Sheppard's Eleven

THE PITCH

John finds Rodney in Michigan of all places, running a small independent computer shop at the edge of a strip mall in the suburbs, where he spends his days yelling at customers for mistaking the CD drive for a cup holder, for trying to access the internet before plugging in the ethernet cable, and for getting confused by the very simple functions of Microsoft Word.

It’s the sort of purgatory that Rodney exists in between jobs, too restless to settle down but also too directionless to run a crew by himself. John can imagine Rodney spending years here, miserable the entire time, without something to do. Rodney is a details man at heart; ambition would only get in the way of his job. John’s the one who’s always getting him into trouble.

The store’s mostly empty when John steps inside, though there are a couple customers toward the back who are getting into an argument over some sort of RAM upgrade. The shelves are lined with boxes of electronics, and there are demo computers set up on desks, all displaying the same Doctor Who screensaver. Rodney himself, is, well, himself, except older. His hairline has pushed farther back and there are a couple of extra pounds here and there. He’s behind the counter, perched on a stool, mumbling under his breath, his entire attention on the computer in front of him, its guts spread out and scattered.

It feels familiar and yet not, a wave of nostalgia for other times, other places, other computers. John hadn’t quite realized how much he’d missed Rodney until he had the guy right there in front of him again. He remembers what it felt like, just getting out, putting back on his old suit, his old watch, shoving his wallet back into his pocket, sliding back into his old skin. It’s a little like that.

Deciding he needs privacy, he ducks behind a shelf of hard drives, waiting for the other customers to leave. It doesn’t take long, only a few minutes, and after they do, he goes up to the counter. Rodney’s so focused on his work, he doesn’t even look up.

“What is it?” he asks, snapping his fingers, impatient. “I don’t have time to waste on your ridiculously trivial problems that could easily be solved by doing a Google search.”

“Nice to see you haven’t mellowed out in your old age, McKay,” John says, feeling giddy and happy and perfectly at ease.

Rodney looks up and nearly falls out of his chair in surprise.

“Hey, Rodney,” John says. “How are you?”

It’s easy to read the emotions that flicker over Rodney’s face, shock fading into irritation. “Jesus Christ, Sheppard,” he says. “That was entirely unnecessary. You could have called ahead of time to let me know you were getting out instead of giving me a heart attack. I know you know how to use a telephone.”

John’s tempted to say, You could have visited me while I was inside, and you didn’t, but that’s not really fair, so he just grins like old times and says, “I’ve got a job I want to pull. You in?”

It takes Rodney a few minutes and some ranting (about John’s inability to lie low, his adrenaline junkie ways, his desire to involve Rodney in his crazy schemes) before he finally gives his answer, but John knew what it was going to be, anyway.

---

“So who are we going to get?” Rodney says, scratching his chin.

They’re in Rodney’s office as John lays out the plan. “Teyla, Ronon,” John starts, kicking his feet up onto Rodney’s desk.

Rodney nods along. “Of course.”

John continues. “The Czech--”

“With the hair?”

“Yeah. Was thinking maybe that guy from the job we pulled with Caldwell--”

“Right. Good with the--” Rodney snaps his fingers a few times, trying to recall the name.

“Carson? Heard he’s back in the States.”

“Yeah, worked with Fraser’s crew for a bit a few months ago. Is it me or is she terrifying? I only met her once but--”

“Explosives?” John asks, cutting off the tirade.

“Oh, hmm. O’Neill knows a couple good people. Jackson keeps tabs on everyone these days. Which is kind of creepy, now that I--”

“Jackson? I heard he died a few years back.”

Rodney snorts. “No. That was just a rumor.”

There’s a pause, and John pulls his feet off the desk. “With Elizabeth--”

“You’re sure she’s in?” Rodney says, frowning.

“She’s in. That makes--”

“You’re sure, right? Like, sure in you’ve-already-talked-to-her-and-she’s-said-she’s-in-sure, right?”

“--ten.”

“You have spoken to her about your harebrained scheme at least?”

John grins. “It’ll be fine, Rodney. Don’t worry about it.”

Rodney groans miserably and covers his eyes with his hands. “Why am I doing this to myself?”

John gives him a friendly punch in the arm. “It’s because you love me,” he says.

---

Elizabeth’s place is on the outskirts of Vegas, a large, stately house in the middle of the fucking desert. Rodney’s always found that a little absurd, but it’s not like it’s his money.

It turns out that John had come to Rodney first, which is strangely flattering, in its own way, but it doesn’t mean they have enough money to put this job together themselves. They need backing. Badly. And Elizabeth has always been a good friend.

Her assistant Chuck, a harried fellow Canadian who never seems to get enough sleep, meets them at her door. “She’s by the pool,” he says, looking mildly displeased that they actually showed up.

Sheppard ignores it and smiles charmingly. Rodney rolls his eyes.

Elizabeth is lounging when they step out onto the pool deck, a battered copy of Moby Dick in hand. “John, Rodney,” she says, lowering her sunglasses. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” John says, and Rodney has to agree. Elizabeth is looking good, much better than she did the last time they talked, five years ago. To be fair, there were extenuating circumstances that time. She’s relaxed and tanned (probably from a salon) and smiling easily, without the strain of her expression being plastered onto her face.

She stands up so that they can talk face to face. “What can I do for you boys?”

Rodney sighs. “John has a job he wants to pull. We need financing.”

Elizabeth nods and gestures to a nearby table. “Give me the details.”

Her eyes go wide as John lays out the plan, and Rodney gets it, because it’s ambitious and crazy and oh so personal. He’s still wondering how he got roped in. (Probably because it’s John and Rodney’s never learned to say “no” to him. Or, at least, never learned to say “no” and mean it.)

“You want to hit the Atlantis,” she finally says.

“Yup,” John says, slouching back, one arm hooked behind the back of his chair. Rodney’s always found that move ridiculously annoying.

She frowns. “Are you sure about this, John? If they catch you, they won’t hesitate to put you away again.” She has that look on her face, like she’s ready to say “no” or put up a fight about John’s involvment. Rodney knew that this was a bad idea, he told John--

“I’m sure,” John says without missing a beat.

Elizabeth considers for a moment, her hands folded under her chin. Then she looks straight at them.

“You can have as much as you need,” she says.

As they leave, brushing by Chuck on the way out, John says, “Told you she’s in.” Rodney doesn’t have to look at him to know that there’s a smug smirk on his face.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rodney replies as he slides into the passenger side of their overly sporty rental car. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

---

Teyla smooths the skirt of her uniform before grabbing the tray piled high with plates of eggs and pancakes and stepping out into the dining area of the cafe.

Her mark has taken his usual seat in the front, near the windows, and he’s arguing into his cell phone, something about their financing falling through. She smiles shyly as she puts his usual in front of him, careful to stay fully in character. ‘Amanda’ is an aspiring actress, maybe getting a little long in the tooth, with wealthy parents who disowned her when she dropped out of college ten years ago. Pretty soon, her ‘brother’ is going to show up looking for her, offering a cash reward, and she’s pretty sure James Bradley of Paramount Studios is going to bite.

When she’s done with her tray, she notices a new customer in one of the back booths, his face hidden behind today’s LA Times.

“Can I get something for you?” she asks him, pad at the ready.

“Cup of coffee,” he says, in a familiar lazy drawl as he lowers the newspaper.

Teyla smiles pleasantly, because she’s still in character, and says, “Of course,” her East coast accent still in place. John is relaxed, slouching a little in his seat, and it’s very clearly not a social call. There is something subtly different about him, she notices. Something fiercer about his face, about his demeanor. Prison has changed him. There are lines on his face that she doesn’t remember as well, a sadness at the corner of his lips. He raises an eyebrow, asking a question he knows she’ll understand. She pretends to ignore it.

While John was on the inside, Rodney dropped off the map and Elizabeth went mostly legitimate, so Teyla once again took over running her own group of small-time con men and brought Ronon with her. The past few years have been easy and comfortable, but she has been yearning for something that’s more of a challenge. She thinks Ronon must be feeling it as well. John was always one of the most ridiculous, the most daring, the most suicidal plots, and she suspects that jail hasn’t changed that. She once ended up in Spanish prison with a bruise on her arm and a gun aimed at her head, but she doesn’t regret going along with that particular job. They managed to escape otherwise unscathed and even $400,000 richer, mostly due to Ronon’s quick thinking and ability to speak passable Spanish. Rodney had been very vocal about his displeasure afterwards, but that is typical .

Later when she has the time, she scribbles, ‘1pm - Halling’s - I’ll bring Ronon too.’ on the napkin she gives John with his coffee and watches out the corner of her eye as he reads it and nods.

This should be interesting, at least. John always did know how to pick them.

---

Radek is surprised when McKay contacts him. At the moment, he has decided to become legitimate, cracking security systems for companies for money. While there is still a rush, it is not quite the same. He enjoys New York, its distinct flavor, its deep pockets, but he has become restless, eager for a change in environment. His life has become too stale.

He is digging through the servers of Merrill-Lynch, looking for a commonly known buffer overflow to exploit, when he comes across a strange file named .zlenko-offer that had been created two minutes ago. It is a simple plain text file, encoded in ROT-13, a cipher so simple it’s insulting.

It reads:

If it takes you more than 5 minutes to find this, we don’t want you anyway. But if you’re interested in a big job you should show up at the given place and time. Sheppard’s got a plan.

-RM

P.S. You should take another look at how much you expose in those APIs. There are some interesting vulnerabilities there.
P.P.S. Yes, we will reimburse you.

Underneath, there’s a Nevada address and a date two weeks in the future. Radek deletes the file, removes the action from the logs (McKay had already removed the creation) and then he buys a plane ticket under a false name. It always pays to be careful in this line of work.

He doesn’t know what McKay has planned -- does he ever? -- but he knows that he would like to find out.

---

The doorbell rings as Evan is setting up to paint for the day. It’s a rare day off for him, no jobs on the horizon. He figured that he’d take the opportunity to try his hand at his old college hobby again while he’s still in Colorado Springs.

He checks through the peephole first before opening the door, making sure it’s not the cops. You can’t be too careful. Not these days.

But it’s a familiar face (and not the bad kind, either) so he unlocks the door and pulls it open. “Sheppard,” he says, offering a hand. “How’s it going?”

Evan doesn’t know the guy that well, but he’s worked with Sheppard before, and he knows that Sheppard’s sharp, sharper than he usually lets on, and reserved, reserved in that he seems tighter with McKay, Dex, and Emmagan than anyone else. If Sheppard’s here, though, it means there’s a job on offer, and Evan needs to decide if he wants to take it.

“Pretty good, Lorne,” Sheppard replies, giving his hand a perfunctory shake, as blandly cool and confident as always. “You?”

Evan shrugs. “Could be better, though I’m not complaining. You want to tell me what this is about?”

Sheppard grins, pleased. “Yeah,” he says. “I can do that.”

---

Rodney has his arms folded across his chest, a defensive move if Carson’s ever seen one. “Look,” Rodney’s saying from the doorway as Carson moves about the lab. “It’s not like you’re doing much here with your weird little inventor kick, and I’m sure you’ll need some more funding soon.”

Carson’s known Rodney long enough to ignore most of the insults, but he does have a point about the funding. “It’s not about the money,” he says, even though he’s sounding less sure than he should be. “I can’t just get up and go with you guys.” Fraser’s been on his back about reverse-engineering a polymer they found on a couple guards of a Swiss bank. He hasn’t had as much time for his own work at the lately, but San Francisco has amazing weather, and he’s not sure about even a temporary relocation to the Nevada desert.

Rodney snorts. “As much as I hate to feed your ego, we could actually use your skills on this one. Fraser’s willing to let you go, and besides, it’ll be like old times or whatever.”

That actually makes Carson laugh, and he reconsiders his position. He has missed Rodney (and John, and Elizabeth), after all. One more job with them can’t hurt, and if John’s right, this is a big one. He could live comfortably off it for years. He could even break with Fraser, if he wanted. He wouldn’t have to work for anyone besides himself.

“Fine, all right,” he says. “I’ll go.”

Rodney hands over the plane ticket.

---

Laura’s not sure what to make of Sheppard and McKay. They’re providing a united front, though they keep sneaking these looks at each other that might as well be entire arguments. Aiden, the sweet but kinda clueless kid that he is, hasn’t seemed to pick up any of the weird vibes. They’re meeting at an arcade on the outskirts of Chicago, mostly because Laura and Aiden like to spend their lunch breaks there, and also, apparently, because Sheppard challenged McKay to a game of DDR.

“O’Neill’s got some good things to say about you, and we need some people who really know their way around explosives,” Sheppard’s saying, and Laura has to admit he’s pretty and charming enough. She’s just not sure she trusts him yet. Jack had said the guy was a little off, but she hasn’t seen that, not yet.

Aiden grins. “We definitely know our stuff,” he says, puffing up a bit.

McKay gets this annoyed expression his face. Jack had said that he was an asshole, and there’s been plenty of evidence of that. “Yeah,” McKay mutters. “You better.” Laura wonders if it would count against them if she punches McKay.

Sheppard flicks a quick, sharp glance at him, but other than that, pretends not to hear it. “If you want in, you’re in,” Sheppard says, resting his elbow on a Street Fighter VII machine. “The question is: Do you want in?”

---

“So that’s ten,” John says, as they wait for their plane in one of O’Hare’s bars.

Rodney looks exhausted, every inch the grouchy, jet-lagged tourist he’s supposed to be. “Congratulations,” he says. “You can count to ten. Next thing you know you’ll be ready for grade two.”

“You think we need one more?” John asks, downing his beer.

Rodney glares. “What I think is that you need your head checked before--”

John nods. “You think we need one more.”

“--you do something that gets us all caught and--”

“All right,” John says. “We’ll get one more.”

He tosses a few bills on the counter and picks up his bags, getting ready to leave, ignoring Rodney as he says, “Are you even listening to me?”

