"The mineral deposits on '387 turned out to be a dud sir," Sam said. The team sat around the briefing room table down right bored from the uneventful mission that had taken them three days to deam a total waste of time. "There were no traces of naquada anywhere in the mines, and the ruins held no information. Just plain rock. The UAV didn't..." A bright beam of light filled the room and Thor appeared at the end of the table.
"Greetings SG1 and General Hammond. I apologize for my intrusion." Thor began. "But I have some very good news."
"Thor, "Sam greeted, "How are you?"
"I am well Major Carter as I hope the same for all of you." Thor looked to the General. "Our sensors have detected the presence of an active ancient here on earth."
"An ancient?" Sam and Daniel said in unison.
"Not exactly an ancient. Our theory is that it is in fact an ancient decendant. One to that may possess the knowlege to be used against the Gould. When doing more research, we discovered it is coming from a Tauri outside of this facility."
"Whoa, wait, you're saying this ancient is here? Not like in some hidden city under the ice that we're going to have to find, but like here here?" Daniel asked getting excited.
"Yes. We have put a tracer on the signal." Another beam appeared leaving in its place a metalic machine.
"Why didn't we pick up the signal before this. How long has this person been here?" Sam though aloud.
"We are unsure. Perhaps the ancient wants to be found." Thor answered
"Thats a little uncharacteristic for the ancients." Daniel said watching Sam poking a finger at the machine sitting in front of her on the table.
"So you're saying this person is an ancient that made itself visible to us why?" Jack asked confused
"We'll have to track him down and find out." Daniel said more excited then ever
"How do we find him?" the General asked finally.
"The tauri we speak of is female. She resides in a small village 124.4 miles from where you are at this moment." The machine activated and a holographic image of a young woman appeared, floating above it, causing Sam to jump and pull her hand back. The woman looked to be in her late twenties, with steely blue eyes that seemed to be focused on the team.
"Thats her?" Daniel asked staring at the image.
"Yes."
"So what do we do with her when we find her?" Jack asked
"We'll figure it out." The General started, "I'll make a phone call to the President. Prepare yourselves for a road trip. Dismissed."
"Can you believe that?" Sam asked Daniel as they made their way to his lab. "She could have been here on Earth all this time and we would have had no idea. Why do you think she chose now to come forward?"
"Maybe she knows something we don't."
Sam furrowed her eyebrows in thought. The possibility had run through her mind that this ancient reveling herself was a foresight into things that may be about to happen. With as much problems as they have had with rules of the ancients, Sam had a feeling it was not a good thing.
An hour later, General Hammond found them all sitting in Daniels lab talking.
"I just got off the phone with the President. He's ordered a recovery. Go find her at all costs and bring her back." he ordered. "Thor has downloaded her tracer into your GPS. SG1, you have a go."
"Are we there yet?" Daniel asked for the third time from the back seat of the rental car. His eyes held childlike enjoy at the annoyance he was causing Jack.
"Shut up and read your book" Jack yelled from the drivers seat
"I can't it makes me nausious."
"You get car sick?" Sam asked looking in the rear view mirror.
"I'm fine now." he answered, "Are we getting close?"
Sam grimaced, "the town should only be about another 20 miles, then we have to try and find her."
"Actually thats probably going to be the easy part. What with our locator and all." Daniel added. Getting a nod from all passengers.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Green Acres." Jack said as they entered a small town, which reminded him of sitcoms he used to watch as a child.
"I thought the town we were going to was called Carson falls?" Tealc asked.
"Ok, maybe this won't be hard to find her at all." Sam commented taking in the small town streets.
To there right was an old fashioned barber shop with the spinning red and blue stripes. An elderly man sitting out on a bench with a newspaper, as if pulled straight from an episode of Andy Griffith. Next to that was a general store with a small parking lot, with 4 of the 5 parking spots vacant. To their left side was a post office, an American flag waving in the wind above it. Some small children running down the sidewalk with a small puppy on a leash chasing after them.
"Okay is it just me, or is this just weird?" Daniel asked stopping as a young couple walked across the street in front of them.
"I didn't think places like this existed anymore." Sam answered.
"Perhaps we should show the photograph to the local people of this town."
