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******
He wakes to wrongness, to strangeness, to darkness.
No, there's some light, dim, glowing behind panels here and there. He can't see properly because he can't move. He lifts his head as far as he can and struggles against his bonds, flooded by panic. It's no use – he's held fast.
Then he realizes: he has no idea who he is. He screams.
It doesn't sound like him screaming (how does he know how he's supposed to sound?). The noises he's making are strange, with weird dissonant harmonics and clicking undertones. It's not his voice. But he's making the sounds, so it must be his voice.
"Let me loose!" He hears it resonate in the foul-smelling shadows, but it still doesn't sound like him. How does he know how his voice is meant to sound, when he doesn't know his name?
It feels like he's been yelling for a long time, but his time-sense is all messed up by the dark. There's no natural light here. He thinks he shouldn't be in such a dark place, but where's he supposed to be? No memories, just a terrifying void. He shudders, chest tight with fear, and strains against the restraints.
He hears footsteps. Someone is coming. A figure looms over him, grayish skin and short pale hair. Too many holes in his face – there shouldn't be extra holes in a face alongside the nose, should there? The thing's wearing leather, a tunic, dark and shiny. He's furious with himself that he knows stupid things – what a nose is, what leather is – but not his own name.
The thing (is it a man? The face looks strange) puts a hand on his arm. "Don't struggle; you'll hurt yourself."
"Let me go!"
"I will, but I have to explain things. Lie still, and I'll tell you." The voice is like his, he realizes, deep, with harmonics and strange resonance. Is he like this . . . man? If this is a man? The thought fills him with fear and he struggles some more.
"Lie still!" The voice is full of authority. It seems to vibrate inside him, somehow. It's hard to resist. He lies there, gasping for breath.
"Your name is Darkflight. You're a warrior from the Hive of She-Who-Eats-Worlds. You are Wraith, like me. My name is First." The man . . . no, the Wraith, emphasizes the names. It feels like he's pushing them into . . . Darkflight's? . . . into his brain. Darkflight. He doesn't recognize it. The name explains nothing – gives him no story, no history of himself. And yet . . . in some way he can't identify, it feels right. Familiar. It must be his name, then. But . . . but he's Wraith? He tries to lift his hand to touch his face, feel the extra holes beside his nose. The bonds prevent him and he jerks against them uselessly.
"Hold still," The one who calls himself First says firmly. "I'll release you once I have explained."
"Wraith?" he croaks. He seems to know what that means, and it fits the darkness, the smell, and the look of First. It doesn't feel like it fits him, though. There's no familiarity, no triggering of memory. What's happened to him, that he can't remember anything?
"Yes, you are Wraith. You were captured by the enemy. They gave you a virus to try to turn you into one of them, which harmed you. That's why you can't remember who you are. We rescued you and the virus is wearing off, gradually. I hope that you'll be able to remember more after a while, but we can't be sure if your memory will return. I can help you, though, teach you. And you're safe here. You're safe."
He's safe? This one – First – wants to help him. He doesn't feel safe. "Where am I?"
"We're in a special treatment facility planet-side, to help you recover. You're not ready yet to re-join the Hive."
Hives: huge, darkness, swarming. He stares up at the Wraith, at First. "I look like you?"
"Yes, in most ways. The virus they gave you has not fully receded yet, but it may, in time." First stares down at him consideringly. "Would it help you to see yourself?"
"Yes!" To see his own face – surely that will remind him who he is?
First turns aside to a bench along one wall. He returns with something shiny, a mirror that reflects the darkened room, the glowing panels. First holds it over Darkflight's face and he tries to refocus his eyes (they seem strange as well, the shadows shimmering with iridescent colors he can't name). Then his reflection comes into focus, shadowed and side-lit, but he can make it out. A longer face than First's, and his hair is a pale shock, standing up wildly in spikes. His skin is grayish with a tracery of dark veins, and yes, he has extra holes alongside his nostrils. But his eyes. He stares at his eyes, which are yellow, bisected by vertical slits. He blinks at himself, then shuts them and lets his head fall back.
It's true, what First said. He is Wraith, like First. He's a Wraith who's been injured by some enemy and lost his memory. He makes a faint keening, clicking sound of distress far back in his throat, involuntarily. Darkflight, he's Darkflight, he must hold onto that.