---

It’s a slow, wet day in Seattle, and so maybe Jennifer’s making some sloppy lifts, but her heart’s only half in it today. Thankfully, the rain makes everyone miserable and unaware, so no one notices as she picks two bankers and a stock broker clean before lunch.

She’s out on the street later, looking for her next mark when she sees him, a tall-ish guy with spiky black hair and a neat suit leaning on a tall office building. Who is looking straight at her.

“Jennifer Keller?” he says. Her first instinct is to run, because she thinks he might be a cop, but he hasn’t really done much besides say her name. And in any case, she’s a small fish in a huge pond.

“Who are you?” she asks, keeping her cool.

He just grins. “The name’s John Sheppard. I’ve got a job you might be interested in.”

“Why me?” she asks, because there are only so many cons you can run before you develop a certain amount of paranoia yourself. The name sounds familiar, but she can’t quite place it.

“Carson vouched for you,” Sheppard says, his eyes sharp and amused. “Said you had promise.”

Jennifer nods. Carson, right. One of Fraser’s. If he’s in this, it’s big. Bigger than anything Jennifer’s done so far.

“So what’s this job?” she asks. It’s mostly curiosity. She already knows what her answer’s going to be.

---

“Eleven, now,” John says, sliding into a chair next to Rodney. They’re staying at Elizabeth’s for the moment, because she has more rooms than she knows what to do with. Rodney’s commandeered a table in the dining area to set up his computer, mostly because there’s no desk in his guest room. (Elizabeth had asked if they were going to be sharing a room again, but John hadn’t actually known, so he’d said no.)

At the moment, Rodney’s hunched over his computer screen, muttering. “Busy,” he says, not looking up. “Go annoy Chuck or something.”

John tries really hard not to take it personally. “Seeing as Chuck left two hours ago, that might be a little difficult.” John may not know what he is to Rodney, but at least they can still irritate each other. They haven’t changed that much.

“Whatever,” Rodney says, still totally consumed by his work.

It’s late, and John’s tired, and for a moment, he lets himself think about grabbing Rodney by the arm and pulling him upstairs, making him get some sleep. “I’m going to bed,” he says instead. He pushes back his chair and heads up the stairs, careful not to look back.

---

Rodney folds his arms across his chest as he waits for the room to quiet down. He’s tense and irritated, eager to just get through this so that they can move on to more important things. He’s always hated presentations. Now more than ever. Also, they really shouldn’t be doing this in Elizabeth’s living room (one of them, anyway) on her big screen TV. The couches are way too comfy. One of these morons will probably nod off, and the next thing he’ll know, he’ll have to bail them out at some critical moment because they weren’t paying attention, blowing the entire plan.

John’s leaning against a wall, his expression inscrutable. Rodney kind of hates it when he shuts down like this. They’re both invested more than they really should be, so it makes sense. Still, Rodney’s not entirely sure what to expect from him. Rodney’s never been good at predicting people. That’s what John, Teyla, and Ronon are for.

Elizabeth is mostly calm, at least, sitting off to the side, drink in hand, waiting for the final decisions. She’s got a lot riding on this too.

The room quiets when John steps away from the wall (figures), watching as he walks toward where Rodney’s standing at the front of the room, next to the TV. “As we’ve already told most of you,” he starts, “we’re planning on hitting the Atlantis casino.”

“What we haven’t told you,” Rodney continues, picking up where John left off, “is that we’re planning on stealing the Zeiliger Phosphorus Mold the day it’s due to debut in the Atlantis art gallery.”

A few eyebrows go up at that. Rodney brings up a picture of the kind-of-pretty-in-an-ugly-sort-of-way crystalline art piece on the television screen just in case someone was buried under a rock for the past year or so. The discovery of the oldest, most complex work of art known to man (much older than the next oldest contender) by a German archaeologist and its subsequent passing into the private market caused quite a stir in every news outlet ever, and it seemed like everyone wanted a piece of the “ZPM”. (Rodney still thinks the acronym is incredibly stupid.) In the end, the Atlantis ended up holding the prize.

Until they steal it from them, of course.

“On the day of debut, the ZPM will be moved from its secure location to the Atlantis,” John says, “where it will be placed in the art gallery on the fifth floor.”

“So we’re going to steal it along the way?” Keller asks. She’s the new one, Rodney’s pretty sure. There’s something a little wide-eyed and uncertain about her.

“No,” John replies, bringing up the blueprints they’d managed to acquire, “we’re going to steal it from the gallery itself. The day of the debut, the gallery will be shut down so they can install the ZPM in the middle of the room, right in the center of some pretty impressive security measures.”

“Needless to say,” Rodney says, “we’re going to have to grab the ZPM before the actual debut, when the security is going to be at its tightest, which, of course, makes everything incredibly difficult, and--”

“That’s where you guys come in,” John says, cutting him off. “We’re going to need to shut down some security measures behind the scenes first while the rest of security is distracted.”

“How are you planning to get around that?” Ronon asks. He’s standing closer to the front, closest to Teyla. His hair’s gotten longer, and his beard has gotten shorter, but he’s still way too tall and way too muscley. It had been a while since Rodney saw him or Teyla last, and it was, well, not horrible seeing them again.

John grins. Of course he does. This is his favorite part. “We’re going to blow up the door to Atlantis’s vault.”

The explosives kids also start grinning at that. Rodney only barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, yes. We blow up the vault, get security to look the other way and get into the gallery without them siccing ten armed guards on us. This doesn’t mean the alarms won’t go off when we touch the display case the ZPM will be placed in. I’ll be able to shut off most of the security mechanisms for the ZPM itself, but it’ll only be a temporary measure, and if we don’t get an exact replica in place by the time the weight sensors and laser tripwires come back online, we’ll be royally screwed.”

Lorne raises his hand. “What’s our exit strategy?”

John and Rodney exchange a quick look. “Don’t worry too much about that,” John says. “We have to focus on getting in, first.”

Lorne nods.

“So that’s the basic outline of the job,” John continues. “If any of you want out now, we understand and there are no hard feelings.”

Rodney glares at him. Like hell there aren’t. Recruiting is such a bitch.

“Okay,” John says, “so maybe I won’t have hard feelings.”

---

Radek listens to the presentation in silence. What he has to say does not need an audience. McKay is nothing if not irritable when someone challenges his authority, and Radek does not want to bother with the theatrics. After most of the crowd disperses, he approaches McKay, who is still scowling over Sheppard’s remarks. “Atlantis?” Radek says. “That is the one owned by the Genii Corporation, is it not?”

McKay’s scowl deepens, and it is clear that Radek’s question has made him uncomfortable. “Yeah, so?”

“It is too bad that they managed to buy the casino from Weir Incorporated at such a low price. I cannot imagine that a businesswoman like Elizabeth Weir took this very well. Especially with the rumors that it happened under questionably legal circumstances.”

Radek watches as McKay’s expression becomes defensive, his chin tilting upward. “So are you saying you want out?”

“No,” Radek says, because the payoff really is too high. “I would just like to let you know that I disapprove of revenge jobs. They get messy far too often.”

“This isn’t going to be messy,” McKay says, chin tilting slightly higher. “We won’t let it get to that.”

“Good,” Radek says.

THE SETUP

Ronon watches as Teyla gets ready, pulling her hair back into an elaborate bun, applying too much makeup, sliding in blatantly expensive earrings. She gives him a wry smile in the mirror, still Teyla at the moment, not the spoiled pop star she’s going to be pretending to be.

Ronon, himself, is already ready, only needing to put on a nice but ultimately nondescript suit to play the part of her personal assistant. He’s still noticeable, mostly because he’s never been not noticeable, but he’s more than capable of being invisible compared to Teyla. It’s a familiar routine between the two of them. Ronon’s never been all that good an actor, but he can lie like almost no one else can, and so he’s always been best at the two-men cons, the ones where he only has to be different versions of himself. Teyla’s the talent out of the two of them. Ronon just backs her up.

“I do not know whether or not this is tasteless enough.” Teyla says, gesturing to the shiny gold lamé shirt she’s wearing. It’s very low-cut. “Should I try on something else?”

Ronon’s hardly someone who knows anything about fashion, but even he can tell that the shirt is something that many people would call a crime against humanity. “No,” he says. “I think you’re good.”

“Are you ready?” Teyla asks, her voice still her own. She turns to face him, tilting her head up in a way that makes her look arrogant but not regal, getting into character.

Ronon nods. He’s been ready for a while, but he doesn’t mind waiting so much. Ronon has always been pretty good at waiting. A good thief always knows how to bide their time before striking.

“We should go now,” she says, posh British accent in place, shoulders pushed back, eyes fierce and cold. She looks like she’d tear your head off for disagreeing with her.

“Yeah,” Ronon says. He’s here to watch her back, make sure

On the way out, they run into Keller, the pretty, blond new one. John picked her up in Seattle, Ronon knows. She hasn’t made a name for herself just yet, but she seems capable enough. Ronon doesn’t know her well enough to make that call. She has her hands shoved in her pockets and says, “Sheppard told me to tell you guys to break a leg.”

Teyla actually laughs, slipping out of character. “Tell John we will be sure to,” she says, and Keller nods, looking a little perplexed.

Ronon just smiles. Sheppard’s always had an odd sense of humor.

They take a limo to the Atlantis. The quiet anticipation he always feels before a job is running down his spine as they pull up to the front door. He’s done this too many times to actually get nervous, but he does tense up a little. Teyla looks perfectly relaxed.

Even though Sheppard and McKay have apparently spent a lot of time at the Atlantis, neither Ronon or Teyla have been there before. Ronon’s seen pictures, but he hadn’t really paid attention. Just another glitzy casino, nothing special. Vegas isn’t his scene, not really. The tourists are too easy and the locals are too jaded. There’s a sweet spot Ronon likes, and Vegas doesn’t hit it.

As they get closer, he gets a better look. It’s made up of six separate towers, five shorter ones surrounding the tallest central one. They’re made up of blue floor-to-ceiling windows that glitter in the afternoon sun. It’s not the newest or the flashiest casino on the Strip, but it has a certain stateliness to it that no one associates with Las Vegas. Elizabeth has good taste.

Teyla remains quiet the entire time, staring out the window. It’s not an uncomfortable silence between them, but it’s not entirely comfortable either. Ronon lets her be. If she wants to tell him, she’ll tell him.

Her entire demeanor changes the moment she steps out of the limo. She shoves past the doorman who’s holding the door open for her, who looks annoyed but not surprised. Probably gets that a lot. “Sorry,” Ronon says to him.

Teyla huffs out an impatient breath, crossing her arms across her chest, purse still dangling from her wrist, and glares at Ronon. “I don’t wish to be kept waiting. I hope you managed to remember to book a room this time. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that time in Monte Carlo.”

It’s kind of amusing how much Teyla sounds like McKay right now, but Ronon doesn’t smile even though he wants to, just nods quietly and helps the doorman lift the mountains and mountains of baggage onto the cart, feeling a pang of sympathy as the other man winces while lifting one of the bags containing some of Zelenka and McKay’s heavier electrical equipment.

The lobby of the Atlantis is huge, with a floor made out of a polished red stone and walls that are painted a deep green. It opens out to a second floor and a huge two-story window made of painted glass that hangs over the entrance. The casino’s on the other side, its doors wide open. The floor is already swarming with people, crowding over the slot machines, placing bets at the blackjack tables. It’s a popular place. Not that Ronon has enough experiences with casinos to be a good judge of that.

The doorman leads them around the floor to the elevators to the side of the lobby, moving quickly, but letting them take in all the sights and sounds. “Check-in’s on the fourth floor,” he explains, as he calls an elevator.

“This place is not as disappointing as I have been led to expect,” Teyla says, mostly to Ronon, but entirely for the doorman’s benefit.

They get through check-in quickly, and Ronon smiles kindly at the lady behind the counter who takes a second too long to note who they are and where they’re staying. “I hope you enjoy your stay, Mr. Dex,” she says, handing over the keys. Her fingernails are painted a bright red.

“Thanks,” Ronon says, thinking of Sheppard’s plan. “I will.”

---

Elizabeth isn’t exactly sure why John’s chosen her office as the place to wait for Teyla and Ronon’s phone call, but she wishes he hadn’t.

At the moment, he’s slouching in one of the more comfortable chairs across from Elizabeth’s desk, seemingly relaxed in a way that could probably fool someone who didn’t know him so well, but the way he’s toying with one of her paperweights is a dead giveaway.

“John,” she says, keeping her voice gentle but firm. “It would probably be best if you waited somewhere else.”

John blinks a few times before nodding. “Just so you know,” he says, “I think Rodney’s only doing this for you.” His expression is carefully neutral, though she’s pretty sure by his tone of voice he’s not jealous, pretty sure he’s not talking about Rodney at all.

She snorts. “Well. Rodney shouldn’t feel responsible for me. I am capable of running my own company without his help.”

John flinches. “If you didn’t want us--”

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bankrolling your operation for personal reasons, but you don’t owe me anything,” she says, meeting his eyes, trying to suss out exactly what he’s thinking.

John just does what he always does with that much attention on him and shrugs, trying to deflect it. “In my opinion, the Atlantis is rightfully yours. And besides, Cowen’s an asshole.”

His cell rings then, interrupting his line of thought, which was just as well. She wasn’t going to get anything else out of him anyway. John is notoriously difficult when it comes to discussing his feelings.

She turns back to the analyst’s reports on Manaria’s fluctuating stock prices on her computer and lets his conversation fade into the background. “Oh, hey, Teyla. You’re in? Good…”

---

After Teyla hangs up the phone, she takes a deep breath, steeling herself. She’s not looking forward to this conversation. But she did offer to go through with it, and she knows John doesn’t quite understand what this means to her. He doesn’t know because she’s never told him.

The view from her suite is quite impressive, overlooking the Strip. She’s sure it’ll be more impressive at night, when the whole city lights up, but she takes a moment to enjoy the sight before getting ready for the next phase of their plan.

