Lucky Chapter 9 – Chasing after Lucky

McKay's POV

Today was a good day, a great day even. Sheppard was out training the newbies with Teyla and Ronon which meant he had Lucky all day. At his request Sheppard had dropped her off at his lab early in the morning before the mission. Beforehand McKay had withdrawn the programming for the door that would have allowed her to get out on her own. She was perfectly secured for their day together. He was looking forward to working peacefully in his lab for once with some playtime with Lucky in between. So McKay walked down the corridors of Atlantis with a friendly smile and greeting to everyone he met on his way, never noticing the confused glances he received for his kindness. The doors to his lab opened with the well known swoosh and he was greeted by an upset Lucky who hadn't liked it one bit to be confined to the lab on her own. Before McKay had a chance to stop her she bypassed him and run off.

"Oh no!" he exclaimed engaging Zelenka's attention.

"What happened? Maybe I can help?"

"What? Oh no, there's nothing you can probably do," McKay replied trying to get rid of him without wondering what the other scientist might infer from that answer.

"Well, if you're sure." Zelenka, used to McKay's opinion of other scientist by now, simply returned to his own lab.

'Well, where could Lucky possibly be?' McKay wondered once Zelenka was gone. Of course, thanks to his genius programming, she could return to Sheppard's quarters on her own or stroll around Atlantis but he had looked forward to having Lucky around. McKay decided to get a life sign detector to track her down easier.

When McKay finally entered the military supply room where they had stuffed the life sign detectors, it was two hours later. "Unbelievable!" he muttered to himself with a glance at his watch. Of course it has to be this morning that this fool Barton had to try out some of the newly discovered technology. And of cause he hadn't followed protocol.

'Why had I installed that anyway? Oh wait… to avoid that something bad might happen! And now look what happened. That fool had blown up half the area before he had been able to turn it off. Now Lorne was down there with a group of pioneers getting the cleaning-up operation on the way. The man hadn't been pleased. No wonder.'

He hadn't been holding back when dealing with Barton. For once wishing he'd be in the military as well, so he could drumhead court-martial the man.

McKay looked around the room and quickly found was he was looking for. He switched it on and immediately a plan of the surrounding rooms showed up with lots of red dots blinking and moving around. He plugged in the card with his special program he had done for Lucky and the red dots vanished. Now only a little green one was left.

And just like that McKay spirits were lifted; that little green dot was in the locker room next door. It was empty since every team was already on their way and following the direction of the detector he soon found the missing kitten. Apparently someone hadn't closed the door to his locker properly and taking advantage Lucky had made herself comfortable on the spare shirt inside.

"Hey! There you are!" McKay addressed her happily and began to fondle her. Lucky yawned at him and began to get up.

"You ready for new entertainment, huh? Well, let's get out of here then." Picking her up, McKay failed to notice that the black shirt now sported white hair all over it.

"Let's get back and I promise we will a have a nice play time together," McKay told her cheerfully while Lucky began to squirm in his arms so he set her down. "Now how do we get you back to my lab, hm?" he mused.

McKay went over his options: 'Carrying her? Obviously out of option for now. Wile her? That could work if only he had remembered to bring some of her favorite food with him.'

'Of course if he'd be Sheppard Lucky would follow him around just because,' he thought with a sparkle of jealousy.

Before McKay had the chance to decide on the best way group of marines entered.

"Sir!" they greeted.

McKay rewarded their politeness with a "Yeah, hello to you too." He was anxious they wouldn't discover the kitten. Frantically looking around he noticed her using the benches as a cover and then she had escaped the room.

'Well done!' He was proud of her. Then it occurred to him that now he had to hunt her down again.

"Crap!" The word slipped out of his mouth rather vocal and so he found himself at the unwanted attention of every Marine in the room looking at him, clearly wondering what had happened. When he didn't make any further commend they looked at each other some bewildered, some shaking their head and… was that an eye roll? Back to his sore mood McKay stomped out of the room, the life sign detector firmly clutched in his hand.