"I won't fight or run off," he says, eyes still shut. Where would he run to? Why would he run? This is where he belongs, and he knows he needs help. "Let me loose."
******
They're alone in the treatment center, and Darkflight doesn't like thinking about how much he relies on First.
It's only been a few days but he's stopped having the overwhelming bouts of panic. The feeling of wrongness has never dissipated, but First thinks that's anxiety, because his memory still hasn't returned.
First teaches him about the Wraith every day and he tries to take it in. He feels so stupid, like a baby. No, that's the wrong word, the wrong image, a fat pink grub. That's the enemy, what they did to his brain with the virus, putting their own words and images in his head. Wraith hatch from larvae, from egg pods. He knows that; First's explained it all. He's got no memory of hatching, but First says Wraith don't usually remember much before they start feeding, so that's normal.
The rest, though, so much that he should know, eludes him. It makes him angry and he wants to lash out, to use his claws, to rend, to destroy, to suck the life out of–
He stares down at the feeding slit in his hand. First says the hunger's normal, especially as he's been injured and needs to heal himself. It eats at him constantly, a gnawing pain deep inside. There's no prey here, but First says they don't need to eat that way all the time. For now, there's a tasteless mush extruded from the wall of the facility. It dulls the edge of the hunger a little, but it's unsatisfying, even though First assures him it's nutritionally balanced.
He doesn't remember much about feeding, but First's told him about it. The heady rush as the lifeforce fills you – and he does recall that for some reason, just not catching the prey or the actual act of feeding. He was surprised to learn that the prey are the enemy who harmed him. First says they've grown cunning and more dangerous.
He snarls softly, thinking about it. When he's well enough to go hunting with First again he's going to catch one of these humans and drain it, then rip the husk to shreds. He'll drain as many as it takes, until his memories return. First hasn't said so, but Darkflight's sure that's what he needs to heal himself and get his memories back. He needs to feed.
******
Darkflight clutches his head in his hands and concentrates. He gives himself a headache, but there's nothing – only himself, his own useless thoughts rattling around inside his head. He bares his teeth and slams a fist into the organic wall of the facility, frustrated. Then he leans his head against it, apologetic, but he knows it won't hear him – he's got no connection.
It's from the virus the humans gave him, First says. First became worried after a few days when Darkflight still couldn't hear his thoughts, or link up even at a simple level with the living tissue the facility's made from. Darkflight hoped it would come back, but it's been several dark-light cycles and it hasn't.
He's damaged. It's almost like he's mute, in Wraith terms. Oh, he can open his mouth and say words, crude sounds that operate through auditory vibrations in the Wraith's almost-vestigial hearing apparatus. The concepts are strange but First explained them to him. Words are all he has, and to Wraith, they're like the growls and yaps of a primitive beast, like the meaningless noises of the brain-damaged. Which is exactly what he is.
True speech is mind-to-mind, for Wraith. Even the name First gave back to him, Darkflight – even First's own name – are crude approximations of complex bursts of ideas and images, like a data-burst. Where did that come from? He seems to know what a data-burst is, but First said he was a warrior, not a technician. No matter. Darkflight shrugs, and resumes pacing. It's probably common knowledge, and if everything's shared mind-to-mind, there must be a lot of that.
The Hive will never take him back unless he can join with them mentally. Why would they want one so badly damaged? Each of them's nothing in himself, only as part of the Hive. He misses his comrades with a dull, hollow ache. Misses his team. No, that's the wrong word. He snarls, hands clenched into fists. Words! The enemy put the wrong words and images in his head and took away his connection, his birth right. He hates them.
"Still no better?" It's First, who's slipped silently into the chamber behind him when he was preoccupied. If he could share thought in the usual way that would never happen – he'd know where First was all the time, and First would know everything about him. For some reason that makes Darkflight uneasy, but that must be the damage again, making things that should be natural seem strange and wrong. He suppresses a surge of anxiety.
"No." He turns and stares at First bleakly. "I keep trying, but there's nothing."
First frowns. "I had hoped, after a while . . ."
"I need to feed!" Darkflight waves his clawed hand at the place in the wall where the feeding spout extrudes. "Not that crap. On a human, on prey. I'm not going to get better until I do!"
First's frown deepens. "That's not certain, and managing it is not easy. This moon's uninhabited – there are no prey here."
"So take me somewhere where there are prey and let me feed!"
