Seven lights glowed up one after another. When all lit on, out from nowhere a blue fountain shot like a geyser out of the stargate and fell suddenly back. For seconds an illusion of water swirled there, then a man with cappie and sunglasses left the event horizon and stopped only a two steps in front of the gate. He was followed by a large black man, a woman and a third man with glasses and brown hair, who twinkled with his eyes because of the sun in front of them.
With a sound that reminded to a closing air seal the wormhole disappeared and left a ring behind as inconspicuous as before. The figures wore bulletproof vests and military uniforms with round patterns on the sides which allowed every creature in the wide galaxy to recognize them as members of the Stargate Center, a base inside the cheyenne mountain, where it hid its secret activities to the earth's inhabitants.
The four members of SG-1 had themselves be delighted for a moment from the view, that unfolded in front of them. They stood just the length of an arm away from a geologic scarp of red rock, which led about a kilometre vertically down. To both sides it seemed to go on endless, like if a godly creator cut through the continent. Till the horizon there was a misty jungle and birds were circling. For the horizon itself the strong sun went down to sleep and doused everything in a fantastic red spectacle of light on a canvas of clouds.
O'Neill took of his glasses and a deep breath and pushed the air out again noisily. He turned around. "I just can't believe it! Those guys mounted the stargate the wrong way round!"
The others turned as well. From the other side of the gate a moss-grown path of stone plates led to a giant temple, engulfed by jungle.
Teal'c rested his weapon on the ground. "Indeed. One step too far, and they would fall down the chasm."
Daniel Jackson stepped carefully to the edge and peered down. The first MELP they sent was destroyed by Walters fault. Of course he couldn't have known.
With a wave O'Neill signaled the trip starts now. The others followed. The temple at the end of the path seemed to be as near as if you could touch it, but it was farther away than first expected. SG-1 needed a full hour until they finally reached the temple. The building was made of dark grey stone and everywhere vines hung down. It had about the shape of a pyramid, but was stepped and had many towers and stone faces decorating it.
O'Neill, Daniel, Teal'c and Carter stopped in front of the large entry. The gate was massive and looked like if the door wings were a metre thick. Flourish and ornaments covered the rough surface wherever one could look. Daniel went unsolicited to work and swept with his fingers over the symbols he found there.
"Well?", asked O'Neill. He peered attentive in the darkness that spread after the first metres in the bushes between the trees.
"Most likely we are facing what is left of the ancient culture of hinduism." Daniel had a brush in his hand and used it to clean the Symbols and pictograms from dirt. Now he pointed towards the large picture that was separated in the middle by the door wings. The image showed a marvellous decorated dancing woman with blue skin and many arms. "This is Kali, the hindu goddess of the underworld and destruction but also many other things, like the opposite, the creation."
"Any idea how to open that thing?"
"Let's see..." Daniel adjusted his glasses to their right position with a hand and stroked almost caressing over the inscriptions. He blinked a few times quickly in a row. "It's an uncommon dialect. Some signs are unknown to me. This reads... Gate to the underworld... Realm of damnation... may Shiva suffer for eternity - punishment of gods..." Daniel turned to O'Neill and saw to the ground, his eyes half closed. He played around with the brush between his fingers. "This is unusual. One of the many traditions says, Shiva has been the husband of Kali. But I have never read about Kali punishing Shiva."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "If these gods were Goa'uld, there could have been a struggle for power."
"- and Kali won, so she punished Shiva, that makes sense, provided we are dealing with Goa'uld." He threw another glance at the gate. Carefully, and each time halting, he pressed one after another various stone plates, which sank back into the gate. When Daniel pushed the last switch, an ancient mechanical system began to work. Gears which had grown plants on them started to move. A mechanical rattling and clicking followed, then the wings of the gate opened slowly and scraping. They allowed SG-1 to take a look into the inner temple that was covert by curtains of darkness. They seemed to suck in the weakened sunlight, which shined from outside. Chills ran down Carters spine. A vast thunder made all four looking in the sky. A monsoon rain had appeared suddenly. It lasted only seconds before lightnings twitched through the firmament and a loud and rushing rain bolt in, decreasing the sight to hundred metres. O'Neill got into a fuss about the crappy weather.
"Damn!" He casted a last glance on the way from where they came. A lightning brightened for splits of a second the silhouette of an on all fours walking thing. The moment the next lightning followed, his P90 aimed on nothing.
"Let's go." O'Neill made the first step into the blackness of the pyramid.
Inside it was quiet. Carter and O'Neill lightened the gloom with the lamps attached to their P90s, Daniel and Teal'c waved flashlights. The cones of light wandered around, now and then lifted up to the ceiling, where they got lost without touching a solid surface. The farther the team advanced, the smaller shrunk the glowing rectangle of the gate.
Carter tightened her grip on the weapon. Her goosebumps were strong enough to have her feel how every single hair in her neck raised. The team split up a bit so O'Neill's voice sounded surprisingly far away as it echoed to her.
