The Happiness Project
by
Peyton Ellas
It had been a slow month at Stargate Command, but Colonel Samantha Carter hadn't minded. She had been commanding the George Hammond for more than a year, but the new Daedalus Class battle cruiser was at Area 51 for routine maintenance. She was grateful to Colonel Landry for the opportunity to return to her former base, with its extensive tools and what she thought would be solitude. She was working on restoring another in her growing fleet of classic motorcycles. Many of the SGC crew had been given a much-needed leave, and no teams were scheduled to depart or arrive during her stay. Only a skeleton crew of security personnel remained behind to guard the base, although everyone could be called back at any time, as usual when one is assigned to Stargate Command.
Colonel Landry had welcomed her and promptly returned to his office to catch up on paperwork. She hadn't understood his barely concealed impish smile until later. To her surprise, her former SG-1 team members returned to the base for a "spontaneous" reunion. Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill, Dr. Daniel Jackson and Free Jaffa Alliance High Commander Teal'c had all surprised her the night before with a feast of MRE's, pineapple, and a bowl of blue jello. The talk had gone way into the early hours of the morning. Though they had stayed in touch since their days together at Stargate Command, only rarely had they been able to meet in the same place at the same time, let alone at Cheyenne Mountain.
The morning after their reunion, a tired but very happy Sam turned the corner and entered a lab that she had converted into a makeshift 'cycle garage. Sam planned to replace the front brake caliper on her half-dissembled Gilera Saturno. She was dressed in jeans and casual white t-shirt, ready to get greasy and be in her own thoughts. The other three of her former team hadn't been in the mess hall when she'd eaten breakfast. She presumed they were all still asleep or enjoying some quiet time on their own. She thought Daniel may well be in the base's library, seeing if any new ancient texts had turned up on earth.
Still smiling, thinking of the conversations from the night before, she stopped abruptly as her eyes focused on the scene in her lab. She blinked, wondering if there hadn't been something added to the jello of the night before.
She, Samantha Carter, was sitting on the fully restored motorbike, observing herself calmly.
"I hope you don't mind. It felt natural to go ahead and complete what appeared to be your project. I can undo the work if you'd like me to," the Sam-look-alike said. "It was interesting, manipulating the cells in this form."
Sam lunged for the alarm button. Red lights danced around them and a loud blaring horn sounded in the lab and down the hall. Sam regretted now her casual attire and lack of weapon. But, really, how did this alien,for clearly that's what it had to be, get onto the base in the first place? Sam kept her eyes on the alien and reached for the intercom phone.
"Intruder in lab two-one-four," she said clearly and slowly. "Intruder on base. Lab two-one-four."
The Samantha-look-alike frowned slightly, as if confused. She seemed to be studying Sam closely. Four airmen appeared behind Sam with guns raised in full assault mode. They stopped at the sight of the look alike. Two of them turned their weapons on Sam.
"I'm not the intruder," Sam said sharply. "She is." Sam pointed at the alien, who showed no alarm and hadn't moved from her seat astride the bike.
"What is it?" Daniel pushed into the room, followed by Jack and Teal'c. Jack carried a ping-pong paddle in his hand. Noticing Sam's glance, he said, "I beat Teal'c, four games to one."
Teal'c cocked his eyebrow, but didn't answer. They all stared at the alien.
"Hello?" Daniel said. More airmen had arrived, weapons drawn. The lab was getting crowded. The look-alike did not appear alarmed.
"Do you want us to take it down, sir?" the sergeant asked, addressing Jack. But just as O'Neill was opening his mouth to speak, or not, the crowd of airmen parted and Colonel Landry joined them. Behind him trailed Dr. Lee, whose new lab this was since returning from Homeworld Command three months ago, and whose lab it would be again. He certainly, certainly, did not mind giving it up to Colonel Carter, and helping her even with her hobby project, but he felt he had a right, maybe even a duty, to see what was going on.
"What is going on, General O'Neill?" Landry asked, always one to show respect to his senior officers while remaining full of the knowledge that this was his command, and knowing that Jack respected that.
"We seem to have a doppelganger in our midst, sir," Jack answered.
"A doppelganger?" Landry asked, looking at the alien.
"A doppelganger, sir, is someone who resembles another, or a..." Dr. Lee had been pushing forward, closer to the look-alike and the real Sam, and finally laid eyes on the alien mid-sentence. "...ghostly presence." He took a small step backwards and looked quickly between the Sam standing next to him and the Sam on the bike.
"I know what a doppelganger is, Dr. Lee," Landry said with a hint of irritation.
"I think it means us no harm," Daniel said, moving closer to the alien. Dr. Lee couldn't help but noticing the garage mechanics tools spread out on his stainless steel counters.
"I think I mean you no harm," the alien repeated.
"Who are you?" Sam asked, moving closer so that the two were mirror images to Jack who stood between them, looking back and forth at both.
"What are you?" Jack clarified.
"What am I" the alien said in a monotone. "I am."
"It's just that the last time," Daniel began, "actually the last few times, we've seen a Samantha Carter look-alike, they haven't been exactly friendly."
"Friendly?" the alien asked. "Are you a believer in Aristotelian definitions of phenomenon?" The alien frowned.
"Perhaps I made an error. I believed this was the site of the most advanced scientific thinking on your planet. I believed you were ready."
"Ah-ha!" Jack said. "I knew it. Alien!"
"Indeed," said Teal'c. "Was there any doubt?"