"I don't know . . . it will take time to make ready–"
"Well, make it the hell ready, then, whatever!" Darkflight slumps down head in hands on the sitting bench that's molded out from the chamber's own tissue. It adjusts to his form. "I can't go on like this!" Darkflight raises his head and glares at First. "I won't be able to hear the Queen. How can I live if I can't hear She-Who-Eats-Worlds? You told me she's everything to us, everything." It feels almost right. He has half a memory of someone in charge he was close to, a female. That must be the Queen.
First looks troubled. "Yes, that's true. But it will take time for me to program – I mean, for the facility to create a transport. So that we can find prey. You must be patient a little longer."
"Not like I've got any damn choice," Darkflight mutters. First nods, then turns abruptly and leaves the room, no doubt heading for his laboratory and his computers. Sometimes Darkflight wonders if First cares at all, or if Darkflight's just another experiment to him.
He sighs, trying not to be ungrateful, because without First he'd be utterly lost. But it seems hopeless. Without mindspeech the Queen will surely kill him. No Queen would want a defective member of her Hive; she'd just use him as prey and drain him. But he should welcome that – the ultimate sacrifice – so why are his instincts all scrambled and distorted? He thinks he recalls going to his knees before a Queen, but not in joy and joining. Fear, and hate, and fighting are his memories, and it's all so wrong. It's the damage the evil humans did to him with their virus.
Darkflight leaps up and stalks off to the practice room, to work on his swordplay and on prey immobilization with the stunners. He spins and slashes against a holographic opponent until he's exhausted, but it's not enough to ease the growing sense of wrongness he feels. Nowhere near enough.
******
First takes him up to the surface for the first time. It's barren – just harsh crater-pocked outcrops stretching away, beyond the facility's hidden entrance in the side of a rock face. It feels good to be outside though, even though they need to wear respirators as the atmosphere's too thin to breathe for long. It means they have to talk through communicators, which Darkflight tries not to think about. If his mindspeech was intact the machines would be unnecessary.
The sky's full of the vast, ghostly image of the gas giant around which their world orbits. It casts a faint bluish light. "I have a solution," First says. "You remember I told you this facility was on a moon?" He gestures at the huge planet hanging in the sky. Darkflight nods. "My scans have shown that there's a crashed cruiser on another moon in this system. It's most likely been there many years, but it might have power, and if so, the food supplies may still be fresh."
"They'd be in stasis?" Darkflight thinks of First's lessons about the internal structure of Hives and Cruisers. "But how can we get there?"
"I had the facility create this flier for us," First says, leading him to some wide, shallow steps made from slabs of rock, winding up the side of the outcrop hiding their home.
At the top there's a flat landing area and a low, spike-nosed craft that's immediately familiar. At last, something he remembers clearly. "A dart!" Darkflight says, delighted by the small flier, running his hands over it appreciatively.
First nods. "Yes. It's made from the same substance as the facility's walls. It was extruded much as the sitting benches are, although the programming's considerably more complex."
Darkflight peers into the open cockpit. "Maybe I was a pilot, not a warrior, before they . . . you know. I know how to fly it; I can remember flying darts." He looks hopefully back at First. "Can I fly it?"
First shakes his head. "Not this time. There's only room for one pilot and I have the coordinates of the crashed cruiser so I'll need to get us there. I'll dematerialize you for the trip."
Darkflight pushes down a crushing disappointment. It's the first time anything's resonated so strongly with him as welcome and familiar. He wants to fly it very badly. Next time, he tells himself.
First climbs into the pilot's seat as Darkflight watches enviously. It explains his name, anyway. He knows, deep down, that he loves flying, knows he's good at it.
The cockpit hood slides up and opaques over First, then the flier rises smoothly into the sky. It darts away, living up to its name, before looping back with a high-pitched whine of engines. The sound's unsettling. If he was a dart pilot, why would the noise they make bother him? It should be welcome.
Then the white beam sweeps over him and there's nothing.
An eyeblink, more an unsettling, hard to define shift, then he's standing on the surface of another moon, but dustier, less rocky, and he sways and has to spread his arms for balance as his feet sink into the dust unevenly. He looks up: the gas giant seems slightly closer, the swirling patterns on its surface flowing differently.