The Marine's POV

Everyone on Atlantis was used to McKay temper by now, so no Marine would bat an eyelash when he was in one of his moods. What caused Sergeant Harrison to look after the man with worry was the life sign detector he had looked onto with knotted eyebrows and angry mumbling. After all they would be on guard duty for the next hours and therefore they should know if there was a possible threat on Atlantis. So, unknown to McKay, Sergeant Harrison, who had learned not to underestimate the scientist, ordered his men to get a detector for themselves and look out for everything unusual.

Private Tomashevski had been assigned to the group who had to secure the more remote areas. Tomashevski was glad to be teamed up with Greg. He was a nice guy and he although had already served on Atlantis for about a year. Patrolling their sector, they hadn't picked up any unusual sign so far. Now they were heading towards some of the piers when they suddenly picked up an inhuman life sign. It could be Wraith, but Wraith showed up blue and this was green. On the one hand it was a relief to know they didn't have a Wraith in the city but green was a new color, he didn't know what it stood for, which meant that he had to be extra wary. Carefully Greg and he approached the area stealthily when suddenly Greg signed to him to stop. Holding his breath, he could hear someone approaching from the different direction of the building. Looking at the detector Greg shook his head showing it to him – it was human.

'Great! Now not only this but they had to track down some intruder and insure that person didn't get caught in the middle. Everything would be easier if it was some of their comrades but if it was one of the scientist… or worst some of the new scientist with no combat experience…'

The dot had reached the corner and quickly Tomashevski grabbed the man from behind and to prevent that he'd made any noise due this action he quickly put his hand upon his mouth, dragging him into the relatively safety of the shadow. He then carefully turned the man around to explain the situation and looked straight into the very angry eyes of Atlantis' head scientist.

'Crap!' Now he was clearly in over his head.

"Please, Sir," he whispered. "We're following an unknown life sign. It could be a possible threat." Again he gave the man an apologetic look before he retrieved his hand.

The following scene wasn't pretty. With firmly clasped jaw McKay got hold of their life sign detector, read the signs and obviously came to the conclusion that there wasn't any threat.

"You! Of all the…." he exclaimed, too angry to form a coherent sentence. "It's green! Didn't you see that! No, of course you guys wouldn't pay attention to the color! Green is for animals!"

Now Tomashevski felt embarrassed but he could honestly say no one had told him until now. Never letting the agitated scientist out of his sight, he peeked over to Greg who wasn't impresses at all.

"Sir, with all due respect. We paid attention to the color but unfortunately it seemed the science department failed to inform the military about this tiny discovery."

Tomashevski prepared himself for another tongue lashing but to his utter astonishment the man seemed to freeze.

"Never mind," McKay brushed the incident off. "Now you know. So you can carry on." His words were accompanied with wild hand waving. "I'll tell Sheppard once he returns this evening. It was discovered some days ago. It may be that, with all the things going on, we failed to inform everyone. Didn't seem to be urgent at that time."

Greg raised an eyebrow, and Tomashevski knew that he found it rather suspicious that the scientist had calmed down so easily and more so took the blame on himself. Looking at their life sign detector, they noticed that the green dot had vanished. McKay who had followed their view noticed too but let out groan. Tomashevski looked at Greg. 'Scientists! You'd never understand them.' Grunting some sort of goodbye, McKay hurried off.

"Well," Greg drawled. "That was strange." Tomashevski couldn't agree more but he was glad that there was no intruder on Atlantis.

Greg radioed the new information to their Sergeant before they continued their patrol.

McKay POV

He couldn't believe it. He had been this close to get Lucky and now she had wandered off again. What angered him the most was the fact he had no one to blame but himself, and on top of that he had told them that green was for animals. Now he had to fear that one day someone would track her down. 'Crap! Why couldn't he hold his tongue?'

McKay looked around to make sure both Marines weren't nowhere in sight before he took his life sign detector out. But all he could see were the red dots of the Marines continuing their patrol whereas the green on from Lucky was gone.

"Of course," he muttered to himself. His stomach grumbled and looking at his watch he noticed that it was way past lunchtime. Determinant he pulled out a power bar and continued his mission to track down Lucky.

"Now, if I were a cat on Atlantis, where would I go?"