"What I want to know is how the hell did you get on my base?" Landry demanded. "The Stargate has not activated in four days, and you didn't come through it then."
"No, I've been here," the alien said. "Since the formation of your planet. Before, even."
"Well, for now, you're going to be escorted out of this lab." Landry motioned and four airmen came forward.
"I don't think it's dangerous," Sam said slowly.
"Until we get to the bottom of this, I won't take any chances with this base. Neither would you," Landry said. He turned his head to Jack. "Or you."
"Oh, I definitely agree with being cautious," Jack replied.
The alien made no effort to resist and went with the airmen calmly. After it had gone, Sam said, "I'd like to interview it further."
"Me too," Daniel said. "She mentioned Aristotle, did you notice that? Almost as if she knew I would be intrigued." A crease appeared between his eyebrows and he pursed his lips in deep thought.
Landry looked at Jack, who did a sort of half-shrug, head-waggle.
"Oh, yes, I'm in," Jack said. Teal'c nodded as Landry's gaze turned to him. Landry shook his head.
"Nothing's changed, has it?" he said. "I'll phone the President, but I don't know any people more qualified to figure this out then you four."
Jack, Sam, Daniel and Teal'c entered the "guest quarters" where they had locked the alien. The grey drab concrete walls and sparse furnishings could not have fooled the alien, yet it made no complaint. She sat on the edge of the single bed gazing at the blank wall. Daniel pulled the wooden desk chair closer and sat down opposite the alien, blocking the wall view. The alien blinked but did not otherwise react. Sam wasn't sure whether she wanted to sit next to her look alike or in the other chair, so she remained standing next to Daniel. Jack and Teal'c also remained standing. Daniel had noticed that both had retrieved and now carried weapons: in Jack's case a P90, and Teal'c carried an ARG and had a staff weapon slung across his back. Overkill, in Daniel's view, and possibly harmful to the success of their interview. But he was not surprised, and knew that he would never change the essentially military nature of both men.
"Okay, so let's try this again, shall we?" Jack said. "What exactly are you, how did you get here, and what do you want?" The other three of his former team all turned their heads to look at him, along with the alien. "What? Isn't that what we want to know?"
Sam shrugged an agreement. They looked at the alien, who hadn't shown any emotion at the direct inquisition, and didn't answer.
"Maybe it doesn't know," Daniel said, trying to be helpful.
"Doesn't know?" Jack challenged.
"You put together my bike pretty quickly," Sam said, trying a different tactic. "How did you know how to do it?"
"I am formed largely of cells duplicated from yours," the alien said. Teal'c raised the ARG and tensed. "That's why I came here at this time. Because it was where you would be." The alien hadn't seemed to notice Teal'c's action. "All of you. I could have gone to those other scientists. I could still go there. In a way, I am there. But you have more experience with my sort of entity, for lack of a better word. I thought you'd be ready for me."
"How?" Jack asked, growing impatient.
"What sort of entity are you?" Daniel asked. He turned to the others. "Perhaps its a different form of Ascended being, one that doesn't need to travel through the Stargate."
"Are you that, then?" Jack asked, a lilt appearing without his apparently being aware of it. "And why appear in this form, eh? Looking like..." He waved his hands, his fingers flicking, towards Sam. "...her."
The alien seemed to be thinking. It then turned it's focused gaze on Sam. After a moment, she stepped back and put her hand to her head. Jack stepped forward, his P90 raised.
"Whoa," she said. "Okay, that was weird." She raised her hand towards Jack. "But it didn't hurt me. I'm okay."
Daniel studied the alien. It seemed to frown, then turned its gaze to him.
"Yeah...no..." Daniel said. He shook his head. "It's trying to communicate with me, with us. Without words." He looked at Sam, whose eyes had opened widely.
"It did feel a little bit like when Orlan communicated with me," Sam said. "Only with Orlan, I felt what he wanted me to feel. This time..."
"Yes, I failed," the alien said.
"Okay, just hold on here," Jack said. "There will be no more of that." He waved the P90 towards the alien.
"Are you an Ancient?" Daniel said. "Because if you are, I should feel something more. But I don't. Are you an outcast?
The alien almost seemed to smile. At least it almost appeared that way to Daniel.
"Yes?" Daniel said.
The alien shook it's head. "I have much in common with the Ascended of all kinds. I am them, and they are I, but I am more than they." The alien looked to Sam, to Jack, Teal'c and Daniel, before her eyes rested again on Sam. "I am energy. I have always been here, on the planet with you, but never before did I manifest in this form."
"Energy?" Jack said. "Like electricity, nuclear, that kind of thing?"
"Those are some of my forms."
"Wow," Sam said. "If this is true..." she looked at Jack, her eyes holding amazement, excitement and a trace of doubt, all of which Jack read in an instant, the way it had always been with them.
"Why now?" Daniel said. "Why appear in this form now?"
"You weren't able to observe this form before. But recent advancements by your earth scientists have had the consequence of forming equations of reduction and re-organization of my basic property. You have done much in the past decade. You are no longer-"
"-If he says 'primitive,' Jack said under his breath to Teal'c, raising his P90 a little higher and grimacing.
"You mean the discovery of visible gravitational waves." Sam said with excitement. She turned to Jack, as she always had, directing her explanation to her former team leader. "The research has been going on for decades, based on Einstein's theory that gravity from black holes should be traveling outward in energy waves, much as a pond ripples in concentric circles when a rock is thrown in the middle, causes the water to collapse in the center. The mass of water expands, causing the waves, which is energy acting on the water molecules. But until recently, we didn't have proof." To the alien, she said, "So this discovery has made you possible in this form?"