The dart swoops back, and again Darkflight grits his teeth against that grating whine until the craft slows, hovers, and lowers itself to settle on the surface, raising soft puffs of dust. The cockpit hood retracts and First joins him, pulling out a scanner and turning in a half-circle. Darkflight is suddenly, powerfully reminded of someone else doing that, but the form in his memories is wrong, not wraithlike. He shakes his head, impatient with false visions left by the virus.
"That way," First says, pointing, and they set off through low, rolling dunes, their feet kicking up pale clouds that cling to their boots and leggings.
It's not too long before they find the wreck, and although it’s the farthest Darkflight remembers ever walking, he doesn't feel tired. Maybe he's healing, getting stronger, or maybe it's the gravity – lighter than in the facility. The cruiser's a mess, its outer flanges broken off, the central mass half buried in rock dust.
First leads him in through a hole torn in one side, maybe damage from the crash or a later meteor strike – the thin atmosphere here wouldn't offer much protection. It's dark inside, and fetid with decay, but First checks his scanner and says there's residual power left, so they press on toward the stasis cells.
Suddenly, First halts, putting a hand on Darkflight's arm to stop him. Darkflight goes to speak, but First glares at him and makes a fierce negative gesture. Don't speak. Well, he didn't need mindspeech for that . . . wait, did First hear something that way? Other Wraith? Darkflight peers around, his nerves jangling. Wraith, and they could be enemies from another Hive. His lips pull back from his teeth, but he feels helpless, robbed of his senses. He's prey, the humans made him into prey, and he hates it.
First grabs his arm and drags him, striding ahead swiftly, pushing through sheets of decaying matter. They reach the stasis cells, but the first ones are empty, then there's a desiccated body tossed aside on the floor, and another, and more of them, collapsed in their cells. They're all drained, shriveled, mere papery husks. Stolen. Some rival Wraith has stolen Darkflight's food, his one chance of healing. He suppresses a surge of terror. It must be the waste; he's upset by the waste. He's Wraith, so the prey's corpses shouldn't bother him.
It happens so quickly, Darkflight's completely overwhelmed. He's knocked sideways into an empty cell by something horribly strong and fast that drops down on them from the tattered, decaying levels above. First's ready, though, ducking and whirling to stun it again and again, until it falls, twitching, and finally lies still. Darkflight struggles out of the recess to find First standing over the body, stunner still trained on it. "One of the crew," First says. "The last survivor."
"A, a brother?" Darkflight asks, unsure if he's reading the facial markings right. First's been teaching him the identifying marks for a number of Hives, but they're not foolproof. With mindspeech, Wraith always know who's brother, and who's other, so the markings have become decorative. First said that's why he and Darkflight don't have any – they're choice, not necessity.
"No. Not our Hive. He's eaten all the prey they had in stasis, but he ran out of food years ago. He's largely been in stasis, since. The cruiser power source is almost depleted though, so it will have woken him before the pod went critical."
"He ate them all?" Darkflight stares around at the ranks of cells, the discarded husks. All empty. All useless to him.
First straightens and steps back, gesturing him forward. "Well, here's your chance."
Darkflight frowns at him. Chance for what?
"To feed," First says casually.
Darkflight feels a cold coil of horror in his gut. Wraith are cannibals? He tries to shake off a slew of odd images raised by the thought. A plump human dressed in black trussed up in a big steaming pot, a flying vehicle crashed in snowy mountains, shriveled blackened heads. Damn that virus. "I . . . but he's Wraith," Darkflight says, struggling to understand.
"Not our Hive," First repeats. "So he's prey. He'll still have a lot of lifeforce, after consuming all these." He waves his scanner at the stasis cells.
Darkflight moves closer and kneels by the fallen Wraith's body, fascinated. It doesn't look like him and First, he realizes. It has long white hair, filthy and tangled. Its skin is pale green, wet-looking, the jagged black facial marks standing out prominently. The slits beside its nose are larger and the mouth is open, letting him glimpse rows of serrated teeth. Unconsciously, he runs his tongue over his own teeth: just one set. "He . . . looks different," he says. "From you. And from me."
"Other Hives do," First says easily. "Get on with it – we don't have all day and those stuns will wear off soon, especially if he's fed on the ship's whole food store."
"Right." Darkflight grabs the Wraith's tunic and rips it apart, exposing a bony thorax. He lifts his feeding hand, then hesitates, poised. It feels wrong, to feed on a brother, even one from another Hive. He knows Wraith are ruthlessly territorial, killing rival Hives without hesitation. He just . . . something in him revolts, even though the Wraith itself disgusts him. It's so . . . alien.
