.

Telford follows his gaze, shaking, bloodied, barely on his feet. He grins at Young. “You’re a priceless son of a bitch. You know that?”

Young laughs, short and sharp. He feels the pain of it from his spine to his toes.

“Which way is it gonna be?” Telford looks at the mountain. “The hard way, or the hard way?”

“The hard way,” Young grinds out. “It’s always the hard way.”

Young’s good hand, slick with sweat, slipped on the rung. He caught himself with a jolt of sharp-on-sharp pain.

Above him, Rush looked down.

Young tipped his head back and got a good view of the man’s designer shoes. “Go,” he rasped.

Rush shook his hair back. Even behind the mask of an alien breathing unit, the guy could wordlessly telegraph all kinds of irritation.

Young focused on the climb. One rung at a time. Step after painful step.

“Think Sanchez might have a crush on me.” Telford drags him up the barren, ashy slope. “What are your thoughts—” he coughs in the acrid air, “—on this.”

“You wish,” Young says through blood, his free hand sliding over stone as fingernails scramble for purchase on loose rock. “Everyone—” he seizes up with a wave of pain, “wants to date a combat engineer.”

“Yeah.” Telford’s barely audible, barely visible through ash-filled air. “Short though. I don’t know about the hair.”

Young inhales slowly, breathing through blood. “You’re a dick. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“I save your life, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Still a dick,” Young rasps.

The memory was so vivid, the acidity of the air so immediate, the pain of his injuries so familiar, that he didn’t notice Rush’d stopped until his hand hit the other man’s ankle. Again, he caught himself with his left hand, shutting his eyes against the jolt that ran down his side.

Vala was at the top of the shaft. She unstrapped her Zat and transferred it to the hand that she had hooked around the top rung of the ladder. With a pained grimace, she flung the top hatch open, letting in a blinding shaft of natural light. Young shut his eyes, but too late to prevent the searing negative of her outline from bleaching his retinas.

He squinted through tearing eyes and saw Vala clear the rim of the access tunnel. Rush followed her through, and Young made his way up behind them. With Rush’s help, he clambered out of the shaft and tore off his breathing apparatus. His lungs ached in the hot, dry air.

Vala stepped around him and swung the hatch shut.

“Are you all right?” Rush gave him a critical once-over.

“Yeah.” Young scanned the tree line. “You?”

“Fine,” Rush stepped in and hauled Young’s arm over his shoulder.

Young tried not to collapse on top of the guy. “Vala?”

“I’m all right.” Vala pulled off her mask, brushed sweat-damp hair out of her face, and stepped to his side, intending to take some of his weight despite her shoulder injury. “Might I suggest we keep moving?”

Young waved her off. “Take point. We need to find a place to cut out our transponders.”

They moved through sunburnt pines and dry underbrush. Young could feel Rush’s fatigue in the softening of his shoulders, the slowing of his steps.

“You hanging in there, hotshot?”

“I’ve had better days,” Rush said, breathlessly conversational.

“Me too,” Young said.

“Me three,” Vala called over her shoulder, “but I do have a piece of good news.” She paused in a patch of dappled shade beneath a cluster of aspen.

“Oh yeah?” Young scanned their six.

“It seems that in all the confusion of unscheduled offworld activations, Daniel’s car keys have ended up in my jacket pocket.”

Rush quirked an eyebrow. “Convenient.”

“Is it?” Vala asked coolly.

“You stole Jackson’s keys?” Young growled.

“I borrowed his keys,” Vala corrected. “I have a habit of picking up useful objects in uncertain times.”

“Not sure how I feel about that,” Young said.

“Well.” Rush swept a hand through his sweat damp hair. “I think it’s fuckin’ brilliant.”

“Thank you, gorgeous,” Vala said primly.