"Possible to you," she said. "That's why I appear as you."
"Yeah, about that..." Daniel said. He had been ascended, after all. Hadn't this alien just said that he and it were very much alike? He understood something of being in an energy form, after all. "What should we call you?" Daniel asked, thinking maybe he'd at least get a namesake out of this. The alien did not hesitate, however.
"Thomas Kelvin," she said.
"What?" Jack asked. Sam laughed.
"After Thomas Young, the first human to use the word 'energy,' and Lord Kelvin, the originator of the theory of conservation of energy, which is exactly perfect since that is what you are a perfect demonstration of!" Sam seemed delighted by the idea, and for the first time the alien smiled broadly along with Sam.
"Okay, but I can't call you 'Thomas,'" Daniel said, resigning himself to idea that even as much as he had learned in his time with the Stargate program, the alien had decided Sam was still the top scientist in the room. And, Daniel had to admit, it was true. Probably. "How about we just call you Kelvin?" The alien lowered her chin in acquiescence.
"That's what you meant by the other scientists. The ones with the LIGO Program," Sam said, nodding. "But we, at Stargate, and especially us, the four of us, with all that we've seen. You believed we would be able to see and accept you in this form." She turned back to Jack, her eyes holding a lot less doubt than before.
"That's just crazy talk," Jack said, frowning. He broke his gaze away from Sam with a shake of his head and focused on the alien. "If you're energy, shouldn't you be, I don't know, invisible? Or in the lights, or heating up the room or something?"
"I am in those forms too. Would you find it easier to talk to the lights?" Kelvin said.
Jack frowned. "So you're doing this for us? Appearing this way?"
Kelvin cocked her head. "I am, as I always have, as I always will be."
"Okay, now does that sound a little suspicious to anyone else?" O'Neill said. "A little god-like perhaps?" He hadn't yet gotten used to two Sams, and this alien one, for he would still think of it that way, no matter what it called itself, did not act like the Samantha Carter he had always known and –
"How is it that you appear as a human form, with human knowledge of language?" Teal'c asked.
"What is human form but potential energy and mechanism for translations of one form of energy to another?" Kelvin replied.
"Carter?" O'Neill said.
"It's kind of a form of translational symmetry" Samantha said. "Our bodies, including our brains, are made up of cells powered by energy we transfer from carbohydrate, protein, lipids,and oxygen through metabolism into kinetic and stored potential energy. I think Kelvin transfers her energy into human cell formation directly from the black hole's gravitational field here on earth."
"How?" O'Neill asked. Talk of black holes always made him think of Henry Boyd, and this made him more irritable than usual. He knew this, but he didn't always want to fight it. If this anger and guilt over losing Boyd in a black hole was the only thing that kept Boyd alive in some way to him, he wasn't ready to let it go.
"I have no idea," Sam said.
"I guess what I'm getting at here, is how do we know it's telling the truth?" Jack said.
"You expect a demonstration," Kelvin said. "Yes, I should have anticipated this. Humans are fond of demonstrations of power."
Suddenly, the gate activation lights flashed through the small window in the holding cell door, and the technician's voice boomed out, "Unscheduled activation." Alarms sounded. Teal'c was already out of the room. Jack following, Sam and Daniel started towards the door. Kelvin stood.
"You?" Sam said. Kelvin didn't answer. Sam followed Daniel and shut the door behind her.
"Keep her in there," Sam said, not even knowing if that was possible. If Kelvin was telling the truth...
By the time Sam reached the gate-room, the technician was already saying, "...Chevron seven, locked," and a moment later the whoosh of the wormhole lit up the team's face in eerie blue. Colonel Landry stood on the other side of Jack, his face clenched in anxiety and anger.
"Is this the result of your interview?" He said, staring ahead at the blue sphere of the wormhole's entry point.
"If it is..." Jack said.
"Where did it dial to?" Sam asked the technician, leaning forward to see the monitor herself. Daniel's face was scrunched in worry as he gazed at the monitors raised above the console, around the room.
"Sirs, the readings are..." Sam said, her breath catching. She stood. "Are these correct?" she asked the technician.
"I've triple-checked," the technician answered, her voice cracking with anxiety.
"What is it?" Landry and Jack answered in unison.
"A black hole," Daniel said, reading the equations on the monitor for himself.
"The Stargate has dialed itself into a collapsing star, already forming into a black hole," Sam said.
Memories of the Henry Boyd tragedy once again flooded Jack's mind. He vividly remembered Henry's expression as P3-451 was consumed excruciatingly slowly, knowing that he and his team were doomed. The black hole had taken Colonel Cromwell too, and nearly Jack, nearly the entire planet, before they were able to shut the wormhole down. He had been a lot younger then, when he had hung on a rope, pulled by gravity towards his own destruction. Could he do it again, he wondered? He would die trying. As his answer had always been, always would be.
"Sir, the alien says she's energy itself. She caused this as a demonstration," Sam was explaining to Landry. Suddenly, Sam wheeled around, sensing a presence. Kelvin stood behind them, calmly watching the wormhole.
"Evacuate the gate room," Landry ordered over the com.
"Can you make it stop?" Sam said. "Please." Kelvin looked at Jack.
"That proves you've got some power," Jack said. "Now make it stop."
"We would appreciate it," Landry said. "I, for one, am willing to accept that you are what you say you are. Namely, energy itself. If that is what it takes to shut this down."