Then it's too late, the seemingly stunned Wraith blurring into motion, grabbing him in a grip like a vice and bounding away. It slams him against a rotting wall and claws its feeding hand onto his chest, and he screams, feeling the rush of his life ebbing out, torn away in a burst of searing pain that burns as it drains him, as he shrivels and ages.
It stops, and he slumps, weak and helplessly decrepit. First stuns the Wraith again and again, then kneels and slaps his feeding hand to its chest, teeth bared and head back as the lifeforce floods into him.
Darkflight watches him feed through clouding eyes, unable even to feel envy. He doesn't deserve to live. He's a disgrace. First found him a food source and he was weak and hesitant, and now it's too late. He's dying, close to fully drained. Darkflight finds he's almost grateful. He doesn't think he'd ever have been healed, not really. He can't live as a crippled exile, alone, without others, without his team. It's the wrong word, but he doesn't care.
His eyelids slide shut, but First's pulling open his jerkin and pressing his hand to Darkflight's chest. "You are a fool," First says. "But you are of my Hive, and a brother."
Lifeforce rushes in like a flash flood sweeping all before it. It hurts almost as badly as being drained. He arches and cries out in pain and exultation, every cell filling, his nerves singing with power. It seems to go on and on until he doesn't think he can take any more, thinks he'll burst or spontaneously combust. And then it stops. He lies there, panting, tingling from head to foot. He's aroused, but not sexually. Every part of his body's aroused, pulsing with life.
His ears are ringing, his whole body's ringing, so he doesn't hear properly when First speaks. "What?" he gasps, opening his eyes.
First stands and kicks aside the carcass of the drained Wraith. He looks back at Darkflight. "I warned you he would not stay stunned long. Why did you not feed?"
"Eating people is wrong?" Darkflight says, trying for deflection. It's an old joke, he thinks, but he doesn't know from where. It's patently untrue; eating people isn't wrong, it's what Wraith do. Probably another stupid human memory from the virus. He shakes it off and springs up. He feels great, strong and lithe, filled with energy. Then he stops dead.
"What is it?" First's watching him narrowly.
"I can't. Still." Darkflight stares at him, stricken. "I still can't hear you."
First's face goes blank, shuttered. " Come," he says, turning away. "We must return to the dart."
Darkflight follows him, numb despite the power vibrating in him. No mindspeech. The lifeforce didn't cure him. He's doomed.
******
Darkflight takes to his sleeping niche for a day, but First won't let him hide away any longer than that. They go through the motions of daily activities and tutoring about all things Wraith, but all Darkflight feels is dull hopelessness, despite the influx of lifeforce. It makes him too restless to sulk for long, but the feeling of wrongness is stronger and the energy thrumming through him seems to have worsened the strange memories and dreams.
He can't help thinking about all those prey, harvested by the Wraith that First drained, their lifeforce passed on to him. Has the essence of so many humans distorted him? It's crazy – Wraith feed on humans all their lives and don't become human. It'd be like a horror story he vaguely recalls about the recipient of a heart transplant taking on the donor's personality. He shakes his head, annoyed – another weird human memory from the damage done by the virus. Wraith don't have a heart, or rather, they have several.
He trains a lot with the sword, although sometimes it feels like he's wielding a stick, not a blade. What good would a simple wooden stick be against Wraith? More madness. He paces, takes to running through the hallways of the facility until First growls at him. Apparently Wraith don't run, not unless they're hunting, and hardly ever then.
One night he wakes, gasping, his chest tight and aching where he was drained. He'd dreamed of himself as a human, dressed in black, walking down a road with three others. His team, that word again. Wraith don't have teams, just Hives, and Queens. There's something badly wrong here.
First doesn't trust him any more and Darkflight knows he's watching. He knows he's being monitored – there must be sensors here, but he can't see them. He paces, snarls, clutches his throbbing head. His eyes are burning and gritty, and he can't let himself sleep. He'll have human dreams if he sleeps, and the terrifying thing is, he almost wants to.