"Guys...!"
The Jaffa and the two humans closed up. The light cone of his rifle was directed on a skeleton laying on the floor right in front of a decorated stone circle, which unfolded in complex patterns on the ground.
"Looks like the skeleton of an animal.", Teal'c stated.
"Probably the skeleton of a golden jackal. Those animals were considered loyal companions of Kali." Daniel crouched in front of the corpse.
"I suppose this one's a male?", Carter asked.
"No, Kali held exclusively female ones."
Suddenly Teal'c heaved his Staff around and realigned it into the darkness behind them. Immediately O'Neill ducked to make himself a smaller target and peered as well in this direction. The safety catch of Carters P90 clicked and resounded a long time over the rushing rain from outside. Daniel held his hand ready at his 9mm.
Nothing happened.
"Teal'c?", O'Neill asked. The Jaffa stayed tensed.
"I thought I heard something."
Just as if answering that, a throaty growl appeared in front of them. A pair of glowing eyes blazed up. The light cones hit the skeleton of a gold jackal ready to jump. A rattle signalized the other corpse began to rebuild and got to life again.
"They don't seem too friendly." Daniel spoke to O'Neill with the unexpressed question about what to do. "Jack?"
"Don't shoot as long as they don't attack."
"I don't think they like us being here.", Carter said.
A third Jackal showed up and settled for now, held back from her lamp. Somewhere in the back of the pyramid an animal howled.
SG-1 fell back to the stone circle, while the undead closed up, snarling and slobbering. Daniel, meanwhile, had pulled out his gun and waved the light back and forth until he reached the center of the circle with his feet. A stone plate sank under the pressure of his foot an inch into the ground. A troublesome noise came through the stones, as if a large pendulum was released, that clattered rhythmically and got interrupted every time sharply by a 'Clang', as if a stone hammer strikes an iron block, starting over after a few seconds.
"Daniel, what did you do this time?", O'Neill groaned.
"That sounds like a clock."
O'Neill tried to turn straight to him when his stomach instead turned around. With a final Bang the mechanism locked and they lost ground under their feet for a moment. The stone circle raced downwards. Teal'c, Daniel, Carter and O'Neill went involuntarily on their knees and saw the starting point of their journey was getting more and more tiny until it disappeared, swallowed by darkness. The ride endured an indefinite period of time, but then slowed to a halt. The colonel quickly picked himself up and secured on all sides, but it was obvious none of the jackals made it on the platform before it sank through the floor. He relaxed a little and lifted his cap.
"Where are we?"
Daniel took the first step of the platform inside the corridor that joined now with it. He paused in front of a large pictogram in the ground and lifted the hands to his hips.
"In the underworld."
*
"Well, that's great! There's also a way back out to the world of the living?"
Daniel blew out his cheeks and his light cone creeped over the walls.
"Colonel O'Neill!" It was Teal'c. He had walked a few steps into the dark passage. When the others came forward to check his find, O'Neill pulled the gun up again immediately.
On the floor lay the body of a Jaffa warrior. He wore the sign of Ra.
"I hope this one does not jump up next second, wanting to enslave us?"
"This is rather unlikely. But this man is obviously not the victim of a fight, nor a natural death."
The colonel's lips curled. "So the only way out of here is this course?" He pointed to the corridor.
"It looks like this, sir. Of course we could wait for help from the SGC, when we don't get back in time." Carter let loose of her P90 so it dangled to her vest.
"Okay, haste makes waste. We probably wont starve." O'Neill made preparations to sit down, groaning in the process. Daniel strode by.
"We might as well explore what is to be found in these corridors. They have to lead to somewhere."
O'Neill fiddled about the rim of his cap. "Daniel - There are undead monsters around here. Give me one reason I should take the risk."
Daniel curled his lips into a kind of sarcastic grin. He pulled a piece of paper from his jacket and unfolded it before the eyes of the soldier. "We've got a map."
O'Neill raised his eyebrows. "And then what?"
"Jack, come on! The map shows indeed no second exit, but we needn't to just sit idly here, while we could explore a long-forgotten culture without danger of getting lost!" He waved the piece of paper on which he had hatched a plan of a corridor system that he found on a wall.
"Undead wolves" said Jack slowly.
"Jackals."
"What?" O'Neill turned to Carter.
"Actually, these are jackals, sir. Excuse me, sir!"
O'Neill sighed. He struck with his cap on his thigh, then he put it on, slowly got up and stared at Daniel.
"All right!", he blurted. "To the underworld. When I'm going to live there once in a time, I could've checked out this place by the then."
"You've already said that once before." Teal'c commented casually.
"Did I, yes?"
"You did, sir. When we met Apophis, although we thought we had destroyed him."
O'Neill paused, as if considering. "That must have gone lost to me." The colonel waved in the hallway. "Daniel, you lead the way!"