The wormhole died as quickly as it was formed. The iris re-sealed. Sam took a huge breath. She didn't blame Jack for wanting proof, but he hadn't felt the connection she and Daniel had with this entity, with Kelvin. She knew it to be pure energy. She hadn't told them, but during and just after the encounter, she had felt an amazing power, almost a euphoria. She had felt that way with Orlon, and a few times since. But it wasn't something she could readily tell Jack. Perhaps she would talk to Daniel later, or Teal'c. She looked at Daniel, wondering if he had felt the same.
"I thought you would understand that demonstration," Kelvin said. "I could do others. The sun for instance..."
"-No, no, I think we understand," Daniel said.
"Okay, so now how 'bout we move on to what do you want?" Jack said.
"Maybe she wants to help us?" Daniel asked.
"I don't think connecting us to a black hole is particularly helpful, Dr. Jackson," Landry said curtly.
"I don't include a motive equation in my existence," Kelvin said.
"Ya can't appear, claim to be energy itself, and then weasel out of whether you're for us or against us," Jack said.
"Actually, she can." Sam said. Jack raised his eyebrows, waiting for the explanation he knew she would launch into.
"Since the gravitational field is everywhere, potential energy is too, and this...thing...is simply transferring that potential energy to actual energy, replacing the waste energy used by the work it takes to appear as...me." Sam said, looking at Jack as if she had just made things completely clear. Seeing his vague expression, she added, "But whether potential or actual, it is a property, not an organic life form."
"Energy has no moral code," Daniel added, nodding to Sam in understanding, loving the familiar tag-team style of explanations he always had with her when they got rolling.
"It can't possibly be expected to, or even capable of having ethics or even instincts the way a biological entity would," Daniel said. Jack nodded, as if understanding. Daniel thought again, as he often did, that Jack probably understood more than he admitted.
"That's what she meant by asking me if I believed in Aristotelian definitions," Daniel continued. "Aristotle believed that energy was a property of, yes, motion and power, but also of happiness, pleasure, and even perhaps darker emotions."
They all look at Kelvin, who gazed back without expression.
They put Kelvin in the largest vacuum tube in the lab they could find. It was cramped, but Kelvin didn't object.
"I'm pretty sure she could disappear, or turn herself into heat energy, which would appear to our eyes as invisible, if she wanted to," Sam said, as she and Daniel observed Kelvin in her tube, standing very still and staring out without expression.
"Yeah, I know," Daniel agreed.
Jack knew too, but he had to trust Sam, as he had with his own life and the existence of the planet so many times before. Landry, he knew, had his own pressures, and was perhaps calling in the NID or at least allowing their interference. That would be a disaster, as usual. So Jack had agreed to taking a break, as Daniel had put it, to let things cool down. He knew that meant that Daniel and Sam would probably be together in her temporary lab or in the library, considering all the mathematical equations to explain Kelvin's existence and what, if any, consequences there would be. They could keep her in the tube forever, as far as Jack was concerned. When had he ever asked to see visible energy?
When Teal'c suggested a re-match of ping-pong, Jack agreed.
"But don't expect me to spot you any points, just because of my awesome victory earlier," Jack said. Teal'c had just looked at him. Jack shrugged, appreciating as always Teal'c's sense of humor, which in this case meant not contradicting him.
As usual, Teal'c's pings were not answered by Jack's pongs, and the score was quickly lopsided in Teal'c's favor. Jack sighed. Why did he even try? Would there ever be a chance of him defeating his best friend in any sport-competition? Perhaps if Jack had a hundred years of practice in hand-eye combat... .
"But can we not make use of this property of energy for our own good?" Teal'c asked, as if finishing a sentence that had not been started. He served again.
"Yes, can we not?" Jack said. The tiny white ball shot past Jack unnoticed.
"As we have already, for both good and ill," Daniel replied., entering the gym room. To Jack's look, he added, "Solar energy, good. Nuclear energy, sometimes good. Hydrogen bomb sometimes, okay always, bad. Fracking...well, verdict is out."
"Suntan, good. Sunburn, bad?" Jack asked.
"Exactly," Daniel said.
"I think I've figured out a way that Kelvin could help us," Sam said, joining them.
"I knew you would," Jack replied. "But do we want her to?"
"If we can figure it out, we could use this...Kelvin...to possibly power the damaged Al'kesh we captured from the Lucien Alliance last year. It's been languishing in Area 51 because we didn't have enough energy to power its systems, let alone power the kind of equipment we would need to re-create the damaged crystals it would need for weapons and hyper drive."
"Keep talking," Jack said, intrigued.
"We could eliminate the need for naqadah and naqadriah. We could power unlimited plasma power weapons. We could power the George Hammond to travel to Atlantis every 10 minutes. The possibilities are potentially endless." Sam said. "We could eliminate the need for coal and petroleum-powered technologies on earth and power them with gravitational field energy, with Kelvin."
"Yeah...well, but there's consequences, right? I mean, if energy is transferred, and we do all these things, where is it coming from?" Daniel said.
Jack looked at Sam with raised eyebrows and a "yeah, what about that?" expression.
"Kelvin said herself, the form is a product of the potential energy from the black hole's gravitational field," Sam replied, as if that explained it all. Seeing that it hadn't, she continued, "The gravitational energy of a black hole is exponentially larger than any conceivable counter force we can produce for our human needs at this time. I mean, we're talking the force of a hydrogen bomb to the ten-millionth degree. That's why we've been unable to overcome the force of a black hole."