Ronon watches, quietly concerned, but doesn’t say anything, and Teyla’s thankful for that. She can’t explain herself. Not yet. She lets her hair down, scrubs off most of her makeup, slides on a pair of glasses, and puts on a neat business suit.

John, Evan, Laura, and Aiden will be showing up soon, in a couple hours, probably, so she needs to get this over and done with. She squares her shoulders, grabs a briefcase, and heads out, leaving Ronon behind to hold down the fort.

One of the interesting things you learn as a con artist is that people really will let you get away with anything if you project enough confidence, even in Vegas, which is why Teyla’s completely unsurprised when no one stops her as she makes her way through the back offices of the Atlantis. No one even gives her a second glance.

When she finally reaches the right office, she knocks on the door and waits for the muffled “Come in.”

Teyla closes the door behind her as she enters. This conversation needs to be private. The figure behind the desk blinks at her in surprise.

“Sora,” Teyla says, finally. “It has been a while.”

Sora’s eyes narrow. “Teyla,” she says, her voice frosty. It has been a while since Teyla last saw her. It was unfortunate that Teyla was working a job at the time, one of John’s more harebrained schemes involving Sora’s employers. Teyla does regret that Sora got caught in some of the cross-fire after the job finished, but she seems to have landed on her feet enough to have a position of responsibility at Genii.

“I know that we didn’t part in the best of circumstances, but I have an offer to make to you now,” Teyla says.

Sora’s face doesn’t thaw, but her shoulders relax the tiniest bit, and Teyla can tell that she’s willing to consider it. It’s far more than Teyla would have expected otherwise. “All right,” Sora says. “I’m listening.”

---

Aiden thinks the Atlantis is pretty damn cool. Granted, he hasn’t really been to Las Vegas before, and he can’t quite wrap his mind around how ridiculous everything is around here. The Eiffel Tower? Really? He also can’t quite get over the roller coaster or that crazy-looking circus place either. Everything about Vegas is about being bigger and better and flashier. Aiden blows things up for a living and even he doesn’t quite know how to deal with it.

Sheppard’s weirdly comfortable here, though, effortless in the way he leads them inside the hotel/casino, navigating their way through the people. Lorne’s almost as at ease as Sheppard, but he’s lacking the attitude, that extra bit of “fuck you” that seems to fit Vegas particularly well. Laura’s just Laura, smirking and sharp, at ease anywhere. Aiden wonders if that’s all about the experience in this biz, or it’s something you’ve got to have from birth. If it’s the latter, then Aiden’s fucked, but if it’s the former, he’s still got a chance.

They take the elevators to the twenty-third floor of the central tower, and the suite the hot woman (Emmagan?) Aiden remembers from the first briefing lets them into is ridiculously swank, big and open, with its own bar, and a separate level for the bedroom. The color scheme matches that of the hallways, teal and maroon, which looks less ugly than Ford would have thought.

“Did she agree?” Sheppard asks Emmagan, as soon as they all get inside.

Emmagan nods, her expression serene. “She has agreed to our terms. The Atlantis has managed to book Lucius Lavin, and they have been looking for assistance with the pyrotechnics for his upcoming show.”

Laura grins, the shit-eating one. “Should be easy enough to ace the interview.”

“You’re not going to have to,” Sheppard says. “We’ve got their head of personnel in on the job. She’s going to let you guys through if we ask nicely enough. That goes for you too, Lorne.”

Teyla smiles. “The gallery curator is in need of some help in preparing the gallery for the ZPM’s arrival. It will be an ideal position from which to observe the particulars of their security systems.”

“You got it,” Lorne says.

Sheppard nods, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Let’s get to work, then.”

There’s something about his voice that fills Aiden with that low-key buzz he feels at the beginning of every job. He knew this was going to be big, knew it was going to be epic, but there’s knowing, and then there’s knowing, watching the plan start to unfold.

He grins at Laura, who grins back. They’ve worked together long enough that they get each other, ride the same highs.

This is going to be good.

---

Rodney’s busy. Very busy. Carson’s been slacking on constructing the replica. Zelenka apparently can’t hack a security system to save his life. Keller’s been getting newbie nerves from being left alone for five minutes at a time.

And John’s not listening.

“We need to give Keller more to do. She keeps whining about the recon jobs,” Rodney says. They’re away from the Strip, early evening, just walking around, mostly because Rodney was going crazy stuck in the house with everyone else.

“You still worry too much,” John says, calm and unruffled as always. He’s smiling a little, just enough to get Rodney to want to trust him. It always annoys Rodney when John tries to con him, but he knows that it’s just how John is, trying to charm his way through everything.

Rodney snorts. “Well, someone has to.” Even off the Strip, Vegas has too many light bulbs, too much neon. Rodney kind of hates it here.

He half-expects John to laugh at him, maybe say something mocking, but he doesn’t. “Yeah, someone does,” he says, looking at Rodney, eyes bright and intent, and Rodney wishes he could believe this wasn’t a con too. “It’s what makes you a good details man.”

“I’m a good details man because I actually give a crap about the details,” Rodney says, looking away.

“Hey,” John says. “I care.” His voice is light, teasing, and Rodney doesn’t want to hear it; he wants to explain why everyone else is an incompetent idiot.

So he does, and this time he doesn’t care if John’s listening or not.

---

“We could try the--” McKay says, snapping his fingers at Radek.

Radek shoots back, “No, because that would mean--”

“Yes, but if we use the--”

“It still will not--”

“Will both of you shut the bloody hell up? You’re driving me mad,” Beckett yells from the other room. They are currently set up in the high roller suite, and Radek is not entirely certain of the reason why Beckett is there other than the fact that Elizabeth kicked all of them out so that she could get some work done.

“Stupid fucking--” McKay mutters under his breath as his attempt at breaking into Atlantis’ security system fails. Again. Radek watches as McKay glares at the monitor, his back hunched over the keyboard. McKay has been displeased with Radek’s work, mostly because he is under the mistaken impression that he can do better.

“I am telling you, we will need the cryptographic key in order to decrypt the streams,” Radek says, folding his arms across his chest.

“So why don’t you stage a man-in-the-middle attack like a normal person?” McKay hisses.

“Believe me. I have tried.”

McKay sighs, rubbing his face with a hand. “Fine, fine. I’ll find another way of getting it for you.”

“Seriously, you’ve both been giving me a headache,” Beckett yells.

“Go do something useful,” McKay yells back, and for once, Radek is inclined to agree with him.

---

Jennifer’s never been good at sitting still. She’s a pickpocket. She needs to get up close and personal with her marks.

At the moment, she’s been waiting to get something to do besides recon. It’s not too bad. The casino’s fun, and she gets to enjoy it on Weir’s dime, but Cowen’s dull. He walks the casino, eats lunch, goes behind the scenes and does casino-owner stuff where she can’t see. There’s also Kolya, the security chief, who shows up from time to time, but it’s not her job to tail him -- it’s Dex’s -- so whatever.

She’s at Weir’s when McKay walks into, grouchy as always. “I need you to steal something,” he says.

And that’s how she ends up working with Ronon Dex, who’s a pretty old hand at this, despite not being that much older than her. He knows the ins and outs of doing the bigger jobs, of getting past security this tricky. He knows his stuff.

He’s also pretty hot, in a badass sort of way.

“Okay,” she says while perched on the edge of the neatly-made hotel bed, “McKay says we need to get to the security station, stick in this USB drive, and type in these commands in order to get this key thing. Should be a piece of cake.”

“Cadman and Ford still going to help us out?” Dex asks.

“Yeah. Their lunch break’s in half an hour,” Jennifer replies, resisting the urge to fidget with her stolen security uniform and hat. The uniform’s at least one size too big, and while it’s not blatantly obvious, it probably is noticeable if anyone looks. Dex is sort of in the same boat, being slightly too big for his.

He wears his better, though.

No one stops them as they make their way into the back cages, just nodding as Jennifer gives a bored spiel about Kolya wanting people to double up on shifts. They get to the security station okay, and the two guys sitting there giving them both sympathetic nods as they walk inside. The station’s actually really impressive. It’s mostly just a huge wall of monitors watching at least thirty different cameras. In one of the ones in the top-right corners, Jennifer can see Ford and Cadman as they head down a corridor near the theater. Then Cadman breaks off with an easy wave, heading down a different hallway. Jennifer gets ready to act.

The alarm that goes off is louder than she expects, but it doesn’t startle her that much. Cadman’s pretty good, looking nonchalant, like she doesn’t know she’s not supposed to be in that area.

The two guys sitting in front of the monitors swear, since the screens that show that the security guards assigned to that particular area are currently involved in an argument with Ford, which, from what Jennifer can tell by lip-reading, is about something someone stole from Ford recently.

“We can keep an eye on things here,” Dex says. The two guys only give the quickest of nods in acknowledgment before they leave.

As soon as they’re out the door, Jennifer slides underneath the desk to jam the drive into the USB slot.

“Let’s get this thing done,” she says, pulling herself back out and leaning over the nearest keyboard.

---

Laura’s pretty sure she managed to get someone’s attention as she heads down the empty corridor. It had been easy enough to fool the card swipe, but deliberately trying out the fingerprint scanner without authorization should have at least one security guard bearing down on her.

Sure enough, as she turns around to head back toward the theater, a couple guys in security uniforms stop her. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” one of them says, “but you’re not supposed to be here.”

Laura hates playing the dumb blonde, but sometimes, it’s for a good cause. “Oh, shit,” she says. “I got really lost. Can you help me get out of here?”

She plays up the confused, plays down the stupid, and, at least, it doesn’t look like they’re going to fire her. One of the security guys sighs, glancing at the badge clipped to her shirt pocket, clearly marking her as an employee. “Yeah, sure. Just don’t do it again.”

Laura lets herself look relieved. “I promise,” she says and hopes that this is enough time for Keller to get whatever she needs to get.

---

Jennifer really has no idea what the hell she’s typing, but the computer keeps spitting out messages with the word “error” in them, and she can pretty much feel the way Dex is getting increasingly more tense as they run out of time.

She double checks the spelling and curses under her breath. This wasn’t working. At all.

“We’ve got to go,” Dex says suddenly, and when she looks up, she sees Kolya coming down the hall on one of the cameras, headed right toward them.

“Shit,” Jennifer says. “Yeah.” She does her best to get the computer looking like it did before, and it mostly works, though she’s pretty sure it won’t stand up to scrutiny. Dex checks the hallway before they leave.

They don’t run. Running’s too obvious. They walk down the hallways purposefully, sneaking only the occasional glance from side to side.

Halfway to the back door, Dex grabs Jennifer before they turn a corner and nods to a nearby janitor’s closet. She’s not entirely sure what’s going on, but she trusts him enough to duck into the closet with him. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, mostly because Ronon (what’s a few first names between people who’ve shared a small, enclosed space to hide from the bad guys?) isn’t exactly small, and the closet isn’t exactly big.

Jennifer does her best to not think about Ronon’s very nice arms and curses her life for turning into a cliché.

There are voices outside the door. Jennifer tenses, terrified that she might give them both away.

“Cowen wishes for increased security measures before the debut. Rumor has it that Elizabeth Weir has a plan to ruin the event,” a deep voice that’s undeniably Kolya’s says. He’s right outside the door, but then his voice begins to fade as he walks away.

“Yes, sir,” another voice -- probably a lackey -- says.

Jennifer waits until they’ve left before swearing. “Fuck,” she says as Ronon opens the door, just a crack to make sure the coast is clear.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Ronon says, pushing the door open. Sometimes, Jennifer thinks that Ronon might have a sense of humour behind his strong-silent-type mask, but this time she knows he’s deadly serious.

---

“Look, it’s fine,” John says, watching the four people in front of him frown. They’re in Teyla’s suite again, going over the incident again in detail so they can figure out where to go from here.

Next to him, Rodney snorts. John only barely resists the urge to smack the back of his head. This is supposed to be a pep talk, such as it is, and Rodney’s definitely not contributing any pep.

Keller glares at Rodney, her arms folded across her chest. Ronon grimaces. Cadman rolls her eyes. Ford stares at his fingernails.

“So,” John says, trying to diffuse the situation, “do we have a plan B somewhere?”

“I’d probably be more worried about Kolya being onto us,” Ronon says.

“Our plan still works with Kolya being onto us. Our plan does not in fact work without access to the security cameras, so that’s going to be our main focus,” Rodney says, cutting in. “I suggest you figure something out.”

Keller nods, her face quiet and resolute, and John’s pretty sure she’s got potential in this game. She’ll come up with something. Eventually.

---

Evan’s had worse jobs. It’s mostly bitch work, but Ladon’s not a horrible boss, and Evan has plenty of time to scope out the gallery and steal copies of the detailed specs of the ZPM the Atlantis has on file.

He hasn’t managed to get that much info on the actual security system yet, but he figures that’s just a matter of time until they need his help with something involving it, so he’s been mostly making himself unobtrusively useful, something he’s managed to perfect over years of working with Hammond and Landry. Sometimes it really pays not to make waves. He’s been hauling boxes, repainting walls, fetching coffee, and cleaning up minor personnel messes for years and years now. Only thing different is the person he’s working for.

He’s eating lunch by himself in the breakroom when Ladon Radim, the main curator of the gallery, sits down across from him and sighs. Lorne’s pretty good at noticing things -- it’s his job, after all -- but it’s hard to miss the way Ladon hates his job. The sort of hatred that happens when you come out of school with a degree in Impressionist art, but then get a job obeying the whim of someone who irritates you to no end.

Evan almost feels bad for the guy.

“I need you to do me a favor,” Ladon says and rubs his face with the heel of his palm.

Evan shrugs. “Sure thing,” he says.

“We need someone around to help the security guys out when they come to install the system -- opening doors, showing them around the gallery, you know the drill. I can’t be there that day, and I was hoping that you’d be able to take care of things.” Ladon looks a little desperate, his hair is more rumpled and his eyes are bloodshot, and Evan wonders what the hell McKay engineered in order to put that expression on his face.