Sam rolled down the window and caught the attention of a older man walking down the sidewalk.
"Excuse me sir," she began, "do you know this woman?" she handed him the picture of the woman they had printed from the machine Thor had shown them.
"Course!" he answered with a drawl, "Thats Jess Haskel. Everyone knows Jess!"
"Do you know where we can find her?"
"Shes at the feilds now I would imagine. Championship games bout to start. Its the showdown game!"
"Showdown game?" Daniel asked
"You bet. Haskel against Coleman, its been neck in neck all season, its gonna be brutal!"
"How do we get to the feild?" Sam asked.
"Keep followin this street til you hit the third stop sign. Make a left and follow that road for about a mile. Its right next to the park, Theyll be lots of traffic, you can't miss it!" he offered.
"Okay, Thanks alot." Sam waved and followed the mans directions.
"Well that was easier than expected." Daniel commented
"It is sometimes easier to simply ask." Tealc commented with a grin.
Jack pulled the car up into the dirt parking lot of the baseball feild they had finally found.
"This is traffic?" Sam commented getting out of the car and stretching.
"I am unfamilar with this game?" Tealc commented watching some random people throwing a ball back and forth. On a feild across the parking lot they heard the clank of a ball being hit by an aluminum bat and loud cheering.
"Its called softball. Its a sport. Alot like baseball" Jack answered
"What is its purpose?"
"Theres two teams. At anytime there is one team out on the feild, and the other is in the dugout, with runners and batters on the feild. The object is to hit the ball and run around the bases to score points before the other teams gets you out." Sam explained as they walked toward the feild. Once they got to the feild they climbed up the bleachers and sat down immediately scanning the feild for someone that looked like their objective. As Daniel was about to ask someone, a player stepped up to bat and the croud on the other side of the feild cheered.
"Im assuming thats Coleman." Sam commented. The pitch was thrown and with a smooth swing of the bat the ball was airborn in a high fast flight toward left feild. The player in left feild made a sprint for the ball and with a stretching dive grabbed the ball out of the air before landing on the ground, gaining a few grass stains to her uniform shirt. With a powerful rotation of the arm the ball was rocketed back in feild to third base, catching the guy in a desperate sprint for the base.
"Out!" yelled the umpire, and both sets of bleachers went wild.
Boos and Geers rang out from across the feild. Where alot of clapping and whistles roared from the bleachers the team found themselves sitting on.
"Atta girl Jess! Show 'em how its done!" The man next to Daniel yelled, standing and whistling. The grass stained out feilder blew a kiss to the bleachers as she jogged in to the dugout with her team to prepare to bat.
"Theres our girl." Jack whispered to Sam who nodded, wondering if he really thought she hadn't noticed that on her own.
"Is the object of the game to hit the runner with the ball?" Tealc asked
"No, actually they frown on that. They want to get the ball do the person on the plate before the runner gets there" Daniel said rubbing his eyes. The dust and fresh cut grass already bothering his allergies.
"I see"
After a few innings of the brutal, and very close runs, the team actually found themselves getting into the game. Jack had always enjoyed watching sports and had not watched a non professional game in years. He found it relaxing. Daniel went to the small concession stand and returned carrying a bunch of hot dogs. He handed them out and laughed at Teal'c's face as he scrutinized it.
"What is this?" he asked, looking at it discusted.
"You can't see youre first softball game without having a conssesion stand hot dog." he smiled
"I have no desire to eat a dog Dr. Jackson." he said frowning and handing it back
"Its not a dog, its just called that? Try it"
As Daniel tried to get Tealc to try the hot dog, Jess stepped up to the plate with bat in hand. A powerful fast pitch was thrown. With a thud it smacked the small woman in the back of the shoulder as she turned to keep it from hitting her in the face. When the umpire called the walk, she stayed put and shook her head. She motioned the ref to keep going and circled her shoulder around before raising the bat again. Sam grimaced.
The pitch, then CRACK, the ball made a quick beeline for right feild and Jess took off in a sprint around the plates. As she rounded second base, the outfeilder picked up the ball and through it in. She didn't stop. She rounded third and headed for home as the ball was thrown to the pitcher. She dropped to the ground in a perfect slide across home plate.