"And why we've avoided them." Jack said, once again remembering their own close encounter, years ago and just hours ago.
"Yes, but we wouldn't need to tap directly into a black hole," Sam said. "We wouldn't be coming anywhere near the event horizon. We wouldn't need to."
"Because Kelvin has come to us," Daniel said, nodding. "As long as we use Kelvin as a sort of translator, there's no danger to us."
"It would be like a sort of super-Bluetooth connection," Sam finished. Jack cocked his head to the side, as if considering. He nodded. It might just work.
Landry, after hours of more explanations and discussion with Kelvin, and calls to the Pentagon, the President, Area 51 researchers and Landry-only-knew who else, agreed to allow Sam to begin experiments on the base. The first uses would be limited, powering only carefully isolated equipment. Actually, Jack noticed that Kelvin did very little of the discussion, merely watching and listening impassively. During a break, Jack tried another tactic.
"What is it you want?" Jack asked in a low tone, as the others moved away from the conference table, to grab a bite of food, a cup of coffee, or to make more phone calls.
Kelvin appeared to ponder. "I want nothing. What do you want?"
"The return of The Simpsons," said Jack. "But I'd settle for the Al'kesh being fully powered and all those other things Colonel Carter mentioned."
If Kelvin understood, she didn't show it. Jack gave up with a sigh. The real Sam would have at least smiled, he thought.
The experiments went extremely well. Kelvin did nothing, or appeared not to do anything. She didn't even really have to be present in the lab, Kelvin said, although Landry insisted she remain under guard and closely monitored. They all knew it was for show, but Kelvin seemed not only compliant in whatever was asked of her, but to almost be enjoying their pleasure as micronomers, telescopes, radioarctographic positrons and subatomic laser enhancement spectons were powered at varying levels, shut down and re-started, without any effect on Command's energy grid usage. It was like pulling energy from the air itself. Like magic, Daniel thought. Except they understood the science. Or at least most of it.
"It's like on the edge between science and what our ancestors would certainly think of as magic," Daniel mused as he and Teal'c shared a dinner in a mostly empty mess hall.
"As if the Goa'uld were gods, except they are not, because we know it is the enslavement of others that give them their power."
"And the Ori, and the Asgard, the Asurans, and the Ancients, and all other races who at first seem magical, until we discover the wizard behind the curtain," Daniel mused. "And in this case, Kelvin could seem all-powerful, god-like even, except that she herself explained herself as a product of the universe, as a property of physics. Not mystical at all."
"You sound disappointed," Teal'c said.
"No, not disappointed," Daniel objected. But the feeling he had had when Kelvin was communicating without words...was that science too? He hadn't felt that since Oma Desala first made him her protegee. His mind could accept that Kelvin had no moral code, but he had felt so...good? Was that even strong enough? He had felt powerful in a positive way, almost euphoric, as if he was capable of great good things. As if they would be easy to achieve. Surely, that meant using Kelvin for the good of the human race, for the good of the universe, was the right thing to do? Surely that kind of connection that Kelvin had initiated, and felt a failure, would have lasting impact? And wasn't that a kind of mystical power?
When Daniel and Teal'c returned to the lab, they found a smiling and confident-looking Sam and Kelvin. Landry was studying Kelvin thoughtfully.
"We're ready to test Kelvin on the Al'kesh," Sam said. Dr. Lee nodded in the background.
"That's all I need to hear. Everyone's ready for you at Area 51," Landry said. "You can visit your ship while you're there."
"Yes, sir," Sam said. She had thought of that, eager to see what kind of upgrades they might have made to the George Hammond. Her crew wasn't sorry to have their Earth stay extended, she knew, but they also knew they had a job to return to, and a part of her would be glad to be once again in command of her own ship, and returning to her normal mission. Not that she hadn't been overjoyed at being able to work with her old SG-1 team again these past weeks. There had been more than a few jokes about "the band being reunited," and "the reunion tour of the old band," mostly by Jack, but even Teal'c had purposed they could go on tour as "Murray and the Ping-Pongs," a joke that Sam hadn't even wanted to begin to decipher. She had also enjoyed the late night conversations with Daniel, and the familiar camaraderie and special understanding with Jack.
She shook her head to clear away those thoughts and smiled at Landry. "I'm eager to see what Kelvin can accomplish for the Al'kesh," she said.
It was raining when they arrived at Area 51, an unusually hard storm for the season. Sam had told both Teal'c and Jack that they didn't need to come.
"It's all going to be pretty dry, I'm afraid," she said.
"Irony intended?" Jack had commented.
"I for one am eager to see the Al'kesh powered up and ready to be used by the Tau'ri for the fight against evil," Teal'c said.
"Yeah, that," Jack said. "Me too."
"As long as Washington can spare you," Sam said, smiling. She knew Jack didn't particularly like his assignment with the Department of Homeworld Security, at least not the sitting-behind-the-desk part.
"They can manage," Jack replied. "Barely."
So they assembled in one of the many labs overlooking the Al'kesh. Sam looked through the window at the Al'kesh below them. It perhaps had a once-glorious, if evil, career as a battleship. Daniel perhaps had the most memories of being inside one of these Goa'uld vessels, including his first encounter with Vala. Sam looked at the ship with a practiced military eye, the way she had taught herself to do in her career, the way she knew Teal'c and Jack did easily, naturally. Years in the service to the Lucian Alliance had given the ship many scars. It really looked like a wreck, not good for much except salvage.
