Cadman is Evil (SGA)
Cadman's campaign of terror began the Tuesday after the Unfortunate Incident, as Rodney had started--and requiring all of his staff to, too--started calling it.
He got out of bed, banged around his room for a bit, and came in to work to find the following in his inbox:
To: Dr. McKay
From: Lt. Cadman
Subject: [none]
Rodney--I know. If you'd like this information to remain secret, please see me at lunch.
Sincerely, C.
PS, Also, I think it'd be a good idea if you started a workout routine. I could help you design one. There's just something not right about your heart rate.
Rodney's first thought was that he was going to set her room on fire because there were only so many indignities a man could suffer at the hands of another person before he was pressed to desperate measures.
And then he started to wonder what about it was she knew.
By eleven thirty he was a wreck, in a cold sweat, wondering what information she'd managed to glean while he'd been asleep. Had she gone through his private belongings? Gotten out a hand mirror to examine his birthmark? Had she measured things?
She was sitting by herself next to a large window, chewing her food thoughtfully when Rodney stomped up to her and sat down heavily, clutching his eighth mug of coffee that day and feeling his heart go at three four time.
"Well?" Rodney demanded.
Cadman smiled at him sweetly. "Hi, Rodney."
"Hi, yes, niceties," Rodney snapped, scowling. "I see you've resorted to preschool threats for my attention, then--and if you haven't got anything important to tell me then this is just wasting my time and I'm desperately needed back in the--"
"Did you know," she said, with exaggerated casualness, "that when somebody is around somebody else they have a crush on, there is a physiological response?"
Rodney froze. "Um."
She blinked her eyes hugely at him. "You know, elevated heartrate, sweating, babbling like a moron or reflexively insulting them like you're in the fourth grade and you're pulling on somebody's pigtails?"
"I--she was my date! I'm allowed to like her!" Rodney said, high-pitched, trying to kill Cadman with his mind.
She sighed at him. "You aren't really that oblivious, are you, Rodney?" Cadman started to collect the remains of her lunch, and added, "Oh, by the way, she says she's still waiting for you to contact her--but if you've got any balls at all, you'll just tell her the truth and say that there's somebody else."
"There's somebody else?" Rodney squeaked.
Cadman grinned hugely. "Yeah, Rodney, there is. And, if you don't want me to tell, then you'll help me out this weekend."
Rodney stared at her. "I am not providing you with sexual favors!" he blurted out, making Ronon, the Colonel's latest large, muscular, poorly groomed stray, who was passing by the table pause, blink, and then continue blithely.
Cadman snorted. "No," she agreed, and winking, she added, "That's what Carson's for."
*
By the time Rodney had been able to exorcise the demon images of Carson engaged in carnal activities from his mind, it was nearly dinnertime and the labs were mostly deserted. The scientists had spent the last few days laying low, avoiding Rodney's admittedly jumpy temper in the fallout from the Unfortunate Incident.
(Zelenka, the squirrelly, Czech bastard, refused to cooperate, however, and continued to refer to the Unfortunate Incident as The Funniest Thing I Have Ever Seen In My Life And I Will Tell All Future Generations About It, You Cranky Rjzllkerks, or at least that's what it sounded like when Zelenka cursed in Czech.)
So he was muttering hatefully into the box of one machine or another when Sheppard hopped onto a lab table and said:
"So something weird happened today, Rodney."
"Go away," Rodney said darkly. He was tired. He was starting to get dizzy from the lack of sleep and caffeine intake. He was up to his tenth cup of coffee that day and his heart was just going bonkers from the stimulus.
"See, Lieutenant Cadman came up to me in one of the hallways today and asked me if I'd popped in to check on you today," Sheppard said. "Now why would she do that?"
"To make sure I hadn't given in and murdered my entire staff for incompetence?" Rodney muttered into the case. "Okay, Colonel, just…touch something on this horrible piece of crap. I give up trying to reason with it using physics."
Sheppard dropped a hand onto the unidentified machine and something in the circuitry flickered to life, simultaneously exciting and annoying Rodney, whose artificial ATA gene apparently hadn't been good enough for the damn thing. He kept poking and prodding.
"That was my first thought, too," Sheppard said earnestly. "But then she implied that you might miss me if I didn't."
"Perhaps she knew instinctively that Ancient technology was going to be a finicky bastard today--oh, wait, what an easy bet, since it always is," Rodney muttered under his breath, jabbing pointedly at a cluster of crystalline panels, touching along their edges and sides, watching his laptop monitors read electrical spikes, residual power, function, wavelength, and Rodney wondered what the hell this damn thing did.
"You're probably right," Sheppard finally said. He drummed his fingers on the machine. "Still need me?" He lifted his hand experimentally, the way he'd learned to do if he wanted to earn himself a way out, and the machine still buzzed under Rodney's probes--launched and running.
"Yeah, yeah yeah, get out," Rodney muttered.
He barely heard the lab door open and close behind him.
*