The archaeologist twitched briefly with the eyebrows.
The hallways were quite low and only six feet high. The air was dusty and stale, so it itched Daniel repeatedly in the nose and he had to make remedy. Unlike some other places SG-1 explored on its missions, there were no flares. Four of the battery-driven lamps had to be enough to let them see where they stumbled under Daniels leadership. The maze seemed to have a particular modular system, as Carter noted, because all the sections looked exactly the same, and at every end of a sector they saw a mark, where a crossing or an extension of the aisle joined. From the beginning of the course Carter had pulled out a small spray can for marking strategical targets and started to make a small red dot on the wall in any passage they crossed.
"In each course section, we pass through, I add one point, even if we were already there. In this way we can orient ourselves, if the map should fail."
"Now if that isn't awesome! But what's this all about? Daniel? ", asked the Colonel edged and brushed with the index finger through the air.
Daniel clenched his right fist and pounded it on the chin repeatedly. "Some kind of artifact is located in the middle of the labyrinth. I think that we should take a closer look!"
The team took a further turn to the right path.
"I'm fine with that as long as we do not encounter more of those wolf skeletons -."
"Jackals", Daniel coughed.
"- whatever, wolves, jackals, where's the difference, If you ask me, -"
"Major Carter!" Teal'c sounded worried. Because Daniel had slowed down, he was now the first in line. When Sam caught up to him she lost the last bit of joy that she had previously as watcher of another upcoming typical word duel between Jack and Daniel. "Oh, no ..."
On the wall glinted six red dots. Even O'Neill noted that there was something wrong with that. "Carter?"
"I can not explain that to me, sir. We haven't crossed a path twice yet. There must be another explanation for this." She pointed a little helpless with her open hand on the accumulation of points.
"Which is?"
Carter shrugged. She made a seventh point.
O'Neill stared with his mouth slightly open in the direction of the corridor, which they had not passed yet. "There is something fishy about this. I don't like it. We head back to the platform."
Daniel hold back a comment by biting his lips. Even he could not explain the points.
So all of them turned around and took the proper curve to the left, from which they came.
Or better: So was the intent. The corridor was not there anymore. A junction with four adjacent corridors had become one with three.
"The corridor is gone!", Teal'c said surprised and totally unnecessary. O'Neill gritted his teeth. Then he clapped his hands to his face and moaned through his palms.
"Carter, does it mean, what I think it means?"
She nodded in resignation. "Yes, sir. The walls are moving. I doubt that it is the ground, the system is likely to have hidden..." She gestured with her hands to make her statements clearer, "... sliding doors, functioning as walls, to create dead ends and to make it extremely difficult to find the exit."
"But what is the purpose of the map, then?" Daniel brandishing wildly with the piece of paper in her face.
"I suppose it shows the initial position of the labyrinth. A basic pattern to which the entire maze either at random or perhaps with a complicated algorithm always returns, only to begin a new cycle!"
"What do you suggest?" O'Neill checked his P90.
"Since only the walls at junctions move just like doors, we could blow us the way out with C4. But we passed on our way several of these kinds of wall sections. I fear we run out of explosives before we reach the exit."
O'Neill thought for a moment.
"Let's try it! Teal'c, give me the plastic explosives!" The Jaffa carried often the most explosives of the group. O'Neill said it to him while he selected a suitable spot on the wall for the placement. "Teal'c?" He looked up.
"Where is he?"
"He was just behind me ..." Daniel turned in circles a few times confused. There was no trace of Teal'c.
O'Neill sat up in disbelief.
"I can't believe it! He cannot have simply vanished into thin air?" He waved his arms in all three adjacent courses, but the light of his lamp revealed nothing but gray stones. The Jaffa had disappeared without a sound from the scene, just like by turning a switch.
For a moment there was silence. Then he tried it on the radio. But Teal'c did not respond.
"Perhaps this tunnel shields radio waves?"
O'Neill pondered.
"Shall we go find him?", Daniel asked in dismay.
"What sense makes this? He will hardly have disappeared voluntarily. Now we first pave us a way out of here." He took a package of C4 out of his vest and fastened it with an adhesive strip on the back to the wall. Then he pressed a small ignition rod in the package and beckoned the others to take cover. At a safe distance from the explosive charge O'Neill operated the lever of the device that fired the C4 using radio signals.
The force of the explosion shook the walls and trickled dust down from the ceiling. When everything had become quiet, they evaluated the results.
The stone slabs of the wall had been partly pulverized to dust. Other rock fragments, and even a whole plate were scattered on the floor. O'Neill shined his flashlight into the hole and awaited to see the dimly lit floor of the aisle behind it, but instead it was the glow of light reflected from a metal plate. He closed disappointed his eyes.
"It looks as if the stone is merely a disguise for the real material of the walls." Carter said. She stroke her hand over the hot, blackened metal surface, but, except from a few scratches, it did not take any damage.