It had been Jack, using the full weight of his command, that had spared the Al'kesh from the scrap heap. This would be a sweet victory, and validation to Jack, if they could restore her. She felt the same anticipation, the same eager thrill, as she did when she had a "new" wreck of a motorcycle to restore. Kelvin had restored her Saturno in only one night. Perhaps it would take longer, but this restoration job surely was just as possible for Kelvin?
The Area 51 team could replace the hull and add a coat of paint, so to speak, but they all knew that capturing it from the Alliance had not come without a cost, in both lives and to the entire power complex that had made the Al'kesh a valuable ship. Now, with Kelvin's help, with the seemingly effortless transfer of black hole gravitational wave energy, they could achieve something the researchers here had not been able to come close to. In preparation, they had been transferring salvaged crystals into the Al'kesh's grid for days. The plan would be to use transferred stored energy from Kelvin to repair and then power the crystals. Sam and Kelvin had run several simulations back at Command, transferring energy to crystals that had been used to teach basic crystal energy functions to new recruits. After several successful trials,they were ready.
Dr. Lee arrived at Nellis Air Force base on the second day of the Kelvin-to-crystals transfer. The paperwork took too long, as it often did. But he was here now, at the legendary Area 51. Of course he didn't get excited about things like that. He was a scientist. Serious. There was work to be done. Okay, so Colonel Carter hadn't exactly demanded his assistance. But she hadn't denied his request for temporary assignment. As he jumped out of the black SUV that had brought him from the airport, his enthusiasm was dampened somewhat by the torrential rain. A gust of wind seemed to want to push him back into the vehicle. His umbrella quickly flipped inside out and then was ripped from his hands.
"Look out!" he shouted to the guard at the entrance to the hangar where the Al'kesh was stored. The umbrella flew like a projectile and hit the metal door next to the guard's head with a loud "thrack!"
"Oh great," Dr. Lee mumbled to himself as he fought through the wind towards the hangar. "That's all I need. To kill a serviceman before I even get inside."
Inside the lab overlooking the Al'kesh, Daniel was studying monitors. But it wasn't the progress of the transfer, which had been going incredibly smoothly for two days now, that he was studying. Kelvin and Sam were on the other side of the large lab, monitoring their own data sets.
"Sam..." Daniel said, studying the monitor in front of him.
"Just a minute, Daniel," Sam called out, tapping more figures into her keypad.
"No, I think you're going to want to see this..."
Jack entered the lab and stopped at the doorway just in time to hear Daniel. Kelvin and Sam turned and looked at Jack at the same time, their eyes blue saucers. Four of them. Directed at Jack.
"Okay, that is still weird," Jack said.
"Yeah, uh, guys, so is this," Daniel said. Jack shrugged away from the blue eyes and joined Daniel, looking over his shoulder at the screen.
"Looks like the world," he said. "A weather map, perhaps?" The screen image showed the world in divided quadrants, with colored swirls and dots disappearing and appearing."A bit colorful, isn't it?" Jack said.
Sam finished her work and joined them. She frowned. Daniel glanced up at her with a question in his eyes.
"I see what you mean," she said.
"Too much color, perhaps?" Jack said.
"Yes," both Daniel and Sam replied.
Dr. Lee burst into the lab, flapping his white lab coat that, despite his overcoat, had gotten a bit damp.
"Gee, that is some storm out there!"
"Yeah, one might even say, historical," Daniel replied. Dr. Lee nodded.
"Now that you mention it, they were talking about record-setting rain and wind," he agreed. Sam and Daniel looked at each other again.
"Carter?..." Jack began. She looked at him and frowned again. Dr. Lee bent forward and looked at the monitor more closely, dripping water on Daniel's cheek.
"Oh, my..." he said. Jack leaned in closer.
"What?" Jack said.
"The weather," Daniel said.
"Yeah, I got that far," Jack said sarcastically, standing upright.
"It's just that, all over the world, it appears that the earth is experiencing record-breaking weather."
"Yeah, there's tornadoes in Antarctica, a heat wave in Siberia, record floods in Egypt," Daniel began, then broke off to study the monitor. "I hope the Pyramids aren't damaged," he said quietly to himself.
"Okay, that's a little odd," Jack said.
In unison, Daniel, Sam and Dr. Lee turned and looked at Kelvin, sitting where Sam had left her across the lab, watching them without expression.
"Carter...?" Jack said again.
"I don't know," Sam said. She and Daniel shared a look.
"I thought we agreed the energy drain from earth's store would be infinitesimal compared to the incoming energy potential of the visible black hole gravitational field?" Dr. Lee said.
"It is," Sam said.
"Earthquake in Finland," Daniel said, and grimaced. "A big one." He turned worried eyes to Jack and then to Sam.
"Are we responsible for this?" Jack demanded. A serviceman appeared in the doorway. "Yes?" Jack said.
"I'm sorry, sir, but General Landry is on the phone. Would like to speak to you."
Jack tensed and looked back at Sam.
"We'll figure it out," she said.
"Yes, I know," Jack said. He glanced at the monitor of dancing colors. "I hope soon."
The scientists worked late into the night. Immediately Sam had Kelvin halt the energy transfer to the Al'kesh crystals, but the world still rocked with weather emergencies and disasters.
