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Chapter 5 – Silence is the World's Curse

His eyes stared at the paper in disbelief. Each word printed there could not be true. This letter was false, it had to be. Rodney McKay does not quit, he never quits. Radek Zelenka flopped down in his chair and read the lines again.

To: Dr. Elizabeth Weir

CC: Lt. Col. John Sheppard, Dr. Radek Zelenka

Attached: Zelenka's letter, Miko's Letter, 5 Personnel reports

Re: Resignation

I, Dr. Rodney McKay,
Do hereby give my resignation from the Atlantis expedition and ask for immediate
departure from the city by the form of the Stargate.
If this is unavailable, then I request to be added to the passenger list aboard the
Daedalus for the flight back to Earth.

In my place, I recommend that Dr. Radek Zelenka, who I have copied this letter to,
take over as Chief Science Officer and to let Dr. Miko become the 2IC. They are good
at what they do and I would trust no one else with my city.

If you do allow this then enclosed you will find two letters, one is for Dr. Zelenka
which contains passwords to all my personnel projects, and the other for Dr. Miko,
it contains all the relevant information for the undistributed tasks that I had backed up.

Furthermore I suggest getting rid of Dr. Kavenaugh and his lackey's. In the long run,
or even right now, they are going to be more trouble than they are worth (see
attached personnel sheets).

Dr. Rodney McKay PhD

Former Chief Science Officer of Atlantis

Radek had looked in the bin for the other pieces of paper but had no luck. It was as if he had changed his mind midway through. Question flooded Radek's mind.

Why did he write it in the first place?

What made him want to give up Atlantis?

Did he still want to?

Where they the ones to blame?

-----

A lone figure sat in his room tapping his fingers on a desk beside a white piece of paper.

That stubborn man was not moving. He had sent note after note with threats of his imminent death if he did not comply with his wishes and all that man did was work on his precious little projects.

The man's fist clenched until his knuckles were white.

How had that man gotten into Atlantis in the first place?

He wasn't brave and he certainly wasn't as brilliant as they claimed, therefore he must have been just lucky. Luck would only get him so far.

He picked up the pen and began twisting it through his fingers. Carefully but quickly each finger caught the pen going down, around, and then back up again.

Fortunately for him, Sheppard still wasn't talking to McKay. He knew that as long as Sheppard didn't get involved things would eventually start going his way. It was always easier to cause fear in someone who had no one by their side. He just had to make sure that no one else decided to help the Doctor. Maybe it was time to up the threats.

With that the pen touched the page and began to write.

-----

Lab 1 was silent throughout most of the day, which was unusual because most of the time there were people running in and out of there for one reason or another and a voice yelling so loud that the room three doors down could hear it.

On this day though, Rodney McKay was the only one there.

There were no other scientists bouncing ideas off each other. Nor where there marines smiling to each other when their chosen scientists forgot to pay attention to where they were going because of the thought of a breakthrough on their projects. No, on this day everyone was somewhere else.

Even Radek had taken all his things and moved to a different lab. Of course, he said that he was moving because of the constant equipment failures in Atlantis. Rodney, though, knew he was lying. There had been no malfunctions in any of those labs, only in areas they hadn't yet examined, and the ones Atlantis wouldn't open. His computer would have told him that. Like now.

On Rodney's computer a message flashed.

ERROR IN SECTION 7

CRITICAL POWER FAILURE

Although how the program picked up what the error was, was still a mystery to him.

Rodney got up off his chair, took another sip of his coffee, and went to grab his toolkit. As his arm reached forward, he saw his hand beginning to shake. He raised it up to eye level and watched it for a minute.

To him it was just another reminder of the weaknesses he carried. Nothing was ever right about him, he always failed. It just took people longer to see it, but when they did they would notice everything about him, like the way his parents had.

Reaching up to his jacket pocket, her removed a power bar and ate it quickly. After 2 weeks of eating them, he barely noticed the taste anymore. The wrapper read Chocolate hazelnut but all he tasted was the rough texture of each and every bite.

Grabbing his tool kit and tablet, he turned to Zelenka's desk and sighed at the emptiness of it.

For an instant a brief spark crossed Rodney's eyes. The excitement that was once there almost coming to the surface but when his eyes saw that no one was there they became lifeless once more. The shadows of silence doused the fire as quickly as it had come, never letting it slip out of its grasp.

Rodney took one look around the room and then his eyes fell to the floor as he shuffled out to Section 7. His shoulders hunched as if the world was upon them. The fire was still not strong enough to face the oppressing silence. There was nothing there to help fuel the fire.

----

"That's the plan?"

Laura looked at Brian and Ronon as they said the same thing and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, that's the plan."

"That's a stupid plan," Brain replied.

"No it's not."

"Yes it is."

"Ok…You think up a better plan, brainiac."

Ronon looked at the two and then looked at Alex.

"Are they always like this?"

"Yep"

Cassie then interrupted.

"How about we take rotating shifts? Two people per rotation. So we'll have Cadman and Alex, Brian and Ronon, and then me and umm…"

Ronon looked at Cassie and then at the rest.

"Why don't you pair up and I will meet up with McKay alone. Seems less suspicious"

Brian finally broke out of his reverie over the stupid plan.

"Hey question…exactly why aren't you sitting with Lt. Col. Sheppard?"

Cassie groaned while Ronon just grinned.

"Where were you about 20 minutes ago?"

Brian looked at Cassie innocently.

"In coffee heaven, where angels are java beans, and god is a coffee pot"

"So what's Jesus?"

"He's the hot plate keeping the coffee hot."

"And the devil is?" Laura asked.

"Uncaffinated beverages."

"Someone tell me how you three got onto my team?"

"That's a mystery that not even the SGC can figure out, Alex" Laura replied with a cheeky grin.

Ronon picked up his fork to grab the last bit of food on his plate and then stopped.

"I still have one question. Who goes first?"

--------

While the occupants of Atlantis were going about their day, an important data burst was darting across the Pegasus galaxy, on its way to a planet on its outer edge. A little planet by the name of Othalla.

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