"Out!" yelled the umpire
"What the hell was that!" Jack yelled standing up with everyone else on the bleachers. "She was so there!"
"Out! I said out!" the umpire yelled throwing his hands up at the croud
"You must own shares of the other team!" Jack yelled letting the overall mood get the better of him.
"Sir." Sam said getting his attention, "shouldn't we keep a low profile here?"
"Its a game Carter. Relax" he argued.
Jack noticed the man next to him staring at him with a wide grin.
"Can I help you?" he asked
"He does have shares in the other team," the man snorted, "Hes the sponsor of the team."
"Isn't that against the rules?"
"Its a small town. Everyone is either friends with someone on either team."
"So who do you know? he asked determined to get a little information about the so called ancient.
"I'm a simply Haskel team guy. But them again I'm biased." he smiled
"Whys that?"
"Shoot son, see that little spitfire there in the blue and white?" he pointed to Jess. Jack nodded."Thats my pride and joy there."
"What do you mean?"
"Shes my granddaughter." he smiled ,"I practically raised her from a sprout."
"Her grandfather?" Sam asked again in suprise
"Yes ma'am, James" he extended his hand to her. "What do you all want with Jess anyways?" he asked turning his attention back to the game.
"What do you mean?." Jack asked playing dumb.
"I may be alot of things, but I dumb ain't one of them. A group of clean cut strangers stroll into town flashing pictures of my granddaughter around, you don't think I'd hear about it?"
"News travels fast." Jack commented looking back to the field.
"Its a small town." A serious look came over the older mans face. "What do you want with Jess?"
"We just want to talk to her." The man studied him carefully. Then he grinned and nodded.
The game ended with a 2 point lead in Haskel's favor. The croud quickly scattered and shuffled to the parking lot. Jess's grandfather stood and walked over to the dugout where Jess was putting a bat into a sports bag.
"Great game kid, " James said walking over and hugged her tightly. " Took quite a dive out there, needs cleaned," he pointed to the deep scrape down her forearm.
"Nah, its just a scratch. Wheres Tess?"
"Shes home setting up for the Barbeque." he turned to the team that had quietly walked up behind them. "Jess these people are here to talk to you."
" Hi," she outstretched a dirt and bloody scraped up hand to Tealc. He cocked his head to the side looking at it until Daniel reached over and shook it instead.
"Nice to meet you,"he said shaking it. "I'm Daniel, this is Jack, Sam, and Murray."
"What can I do for you?" she asked dumping some water on her hands and rubbing them together.
"Well we'd kinda like to talk to you about something," Daniel said glancing at James. "Its a bit of a long story Im affraid."
"Well how about you tell it over dinner," James smiled. "We've got a championship game BBQ set up at the house. Its goin to be quite the party, You're welcome to join us."
"Party you say." Jack said not seeing a choice.
As they followed Jess's pickup truck down the bumpy dirt roads, Jack called General Hammond to update him on the finding their ancient. The fact of the matter was that Jack was begining to doubt that this woman was who they thought she was. She didn't seem very ancient to him.
"Remember Colonel, bring her back here at all costs, but no one else can know anything about this. You have to get her away from the party in order to tell her."
"Understood sir." With that Jack hung up the phone and nodded to Sam.
The black 4 wheel drive pulled up through a row of overhanging willow trees with the SG team following closely behind.
"They sure are friendly people." Sam commented taking in the scenes. The long shaded driveway let up to a large victorian style house
"If Jess Haskel is and ancient being, would her parents not also be ancient?" Tealc asked.
"Not nessesarily. Daniel ascended, but had nothing to do with his parents." Sam explained.
"Yes but Jess isn't glowing and speaking in philosophies either."Jack pointed out.
"Maybe its all a misunderstanding. None of this makes any sense to me." Daniel said while taking in the sight of the beautiful victorian house.
The house looked as though pulled straight from a movie. A little white picket fence surrounding the grassy yard. A small wooden swing hanging from a huge healthy willow tree. An american flag waving smoothly from the threshold. Where Sam thought it was beautiful, Jack had thought more along the lines of 'Twilight Zone'.