“It’s no problem at all,” Evan says.

Ladon sighs with relief and pats Evan’s shoulder with undisguised gratitude. “You’re a lifesaver,” he says.

---

“These are excellent,” Carson says, looking over the specifications Lorne’s managed to obtain. Height, diameter, weight, material density, and some excellent reference photos, good enough that he could recreate the ZPM exactly if he wanted to, exactly. He won’t be able to work in the hotel or at Elizabeth’s, of course not, but maybe Rodney could find him an honest-to-god workshop somewhere around here, somewhere nice.

“So you can do this?” John asks, an eyebrow raised. He taps his fingers against the smooth, polished wood of Elizabeth’s dining room table, clearly restless.

Carson maps it out in his head -- materials, tools, time -- and thinks that yes, he can do this. “It shouldn’t be a problem,” he says, though there’s a possibility that he won’t quite capture the colors quite right or --

“How long?” John says, leaning forward.

It depends on how much sleep Carson’s willing to forgo, that’s for sure, and also how quickly Elizabeth can obtain the materials and how well the first attempts work out and well, lots of things. He has a month before the debut, doesn’t he?

“A month,” Carson says.

---

Rodney’s trying to close his eyes for five seconds on this quite-comfortable couch in Teyla’s suite when John walks in and says, “Hey, buddy.”

John has bad timing and even worse hair (Rodney can see the silhouette of it because John’s standing in front of the light), and for a moment, Rodney wants to do so many things at the same time, he can’t do anything at all.

“What is it?” he finally asks. “I was trying to get some sleep before you oh-so-rudely interrupted.”

He can’t see John’s face clearly enough to read his expression. “C’mon,” John says. “Keller’s got a plan.”

---

Ronon doesn’t like this plan. “I don’t like this plan,” he says.

Sheppard, McKay, and Keller look up at him from the computer they’re crowded around. They’ve co-opted Ronon’s room because Teyla’s asleep, and while Ronon doesn’t really mind, he feels like it entitles him to comment on their plans. “What?” McKay says.

“This plan,” Ronon repeats, because they’re all clearly too thick to have heard him the first time, “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t see you offering us a better one.” McKay’s face is beginning to scrunch up, indicating an oncoming rant.

“Doesn’t mean this one doesn’t suck,” Ronon says.

Keller sighs. “Look, we all know that I can’t hack the system myself, and we also know that Zelenka can’t con his way out of a paper bag, so we’ll have to split it, fifty-fifty.”

Sheppard nods, his expression carefully neutral. “Cowen will have the key on his computer, and having access to his passcard wouldn’t suck, either.”

“They’re already suspicious,” Ronon says. “We shouldn’t do anything that could give us away.”

“If we do this right, it won’t give us away,” Keller says, face set.

McKay and Sheppard share a look. It’s decided.

---

Jennifer knows that this was her own idea, and therefore she has no one to blame but herself, but she’s still not entirely comfortable with how little she’s wearing.

The plan was simple: she steals the access card out of Cowen’s pockets and records the code of the stripe so that Zelenka can sneak into Cowen’s office, and hack the computer from there. The sticking point is, of course, getting close enough to Cowen that she can actually steal his card. She can’t just pick him like she normally would on the street--he always has too much security around him for that.

Thankfully, all the surveillence she’s been doing has been coming in handy. She knows that Cowen swings by the showgirl auditions for Lavin’s new show after lunch. “Quality control,” she’s heard him call it. Jennifer would call it “being a skeevy old man.”

So. Showgirl. She can do this. She straightens her leotard and tries to smile at the other girls who are auditioning. It’s a little difficult with the amount of makeup she has on, and her outfit makes her feel way too obvious and exposed. She doesn’t like being able to stick out, even though she knows she really doesn’t because the ten people standing closest to her are dressed exactly the same. This whole situation is so disorienting, she barely remembered to stash Zelenka’s other mechanical doohickey in some place that Lorne can pick up later, tucked into the back corner of one of the cupboards in the break room.

Cowen comes by right on schedule, only the vaguest hint of a leer on his face. Jennifer thinks she might be able to feel her skin crawl, but she sets her shoulders and tells herself that she can do this.

For her audition, she doesn’t have to try very hard at being bad at the steps, but she lays it on a bit thick to make it more obvious. She knows Cowen’s watching her as she slips and falls on her ass. She reminds herself that it’s good he’s noticed her. It’s what she wants.

When the woman auditioning her, the one with the kind smile, tells her that the Atlantis won’t be asking her for a callback, Jennifer makes her face fall as convincingly as possible and begs the woman to give her another chance.

“I’ve wanted to do this my whole life,” Jennifer says, her eyes as wide and as innocent as she can get them. “I’m just having a bad day.”

The woman just shakes her head and tells Jennifer that there’s nothing she can do. Jennifer tries to cry a bit as she leaves, which doesn’t exactly work, but she does manage to smudge her mascara in a really obvious way.

Later on that day, she smiles prettily at the guards outside Cowen’s office. She’s not wearing her costume anymore, but she left most of her make up still on, and it’s obvious that she’s either a hooker or a show girl.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to speak with Mr. Cowen,” she says, trying to look desperate. Her mascara is smudged even worse than it was before.

The two men give each other looks like they’ve probably seen this before, and they pat her down, quickly and impersonally, before they let her through.

Cowen is sitting behind his desk, scrolling through something on his computer screen. His expression is cold, his lips pulled into a displeased scowl. The room is made to look old-fashioned and stately with wood panelling and bookcases. His desk has one of those nameplates, even though everyone has to know who he is, and a fountain pen holder, just in case you hadn’t realized how rich he is. Jennifer isn’t impressed.

“Hello,” he says, looking up at her. “How can I help you, Miss…”

“Alicia. Alicia Reynolds,” Jennifer says. She flutters her eyelashes and steps closer to him. “I saw you at the audition, and I don’t think the director likes me very much. Maybe you can help me out with that? I know she takes your advice very seriously.” Jennifer tries not to wince outwardly. She’s been warned in the past about laying thing on too thick.

Cowen doesn’t make any attempts to push her away, even after she gets into his personal space. She attempts to sit in his lap in a sultry manner, deliberately balancing herself incorrectly so that she can fall onto his chest and palm the card he keeps hidden in his jacket.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, and Cowen gently pushes her away.

“Look,” he starts to say, but then his phone rings, and he answers it.

“‘No, Sora,” Cowen says. “I’m not in the middle of anything.” He turns away from Jennifer so that he can focus on the call, swiveling his chair so that it faces the back wall.

Jennifer takes advantage of the distraction so that she can slip the card into her pocket and press it against the card reader hidden there. She sneaks a peek down to see that the light goes green before focusing on Cowen again.

“Take care of it yourself,” he’s saying into the phone. “That is what I pay you for.” He hangs up the phone with a glare before turning his attention back to Jennifer. She bites her lip and stares at her feet.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Miss Reynolds, but that isn’t how things get done here at the Atlantis,” he says. He looks at her like she’s scum he scraped off of the giant fish tanks downstairs.

Jennifer lets some of her embarrassment show. “I’m so sorry,” she says, her face heating up. “I didn’t realize that there were still gentlemen in Las Vegas.” She leans over to give him a peck on the cheek and slides the card back into his jacket before leaving as quickly as possible.

When she finally gets out of the Atlantis, she pulls out her cell phone.

---

John manages to keep quiet until after Rodney hangs up the phone, but it’s a close thing. “So?” he asks. His right leg is bouncing a little, filled with too much tension.

“She’s got it,” Rodney says.

John lets himself breathe a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s good.”

Rodney’s face still looks pinched. When he turns his head, the light from John’s desk lamp illuminates the dark bags under Rodney’s eyes. There was a time when John would say something about that, but Rodney’s been weird lately when it comes to John, and John doesn’t quite know what to do. Rodney sometimes talks around him or he’ll lean away when John touches him or he’ll take on more work than he should be doing in order to avoid being in the same place as John at the same time.

So he says, “Does Zelenka have a plan for getting into Cowen’s office yet?” because Rodney’s pretty much guaranteed to go on a five minute rant about that.

But Rodney doesn’t. He just says, “No,” flatly before walking out of the room.

John stares at his back as he leaves and wonders what the fuck is going here.

---

Teyla finds Ronon glowering at the Vegas skyline after Jennifer has completed her con. He’s sitting on one of the sofas in their suite, his arms folded across his chest. His suit is somewhat rumpled, though he usually keeps it immaculate. His dreads hang around his face instead of the pony tail he usually keeps them in.

“Jennifer did well today,” Teyla says. She watches closely for Ronon’s reaction, but his face is still carefully blank.

Ronon says, “Yeah, she did.” They are so high up, so removed from everything below them. It gives Ronon too much time to brood, get lost in the memories. It was hardly his fault that his first team was taken in during a routine smash-and-grab. Only Ronon managed to escape. Teyla knows he still feels responsible for what happened on that job. The past few years haven’t been difficult for either of them, not really. They’ve had steady work, and there’s been no shortage of marks. Still, it was good to be working on something big again, a real challenge.

Teyla considers pushing further, but she knows that when Ronon gets into this sort of mood, trying to make him talk will only make him close down more. She places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, reminding him that she’s there for him. She waits until he grunts in acknowledgement before she pulls away, giving him the space he needs.

---

Elizabeth finds Zelenka amongst his computers, cursing under his breath in Czech.

“Am I interrupting?” she asks. Rodney refuses to talk when he’s deep in his work, getting even more annoyed than usual at any interruptions.

Zelenka just jerks in surprise before straightening. “Ms Weir! I did not hear you come in.” He pulls out an extra chair from underneath the desk and gestures for her to sit down. His movements are hurried, like he’s a little nervous to see her.

She smiles at him in an attempt to calm him down. “Relax,” she says. “I’m not here to check up on you.”

“Well, then, how can I be of assistance?” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Elizabeth pulls a folded sheet of paper out of her pocket and hands it to him. “I have an extra job for you to do, if you want it.”

Zelenka unfolds the paper, reads it, and nods. “I’ll do it,” he says.

---

Radek is not the best suited to this kind of work, but no one in their group besides McKay is capable of understanding the Atlantis’ computer systems, and McKay’s face is too well known among the Atlantis guards.

He carefully clips his fake badge to his shirt pocket, which proudly announces his name as Mark Wilson. Radek just hopes that no one tries to talk to him, because his accent will give him away very quickly. He straightens his shirt and glasses, doesn’t bother combing his unruly hair, checks his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He looks like a harried tech support employee, someone no one else will ever take a second look at.

He carefully pats each of his pockets, ensuring that he has the equipment he needs. The copy of Cowen’s keycard is hidden in his pants, disguised as a regular room card. His actual keys are in his jacket pocket. His lock-picking tools are in the bag he carries on his shoulder. He does not expect to have to use them, but he might.

The corridors to Cowen’s office are fairly busy, but almost no one pays Radek any attention. A few people nod at him as he walks past, but no one looks at him with any suspicion.

At the moment, Cowen is not in his office, and so his door is not guarded. Radek looks left and then right to make sure no one is around to see him before sliding the card into the reader and pushing through. The layout of the room is exactly as Keller described it, and Radek locates the computer easily, tucked neatly underneath Cowen’s desk.

Every computer security expert knows that when the attacker has access to the physical machine, no amount of security will protect the data on it. Radek puts this theory to good use and pulls all of Cowen’s private encryption keys from the machine, then slides the paper Elizabeth handed him out of his pocket. With a few keystrokes, that job is done as well.

As Radek leaves the room, he thinks it is useful, at times, to be dealing with a man as controlling as Cowen. It would have been a much more difficult task to obtain the information if all the data had not been in the same place.

---

Laura lets herself collapse onto the nearest armchair she can find as soon as she gets back into Elizabeth’s house. Aiden is right behind her, faceplanting himself on the couch across from her. With the show opening next week, they’ve been doing rehearsals all day, making sure that everything is perfect. Lavin has been throwing hissyfits too, which neither she nor Aiden have to deal with, thank god, but the fallout still drifts down to them, and it sucks. A lot.

Laura’s thinking about maybe closing her eyes, squeezing in a nap before the next thing comes along, but they have another rehearsal to get to soon. This one’s run by McKay and Sheppard, and it’s a hell of a lot more important.

“I really don’t want to do this,” Aiden says, rubbing his face with his hands.

“I don’t think anyone else does, either,” Laura says. Her back aches in places she never knew she had.

They’ve been constructing explosives from their specialized special effects stash for weeks and weeks now, carefully, during their lunch breaks, their smoke breaks, whenever they can eke out some free time while in the Atlantis. It’s tough, boring, repetitive work, but it’s hard to just smuggle the explosives in, even the plastic kind. Cowen’s been trying to cut down on drug use, for all the good it does him, and their bags are subject to arbitrary searches, metal detectors, and dogs. McKay hasn’t been willing to take his chances. Laura kind of hates him, even if he does have a point.

McKay, with his excellent timing, picks that exact moment to walk in. “What the hell are you two doing lazing about? We need to run through the plan one more time.” He gives them both a death glare that’s not actually that effective before stomping out of the room, probably going off to terrorize some more innocent people.

The nice thing Laura’s noticed about having a guy you work with a lot (a partner, even) is that you start sharing a brain, so when Aiden shoots her a look that’s annoyed and miserable and exhausted, she knows exactly how he feels.

---

John sits down and places a couple chips in the betting box, watching as the dealer deals from the shoe, placing two cards face up in front of him. There’s something comforting about the familiarity motion. It’s nice being in the Atlantis again. Heck, it’s nice being in Las Vegas again. John put on his nice suit and everything. He hasn’t been in the Atlantis’ casino in years, and he feels a strange, strong wave of nostalgia as he walks through those familiar doors into the familiar sounds of money being won and lost. It’s almost a welcome relief from Rodney’s constant fretting. Tomorrow, everything comes together, and John figures he deserves a bit of a break.