"Okay, let's go find Teal'c." With the P90 at the ready, he went ahead. But it did not last long, until the next unpleasantness happened. Carter had just started talking shop.
"In theory, Teal'c's disappearance could be related with the majority of red dots in the sector we passed some time ago. Accordingly, we are dealing here with time shifts, the -."
Her voice was suddenly gone. O'Neill turned around, but the only thing he saw was a wall. He stood at an impasse. A grab to the radio, and he heard the typical short static of the voice connection. "Carter? Daniel?"
He was alone. With the shaft of his weapon, he banged on the wall to give knockings, but he got no answer.
"Damn!", he crunched quietly. Another time he turned around and shone restlessly with his lamp into the long, gloomy corridor.
*
"This can not be true!" Daniel muttered. He almost hit his forehead against the wall, which appeared as fast as lightning and absolute noiseless in front of his nose. Carter laid a hand on the stones.
"Colonel? Can you hear me?", she tried it with the radio. Then she put one ear to the wall and tried to give knockings. But even after two minutes nothing could be heard. All sounds were swallowed. "From now on we better don't go apart two steps to each other, otherwise we will be separated."
"I agree. What do we do now?"
Sam pointed in the direction from which they came. "We take a different path." She said simply.
*
Teal'c did not trust his senses anymore. Suddenly he was somewhere else. Alone. In a passage that they already had passed. On a side wall there was a red patch of Major Carter's spray between two overhanging bricks. The paint was still fresh.
He couldn't explain this. None of it. The radio remained mute and deaf.
Better, he tried to return to the starting point. The warrior went determined in the course direction from which he thought to have come before, but luck failed him. He found no other color markings.
Left, Right, Right, Left, Right, Right, Left, dead-end, so back right ... there wasn't a right anymore. So, to the left, then. Also a dead-end. That meant go back and try the fourth direction. But the passage was not there anymore. Now he could go back there again, from where he came first. But then there was just to the left possible, and Teal'c was under the impression he went his original way back again. So instead taking the next left, he took the right corridor, but there was just another right and then right and then straight possible. Now he should really stand back there, where once there was a dead-end ...
Teal'c's expression was petrified. A vein on his forehead twitched.
So now to the left, the impasse is now gone, there turn left, then three times straight, left, right, left, left, straight ahead. Then he spotted the red stain on the wall from before. He was put on the exact same spot, between two strikingly protruding bricks.
*
O'Neill was not sure whether he heard the spirits, his ears played a bad joke on him or the threatening growling and panting really existed in his back, very low, barely audible.
It was cold down here. And bad air. O'Neill was always tensed, not for a moment he let loose his muscles. He could not take down the P90. He could not calm down even after he had secured behind him three times, and there was still nothing. This place made him tremble in his bones. The sounds were only one part, and there was uncertainty about where they came from and whether they existed, which made them so scary. Furthermore no light shone in the tunnel. Almost every other temple which he had visited in his travels did have torches or lamps or anything, that donated light. But here it was only the strong light of his lamp, fed by the dwindling batteries that wandered through the gloom of the cobweb-shrouded course.
He did not know how late it was. The hands of his watch turned counterclockwise.
No idea how long he wandered through the aisles. His sense of direction had left him.
"Who ... who's there?"
It was a very faint voice coming from the hallway in front of him. Although the words were only whispered, Jack heard quite clearly a Russian accent. Addressed carefully, he made his way with the gun muzzle pointed to the voice.
After a few meters, finally the body of Colonel Chekov emerged from the darkness. The fat man was lying exhausted on the ground and pointed a gun at the trembling lamp which blinded him after an eternity in darkness.
"Colonel Jack O'Neill. With two "l". Get rid of the gun!" he replied monotonously.
The Russian sighed and let his hand with the gun fall limp to the floor. "Do not worry, Colonel, I ran out of ammunition long ago. My God, what am I happy to see you down here."
O'Neill made no attempt to lower the gun. "Colonel Chekov is sitting in Moscow. Who are you?"
The Russian looked confused at him with the brows narrowed. "... I, I do not understand. What do you mean? Our team decamped with SG-1 long ago! Colonel Zhukov accompanied me, until we were separated. Now I'm stuck here."
O'Neill wiggled his weight between one and the other foot back and forth.
"Look, I don't know how you come to claim you would be Chekov, but I know what I know, namely that Zhukov had been dead for years and never a Russian team set a foot on this planet."
Chekov stared at him blankly for a moment, then he averted O'Neill's gaze and shook his head absently. "This has to be caused by this maze ... It makes you crazy. Things happen, you know, strange things. The walls move and the time is playing a cruel game with us." The Russian Colonel touched his head with a hand, as if he had a headache, and then stared on O'Neill with wide eyes. "I have seen with my own eyes how starshi serzhant Aleksander was ... was ... I don't know what that was, like an error in the creation of the Almighty, a piece of shattered universe, it - swallowed him and - reversed him, like ... " Chekov failed the language. Stunned, he sank down.