Jack spent hours on the phone, first with Landry, then with the Joint Chiefs, then with the President, and then he started losing track of who is was talking with. It was the part of his job he hated most. And this part only ever happened when something went wrong. Finally, the clock told him another dawn sun was rising, somewhere beyond all those storm clouds,that is. He returned to the lab. Was it his imagination, or did even Kelvin look exhausted?
"Well?" Jack said as he entered. "Are we causing all this mayhem?"
"Yes," Daniel said. Sam nodded glumly. Dr. Lee did his usual shrugging nod, as if he felt he had to take the blame too.
"Other planets in the Tau'ri solar system are also beginning to experience atmospheric anomalies," Teal'c said.
"I thought you said the energy storage as it were was massive compared to the tiny amount we need," Jack said.
"We were correct about the relative amounts of energy transfer we are affecting," Sam said. "I mean, the force of the visible wave continued back along time-space would be enough to power millions of Al'kesh battleships."
"And yet..." Jack said, gesturing with his head and eyes to the monitor.
"Well, sir, its' because mass and energy are intrinsically linked," Sam began. "We failed to calculate for the effects of transferring energy, even in relatively small amounts, into our solar system from the black hole in another galaxy."
"Energy affects mass, always. Basic law of thermodynamics," Dr. Lee agreed, nodding.
Jack made a impatient popping movement with his mouth.
"It's the butterfly effect," Daniel said.
"Ah-ha!" Jack said. "That I know. A butterfly flaps its wings in Russia, and there's a tornado in Nebraska?"
"That's right, sir. Very good," Dr. Lee smiled, nodding enthusiastically. Sam's brows furrowed as she studied Kelvin.
"So what do you say, kids? How about we turn it off?" Jack said, waving his fingers at Kelvin.
"It's not quite as simple as that," Sam said. "Unfortunately."
"In fact, I ceased activity some time ago," Kelvin said.
Jack looked at the weather monitor. "There are still lots of moving colors."
"That's because of the law of conservation," Sam began to explain.
"Riiiiight," Jack said, clearly not understanding at all, or at least appearing not to.
"I can change, or be changed, but I can not be destroyed," Kelvin said.
"Even though we were transferring energy from gravitational field energy into stored chemical and biological energy in the human-form Kelvin, and then from that from into stored potential energy of the crystals, basic thermodynamics dictates that the waste energy used, even only temporarily to effect the transfers in form, must go somewhere."
"And it went into the atmosphere of our planet, apparently," Daniel supplied, looking at Kelvin with a questioning raise of his eyebrows.
"I was not directed to any particular path of waste energy," Kelvin said.
"Perhaps the better term might be bi-product energy?" Dr. Lee supplied in a small voice. Sam nodded her head once in his direction to acknowledge his correction.
Daniel wondered if Kelvin felt guilt, but then decided that was not possible, except under perhaps the very broadest definition of Aristotelian view of energy.
"Okay, then, I'm directing. Send it somewhere else!" Jack ordered, as if the answer was obvious.
"Yeah, but, where?" Daniel said. "I mean at this point, there's already too much waste energy, or bi-product energy if you prefer to call it that, introduced into our solar system. It's in the process of being converted, sure, that's the destruction we see, but the energy is still here. It will take, who knows how long to transfer all of into a more benign form."
"Two hundred eighty seven years, three months, four days, twelve minutes and 43 seconds," Kelvin answered.
"Hmmm, yes, Lagrangian theory," Dr. Lee mused, looking at Kelvin with respect.
"That's a long time," Jack commented. "I'm not sure we're going to be around to see things settle down."
"No, and probably no life form on our planet will be either," Daniel said.
"Isn't there somewhere, else you could, you know, send this bi-product energy?" Jack said.
"Well, we can't just put it on a rocket and send it to outer space," Daniel answered dryly.
"Except..." Sam went back to her keyboard and began furiously typing.
"Okay, that sounds hopeful," Jack commented.
Kelvin leaned closer to Sam and they sat together hunched over the keyboards, typing side by side, their backs to the others.
Daniel, looking at the monitor, remarked, "A volcano erupted off the coast of South Africa."
"Ladies, whacha got?" Jack said. "There's volcanoes happening."
Sam and Kelvin faced the group, and Sam stood up. "I just had to confirm something. I remembered reading in a project note. The deep space telescope Anchorite has been monitoring a super massive deteriorating star, 847B-4, several million miles from the edge of our galaxy, potentially forming the center of a new galaxy. The observing astrophysicists think it is nearing collapse."
Daniel stood and took a step closer to Sam, suddenly hopeful and excited. "And a collapsing super massive star means a black hole!"
"And that's a good thing, how?" Jack asked. "I thought we've established: black holes, bad?"
"Wouldn't a new black hole create more gravitational force energy?" Teal'c asked.
"Eventually, of course, but only in the small wave forms we've already just been able to see and have lived with since the beginning of the galaxy. But at the time of collapse, the resulting black hole absorbs mass beyond that of its own collapsed star."
"And that mass has to have energy attached to it!" Dr. Lee added.
"Do you think that will work?" Sam asked Kelvin.
"You're asking the energy thing?" Jack said.
"You want me to direct myself towards this star you call 847B-4," Kelvin said.
"Will that draw enough bi-product energy away from our solar system?" Dr. Lee asked.
Kelvin and Sam looked at one another. "We hope so," they both said in unison. But then Sam turned her head and looked at Jack, with the same hope and trepidation he had seen a thousand times, or more. Kelvin looked blankly forward, without expression. He didn't think he liked Kelvin.