Sometimes he gets lost in memories of water and sky and tall silver spires, of flying, but not a dart. He's not alone in the dreams, and there's no First, or any other brother. He never dreams of his Queen, She-Who-Eats-Worlds. Only of three people. He can't see them clearly, just fleeting impressions and snatches of speech. Laughter, shared meals – strange human food, but it looks more appetizing than the mush extruded from the walls here. Boxy firearms, walking single file behind the others, touching foreheads with a female (but not a Queen). He remembers arguing with the loud one who's a technician, remembers wrestling with the tall one.
Does he look different? There was a mirror, but it's gone; he can't find it. Darkflight thinks the virus has reactivated, that it's making him human again. If he's changing physically First will see, and then what? More antidote? Or will First just kill him: a failed experiment. He doesn't know what's real any more, his Wraith self or the human ghosts. He doesn't trust First any more, doesn't believe First's his brother. But Darkflight doesn't know who he is or what he is. All he knows is that he can't go on.
******
He escapes one night, sneaking out when First's asleep (or feigning it), and dashes up the steps to the landing area on the plateau above. He must have triggered an alarm, because First follows close behind, but he's in the dart before First can stop him.
"Stop," First shouts, and it resonates in his mind, stopstopstop, almost shutting him down. He clenches his jaw. No. Enough.
He opaques the canopy as First fires at him. The dart shudders from the stunner blast. Darkflight ignores it, reading the scrolling display, and he knows he can do this: he can fly darts. He grasps the fleshy controls and lifts off, wheeling away and up, up, up, into a blackness bright with stars. Into space and then he'll turn and dive back down, faster and faster, the dart's whine screaming until it impacts, destroying the facility and First, his tormentor. Ending the pain.
He reaches the vertex of his arc and starts to turn.
Then, nothing.
******
He wakes to wrongness, to strangeness, to darkness.
It stinks of Wraith, and John's held down by restraints. He can turn his head a little, but all he sees are the usual organic-looking walls, glowing veined panels of purplish tissue. How in hell did he . . . wait. It comes back then, little by little. Amnesia, and he was a Wraith? A nightmare? Maybe he's been drugged.
He tries to calm himself: deep breaths. More memories return, and he recognizes First. Michael. Michael as he was at the end, not fully Wraith, but not human either. Christ, he must have been captured.
John tests the restraints, but they're rock-solid. A surge of fear and guilt – what in hell does Michael want with him? He was seriously pissed with them all, Beckett said. Changing him into a human not just one time, but twice. Well, one question's answered – Michael clearly made it off that planet with the other changed Wraith. That enemy Hive must have beamed them up before the nuke exploded.
But what then? He frowns, concentrating, and it comes back slowly. Months later, and they were on a mission (there's always a mission). A wasted trip chasing false ZPM intel – probably a trap, he now realizes. There was a meadow, the Gate in sight and Rodney just ahead, grousing, and then Teyla had moaned and stiffened, muttering a warning about Wraith. The Gate activated, and John'd pushed Teyla and Rodney down into the long grass. A dart zipped through, and John and Ronon had thrown themselves to either side to draw it away from Teyla and Rodney. The dart's beam had swept over John, brilliant light then utter blackness. Until he woke here with no memory, terrified and screaming.
He pulls at the restraints again. Why the amnesia, and why can he remember now? Did Michael turn him into a Wraith? He slides his tongue over his teeth: they could do with some toothpaste but they feel pretty normal. But they felt like that when he was a Wraith as well, so maybe he was like Michael, a mixture. He pulls a few faces but he can't tell if he's got those weird cheek-holes, spiracles, what the fuck ever they are. Has he got a feeding slit? He curls his fingers up to check, but the restraints won't let him do much. His right palm itches – that's probably his imagination.
"You're awake." Not as dissonant as most Wraith, but the voice still resonates with alien harmonics. Michael moves out from behind John, turns so John can see him. Still wearing that shiny maroon tunic that looks like it's made of snake-skin. Still looking pissed.
"Michael." He draws the name out, sneering. His heart's pounding. Can Michael tell how freaked out he is? Can they hear shit like that?
"Ah, the false identity you so kindly gave me after forcing me to change species. Twice. I have another name now."
"What, First? Bit pretentious."
"Merely accurate."
"What d'you want, Michael? And for Christ's sake let me up – these restraints are tight."
"I think not. Not yet." Michael walks around to the other side of the table John's bound to. The light's a little better there and John can see the dark veins at his temples, the yellow eyes. "As to what I want, well. Revenge, undoubtedly. And to teach you a lesson."