He looks down at his cards. A jack of clubs and a four of hearts, a fourteen. Not great, but not bad, either. The dealer’s showing an eight, so he taps the table and smiles, as charmingly as possible, at the dealer. She ignores it, mostly, but she does deal him another card, a five of spades. Nineteen.

John stays and takes a sip of his Coke. He’d rather be completely sober for this, after all. When the dealer’s done with the other players, she flips over her hole card, showing a king of hearts. Nineteen as well. John’s not quite feeling the cards at the moment, so he takes his chips and leaves, hunting for a poker game. Those are always more fun.

He ends up in the Atlantis’ poker room, and it brings back old memories of when he was just starting out, fleecing rich assholes out of their money at the Caesar with Teyla before Elizabeth even built the Atlantis. They seat him at a Texas Hold ‘Em table with three other players. There’s the balding tourist in a t-shirt shirt who could be an easy mark or a serious player to his left, an Asian woman in a sleek black dress with a Chinese accent to his right, another woman on the other side of her, a chain-smoking biker chick with spikey hair and a nose ring who could probably beat the crap out of John without breaking into sweat. The dealer is like most dealers, straight-faced and unflappable. He’s a tall, skinny guy with pale hair and pale skin, and he moves the cards like he’s been doing this for a while.

“Hey,” John says to the table, trying at charming again. “How’s everyone doing tonight?”

Everyone looks at him like he’s a crazy person, but a couple of them nod their heads in greeting. Then they get right to the poker.

John wins a few hands, loses some of them, nothing that seems out of the ordinary. He’s about to bet on his seventh hand, when he feels a presence behind him, and he resists the urge to freeze up like he wants to. He turns around slowly, like he’s not tense or bothered at all, and smiles at the man standing behind him. “Kolya,” John says. “Nice to see you again. How’s that new job working out for you?”

Kolya, unsurprisingly, doesn’t rise to the bait. “Sheppard. I thought we made it very clear the last time we met that you were not allowed in the Atlantis anymore.”

“Whoops. Totally slipped my mind,” John says, shrugging.

Kolya nods, and the two guards Kolya brought with him drag John out of the chair he’s sitting in, their arms hooked underneath his armpits. It’s not very comfortable.

“This is totally unnecessary,” John says, letting himself whine slightly as the two men force him out of the room.

Kolya says, “That’s for me to decide. I know you’re planning something, Sheppard. Just be glad that I’m not going to kill you before I find out what that is,” before he has his thugs make a big production out of dragging John through the casino and dumping him face first onto the pavement.

---

Rodney’s going over the Atlantis’s security systems again in Elizabeth’s kitchen (so he started while he was eating his dinner, is that so wrong?) when John wanders in and grabs an apple out of the fridge. His hair’s more of a mess than usual, his cuffs are dirty, and there’s a smirk tugging at his lips. That sinking feeling in Rodney’s stomach is probably there because he knows exactly what John has been up to the last couple of hours.

“How’s it going, buddy?” John says as he leans over Rodney’s, and Rodney knows this moment. It’s the moment after John has done something incredibly stupid and against all odds, he’s gotten away with it. Rodney really, really hates those moments.

“You went to the Atlantis, didn’t you?” Rodneys says, throwing up his hands in disgust. And he’s pretty tired, worn out, because while John’s the idea man, the one with the big plans, Rodney’s the one who has to put it all into action, the one who has to make it all work. He’s still probably a little low on blood sugar and his pre-heist anxiety is beginning to get to him and he’s not entirely sure when exactly he sat down to start look over these schematics, but it was a while ago, he thinks, and he hasn’t eaten since then.

He can’t deal with John being stupid at the same time. John doesn’t seem to get it, because he’s just standing there and eating his apple like nothing’s wrong. “Yeah,” John says, his shoulders way, way too relaxed. His tie is loose around his neck. “So what if I did?”

That’s pretty much it for Rodney; that’s the moment he snaps. He grabs John by the shoulders, pushes him up against the fridge and says, “I can’t believe you’d be such an idiot. You-- you could have blown the whole thing or Kolya could have locked you up and tortured you or--” Rodney trails off when notices that John’s face is right there, their bodies the closest together they’ve been since before John went in, and he can blame it on low blood sugar later, but he leans up and kisses Sheppard the way he’s been wanting to for weeks. Sheppard’s tensed at first, his mouth slack, but then he relaxes, dropping the core of the apple onto the floor and wrapping his arms around Rodney’s back. John’s mouth tastes like apple, and his body is different but so familiar, and Rodney’s missed this so much.

Then, suddenly, John pushes Rodney away, panting slightly. “What the hell, Rodney?”

“I kissed you,” Rodney says, annoyed, because John’s an idiot, but he’s usually not that much of an idiot. “Can we get back to that now?”

John’s face twists like he’s in pain. “Why didn’t you come see me while I was inside?” he asks.

Rodney ducks his head, because he’s a giant coward, and he has no idea how to explain this without sounding like a complete asshole. “I just-- I knew you’d be doing this again, getting yourself into danger for no reason, and I-- I couldn’t deal with it.”

“I had to go back for Holland,” John says, his voice suddenly quiet. “You know I did.”

That gets Rodney angry again. “No, you didn’t, and all your little display of nobility, or whatever the hell it is, did was get both of you caught instead of just him. If they catch you again, you’ll get more time. And don’t even tell me there won’t be a next time, because I know you.”

John at least has the decency to look a bit guilty. “Hey,” he says, and Rodney suspects he’s about to attempt to defend himself, and Rodney doesn’t want to hear it, so he kisses John hard, sliding his tongue into John’s mouth.

When Rodney pulls back from that kiss, he says, “Will you just shut the fuck up so I can blow you?” to stop John from saying anything. John looks dazed, his pupils huge and dark. He nods, and Rodney can see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows roughly.

Rodney slides to his knees, not exactly comfortable now that he’s gotten old, but there’s a bulge in John’s pants that causes Rodney’s mouth to water a bit. His own pants aren’t in better shape. He undoes John’s belt, yanks at the fly of John’s pants, pulls at John’s shirt until it’s out of the way.

This isn’t new to either of them so he wraps a hand around the base of John’s cock and wraps his mouth around the head. John groans and slides a hand into Rodney’s hair, not tight, not yet. Rodney knows John and his reactions well enough. He sucks a little, fluttering his tongue a little as he does so, and this time John hisses through his teeth. It’s a good reaction, but it’s not enough. What Rodney wants is John begging for it, so desperate for it that his facade drops for long enough that Rodney can watch him come apart at the edges.

Rodney slides down further, enjoying the way John’s hand spasms, pulling at Rodney’s hair slightly. Then, Rodney sucks again before pulling his head back, and John whimpers a little in a way that’s so hot Rodney’s dick twitches in his pants. He waits a moment longer than he really wants to, getting his brain in order. “C’mon, Rodney,” John whines, not quite where Rodney wants him but getting close.

Rodney slides back down again, gets a good rhythm going, using the slightest hint of teeth the way John likes. He can feel as the tension ramps up in John’s body, and it’s so familiar, it almost hurts. John’s muttering a litany of “C’mon, c’mon, Rodney. C’mon,” his eyes squeezed tight. And it’s not until John’s “c’mon"s become “please"s, his voice a little raw and needy, that Rodney finally gives in and takes John’s cock in as far as Rodney can go, using his left hand to squeeze John’s balls with just the right amount of pressure to make him come.

John doesn’t make any noise as he comes, he just grabs Rodney’s hair tightly, his face drawn with pleasure, his mouth hanging slightly open. Rodney swallows it all down, well, as much .of it as he can at least.

“Jesus, Rodney,” John says, slouching against the refrigerator for support. He’s still panting slightly.

Rodney stands up as best he can, wincing as his knees crack. “No, not really. But close.”

John cracks a grin at that, and Rodney can’t help but match it. “So are we good?” John says. His hands are already reaching for Rodney’s belt.

Rodney knows that this will just end in pain and suffering (again), because it’s John and that’s what happens, but Rodney’s so sick and tired of being the responsible one. Maybe he should just be selfish like he usually is and let himself have what he wants. “We’re good,” Rodney says, leaning forward so he can capture John’s lips for another kiss.

---

Rodney has an East-facing window, so John wakes up with the sun, early enough to get a morning jog in. Ronon’s been busy with the preparations at the casino, and he can’t always make the extra trip back out to the suburbs, so John’s been going by himself more often than not.

He gets this feeling sometimes, when he goes for a jog outside, like he could just keep running and running and never stop. He doesn’t live in a cage anymore. He’s not really entirely used to that idea yet.

When he gets back to the house, Rodney’s in the living room with a cup of coffee and a half-eaten doughnut, double-and-triple checking the plans laid out on the coffee table, making sure they’re perfect. His face is creased into a familiar expression of worry, and John can’t help the smile that shows up on his face. “You’re leaving too much up to chance,” Rodney grumbles as soon as he notices John standing there.

“That’s Vegas,” John says.

“I hate Vegas,” Rodney says.

“We could go to Florida next,” John says, he sits down next to Rodney on the black-leather couch, pressing their shoulders together.

“I hate Florida too,” Rodney says, but he leans into side a little, like he’s tired. Rodney always gets worked up before a job has a chance to unfold. It’s the chance thing, John knows. He never did teach Rodney how to count cards during blackjack, mostly because Rodney refuses to play blackjack.

“We can figure it out after tonight,” John says.

“Yeah,” Rodney says, turning his attention back to the table. “Tonight.”

THE HEIST

Aiden pulls the jacket on, checking out his own reflection in the full length mirror next to the closet in Emmagen and Dex’s suite. He holds out his arms, checking the length of the sleeves, making sure they’re not too long or too short. He doesn’t usually get a chance to dress up for jobs, and it’s really sort of exciting to get to play a part besides ‘copy machine guy’ or ‘power line maintenence guy’.

In the mirror, he sees his reflection as he straightens his jacket. He looks pretty good if he does say so himself. Laura wanders by and drops a hat on his head, laughing as she does so. It’s not that ridiculous a hat. There aren’t any feathers or rhinestones or anything like that on it, but it does have stripes. Aiden’s seen models wearing hats like this before, so he guesses it must be cool or something. He straightens the hat, checks his reflection in the mirror again.

Laura grins. “Go Aiden. Looking cool as a cucumber.” She punches his arm the way she always does when she’s teasing him.

Emmagan comes up to the two of them, already dressed. Aiden resists the urge to put on the sunglasses in his left pocket while looking at her shirt. She says, “You do look very nice in that outfit.”

Aiden tries to hide the blush that climbs up his cheeks.

---

Radek lets himself sink into the code, so fully immersed that he does not think about anything else. Before they obtained the encryption keys from Cowen’s office, so many things stood in his way, but now they part for him like water.

A few more commands, precautions really, and then he feels it, the way that he’s all the way in and everything is working. He types in the last command and mutters a prayer in Czech, before the monitors all around him come alive with grainy black and white footage. He is in, and he can see everything, the casino from every angle, every last back hallway, the inside of Cowen’s office, and because McKay is not here to berate him for it, he lets lose cackle of joy.

Then he goes back to work.

---

Jennifer’s kind of bored. She’s still not quite used to the work that goes into a con, a job, this big. There’s way too much waiting, too much sitting around waiting for everything else to get done.

Next to her, Beckett is fidgeting, giving everything away easily. He’s a logistics guy, not a player, but for this, they need two people and he’s the best choice.

Jennifer pulls her ‘Atlantis’ cap over her eyes and straightens her uniform. A couple passing marine biologists wander by, carefully ignoring them.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Beckett says, his Scottish accent getting thicker and thicker as he gets more and more agitated. “I’m not really the sort of person suited to this job.”

Jennifer rolls her eyes. “It’ll be fine,” she says. She picks up the bucket so that they can move to the next fish tank. Beckett follows behind, still tense.

“How many tanks does the Atlantis’ aquarium even have?” he asks, glancing around.

“Too many,” Jennifer says, before grabbing the Windex and starting on the pane of glass next to her, “so let’s get this done.”

Next to her, Beckett sighs, but he does pull the other washcloth out of the bucket and helps her clean the tank window, only getting momentarily distracted when a shark swims by.

---

Evan’s technically not required to be working right now, but it is the big night, after all, and Ladon needs help with some last minute arrangements.

“Everything needs to be perfect for tonight,” Ladon says, glancing around the gallery. The ZPM stands in the middle of the room in its glass case, perfectly positioned so that people can swarm around it, elbowing each other to get a closer look. The floors have been swept clean, and the walls are spotless.

The caterers aren’t here and set up yet, but as far as Evan can tell, everything is as perfect as it’s going to be. But he knows Ladon wouldn’t listen to him if he said that.

“Yeah, sounds good,” he says instead.

---

“Yes, yes,” Elizabeth says into the phone pressed against her ear. “Thank you.”

She hangs up and breathes out a sigh, before rubbing her face. Usually she doesn’t try to interfere too much in the team’s work, mostly so that she has plausible deniability later, but she does also try to provide a bit of oversight. They are using her money, after all. Especially after that one time Rodney ordered 200,000 ping pong balls for that one job in Australia. This time, though, she definitely wants to see the expression on Cowen’s face when he realizes what exactly is happening to him. It doesn’t make up for what he did to her, but it’s something she’ll enjoy all the same.

“Campbell?” she says, because he usually knows to stick around a little later on big days like today.

He sticks his head into her room and says, “What’s up?”

“Could you arrange for a limo to pick us up for the party at the Atlantis tonight?” she says, glancing down at the paperwork in front of her.

He nods. “Sure thing,” he says.

---

Rodney frowns at the computer screen in front of him, practically vibrating with nervous tension and too much coffee. “So, is the--”

“Taken care of,” John says.

“--with the--”

“Yeah, and Zelenka’s got--”

Rodney waves it off. “Yeah, yeah. They managed to get into the aquarium?”