"I'm sorry, Jack, but we'll also have to drain the energy back out of the Al'kesh" Jack took a moment, sighed, glanced at the Al'kesh in the hangar below them, and nodded.
"You can safely retain the repaired crystals," Kelvin said.
Jack smiled faintly.
They were back at Cheyenne Mountain by nightfall. The world had been declared a planetary disaster, and religious groups were braving icy-cold and blazing-hot weather to chant and demonstrate with their "end times" banners and home-made signs.
Sam tried to ignore the destruction she couldn't help witness as they sped through storms and fog and flooded rivers. Cheyenne Mountain itself had sustained several minor earthquakes, but inside the well-protected Stargate Command she could temporarily stop thinking about the events outside and concentrate on stopping them. She knew where the collapsing star was, but to get Kelvin there would not be easy. She, Daniel and Dr. Lee had the short flight calculating distances and routes and methods of transportation, while Jack dozed and Teal'c read the current issue of "Entertainment This Week!" magazine. Kelvin sat still and calm in her seat, staring ahead, answering questions when asked, volunteering nothing.
Kelvin could change forms anytime, Sam knew. She said she wanted nothing, and Sam knew she could not have a moral code, by definition of what she was, but she couldn't help feeling a strange gratitude that Kelvin remained in human form, traveling in what to her must be ridiculously slow speeds, and continued to be passively directed by them, but mostly, she knew, by Sam herself. Kelvin would not tell her she was making a huge earth disaster possible, but neither would she abandon them.
They assembled quickly in the control room, joined by General Landry and a handful of technicians who would monitor the solar system on the computers around the room. Jack had spent the journey on the phone, briefing Landry and the President.
"We've chose PXR-674 as the best destination," Sam explained. "It's the only planet both close enough to 847B-4 and with a Stargate."
"So, we're going to lose that gate in the black hole?" Jack asked. Sam nodded.
"We hope so," Sam said. "We believe that Kelvin, by being in continual contact with the bi-product energy here in our solar system, will be able to convert that energy back into the collapsing star, in effect speeding up its demise and causing the black hole to appear more quickly than it otherwise would."
"It's kind of a reverse loop from what she, from what we, started," Daniel said.
"Won't the energy from the original black hole's gravity continue to travel to our solar system before being transferred to this new one?" Teal'c asked.
"No," Kelvin said. They waited a brief moment, but she didn't explain.
"Well, that's proof," Jack said. "She's not you, Carter!"
Sam briefly smiled. "Kelvin has determined that she can absorb temporarily an over-abundance of energy and pull the bi-product energy with her completely. It should sever the chain, if you will, and leave our system in much the same energy sum it was in."
"Won't that cause you to get, well, bigger?" Jack said to Kelvin. "Are you still going to fit through the gate?"
"My mass will increase," Kelvin said.
"But she'll still fit," Sam said. "We won't see any difference. In fact, one of the first ways we'll know this worked, is if our systems pick up a change in mass at the moment of her entering the gate's event horizon."
"Colonel, I don't want to throw cold water on your hot idea, but won't we be opening another gate to a black hole?" Landry asked.
"We've calculated to close the gate at the moment Kelvin arrives on PXR-674 and just before she transfers the stored bi-product energy back into kinetic gravitational wave energy," Sam explained. "Her own wave force should be enough to block the gravitational wave energy from the collapsing star." Kelvin nodded slightly. Everyone looked at Landry.
"It doesn't appear there are any other options," Landry said. He did not look happy. "So, it's a go." They paused a moment. Sam took a deep breath and nodded to the technician. The dialing dial commenced. Sam looked to Kelvin, but she, apparently not one for drawn-out goodbyes, or any at all, was already moving away, down the stairs, towards the gate room. Daniel, Jack, Teal'c and Sam followed.
In the gate room, they watched in silence as the gate whooshed it's familiar cone and then sphere of blue. Kelvin walked to the horizon steadily. But she paused and turned back. She looked at each of them in turn, as if...saying goodbye? Daniel tilted his head slightly. What had they learned from Kelvin? Did they really understand this thing they called "energy" any better than Aristotle had in the fourth century B.C?
Kelvin turned away and disappeared into the blue. She had barely stepped through when the gate shut down and almost at once the iris closed. Sam turned and looked up to the technician in the control room.
"We have mass fluctuation," the technician said. A moment later, she continued, "Deep-space telemetry shows the superstar is collapsing rapidly." Sam nodded.
"It worked," Daniel said. "We did it."
Jack was looking at the closed gate. Daniel stepped closer to him.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know, but I think I'm going to miss the gal a little bit," Jack said. His expression was a mix of surprise and displeasure.
Suddenly, the lights went off. Jack and Daniel jerked a little and looked back. From the doorway, Sam flicked the panel switch and the lights went back on.
"Kelvin didn't really leave us, not entirely, " Sam said. She raised her eyebrows, questioning, did they understand?
"Every time a light goes on, there's a little bit of Kelvin inside?" Jack said.
"Indeed," says Teal'c. "And in all living beings as well."
"It's all a matter of transfer," Sam said, nodding. She would want to visit the LIGOS lab in Louisiana as soon as possible, if the Air Force could delay the George Hammond' s next mission a few more days.
"Energy is a property of all objects, and may even include happiness," Daniel mused to himself. He would need to do some further reading. The casualty toll from their experiment with Kelvin would weigh on him; he needed to find a way to make a positive contribution to humanity.
Jack nodded. If Kelvin was in all humans, a little bit of Henry Boyd remained alive too, in some weird way.
The End