O'Neill took a deep breath in and out. Then he walked to the side of the exhausted man and crouched. The Russian held out his hand for help. "Please, Colonel, you have something to eat?"
O'Neill handed him a cereal bar from his breast pocket. After the man had eaten hastily, he gave him a hand.
"Come on, get up!" With a groan he gave Chekov a leg-up. "How long have you been down here?"
"At least one day. But I have no idea how much time has really gone by. It could be a week. Thank you, Colonel."
"Chekov ... I have no idea what to think of this, and if I should call you Chekov at all, but for now I'm going to help you." He made a significant pause. "From purely selfish reasons. You even seem to know the ropes a bit in this mess."
"Same here, Colonel. We could never get on with each other particularly well, but I suggest we ally to finally get out of here." He gave O'Neill a hand. He eyed the gesture a moment.
Then he took it.
*
Carter and Daniel went no further than an arm's length apart. Both felt the same as O'Neill, before he got lost in his corridor, but the fact that they accompanied each other, gave comfort and made the maze not quite as scary. Daniel tried to use the scrap of paper which he carried with him to map out the way they went, but after what felt like twenty minutes, the clocks weren't of use anymore, there was only a strange scrawl on the paper to see. Lines and impasses merrily cavorted on it, without any sense, because of the many corrections.
"Are we ever going to get out of here again?" Daniel sighed.
"It has rarely been that hopeless. We can only hope for luck, without being able to get wireless connection. Before our reinforcements from the SGC reach us here, we would have starved."
The duo took another bend. On the floor lay a skeleton. Carter quickly turned her head away. "Oh God."
The body was wearing the uniform of the Stargate Center. Daniel furrowed his brows and approached cautiously. A chain hung around the cervical vertebrae of the skeleton, that reflected glittering the light from the lamps. When Daniel had the dog tags in his hand, he pursed his lips and let his mouth slightly open, as often, if he was surprised.
"Major Samantha Carter.", stood on the stamps.
"This can not be.", she replied, shaking her head.
"Apparently it can be." Daniel summed up and shrugged helplessly with the corner of his mouth, before he got up. Next to the corpse of the major there lay an empty spray can for red color.
Sam raised her eyebrows shortly up and dropped them again as she cocked her head slightly, while chewing on her lower lip. "Perhaps we are witnessing an overlap of two time lines. That would explain the red dots that I have not painted, and ... well ..." She pointed to her dead body.
"Then we see our future, but I'm afraid it is not very bright.", Daniel replied, scratching his neck.
"Not necessarily. Now that we have seen this, maybe we can prevent it. I don't see your corpse, Daniel. We should stay together in any case."
Daniel nodded, then she went on. He had goosebumps for hours. The technician and the archaeologist walked for a good half an hour through the corridors. Carter did not stop to spray signs of her passing-by on the walls.
As they once stopped in a dead-end and could not continue, Daniel wanted to resign. He took of his glasses to clean them, when the wall that was the end of the sector, silently disappeared back up into the ceiling. Daniel, who had his back turned to this event, had to be made aware by Sam.
"Daniel!"
He turned around. Then his face froze. A few blinks followed, as if he did not believe his eyes.
They made a step into the brightly lit circular room now standing on a balustrade, which encircled a great hole in the middle. The ground was made of corrugated metal plates, so that one would not slip. On the railing red lights were attached every three meters, which spread a ghostly aura. Three foot above their heads began a closed metal-paneled ceiling. A gigantic pillar towered into the ceiling, exactly in the center of the room, ten meters away from the balustrade. metallic tubes and bands of light embraced the machine and pulsated as if they were alive. A small unsecured bridge ranged from the balustrade to the machine in the middle. Just reachable from there, a computer terminal was integrated into the pillar.
Sam walked up to the railing and risked a glance down. Although she had no fear of heights, she quickly went back, with shaky knees. The shaft of the pillar-shaped machine was incredibly deep. It seemed to reach down to the planet's core, periodically lit up by lamps, which indicated to the viewer, how infinitely long it would take to fall down there. Eerie violet light reflected from the walls.
"What is that?" Daniel asked, aghast. He was still pointing with his flashlight to the machine, although the glow was completely obscured by the other light sources.
"I'll find out now." Sam said vigorous and took a deep breath before she ventured on the narrow bridge, which was only half a meter wide and as thin as paper. She continued at pace and reached the terminal. The computer had rows of red unknown numbers running from the bottom to the top. Just like a diagnostic program, but too fast for the human eye. Hardly when a figure showed up, it was already gone at the other edge. Reluctantly, she touched the screen. All of a sudden the display went black. Carter thought a long moment of shock, she did the wrong thing, then the screen went on again.