“Keller radioed in a few minutes ago. They’re in,” John says. He’s beginning to really feel it now, the adrenaline rush of a heist, and he can tell Rodney’s feeling it, too. He watches as Rodney puts his own radio into his ear, frowning slightly as he does it. The high of a job has always made Rodney more miserable, John knows, because his brain’s always calculating the angles, seeing how to correct for any problems that might arise.

John leans over Rodney’s shoulder to look at the monitor, which is connected up to Zelenka’s machines and displaying the security feeds for the club that Teyla will be gate-crashing soon along with the rest of her temporary posse of Cadman, Ford and Ronon. John places a hand on the nape of Rodney’s neck, just because he can, and taps his radio on.

“Everyone, check in,” he says.

Teyla’s first. “We are ready, John,” she says.

“Keller and I are in place,” Carson says, his Scottish accent thicker than usual.

“I’m good to go.” That’s Lorne, his voice pitched low so that the people around him won’t hear him speaking.

Zelenka’s accented voice pipes up. “I am ready as well,” he says.

“Good luck, everyone,” Elizabeth says at last, and John breathes out, because that’s everyone. Everyone’s in place and ready to go.

He glances at Rodney, whose face is still pulled into a tight, displeased line, but John can still tell from his body language that he’s still in this one hundred percent. So John says, “Let’s get this show on the road, boys and girls,” grinning as Rodney rolls his eyes.

---

Ronon’s pretty good with clubs. He’s not particularly fond of them, but he knows how to work them to his advantage; how to be seen, how to meet people, how to attract attention, and how to disappear into the crowd.

At the moment, he’s keeping an eye on the security at the Brotherhood Club on the 6th floor of the Atlantis. There are a couple of bouncers at the doors, but that seems to be it. They’re big, tough guys. Would be good in a fight if it ever came to that.

But Ronon’s job is to make sure it doesn’t come to that.

Overall, it’s a fairly typical club. It’s too dark, too loud, too full of the sort of fake people that Ronon can avoid by spending time around thieves and grifters, strangely enough. Admission to the club is restricted to the highest of high rollers, so there’s plenty of people who aren’t trying prove themselves to anyone, but the ones that are can be pretty memorable.

A drunk white guy wanders over to where they’re sitting. He’s well-dressed if also a little slick. A Wall Street lawyer type. Ronon knows them pretty well. Easy marks when they decide to spend time in Manhattan. The guy says, “And who might you be?” as he looks over their expensive clothes, the air of importance that surrounds Teyla.

Ronon bristles at his comment, but that’s okay, that’s still in character. This is still Teyla’s show, though, and she handles it with her usual skill. She sits up straight, shoulders pushed back slightly, sneering as though she’s just stepped on a particularly disgusting bug. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she says. Most people probably wouldn’t characterize Teyla as “intimidating” on a regular day, but right now, even in her glittery, low-cut shirt, she terrifies Ronon a little.

Cadman and Ford are clearing out the women’s bathroom, so there’s no buffer they can use to extract this guy easily. Ronon could do it himself, but he knows that the second he steps up and into the guy’s face, a fight’s going to break out, and that’s not a good thing for anyone, so he stands up, and brushes past the guy, not looking him in the eyes. Lifting his wallet is surprisingly easy, but then again, the drunk ones always are. Drunk guy is trying to stare Teyla down, which was always going to be a fight he’s going to lose.

As Ronon’s moving out of the way, Cadman shows up just in time to really make the guy feel like he’s outnumbered. “Whatever,” he says as he wanders off.

“Who the hell was that guy?” Cadman asks.

Ronon shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he says.

Cadman nods, accepting his judgment. “Bathroom’s clear for now, though it probably won’t be soon. Aiden’s keeping it covered.”

Teyla nods, slipping out of character for a moment, her expression going calm and serious. “Then we should good. It would be best not to keep him waiting.”

---

Aiden has been guarding the bathroom door for a few minutes by the time the others manage to show up. He’s had to turn away two irate trophy girlfriends, one actual foreign pop star, and an entire group of women. He has a fairly decent “official business” face and managed to convince them that the bathroom needed repairs, but they were definitely not pleased to hear that.

“About time,” he says. “I was worried that someone was going to mace me to get inside.”

Cadman rolls her eyes, and Emmagen and Dex don’t really react to the statement, but Aiden’s pretty sure it was at least kind of funny. Kind of. They all head into the bathroom, which has gleaming marble sinks and polished, wooden stall doors. Aiden lets out a low whistle. “Nice,” he says.

Dex is already at the air vent they’re interested in, pulling out Aiden’s favorite screwdriver to get the vent covering off, and Laura’s consolidating their collection of C4 and detonators, as well as a few flashlights. Aiden uses the opportunity to change into darker clothes.

“Done,” Dex says, holding the grate in his hand. He offers Laura a hand up into the grate, one of the packs strapped to her side. Aiden puts on the other one and tries to calm the nervous butterflies in his stomach. This isn’t anything he hasn’t done before, really, but it’s as nervewracking as ever.

“Good luck,” Emmagen says with a tight nod of her head.

Aiden nods back. He’s never really enjoyed enclosed spaces, but he’s never really hated them either. “Yeah, thanks,” he says before he climbs into the vent after Laura.

---

“This really does bring back memories,” Elizabeth says.

Radek is trying to keep his eyes focused on the monitors in front of him, but there is too much chatter behind him, because McKay feels the need to talk incessantly when he is nervous. It is distracting Radek from his monitors. But all seems to be in place. Cadman and Ford have not tripped any alarms as of yet. Emmagen and Dex are moving into position without problem.

McKay is pacing the length of the room, twitchy energy radiating from him in waves. “Can we just focus on right now? You know, the really ambitious plan with high tech security and the people who wouldn’t hesitate to put us six feet underground?” Radek resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“Calm down, Rodney,” Sheppard says. “We’re in much better shape now than we were for that Wraith job.”

“Yeah, and we barely managed to get out of that one alive,” McKay snorts.

Radek remembers hearing of the Wraith job several years back. Dangerous mark, plans gone awry. After that, Caldwell had gone into permanent retirement, and rumor had it that he had been placed into some sort of institution, mental or otherwise. But then, these things could happen on almost any job. They could happen on this one, too. On one of Radek’s monitors, he sees Dex and Emmagen step into the west elevators. They are hard to miss, especially while Emmagen is wearing that particular shirt. “I think it is time to begin the next phase,” Radek says, interrupting their conversation.

“That’s our cue,” Sheppard says. He grabs McKay’s collar and half-drags him out of the room as McKay squawks, “I’m coming! I’m coming!” right behind him.

After they leave, Elizabeth stands up. “I should be going as well,” she says. “Thank you for all your help.”

Radek says, “It was my pleasure. Good luck.”

Her smile is faint and more than a little dangerous. “Thanks, but I don’t need it,” she says, and she gives him a peck on the cheek before she goes. He tries to hide his blush, but he’s sure the attempt isn’t very successful.

---

The hallways are eerily quiet as they careen down the corridors. Laura isn’t used to it. The keycard they’ve obtained from Cowen opens way more doors than their own IDs will, and with Zelenka’s directions, they manage to make it down to the basement where the vault is. Aiden’s carrying the explosives, helpfully obtained from where they’d hidden them in the air ducts earlier, and Laura can tell that he’s nervous, what with his eyes flicking around, his shoulders tense.

They run into a few guards, but Laura is pretty good at spouting bullshit, and everything is kind of frantic for the big night. Most of the guards are out front, because Cowen doesn’t trust them back here, and she knows Zelenka has intercepted most of the security cameras with looping footage.

There’s one last guard before they get to the vault and Laura doesn’t hesitate before tasering him. He barely has time to reach for his gun. Ford sidesteps the body easily. Then they get to work unpacking their bags, setting up explosives and detonators. They know this part from years of experience. Their hands are quick, efficient, steady, and all it takes is a look, a shrug, a nod to communicate.

It doesn’t take long.

There’s this moment Laura really likes right before detonation, where it gets really quiet as they’re both holding their breath. She holds the detonator in her hands and glances at Aiden. There’s about five pounds of C-4 wired to the door, enough to make quite an impression, and she knows he might want to do the honors himself.

They don’t really need to speak these days, so she nods her head towards the vault door and twitches an eyebrow upwards.

He shrugs and makes a old-fashion gesture that seems to mean “after you.”

“Fire in the hole,” Laura whispers, just loud enough for them both to hear. She presses the button, and then they both run as fast as they can down the hallway, their whoops of joy swallowed up by the noise of the explosion.

---

Cowen is observing the casino floor when he gets the news.

At first, he doesn’t believe it. The night has been going well so far. He likes the floor because it means he can surround himself with the hum of conversation, the calls of the dealers, the whirring of slot machines. There is nothing quite like the sound of money, and Cowen could live for a thousand years and never tire of it. Tonight, more than usual, they’ve been drawing quite the crowd. Everyone is itching to take a look at the Mold after all, to get a little close to that piece of ancient history. Their excitement is making them loose with their money. Cowen approves.

He’s wandering through the blackjack tables when the Kolya’s second, Haemon Something-or-other, finds him. He’s wearing a grim expression, but then again, all the security men do. “Mr. Cowen,” he says. “There’s been an explosion in the vault room.”

Cowen laughs, because it’s so patently ridiculous. An explosion? In his casino? It’s far too absurd to be the truth. Kolya must be playing a practical joke. But then he remembers his little meeting with Sheppard the other day. That little shit. Sheppard isn’t the showiest asshole around, but he certainly likes to thumb his nose at authority when he gets a chance. This has to be his doing.

As if on cue, Cowen’s radio beeps. “Uh, sir?” a tinny voice on the other side says. The doorman, it sounds like. “Two men matching the descriptions you gave us have just entered through the front door.”

Cowen resists the urge to throw the radio at Haemon’s head. Instead, he just snarls out, “Bring the two of them in.” and starts heading towards the back rooms, the ones that don’t have security cameras.

His guards must know what sort of mood he’s in, because McKay and Sheppard are already sitting at the metal table, restless, when he arrives. Two of Cowen’s beefy security guards stand behind them. They’re both silent, which is quite an achievement on McKay’s part. He’s still restless in his seat, shifting this way and that, in sharp contrast to Sheppard’s arrogant, long-limbed sprawl.

Cowen imagines all the ways in which he could make their deaths look like an accident. It’s very enjoyable; he wishes he could do this all the time instead of dealing with all the jokers who think they can skim a little off the top with him noticing. “I want to know about the explosion,” he says, and he manages to keep his voice very, very calm.

In the pool of light, designed for maximum shadowy intimidation, the two men look smaller, washed out, like the pathetic little worms they are. But Cowen knows better to think that this interrogation is intimidating them. Not yet, at least. Not until he gives them a few reasons to feel intimidated. Sheppard shrugs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, and he says it with such conviction that it’s very clear that he’s a liar by trade.

“What the hell am I even doing here?” McKay asks, glowering. “Last time I checked, you Americans were going on and on about how this is a free country.”

So neither of them is budging an inch, it seems, though it’s so very obvious that they’re the ones responsible. Well, this isn’t the first time Cowen’s dealt with a couple of jokers who thought they could outwit him. He cracks his knuckles in anticipation.

It’s going to be a long night.

--

If this were a more convenient time or a more convenient place, Kolya would be handling his frustration in a much more productive way. But seeing as it was the night of the grand unveiling and he was stuck inside the security office along with all the incompetents who let this explosion happen, well. He could hardly be blamed for the three destroyed staplers or Tathal’s unfortunate collision with the fax machine. (The imprint of the keypad on his face should go away in another hour or so, and besides, no one uses fax machines anymore.)

After he almost pokes out Pranos’ eye with a thumbtack for not paying close enough attention to the monitors, he calms down enough to start thinking things through a little more rationally. The security tapes show two dark-clad figures carrying a duffel bag, their faces mostly shielded from view, but the footage from the camera closest to the vault shows nothing, just an empty hallway.

“How did no one notice this?” Kolya hisses, and Pranos flinches.

“They weren’t in any particularly sensitive locations. We assumed--”

Pranos flinches again as Kolya slams a fist against the table in front of him, almost jumping out of his seat. “You know what they say about assumptions, right, Mr. Pranos?” Kolya leans in closer, making sure that Pranos gets a good up-close look at his displeasure.

There’s a knock at the door before Pranos can respond. “There’s someone here who I think you’d like to speak to,” Haemon calls through the heavy wood.

Kolya takes a step back. “We’re not done here,” he says to Pranos before he spins on his heel and goes to see what Haemon thinks is so important.

As he steps out into the hallway, he notices that it’s become rather crowded. A group of security personnel surround three people. Two of them, a man and a woman, are dressed in dark clothes and are immediately recognizable as the two figures in the security feeds. The third is Ladon’s new assistant, the one whose name Kolya can never remember. He’s carrying their duffel bag, and Kolya is about to yell at his men to stop standing there and take the three of them in, but then he notices that Dark Clad Moron #1 and Dark Clad Moron #2 have been handcuffed and Landon’s assistant is flashing a badge. “Evan Lorne, LVMPD,” he says. “We managed to get word that there would be an attempt on the Atlantis vault tonight and that it would be an inside job. I was assigned to go undercover here in an attempt to assess the threat and put a stop to this before they could make an attempt. I didn’t manage to stop them, but I did manage to catch them as they were leaving the scene of the crime.”

Lorne’s got one of those faces that Kolya hates. It’s all steady calm and and unflinching regard. If he’s not already telling you the truth, you couldn’t pry it out of him with a crowbar. Kolya examines the two handcuffed individuals. They’re clean of explosives now, clean of ID. The pretty, blond, female one had a taser, but they’ve confiscated it, and neither of them were willing to talk on the way up here. Kolya isn’t certain that they’re smart enough to have planed something like this out on their own. Sheppard’s involved in this somehow. He’s sure of it.