John licks his lips. "Was I . . . am I . . . a Wraith?"
Michael shrugs. "Not entirely. No more than I am. And no, you're not Wraith now. You never were."
"But . . . I remember. I was changed. I had . . . in my hand, and my eyes, my face."
"What does Dr McKay call it? A Virtual Environment. You were in stasis, programmed to see and hear exactly what I wanted. Quite a feat, if I say so myself. That's why I spent so much time at my console: it took a great deal of maintenance."
"Programmed? A VE?" John shakes his head, not sure if he's relieved or angry. No, he's angry. Definitely angry. He strains up from the bed, his neck muscles corded. "You put me through all that shit as some kind of tit for tat? To get your own back? You fucking bastard!"
Michael leans in, his face dark. "Yes, how very wrong of me to wipe your memory and convince you you were an alien. How wrong of me to dupe you and lie to you, to pretend to be your healer and companion. But remember, Sheppard: I only did it once. And I did it virtually. To you it seemed like days, but you have been gone from your friends only a few hours. I lost my Hive brothers forever."
John's jaw tightens and he looks away. "Look, it was a shit plan. I wish to hell we'd never agreed to it 'cause there's been nothing but trouble ever since. I'm sorry, okay?"
Michael glares at him. "How did you like being tortured, tricked and forcibly mutated?"
"Not a lot." John sighs. "Look, I hated it, right? You made your goddamn point. It drove me nuts and I was gonna crash that dart at the end there and take myself out." He shoots Michael a look, unable to resist. "And you, too – that part would've been okay."
Michael's nostrils and facial pits flare with annoyance. "Watch your tongue, Sheppard. I could abandon you here to starve, if I chose."
John stares up at him, eyes narrowed. "Yeah, about that. Why this cat and mouse bullshit? I don't think that VE torture shtick's gonna play so well now I know what's going on. And if you wanted to kill me you'd have done it when you caught me."
Michael turns on his heel and strides off. At the entrance, an irregular oval in the thick sheets of tissue, he stops, head bowed. John can almost hear his teeth grinding. Finally, he turns, holding himself rigidly. "You did me a great wrong." John opens his mouth and Michael holds up a hand. "No, don't talk about Wraith preying on humans and the end justifying the means. When I was changed the first time, I was left alone a lot, with a non-networked laptop for entertainment. It had nature documentaries on it, children's encyclopedias – with the astronomy section removed, of course. Your Earth has many predators that preyed on mankind, yet you do not hate them, you have not tried to force them into human shape. And Wraith are sentient, not animals. More sentient than humans, who communicate only by flapping mouths and vibrating ear-bones." Michael makes a dismissive gesture. "Wraith are carnivores, they are predators – but that's not why you hate them. You hate them because they are more evolved than you. You hate them because you fear them."
"Yeah, right, " John says, his jaw tight. "Witnessing a culling or two is a damn compelling reason to hate the Wraith, buster. And being sentient makes it worse. You knowingly prey on other sentients. Lions don't do that, or sharks."
"Do cattle lack minds and awareness, Sheppard? Do they feel nothing when they're herded to the slaughterhouse? Yet I'll bet you enjoy a juicy steak." John grimaces, and Michael snorts. "Humans are so ready to claim other beings non-sentient in order to consume them. Wraith merely draw the line between sentience and non-sentience in a different place, based on mindspeech, not crude vocalizations."
John looks away and swallows, recalling how desperate he'd felt when the mental link to First, to other Wraith, failed to return. His mouth's horribly dry. He clears his throat. "Well, maybe you needed to be made human to realize we are sentient, even if we don't have mindspeech."
"Maybe so."
John strains up, peering at Michael, who stands half in shadow. "What?"
Michael makes an angry gesture. "Do human carnivores like being confronted by the suffering of slaughtered animals? Does it stop them eating meat?" He flicks a narrow glance at John. "No, I thought not. It has not stopped you, Sheppard. And Wraith are obligate predators. They have no other means of feeding, except on lifeforce." He lifts his chin. "Until now."
John watches him carefully. "Until we–"
"Yes, until you altered us, mutated us. It failed, but it also partially succeeded. I did not return to being fully Wraith. My brothers who were treated are the same. Caught between species. Hybrids."
Michael turns and paces again. John bites his lip, unsure where this is going.