Good afternoon
This welcome flashed a moment, then it disappeared and revealed a user space. She smiled. The smile grew even bigger when she saw the computer indicated one way how you could leave the maze.
"Daniel, I think I have something here!" She turned around to face him.
He also began to grin, but when he saw Sam's eyes widening in shock and suddenly her smile vanishing, it dripped off him, too. "What?"
"Your body ..."
Daniel looked down at himself. His skin was blue at one time, the black shirt was white, and above it the green jacket was beyond all normal colors. "Whoa! What's going on here?" Confused, he turned his blue hands around, so by one time the palms, then the backs faced to him.
"Do you feel any change?"
"No, nothing." Daniel took a step sideways. Immediately he was halfway back in the right colors. He paused and took a second step. Now he looked normal again. Fascinated, he stretched out a hand next to him and watched as it penetrated into the realm of the phenomenon and its colors reversed themselves. But that was not the end of the strange happenings. He suddenly felt himself moving much slower than he should. Out of nowhere, a second Daniel appeared at the spot where he had stood just a few moments ago and imitated the movements he had done. First the confusion and a 'Whow', then turning the hands.
The scene was so abnormal that Sam and Daniel could not do anything other than leaving their mouths open in astonishment. Daniel 2 held fascinated his hand into the false-color area, and shortly after, he even vanished inside the other Daniel, until both were completely overlapping, and again only one Daniel stood in the room. He could move in normal speed again. Surprised by this change, he stumbled forward a step, back in the zone of the phenomenon where his image was now broken like in a shattered mirror. Seconds later, this effect was gone and everything looked normal again.
"... What has just happened?"
Carter swallowed. She looked helpless. "Well, I ... .. theoretically it should not be possible at the ..."
"But there has to be an explanation?"
"It is absurd, but ... it must be related to this machine. Isn't this the room located in the center of the maze on your map?"
"Yes ..."
"Maybe thismachine is responsible for all this. However, that would mean the laws of nature had lost their meaning!"
"And what do we do now?" Daniel sighed slightly and made a comprehensive gesture with his arms.
"There is a reference to a second exit, which is located in this area. I need to find out more about this machine. I'm sure it's the key."
Daniel nodded. He sat down next to the bridge on the floor and leaned against the railing.
*
Teal'c's fighting spirit gradually disappeared. Once you were in, there seemed to be no way out of the labyrinth. No system helped to get a picture of the corridors, any sense of direction was useless. Even the little needle of the compass, which he had with him, turned incessantly in circles. I'll never get out of here, he thought. And there is no clue about Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson, it echoed in his head.
Quite unexpectedly he heard the boots of a Jaffa guard ahead. He raised his weapon and pointed it at the course ahead. An unarmed warrior stumbled around the next bend transition and caught sight of Teal'c. It took him a second to recognize him. Then terror spread in his face and the warrior ran helter-skelter back in the direction he just came from.
Teal'c wanted to run after the man just as the exact same scene took place a second time. The Jaffa rushed around the corner, saw Teal'c, was gripped by horror and ran back. As Teal'c this time had reached the corner, the corridor was empty, where the man had disappeared. Other boot noises came from behind. Teal'c pulled the staff weapon hard and pointed it in the other passage. From a branch of the corridor, the man came out nervously. How could it be he ended up in Teal'c's back? The man seemed not to notice the ally of the Ta'uri and crept drained and whimpering further through the course, away from Teal'c.
"Stop!" he shouted. The man ignored him. Teal'c fired a warning shot. The bright yellow energy bolt swept right past the shoulder of the Jaffa. But still the man did not respond. So Teal'c aimed for his legs and fired a second time. But the moment his shot hit its target, the bolt disappeared along with the man, as if someone had replaced a slide.
Seconds later, the same anxious Jaffa sneaked out of the branch for a second time. Shocked by the incomprehensibility and with a solidified face Teal'c watched as the man crept down the aisle again, suddenly out of nowhere was wounded by a staff weapon, although no one had shot, and fell to the ground. Groaning, he lay there, clutching his leg. Teal'c shut his mouth and closed up to the warrior, but he aimed his staff weapon carefully. The man writhed on the ground until he could see his attacker.
"No, no, please spare me!"
Teal'c had almost reached him. But then he was distracted and had to look into the corridor where he stood. As great as a warrior that he was, brave and fearless, just now his heart was grabbed by despondency, fear and a little bit panic.
He could watch as the reality shattered. In the corridor, in the air, a part of what he saw, suddenly was cut out like an irregularly serrated figure, leaving only a hole in reality. The same thing happened a second later with the walls. As if someone was going nuts with scissors, pieces fell off the walls and floor, leaving nothing but a all-encompassing black void. The course fell apart piece by piece. Teal'c made a step back in disbelief. The warrior on the ground also saw what was happening and tried, scared to death, to make distance between himself and the ground, that was falling apart. It looked as if the passage wasn't subterranean, but floating in space, a space without stars, without planets, without anything. The shards became bigger and the speed increased. Teal'c took two steps back.
