Miller's Crossing

"Miller's Crossing" is the ninth episode of the fourth season of Stargate: Atlantis.

Synopsis
Dr. Rodney McKay's sister, Jeannie Miller is kidnapped by Henry Wallace, who wants her to rewrite nanite coding to save his daughter's life. McKay's attempts to rescue happens to get him captured as well. They must work on the nanite coding if they're to be released, while McKay's team tries to find them.

Plot
In an Atlantis lab, Dr. Rodney McKay, with a group of bored scientists, including Dr. Radek Zelenka, trying to perfect the Wraith computer virus to upload to the Asuran Base code. The scientists are bored, due to the fact that they have been stuck for ten hours, with McKay just sitting still, looking at the calculations hoping for an epiphany. Zelenka and the others push him to e-mail his sister, since she helped them through the last time they were stuck. However, McKay insists they don't need help from her, or the Wraith. Eventually, they are forced to leave him, which makes McKay e-mail his sister.

Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Canada, Jeannie Miller, with her husband Kaleb Miller and daughter Madison Miller are baking chocolate chip cookie. Madison feels she would like to bake one massive cookie. Jeannie then intercepts an e-mail from her brother, and quickly helps him with the calculations. Later, at night, Kaleb and Jeannie are in bed, when they hear a noise. Thinking Madison has stolen a cookie, Kaleb investigates. However, the door breaks open by four masked armed men, who subdue Kaleb and takes Jeannie away.

As soon as McKay hears the news, he Lt. Colonel John Sheppard and Ronon Dex go to Stargate Command to find her. They are met by NID Agent Malcolm Barrett. They quickly rush to Vancouver to their house, with CSIS assisting them. But first, Ronon has a change of clothing to blend in with the Tau'ri.

At Vancouver, they all arrive in the Miller residence, where McKay is to work on Jeannie's computer. But first, Kaleb talks with him privately in the kitchen. Since the kidnappers were obviously tracking their top-secret e-mails, Kaleb blames him for Jeannie's kidnap. McKay tells him that he will find her, but for the time being, he sends Kaleb and Madison to a hotel for safety. After they leave, McKay looks into the computer to track the trackers. Since it would take as long as twelve hours, Ronon and Sheppard go to a hotel. Meanwhile, in a secluded lab, Jeannie is taken there, where she is met by a man named Henry Wallace, and tells her that he needs her to do some work for him.

At night, McKay discovers that someone has hacked into their e-mail, so he tracked their Trojan and found an address. He calls Ronon and Sheppard the news. Meanwhile, Barrett and McKay arrive in the address and searches the place, when Barrett is suddenly ambushed by the same masked men, and they capture McKay. A moment later, Sheppard and Ronon arrive and see an injured Barrett, who tells them the men took McKay away.

He is taken to the same lab Jeannie is in, and the siblings reunite. Wallace then arrives and introduces himself. Henry Wallace, President of Devlin Medical Technologies. His company gets a lot of government contracts, and is one of their primary resources for integrating alien technologies acquired by the Stargate Program into Earth's medical technology. Wallace therefore has only the lowest level of access to information, but after a few too many astounding breakthroughs by the military, he has managed to find out all about Stargate Command, Atlantis, and Rodney McKay.

Soon Wallace shows the two brilliant scientists why he's brought them here; his daughter Sharon Wallace is suffering from leukemia. McKay isn't sure what he wants the two of them to do as neither are medical doctors. Wallace explains that Sharon has been given prototype nanites to try to heal her, but they are doing more harm than good. He originally thought his men ironed out and perfected the coding, but was wrong. She is now dying. He says he doesn't care if he gets arrested for what he knows, just as long as Sharon is cured. Wallace assures them that if they help him perfect the coding, and save Sharon, he will let them go.

Back at Stargate Command, Ronon, Sheppard and Barrett work on how to find them and who took them. Barrett originally thinks that The Trust is behind this. The team work on tracing the corporate structures to find them.

Back at the lab, Jeannie is working on the coding and is hopeful to save the girl. McKay however, has other plans. Thinking there is nothing they could do to help, he doesn't want to see what happens if she dies and plans to escape. He coerces Jeannie to join him, and they both hack into the network computers to hack into the security door code. They both escape, but are soon lost because of McKay's sense of direction. Meanwhile, Wallace discovers they have escaped and activated an alarm. The siblings are surrounded and as they make a run for it, the guards fire Tasers at them, knocking them out. When McKay awakens, they are both confronted by Wallace. He tells them it was a mistake to give them unlimited access. He begs them for their help, since his wife died three years ago and does not want to lose the only thing he has left. But when McKay says he made a mistake in giving her the nanites, Wallace is forced to give them an incentive to help. He infects Jeannie with the same malfunctioning nanites. They must work, or Jeannie will die too.

Back at the SGC, the team breaks down the corporate structures, but soon discover that the Trust may not be involved. Barrett looks into a company that has been given access on nanotechnology. He soon finds out the company responsible, DMT. Sheppard tells Ronon, who is talking with CMSgt. Walter Harriman, and tells him of the situation.