"And yet, in a strange way, your unethical experiment, your failed attempt at genocide, has opened a door. There is such a thing as hybrid vigor. Heterosis. Cross-breeding can add options, even strengths. We are no longer obligate predators."
John frowns. "In the VE? The mush the facility fed us? But that was just–"
"It was based on reality. We can eat orally now, and absorb it. Lifeforce is more satisfying, and easier, but it is not our only food source. That gives us options the Wraith do not have. We are also less dependent on Queens." He gestures at his groin, and John's eyes widen. "It requires some genetic engineering, but we can create female hybrids and reproduce much as humans do. I will not tax your feeble brain with the details, but–"
"Jeez, no, please don't tell me the goddamn details. Eugh." John screws up his face. "Look, Michael. This is just great, chewing the fat an' all, but can I sit up? Seriously, my extremities are about to drop off."
"Will you attack me and try to escape?"
"Yeah, like I'd tell you." John makes a face. "Look, no. I figure you're not planning to kill me, so I'll play nice, okay? No attacking. No escaping." Mentally he crosses his fingers. About the escaping part, anyway.
Michael points some sort of remote at his restraints, and they click open. John extricates himself gratefully and hauls himself up to sit on the side of the table, rubbing his wrists. "Thanks." He looks up. Michael's got a stunner trained on him. John waves his empty hands. "Yeah, I got it. No attacking." He stretches his spine and flexes his legs and feet to get the blood circulating. "So what now?"
"I was telling you that we are hybrids, with more flexibility than Wraith, and yet many of their strengths. Longevity, enhanced healing, mindspeech."
John squints at him. "You’re kind of talking like you aren't Wraith any more."
"We're not. Wraith are our ancestors, as humans are our ancestors. We are neither Wraith nor human."
"Neither fish nor fowl," John says, dubiously. "You've still got Wraith habits, though. Unless draining that Wraith in the VE was a fantasy."
Michael shrugs. "Change takes time. We are still part-Wraith, but I tell you, Sheppard, we are here to stay. Humans, we can live with, as long as you stop trying to kill us or mutate us. Wraith are our enemies, as they are yours. Or to be more precise, Wraith are the substrate we need to create more hybrids."
"You want an alliance?" John rubs the back of his neck. "Pretty big ask, after everything that's . . ." He trails off. Actually, most of the shit that's gone down between them was the expedition's doing. What have Michael and his fellow hybrids really done to them? Attacked them trying to get free? Accepted rescue from a Wraith Hive? John's done all that and more, in his time. So now Michael's captured John to try and get through to him, maybe even thrash out a treaty. Sure, his team'll be going nuts with worry, but it's pretty obvious Michael's planning to release him. He wouldn't be telling John all this shit unless he wanted John to take the intel back to Atlantis. He clears his throat, a little sheepishly. "What happened, anyway, after you and the others left that planet? The Hive beamed you up, right? I thought you told Beckett you were gonna feed your buddies to the Wraith for safe passage?"
Michael shrugs. "That proved unnecessary. Dr. Beckett had a large supply of the retrovirus, which we appropriated. We were numerous and there were not so many Wraith awake when we arrived – most were in stasis. We overpowered the crew and administered the treatment. We were under two hundred when we left that planet. Now we are over a thousand, and have our own Hive ship. We will acquire more Hives; we need them to make war on the Wraith." He paces closer. "It is good to have brothers again. We're more communal than humans; we need mindspeech." He fixes John with a hard stare. "But there's something else we need – the retrovirus to make more hybrids. It's why I captured you."
"Can't you make more from what you have? You must have scientists."
Michael bows his head in acknowledgement. "Indeed, and my strength was the biological sciences, as a Wraith. But I am also First, Hivemaster and Warleader of a new people. There has been little time for lab work. I ask only for one shipment; after that we will be self-sufficient." He raises a brow-ridge. "It's in your best interests."
John rubs his chin. "Look, I can't speak for Elizabeth, but I'll try, okay? She might wanna talk to you herself, but I'll put in a good word." He shoots Michael a sardonic look. "Excuse me if I don't shake on that."
Michael nods. "And tell Dr. Beckett not to bother making a permanent version of the retrovirus. We don't want to be 'cured' of being part-Wraith. We want to be exactly what we are."
"Something halfway between Wraith and human?"
"No, Sheppard. Something new."
~ the end ~