"No, help me, help! Please do not let me die here, help!"
The cry ripped Teal'c out of his trance. He wanted to dash off and grab the warrior's arm to bring him to safety, but more and more of the corridor broke away. Before he could act, the phenomenon had reached the Jaffa. The man tried with all efforts to crawl on the ground in safety. But while he was still robbing with his arms forward, his legs already splintered into shards. Each fragment that showed a part of him was still moving and living. Few moments later only his arms were left on the ground, still moving, although the body was already gone. A fragment showed the face of the warrior. His mouth moved and his frantic cries echoed even after the last remnant of him was just a shower of reality debris.
Teal'c finally managed to control his paralyzed body. Just in time before the phenomenon reached him, he jumped back and began to run, to escape the increasingly rapid destruction of time and reality. After twenty steps, he still ran further and glanced back over his shoulder. And then his skin crawled from head to toes. The corridor was back, silent. Everything looked the same as before. The Jaffa had disappeared.
*
Hours had passed. Daniel felt tired, but he could not fall asleep, it was unthinkable in a situation like this. Straight from where he sat, he studied the writings that were on the wall.
"Daniel, come look at this!"
Brilliant. Only one person fits on the footbridge, he thought. "Did you find something?"
"Yes, I think I can get us out of here." Carter tapped a few buttons. A red glow captured her and Daniel. A split second later they were gone.
Daniel regained his consciousness. Rain poured.
"This is fantastic! We're standing on the top of the pyramid!"
They were actually in a small shelter supported by four low columns, which dominated the top of the pyramid. Right in the center there stood a metal column, which showed a true copy of the terminal, which Sam had just used.
"Thank God!"
"Quick, we must report to the SGC! General Hammond has probably already sent a team to search for us. We-"
"Wait, do you hear that?"
Sam paused. Through the rain in the distance were gunshots and shouts to be heard. The two exchanged a glance and rushed to reach the foot of the building. Fortunately, a staircase was leading down. They ran the stone path back to the Stargate. After a few meters the blurred outlines of four soldiers of the SGC appeared through the rain. Two of the soldiers fired their high-caliber weapons in the jungle. The third supported a wounded comrade and immediately directed his gun at Carter and Daniel, when he discovered them.
"Don't shoot, it's us!" A flash lit up their figures.
The soldier took the gun down. "Good that you found us before we had to find you, Major. We were attacked by skeletons.
"I know! What's up with him?", she shouted over the monsoon rains.
"One of the critters hase bitten him."
The soldier groaned. "No, don't worry Major, I'm all right!"
"What about Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c?", the other asked.
"They are still stuck in the pyramid, we need to get them out there! Captain, you go with Daniel and the sergeant back and report to the SGC, I'm taking the other two with me!" she shouted.
"Yes, Sir!"
The other two soldiers joined Carter. In teams of three, they separated from each other. One went back to the underworld, the other back into the light.
Sam was back in the circular room with the machine and trying not to get distracted by the yawning chasm beneath her feet. The two soldiers stood guard at the balustrade.
Carter couldn't make sense of the system behind the machine. The terminal willingly provided her with all the information she needed, but it seemed an essential piece was lacking in her head, being the key to all the data that wasn't of any use for her and could have been completely nonsense. The terminal was not the only accessable component embedded into the pillar. There was also an indentation with a specially secured tube inserted. Warning letters showed unequivocally that this part of the machine had a great significance.
For ten hours now, she was working at the terminal. Slowly the feeling spread through her that she would never look through the system. It could not be turned off. She was sure that the bewitched maze would become a very ordinary, if you could turn off the machine, but, loosely put, she did not find the make and break switch. A part of the terminal was continuously separated in an upper half, showing the status of an elongate transverse component that was labeled "Core". She was just wondering if this could be the starting point, which would bring them one step closer to the goal, as one of the soldiers drew her attention.
"Uh ... Major?"
She turned around. And then she fared just as Teal'c. No, even worse, because what she saw, blockaded her entire way of thinking that was so dependent on the reliability of the laws of nature. The walls of the room broke into pieces and fell back away from reality. Behind the walls was the void. The soldiers looked at her for help. "What is happening here? Major?"
The nothingness slowly gnawed on the balustrade, and drew the circle of blackness close to the center of the room. The soldiers retreated as far as it was possible to the railing. Sam wasted precious seconds with staring at this horror before she feverishly turned to shut down the machine. She could think only about one option. To remove the core manually. She quickly tapped around on the terminal to get access to the tube in the indentation.
"Major?" asked one soldier stuttered. He and his companion fell back on the bridge. Seconds later the nothingness swallowed the entire balustrade. The ceiling above them and the abyss between them broke down and formed a sphere of darkness around the footbridge, which floated, not connected to the machine column, in the air.