The two of them glare at him, sullenly, and Kolya fixes them with an even look. If they were in Kolya’s custody, he could teach them a little respect.

Cowen appears in the doorway, scanning the room, face flushed red, out of breath. “Where are they?” he snarls.

Lorne doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “They’re under my custody, Mr. Cowen.” He holds up his badge again. “I was just passing through to let you know that we have handled the situation. And to ask for you to turn over some evidence.”

“What evidence?” Kolya asks.

Lorne’s mouth is a straight, grim line. “We have reason to believe that they left behind a device on your security equipment that would explain why your cameras weren’t working on the vault.” He steps into the observation room and inspects several of the machines before removing something that was attached to one of the camera cables. It’s a small device, clearly electronic in nature. No one would have noticed it if they hadn’t been looking for it.

Lorne places the device in a plastic bag and shoves it into his suit pocket. “Now that we’re done here, I really need to be going. We need to book these two.” He heads towards the door, security guards clearing out of the way as the three of them push their way through. But something isn’t right here, Kolya can taste it.

“Wait,” he says, and Lorne stops, turns around. “What’s in the bag?” It’s packed fuller than remembers from the footage, bulging in the middle, lumpy and misshapen.

Lorne gives him a fixed look before he pulls open the zipper, showing that it’s been packed full of cash stolen from the vault, neatly wrapped stacks 20s, 50s, 100s, “Evidence,” he says. “You can have it back after we get a conviction.”

---

As expected, the hallways are mostly free of security of personnel. There are still a few around, but there’s so much chaos, no one notices two more security officers heading in some of the wrong directions. The suits are mostly being pulled away from their posts to handle the aftermath of the bombing. Genii hasn’t trained their staff as well in crisis management as they could have, because the security seems to be converging, trying to organize itself now that there’s an immediate threat.

“Ford, Cadman, and Lorne are away from the building,” Zelenka says into Teyla’s ear, his voice taking on that tinny sound over the radios. “The guards are beginning to disperse. Teyla, Sheppard and McKay are in the next door to your right.”

Even if he hadn’t said that, Teyla can see which room they’re in by the two burly security guards at the door. That must be where John and Rodney are being held. Cowen woudln’t put some of his best men there to guard an otherwise empty room.

“What’s going on?” one of the guards asks as she and Ronon approach. “The stuff coming over the radio doesn’t make much sense.”

Teyla smiles at him, a thin thing that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “They’ve found the people responsible for the explosion. Our orders are to escort these two off the premises.” She gestures to the door with her chin, careful to look as bored and annoyed as she should in this situation.

“Okay, let me call it in,” the guard says. He reaches for the radio at his shoulder, but Ronon stops him short.

“Shouldn’t do that,” he says. “They hacked our communication systems. That’s why they sent us to pick them up in person.”

The two guards share a look before shrugging and unlocking the door. It swings open, and much to Teyla’s relief, both John and Rodney are intact. Their suits are rumpled, and Rodney’s glowering in a way that means he’s feeling insulted and put upon. Teyla finds it comforting in its familiarity.

“No, no,” Rodney hisses. “That’s not how it works.” He pokes his finger at John’s chest. “You can’t count cards that way when there are multiple decks involved, and besides…” He looks up as Ronon and Teyla enter the room, eyes wide and startled.

“Looks like we have company,” John drawls, laying on the nonchalance a bit thick, even for him. “How’re things going, fellas?” Teyla resists the urge to laugh. The guards probably won’t notice, but she can tell that Ronon does by the way he raises his eyebrows a titch higher than normal.

“We’re kicking your sorry asses out,” Ronon says, deadpan. “We need to get you into a different room.”

John smirks. Rodney glowers. Teyla tries to match his expression.

“Sure thing,” John says. He grins and stands up with an offhand shrug. Rodney’s glowering gets worse, but he stands up without complaint. Teyla makes an impatient gesture with her hands, and they leave.

It’s surprisingly easy to lead them away from the two guards at the door, both of whom are still wearing matching confused expressions on their faces.

When they’re out of sight, Teyla finally lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “They didn’t get you too badly, did they?” Ronon asks under his breath. His face doesn’t give away any of the concern in his voice.

Rodney looks as though he’s about to wind himself up into a lengthy rant about casino goons, but John steps in before he can get himself started. “We’re fine,” he says. “Let’s get a move on.”

---

This is the first time Elizabeth has stepped into the Atlantis since… Well, it’s been a while, but she’s determined to make this trip worth it. Straightening the shawl she’s draped over her arms, she keeps her head held high as she admires the familiar columns, the gorgeously painted glass. Genii has replaced the carpet, replacing the original deep red with a garish gold color instead. Elizabeth does her best not to cringe.

A few people greet her warily as she makes her way around the casino floor. It’s not like the takeover was the biggest news ever, but the Vegas regulars all know what happened and have, at the very least, some inklings about how. Her presence here is causing quite a few ripples.

Blackjack has always been Elizabeth’s game. She likes her plays to be quick and decisive, with just enough strategy to make things interesting. She plays three rounds conservatively, almost breaking even by the end of them. She’s waiting, biding her time until the real gambling begins.

It takes longer than she expects. They must really have their hands full. She sits through another twelve rounds and a shot of whiskey for courage before Cowen finally shows up, looking both a little harried and a little smug. “Ah, Elizabeth,” he says. “I knew I should have been expecting you.”

Elizabeth smiles at him. “Cowen,” she says. “Always a pleasure.” She doesn’t bother holding out a hand for him to shake.

Cowen leers. He’s just as unpleasant as she remembers, all undeserved arrogance and smug superiority. “I know you have a certain fondness for the old days, but trying to steal things from my vault on such a big day is stupid, even for you.”

Elizabeth says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just here to play a few hands of blackjack.” She smiles and gestures at the table, all of her cards laid out for him to see.

“I find that highly unlikely,” Cowen snorts. He doesn’t seem very amused, and if Elizabeth were in any mood to feel sorry for him, she might pity him a bit for being such a humorless douchebag.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Elizabeth says. “Very… brown.” While Cowen has done a little bit of redecorating, the Atlantis runs very similarly to how it used to. She recognizes the path of the foreman, the rotations of the dealers, and Elizabeth can’t help but smirk a little. Underneath, it’s still the same as it’s always been. Even Cowen can’t change that.

Her non-sequiter seems to throw Cowen off guard. “Why thank you,” he says, accepting the compliment. “I’m sure you would have come up with something equally tacky yourself.”

Elizabeth shrugs. “That doesn’t really matter, does it?” she says. She watches the expression on his face, cold and getting colder.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Cowen says, voice almost a growl, and Elizabeth finds herself sitting up straighter, ready to face down his challenge. She’s stared down assholes far more intimidating than Cowen, and he’s not going to be anything after this night is through.

“It’s my casino. Why shouldn’t I be here?” she asks. The blackjack dealer is looking at the both of them like she’s ready to bolt at the first opportunity, glancing between Cowen and Elizabeth with nervous eyes

Cowen clenches his fists, but otherwise keeps a straight face. “It’s not your casino. I won it fair and square.”

Elizabeth smiles, her lips pulled into a tight line, “Bullshit,” she says, evenly. “Smeadon seems to be enjoying his new pool.”

“It’s not my fault that he became so agreeable when the checkbooks came out. The Nevada Gaming Commission simply didn’t think this place was up to code. I guess you didn’t have as much of your board’s faith as you thought you did.” Cowen smirks as he says it, smug. Elizabeth is not a violent person, but the desire to punch him is very strong.

“I had their faith just fine,” Elizabeth hisses. She takes a deep breath and regains her composure. “I just wasn’t willing to bribe them in order to keep them loyal to me.”

“Bribe? That’s such an ugly word,” he says. “I merely had an alternate means of persuasion.”

Elizabeth turns back to her cards and gives the dealer a kind smile. “Of course you did,” she says. “And now if you excuse me, I have a game to get back to.”

Cowen’s cell phone goes off, almost as if on cue, and he storms off, sparing Elizabeth only one angry backwards glance before he heads towards the back of the casino.

---

Rodney really doesn’t appreciate when he has his hands in what is really quite delicate circuitry and people keep yelling at him.

“Any moment now, Rodney,” John hisses. “We’re kind of running out of time here.” He’s standing next to the ZPM, hands ready to make the switch, just out of range of the security systems. Teyla and Ronon are covering the entrances, making sure the coast is still clear. The ZPM is in the middle of the exhibition hall, the centerpiece of the collection, and it makes Rodney feel like they’re too out in the open, too exposed. They’ve managed to pry some of the tiles on the floor so that Rodney could get to the wiring. It had been easy enough to know which tiles to pull up. Lorne had given them detailed maps of the room and had loosened the tiles in advance.

“McKay, I would suggest that you hurry,” Zelenka says over their radios. “They are regrouping. We don’t have much time.”

“I would be much more effective if I wasn’t constantly interrupted by your helpful suggestions.” Rodney’s fingers slip again as he strips the wires, mentally going over Lorne’s diagrams. He cuts the blue on and the white one. “Clear?” he asks.

“Nothing is showing up on my screen,” Zelenka says.

“Good,” Rodney says. He isolates another two wires, cuts them as efficiently as he can. This isn’t his first trip to the rodeo, but these are the highest stakes that he’s ever worked with. He can hear his heart beating in his chest, his mind whirring too fast through worst-case scenarios. He just needs to focus right now, because he may be the smartest person in all of Las Vegas right now, but one wrong move, and they all go to jail. He takes a deep breath and cuts the last wire. “That should be it,” he says.

“About time,” John mutters under his breath. Rodney can’t even stop long enough to glance up to see him, though he can hear John detaching the glass case that is surrounding the ZPM. Rodney concentrates on untangling his hands from the mess of wires with the least amount of disturbance. Wouldn’t do to accidentally set off another alarm somewhere.

He manages to get the tiles into a reasonable state when the alarm goes off, a loud screech that echoes through the room. Everyone freezes.

“Zelenka!” Rodney shouts, trying to be heard over the noise.

“It was triggered manually,” Zelenka says, voice sounding distant and far away. “They are already converging on your position.”

“Shit,” John says. He tosses their bag to Teyla and Ronon and shuts the case again. Ronon doesn’t hesitate to grab it, and then he and Teyla and pushing their way out of the exits, heading for the stairs.

Rodney is trying to pack up his tools, shoving them into his own bag as quickly as possible, and it’s a little difficult considering that there’s all these sirens going off in his ears. They have to get out of here right now. He glances over at John, who is holding onto the ZPM in one hand, the empty case still open behind him.

The doors slam open, and a dozen security guards swarm in. They’re all carrying guns and displeased scowls, and Rodney realizes they’re shit-out-of-luck.

“Well, well, well,” Cowen says, stepping into the room. “Let’s see what the cat dragged in.”

---

Carson isn’t really a nervous man, per se, but he isn’t really cut out for field work. It really isn’t his forte, if you will.

“Calm down,” Keller says. “You’re starting to freak me out.” She straightens her uniform, brushes some imaginary dust off her shoulders, and adjusts her hat. There’s no reason for her to be wearing a hat, as this part of the building is climate controlled, and the lighting is muted so that all of the tanks glow from their own lights. The tank they are standing next to is one where they usually keep some of the phosphorescent fish, tucked away in some back corner, away from the crowds.

Over their radios, Zelenka barks out directions to Teyla and Ronon. They’re in the vents now, on their way to their checkpoint. Carson takes a deep breath. He’s a professional, after all. He should be able to handle this. Keller knows what she’s doing, and there’s nothing to worry about. Carson is fine. He straightens his own uniform and tries to look like he does, in fact, belong here.

There’s a knock on the door behind them. The storage closet. Carson hasn’t seen anyone enter the closet recently, which strikes him as odd until Keller rolls her eyes and opens the door.

Carson gets a brief look inside. Dex is in the process of replacing the metal grate covering the entrance to the vents, and Emmagen is buttoning up the rest of her shirt. “We must hurry,” Emmagen says. She sets her shoulders, all business. She shoves a plastic bag into Carson’s hands. Inside the plastic bag is the ZPM, the real thing, yellows and oranges and golds.

It really is quite beautiful. If Carson had more time, he’d hold it in his hands, compare it to the one he’d faked off images and Lorne’s best guesses. There isn’t any time right now. Keller leads them through one of the back rooms to the area behind the empty tank, where the marine biologists end up doing most of their work.

Keller lifts the lid of the tank. Carson takes a step forward, plastic bag still in his hands, sealed up tightly, and then he pauses. “What are you waiting for?” Keller snaps, making an impatient gesture at the tank.

“Oh right, yes,” Carson says. He drops the ZPM into the tank with as little reluctance as he can muster and lets Keller shut the lid. It drifts down to the bottom, out of sight, hidden by another set of rocks. They can come back for it when security isn’t so on-edge. They collect their equipment and head for the exits, avoiding the crowds as much as possible.

It seems like they’re free and clear until they’re at the employee entrance. “Sorry,” the security guard standing there says. He looks young, nervous. This must be the first lockdown he’s experienced. “We’re under lockdown. We can’t let anyone in or out.”

Carson’s eyes get wide, and he’s about to stammer out an excuse when Keller steps in. “Well, this wouldn’t be an issue if this numbskull over here hadn’t forgotten his ID cards we wouldn’t be in this situation.” Keller gives his arm a hard shove, picking a fight.

“Me?” Carson says, trying to sound as indignant. “I’m not the one who insisted that I wouldn’t need them tonight!”

Keller rolls her eyes, “Yeah, but you got the pH balance wrong and now I’m the one responsible for fixing it.”

The guard seems confused, trying to parse out the specifics in their conversation. “And you told me the wrong bloody amounts! If the shark dies, it’s going to be on your head,” Carson continues.

“Please, we must be calm,” Teyla chimes in. “It will do him no good for us to delay any further.”

“Wait,” the guard says, eyes widening. “The shark’s in trouble?”

