Length/Rating: 100 words, PG, Gen
Pairing/Warnings: none
Summary: Written for fic_promptly challenge Friday: Free-For-All, prompt: Any, Any, “Harmless illusions.”

“STARGATE ATLANTIS”, “STARGATE SG-1” and other related entities are owned, (TM) and © by MGM TELEVISION and DOUBLE SECRET PRODUCTION in association with GEKKO FILMS and THE SCIFI CHANNEL. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement is intended nor implied.

It wasn’t real.

Simulations, even ones this good, are obvious once you knew where to look and Rodney’s been through more than he’s comfortable admitting, even to himself. All of this, the ambush, the interrogations, the torture– everything since they landed was just ones and zeros. Electronic ghosts that played on his nightmares.

He watched his friends suffering, dying, knowing that in the real world he would have lost them. It’s almost too much, it always is, but they weren’t real… and that’s why he can save them.

Rodney finally gets his fingers into code and rips the world apart.