A bead of sweat ran down Sam's forehead. She made the final touch. The user interface had disappeared.
/hacking attempt: mainframe, human pattern recognition - true
Neural code {alpha} Restrictions (0) Security measures (0) = disabled
. Inducing Core release
Access granted
A hissing sound whipped through the silence. The cutouts in the sinking of the tube opened.
"MAJOR!" shouted one of the soldiers panicked. The bridge was gone up to centimeters in front of his feet. He pressed his back against his comrade, who also could not retreat further.
Carter seized with gritted teeth the handle of the tube and pulled the machine core with a loud bang out of the indentation.
Suddenly the entire room was back. All three gasped in relief. One of the cadets even raised the fist in the air.
"Not even a moment too soon."
The soldiers made way for Sam and all three left the footbridge. Then she took a closer look at the "Core". About half of the approximately forty centimeters long tube were apparently just trappings. Only a small reddish-black object was mounted in the center. The thing was still glowing.
"Then we can go back now!" said one soldier relieved.
"Not yet, Sergeant. First, the terminal has no more energy, so the labyrinth is secure now, secondly, we need to find Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill. Pack this away carefully." She handed him the cylinder. Then they went into the corridor from which she had come with Daniel.
*
O'Neill crumpled once more his cap in his hands. Again a dead-end. He couldn't count them anymore. Chekov was standing behind him. From O'Neill's supplies he had regained his strength.
"I don't know, Colonel, Maybe we should -"
O'Neill turned around. Chekov was gone. O'Neill's gun clicked, as he took aim into the corridor. The man was no longer there. He turned around again. The deadend was no longer dead. The light of his lamp lit up the dead Jaffa, Teal'c had discovered ages ago.
"Well, if that isn't a piece of luck ..." O'Neill muttered. He no longer thought about Chekov. Anyway, he was convinced the man was not real. He quickly made a few steps forward so that the wall would not immediately close again and keep him imprisoned in the labyrinth. However, an option of what he could have done at the point, where this mess started, was not in sight.
*
They found him sitting against a wall on the floor . Teal'c pointed exhausted and with only half-opened eyes his staff weapon to Sam and the soldiers. She had to be very clear before Teal'c recognized them.
"Major Carter, you're really here?"
"Yes, I am, Teal'c. Don't worry, the maze is turned off and back to normal. We are now looking for a way out of here.
"That would be great." he groaned. He was finished with his nerves. The soldiers supported him and helped him on his feet, but he shook them off and tried, leaning on his staff weapon, to go by himself.
"I'm fine."
After a long walk and an argument with the sergeant about the direction they should go, they finally reached the starting point with the circle of stones, which had brought them into the underworld. O'Neill was already there and had casually lounged on the stone circle. When he saw them he stood up.
"Why, can you believe it? Carter, Teal'c! And you brought Trueman and Heartland also with you! Isn't it fantastic!" He walked with a embracing gesture towards Carter and clasped hands, as they all stood together. "Carter, Report! And where is Daniel?"
"I've turned off the machine that has bewitched this maze, sir. Me and Daniel got contact and joined forces with Captain Stewart. I am sure we will soon be brought out of here."
"Aha." O'Neill nodded slightly.
"Sir, under the surface of this ancient culture there is apparently an extremely advanced alien race. The machine we have found is apparently capable of breaking natures laws using something called "Core", that we took with us."
"And?"
"Sir? I've probably not expressed myself clearly enough. The Ancients are primitive by comparison. But that's not what worries me."
"And what is it that worries you?" O'Neill asked defiantly.
"The machine was able to express itself in English, it also has never hindered me in any way. I had not to rewrite codes, or simply put, to mess with anything. The machine listened to me as if I were the builder!"
Teal'c spoke up. "The scientists at Area 51 will certainly find out more about the captured core."
"Jack?" Daniel's voice scraped from the radio. They exchanged surprised glances. O'Neill pressed the talk button.
"Daniel? Where are you, old boy?"
"Jack, are you all right? Who else is there?"
"Carter, Teal'c and two of SG-6"
"Nice to hear. I'm with reinforcements at the upper end of the shaft. We let you down a rope so we can pick you up."
Carter closed her eyes for a few seconds and relaxed.
After a few minutes later a steel rope appeared out of the darkness from the top, at the end a loop with a carabiner so it could be attached to a persons body.
From then on, it took only minutes, until all were up and in safety. The jackal skeletons had been banished. Finally SG-1 went ahead in one row to the Stargate in order to return to old Mother Earth. The rain had finally stopped and the sky was blue again. Daniel walked along besides O'Neill.
"Jack, when we get back, Colonel Chekov from Moscow wants to talk to you about the Russian SG team."
O'Neill sighed. "And I thought I had gotten rid of him."
Half an hour later the last boot walked through the event horizon of the Stargate. As the wormhole shut down, a heavy fog, shrouded by silence, lay down over the world.