“Yes,” Keller snaps at him, and she is very much channeling Rodney at his worst right now. “Every second counts, and the longer you stay in the way, the closer that poor creature is to death.”

The guard glance to the side, checking to see if he has any backup, and says. “I’ll just need to check your bags before you can leave,” he says.

When he finally waves them through the doorway, Carson breathes a sigh of relief.

---

“Well, you’ve got us,” Sheppard says. He smirks. “Too bad you don’t have the ZPM.” He is far too smug for someone who’s being held by casino security, Kolya feels. It makes him wary, suspicious.

Sora snarls at him. She’s the one who informed Cowen of the plans to break into the gallery and steal the ZPM before it could be showcased to the public. Rumor has it that Sheppard always was bad at picking his friends. A pity, really. If she hadn’t been able to tip them off so early, the ZPM, for all intents and purposes, would be theirs, free and clear. It’s unclear how they would be able to get the ZPM out of the casino, but perhaps they weren’t expecting the lockdown. “Don’t bother playing any of your mind games. We know have the real ZPM right here,” Sora says.

Sheppard just shrugs. “Are you sure? Things got pretty hairy in there. Who knows what might have happened to the real ZPM?” He’s leaning forwards now, arms resting easily on the metal table. “I’d want to make sure that it is what you think it is before you start displaying it in your little gallery over there. Sorry about the damage, by the way, but you know the whole saying about omelets and eggs.”

Cowen scowls from the shadows. “Get Radim down here as soon as possible. I want to have that rock assessed immediately.”

It takes a few minutes to locate Radim amongst the chaos of the lockdown. Almost no one is where they’re supposed to be, and too many resources are being delegated towards keeping the guests calm and the entrances guarded. Radim enters the room looks like he hasn’t slept in days, hair unkempt and his his beard much longer than its usual neat trim.

“What can you tell me about this rock, Mr. Radim?” Cowen asks. He picks up the confiscated ZPM and hands it over to him.

Radim spends a few long moments turning the rock over in his hands, measuring out the measurements and details out in his mind, inspecting it for any sort of obvious deformities that would give it away. To Kolya’s untrained eye, it looks exactly the same to the one in photographs that he passes by when walking through the gallery renovations.

Sheppard doesn’t look anything less than relaxed, but then again, he is a con man. Kolya would be more suspicious if he looked unsettled.

Radim frowns, holding the ZPM up to the light for better inspection. “It’s a fake,” he says. “If you take a look at this section right here, the impurities are--”

“That’s all we needed, Mr. Radim,” Cowen says, scowling. Kolya indicates to one of his guards that Radim should be shown out.

“Where is it?” Cowen asks. He’s leaning over the table so that the overhead light makes him more intimidating.

Sheppard shrugs. “I don’t see any reason why I’d want to tell you.” He slouches even further in his chair. “Get Rodney back in here, and then we’ll talk.”

Cowen makes an impatient gesture with his hand, and then McKay is being dragged in kicking and whining. “Get your hands off me. I am perfectly capable of walking in a straight line by myself.”

“I can have every inch of this building searched before your little friends manage to sneak out,” Cowen says. “And I can kill your buddy over here just because he annoys me.”

Pranos holds a gun up to McKay’s head, and McKay’s eyes go wide with a mixture of anger and fear. Sheppard’s body language doesn’t change in the slightest. “Well, you could kill us just to get your rocks off, and hey, who knows, maybe your incredibly priceless artifact disappears forever.”

“Or?” Cowen asks.

“We could just tell you where it is. For a price, of course.” Sheppard’s eyes narrow slightly

“I’m in favor of the plan where I don’t get shot in the face,” McKay says.

Cowen pulls a chair up to the table and sits down. “Let’s pretend I’m actually interested in this deal of yours. What would you want in return?”

“Free passage out of the city,” Sheppard says. “No cops. If I even suspect there’s a badge somewhere, you’re never going to get your rock back.” He smiles. “Who knows where we could have put it? Maybe one of your guests has already tripped over it and is planning on selling it to the highest bidder.”

Cowen swears under his breath. He gets up, shoves the chair to the side and stomps out of the room. Kolya follows, shutting the door behind him.

“What next?” Kolya asks. All else being equal, he’d like a chance to beat the information out of them. But they are racing against the clock. Who knows how much longer it would take to break them? Kolya doesn’t have the patience to find out.

Cowen rubs at his forehead and starts pacing, like he’s making a decision. “Get a few cars ready,” he says, eventually.

Kolya nods and gets to work.

---

It’s night as they leave the Atlantis. The strip is alive with neon and gold, flush with the promise of money. Sora normally enjoys the sight, but tonight she’s on edge, twisting the fake ZPM in her hands. They were so close to putting them away for good, and now they’re stuck in this car while Sheppard and McKay sit smug and comfortable in the back seat. It hadn’t been a surprise when Teyla had come looking for her help, all careful smiles and smooth words, but Sora hadn’t been ready to forgive her just yet. She’d played along with it, sure, agreed to help them with whatever they needed, but she spilled the beans to Cowen as soon as Teyla had left.

And now here they are, out in the desert, bargaining for their own statue, just because of some mistakes in their timing. And Teyla. Because Teyla hand gotten away with it. Again.

Kolya is staying behind to organize the recovery team. Cowen has his own car. Sora is in the front seat as Pranos drives them to the pre-agreed spot outside the city, in the middle of nowhere. Sheppard looks calm, like he might as well be catching some sun in Miami. McKay looks tense, nervous, fidgety.

They reach the edge of the city and then keep going, out into the darkness. Pranos follows Cowen, pulling off the road towards a clearing. They get out, illuminated by the headlights of the cars. Cowen stands there with his hands on his hips. “No police,” Cowen says. He holds his arms out to the sides, as if to demonstrate the truthfulness of this situation.

“I can see that,” Sheppard says, turning around and inspecting the area around them. It’s empty for miles. They’re the only people out here. “You’ll find it in the aquarium, ground floor. In the back left corner where you’ve got all those glowy tanks. You might want to get it before the salt water starts leaking into the bag.”

Cowen pulls out his phone, calling it in so that Kolya knows exactly where to look. He gets back into the car. It pulls away immediately, not even bothering to look back.

Sora isn’t going to give up so quickly. “You disgust me,” she says. “Teyla should have known that I’d never actually help worms like you.”

“It was a pleasure doing business with you, too,” Sheppard says. He’s smirking again, like he doesn’t even care, like he’s enjoying Sora’s anger.

Sora throws the fake ZPM at his head, forcing him to duck out of the way. It lands on the dusty ground with a thud. “I hope you enjoy your walk back into the city,” she says. She climbs back into her own car and slams the door shut behind her. Pranos pulls away, and she smiles as she watches the two dim figures fade into the night.

---

The first thing Cowen does when he gets back to the Atlantis is ensure that they have the real ZPM in their possession, pulled out of the tank and dried off, with Radim’s assurance that it hasn’t suffered any major damage.

The second thing Cowen does is call the police to report the break-in. It takes them less time that he expected they would to show up at his doorstep, a swarm of cars and uniforms.

“Good,” Cowen says as the first detective shows reaches the Atlantis doors. He was half-expecting it to be Detective Lorne again, but it’s an older man this time, balding and wearing glasses. He looks more like an accountant than a cop, but Cowen knows a cop is a cop.

“Richard Woolsey, FBI. Mr. Cowen, You are under arrest for tax fraud and bribery of a public official.” One of the other cops grabs hold of Cowen’s shoulders and shoves him against the wall, making him curse. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney--”

Cowen’s heard it before, “You’ve got no evidence. And you’re missing the little fact that someone robbed my casino tonight.”

“Let’s just say some very useful evidence dropped in fairly recently to support our claims.” Woolsey lets out a long-suffering sign, like Cowen’s the one being unreasonable here. “The question becomes, do you have any evidence to support your claim about the robbery?”

Kolya says, “Of course we do.” His expression is schooled into as respectable expression as possible.

Woolsey looks bored and annoyed. “Then let’s see it then.”

The security tapes they have of McKay and Sheppard in the gallery are gone, wiped clean, and the areas near the explosion had been scrubbed clean after Detective Lorne (who, according to the LVMPD, doesn’t even exist) had taken the two punks responsible away. There was a work order for the damage done on the security system, and Cowen can tell that Woolsey is losing his patience a little more after every moment that passes.

“It was here!” Cowen snarls. “It was all right fucking here!” He bangs one hand on his desk hard enough to make his nameplate rattle Kolya had everything lined up, the security footage, the photographs of the bomb damage, the employment information of the two nimrods responsible for the bombing. It had all been right there on Cowen’s computer. He’d seen it with his own eyes.

“You’re just delaying the inevitable,” Woolsey says. One of the other cops lifts Cowen up by his jacket and cuffs his hands behind his back. “Let’s go.”

“This won’t last a day in court,” Cowen promises him. “My lawyers will have me out in no time.”

The smile Woolsey gives him is both polite and mocking. “We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?”

---

It’s a fairly nice night out, if John has to say so himself. The desert air is dry and a little cold. The stars overhead. He’s still got his jacket. And well, he’s still got Rodney.

“You couldn’t have asked for a car, too?” Rodney mutters, pulling his own jacket tighter around his shoulders.

John finds himself smiling. It was so easy, so fucking easy to miss this while he was inside, and it’s so reassuring to have it back. “Chill out, Rodney. It’ll be fine.”

A solitary set of headlights comes closer, lighting up the ground around them. It stops right in front of the rock that he and Rodney are sitting on, shining right into their eyes. The driver steps out. “Need a lift?” Lorne asks.

“Wouldn’t turn one down, no,” John says, standing up.

“About time,” Rodney mutters under his breath. He clutches the ZPM to his chest, like he’s afraid that someone is going to come by and steal it out of his hands at any moment.

Lorne raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment on that any further. “So I guess Ladon came through,” Lorne says when they’re on the road again, heading towards Elizabeth’s house.

“Yeah,” John says. “He’s a better actor than I might have expected. Cowen bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. You should thank him for me.”

Lorne smiles. “Will do.”

The second they step in through Elizabeth’s front door, there are whoops and hollers from the crowd. Cadman slaps Rodney on the back. Teyla gives John a kiss on the cheek. There are high-fives from Ford, hugs from Ronon, excitement from Carson, an amused smirk from Zelenka, and a grateful smile from Keller. Someone manages to produce a bottle of champagne out of nowhere, and Chuck produces a full set of flutes from one of the cabinets. Cadman and Ford accidentally spill half the bottle all over themselves and then get into an argument about whose fault it is. Rodney grumbles about how they’re all incompetent as Zelenka rolls his eyes. Teyla manages to straighten everything out, and Ronon ends up being the default bartender of all the alcohol because he has the steadiest hands.

Elizabeth herself arrives after most of the excitement has died, looking as composed as she always is. She doesn’t comment on the mess they’ve made of her nice, clean floors, but she does grab a champagne flute for herself.

“Good night?” John asks. They’ve moved outside, next to the pool, while the rest of the party goes on inside. He thinks he can hear Rodney and Carson getting into an argument about the music selection, but he’s sure that will work itself out.

“I won two hundred dollars at blackjack, if that’s what you’re asking,” Elizabeth says. She can’t quite hide the smile on her face. " And I have a strong suspicion that the Atlantis is going to come under new management sometime soon.”

“I wonder where you could get an idea like that,” John says, and he can’t fight off his own smile, either.

“I honestly have no idea,” Elizabeth says.

John holds up his glass. “To the future?” he asks. With the money from this score, he can do anything he wants, after all. He’s not sure what that’s going to be just yet, but he’s sure Rodney will have an opinion on it one way or the other.

“To the future,” Elizabeth says.

EPILOGUE

Rodney hates his Hawaiian shirt. The disgusting polyester blend makes his delicate skin itch, and the sunblock is clearly not doing what it should be doing. Their table umbrella is not giving them adequate UV protection.

“Relax, Rodney,” John says. He somehow manages to make his own ugly Hawaiian shirt work in a way that is probably criminal in some states. John takes a sip of his bright orange girly drink and shrugs. “It’s just recon at this point, no need to get worked up over it.”

“You just had to go for the ugly shirts, didn’t you? I think I’m getting a rash.” He hopes Teyla and Ronon show up soon with the license plate numbers that they need, because he really needs to get out of the sun and back into the air conditioning. He hates Miami. When this job is over, he resolves to go back to someplace that is colder and doesn’t have quite as much humidity.

“Did you hear that Keller has her own crew in Seattle these days?” John asks.

“No,” Rodney says, fighting down the urge to scratch at his arms.

“They seem like they’re doing pretty well,” John continues. “Cadman sends her regards, by the way. She and Ford are back to working for O’Neill.”

“And good riddance, too,” Rodney mutters.

“Lorne’s got an art show in Colorado Springs coming up. You hear from Carson lately?” John asks. He leans in closer so that he can nudge Rodney’s shoulder with his own.

Rodney makes an impatient gesture with his hand. “He decided that the business wasn’t good for his long term health, so he’s raising sheep with his mom in the highlands or something like that.”

John’s eyebrows do something funky that only his eyebrows do. “Sheep?” he asks.

Rodney doesn’t bother dignifying that with a comment. He doesn’t like thinking about it either. “Zelenka’s still sticking it out with Elizabeth for the time being, so he’s still in Vegas.”

“Good on him,” John says. “Might be useful to have him around.” He takes another sip of his drink and then pauses for a moment. “We should go visit the Atlantis sometime, see how things are going.”

Teyla and Ronon slide into the seats across from them, dressed like tourists. Ronon’s collared shirt has some kind of hot-pink golfer pattern to it, and Teyla’s hat could blind half of Ontario. They still manage to pull the look off, much to Rodney’s dismay. “It appears that we must strike within the next forty-eight hours or he will leave for his trip,” Teyla says.

Ronon says, “He’s in a rush, too.”

John pulls a pair of sunglasses out of his shirt and slides them on. “No time to lose, then,” he says. “Let’s go.”

FIN.