Meanwhile, the siblings discover the flaw of the nanite coding; the nanites are not communicating with each other, making them disorganized and inefficient. They manage to fix the problem. They give their findings to Wallace. While they wait, the siblings talk about whether or not McKay should marry Dr. Katie Brown, since he has been seeing her for over a year. They are then interrupted by a guard, who takes them to the ward. There, they discover that the nanite coding works, since Sharon is now fully recovered with no trace of the leukemia on her. Due to this breakthrough, they toast with champagne. However, just as they start the celebration, Wallace is given the news that without warning, Sharon's heart stops. Everybody believes she has died. Jeannie attempts to talk a devastated Wallace into letting them go, when her heart suddenly restarts, much to everybody's surprise.

After further analysis, McKay and Jeannie discover that Sharon had a heart murmur that was separate from her leukemia. The nanites detected the condition and shut down her heart to repair the damage. Unfortunately, because the nanites were only programmed to repair damage and not to be concerned about the patient, they shut down Sharon's heart without regard to the lack of oxygen reaching her brain. The nanites begin to fix the brain physically however the information stored in those cells will be lost, resetting Sharon to "zero". Thus, the nanites have effectively put Sharon into a vegetative state. McKay and Jeannie realize in horror that the nanites will soon try to cure Jeannie's epilepsy, most likely killing her in the process. However, before they can do anything about it, Sheppard and Ronon with a group of Marines break into the lab and arrests Wallace. McKay quickly wants to brought back to Stargate Command, and are beamed away to the Daedalus.

Back at the SGC, McKay attempts to fix the nanites' programming, and in order to save Jeannie, he purposely breaks her legs to give him time as the nanites are distracted. However, he can't do this on his own, and calls the captive Wraith on help. At first, he doesn't co-operate, so McKay attempts to talk him into helping. Eventually, he convinces the Wraith that stopping the nanites will be a significant help in stopping the Asurans. The Wraith agrees and starts helping. Unfortunately, as they make excellent progress, the Wraith collapses, due to his starvation. Since Earth won't allow to supply him with a Human, McKay urges Sheppard to let him feed off McKay, which Sheppard refuses to do. McKay convinces him that Sharon died, because the nanites ran out of power before they could repair her damaged blood vessels and died from blood loss.

Sheppard however, then uses this information on Wallace. He tells Wallace about the Wraith physiology, and the fact they feed on Humans. Sheppard tells him that since Sharon dies, he may be responsible for the death of Jeannie, which will leave her husband and daughter with no wife or mother. The distraught Wallace is wracked with guilt and regret. Meanwhile, McKay attempts to break into the lab with Dr. Bill Lee's keycard to sacrifice himself, only to be stopped. However, the door soon opens, with the nourished Wraith. Wallace agreed on sacrificing himself, since he has no one. Sheppard makes up a cover story that he was showing Wallace the labs, until the Wraith had the upper hand. The Wraith finishes the coding to save Jeannie.

Much to McKay's relief, Jeannie is saved, and reunite again. However, Jeannie gives him some terms, including eating more vegetarian food, reading Madison three bedtime stories instead of two, and a Prius.

In the end, back in Atlantis, McKay later confronts Sheppard, asking whether he manipulated Wallace into sacrificing himself. Sheppard responds that he merely stated the situation to Wallace, and that like McKay, he was simply trying to do the right thing. They both agree on ending it all on a late dinner together.

Notable Quotes
Zelenka: Just email her already. McKay: Excuse me? Zelenka: Rodney, we're stuck. We've been stuck for 10 hours. Just ask her for help, please. McKay: I'm not stuck. Zelenka: The last time we had a block like this she helped us through it, right?.

Zelenka: I cannot stand here and wait for you to have an epiphany! (Slowly) I'm losing the will to live!

McKay: Let's just for a second imagine that we live in this magical land of unicorns and wizards and kind-hearted people who you can take at their word. Let's assume that he lets us go if we save her. But what if we fail, huh? What if she dies? How happy d'you think he'll be then? You think he'll let us just waltz out the door with an "Aw shucks. Well, better luck next time, tiger" attitude?

Jeannie and Rodney attempt an escape, only McKay is lost, and they both whisper Jeannie: I can't believe I am betting my life on your sense of direction! McKay: What are you talking about?! I've got an excellent sense of direction! Jeannie: Oh, yeah? Remember when we went to West Edmonton Mall and Dad had to call the police to find you? McKay: That mall was huge! Jeannie: There were maps every seven metres! McKay: Yeah, misleading ones!

Harriman: So, I'm nervous, right, because, you know, it's an admiral I'm talking to. So I say to him, "Sir, if you use an I-37 form instead of an N-1, you can save yourself from using like, a hundred G-72s". And there's this pause. (stops Ronon from eating his sandwich) No-one says anything for, like, I dunno, it felt like minutes. And finally, the admiral looks over at Landry and he goes, "Hank, not only is your boy here right, but I think we found ourselves a new bingo caller for Sunday nights"! (Laughs at Ronon) Bingo! "I-37! N-1! G-72! Bingo!" (giggles) Whoever said the admiral didn't have a sense of humor?

After their ordeal Jeannie: I am gonna hold this over your head for, forever. McKay: That's totally fair. Jeannie: Like, you're gonna eat a lot of vegetarian food, and not complain about it. McKay: Sure, sure. Jeannie: And you're gonna read Madison three stories instead of her usual two. McKay: Right.<br\> Jeannie: You're gonna buy me a car.<br\> McKay: Let's not get out of control here.<br\> Jeannie: You almost got me killed, that's at least a car, a nice one. A hybrid.