- MIKE -
Mike took another dish and dried it half-heartedly. "This is stupid", he thought and placed it on top of the others. It was his second week in this facility and he didn't know anymore why he had applied for this job in the first place. When he had spotted the job offer in a newspaper several weeks ago he already had had a strange feeling about it.
Still it hadn't sounded that bad and so he had called the number in the newspaper. His job interview had been really weird though. It had seemed to him as if they had been much more interested in his social background than in his actual skills. After he had told them three times in a row that his parents were dead and he had just moved to this area they were satisfied and he got the job without being able to tell them that he had studied catering and all the other stuff you expect to be asked in a job interview. He had to sign a lot paper that he won't tell anybody what he sees and hears during his work and on every page there had been stamps which unmistakably belong to the US Air Force.
Several days later he had received a letter.
Dear Mr Adams,
We would like to inform you, that your first working day will be on
Monday 12th.
We expect you to register yourself at the administration department.
The
Lieutenant will inform you were you need to go from there.
Sincerely,
Major M. Harren, USAF, Cheyenne Mountain
And now he was standing in front of a sink and washing dishes on story 4 underneath the surface at 4 o'clock in the morning. The paying was really good but he hadn't expected to do the dishes and hand out food when he started working. He felt unchallenged.
At this time of the day really few people came into the canteen to eat or drink something. Thus he was alone, most of the time. He preferred to be by himself and think about the sad things that had happened in his life.
Mike went out of the kitchen into the main room to replace the old coffee with a new and fresh one. Suddenly a woman came into the canteen. Although she seemed to be very tired she was pretty. Mike liked her a lot. He knew that she was one of those who work all night and can't sleep before they get their work done. She often came into the canteen during his night shift with a pile of paper and continued working there.
"Would you like a cup of coffee, Captain?", he asked being proud that he knew that she was a captain.
"Yes, please."
Her voice was not very loud. She seemed to be really tired this time.
"So, working all night again? You look awfully tired tonight, Captain. Maybe you should get some rest and continue working tomorrow". He placed the cup of coffee beside her and could see what she was working on. Physic formulas were spread all over the sheets of paper.
"That's really nice of you, but I can't. I have to have that done by tomorrow", she sighed.
"Well, it won't be the end of the world, if you are not done by tomorrow!", he smiled. She lifted her eyebrows and looked at him in a funny way.
"You won't believe it but it probably will be the end of the world soon if I can't get that done. Not our world though, but. .well never mind." she sipped her coffee and fell silent over her work. Astonished about the answer she had given him he went back to his dishes muttering that she just had to call for him if there was something she needed. He didn't really expect that she actually would call for him because he left her the whole jug of coffee. But nevertheless she did.
"Sir?"
He peered out of the kitchen door
"Yes?"
"Would you mind to come here and sit with me for a while?"
First he thought he had gotten that sentence wrong. Never ever had a pretty woman asked for his company except for a replenishment of coffee, of course. Suddenly he noticed that his mouth stood open. He must have looked really funny because she smiled. He closed his mouth and opened it again:
"Yes, well, I mean. of course!"
Mike went over to her table and sat down in front of her. Unable to think or speak he just looked at her. She broke the silence when she said with a warm voice:
"My name is Samantha!"
He wanted to say 'I know, I have heard your colleagues call you by this name' but he found that rather impolite to say because that would make it obviously that he had been watching her since his first day of work. Instead he answered:
"I am Mike" and he added: "Nice to meet you!"
"Mike, I just need a few minutes of avocation, because I think I have a blackout. Usually it helps if I think about something else. Can you spare a few minutes?"
'I have all time in the world for you' he wanted to reply but instead he heard himself saying something else.
"Yes, there is not much work for me to do right now, so I can chat with you."
He tried to say that as casual as it can sound but it didn't work out quite well. He was able to hear himself say it with a sound of excitement in is voice.
She smiled again.
Mike wondered if she had noticed that he was excited about talking to her, so he decided to smile back.
"Actually, I don't know what we can talk about", she laughed. "Normally the Colonel on my team distracts me from my work and makes me laugh but he sleeps like a log right now and anyway I don't want him to know that it really cheers me up. It would make him unbearably."
Mike was quite speechless. He had to say something but instead he broke out in a sweat and stammered: "Erm, .yes." He was really nervous. Mike was used to little chats with guests about weather and gossip but it has been a long time that he actually sat down and talked seriously.
"Oh, you have met Colonel O'Neill? So, you know who I mean! You can't overlook his ego."
Mike knew who she meant. It must have been the guy that had argued with him about the fish he had served on his second day. Later he found out that the Colonel had just been messing with him.
"Yes, I know him." He was very glad now that he had had that quarrel with the Colonel, so he had something to respond: "He tried to discuss the content of fish in fish sticks and got very angry. Later I found out that he just wanted to kid me."
She beamed. "Yeah, that's his way of debugging new personnel."
Mike became more self-assured now. "So, there isn't a lot of change of personnel in this facility?"
"No, there isn't. It is really difficult for the USAF to find suitable employees.", she replied and reached for the coffee pot.
'Why is that' he wanted to ask her when a shrill alarm interrupted their conversation.
-- Unscheduled Off-World Activation-- was repeated several times.
"At this time? There are no teams on a mission right now." She mumbled more to herself then to Mike. Then she seemed to notice that he was looking fairly confused. "I am sorry, I have to report to General Hammond." Sam rose from her chair and ran out of the office. Although she couldn't hear him anymore he said surprised:
"Sure .erm.I mean.see you later." A few seconds later he continued staring at the door when the sheets of paper Sam had been working on the whole time attracted his attention. 'She left her stuff', he thought. 'Maybe, I just take it with me so it doesn't get lost. I will give it to her at my next shift.' Mike piled it up and put it together with his book in to his bag. Luckily his colleague was on time, because Mike already felt like his bed being the most wonderful place in the world.
All the way up to the surface and on the bus he was re-living the conversation over and over. It had been really nice talking to her. Since the car crash in which his parents and his wife had been killed he always had been really successful in avoiding other people. But this woman was able to cause a warm feeling inside him which he hadn't felt for a very long time.
Back at home he made himself a cup of warm milk and went upstairs, still thinking about the talk with Sam. The incident which made her leave came suddenly into his mind.
'Unscheduled Off-World Activation. Unscheduled Off-World Activation....' , he repeated in his mind. 'This is so odd'
Nobody had ever told him, what this facility was really about. All he knew was that he had to keep his mouth shut about what he hears and sees during his hours in this Mountain Complex.
'But what did I see and hear so far?' , he asked himself. He started listing what, according to him, had been really odd:
'On my first day, there had been this guy with that weird big emblem on his forehead. A really polite guy with lots of hunger. And then all these obvious weapon injuries . of people who work inside a mountain! And this strange announcement about an Unscheduled Off-World Activation.wait a moment.Off-World ???'
That just didn't make any sense. But he was far to tired to think about it any further. The last thought was: 'Maybe it is a kind of code for something else' Then he decided to think about it sometime tomorrow and fell asleep.
---
The next morning his doorbell woke him up. Mike had been dreaming about working at a reception desk in a hotel and Colonel O'Neill kept hitting the bell. Very slowly he realized that it only had been a dream. Stumbling down the steps he finally reached the door and opened it. A nervous looking man stood there clearly embarrassed when he saw that Mike was in his pyjamas.
"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up.", the man tried to apologize. "I think we haven't met yet, but I am one of your neighbours. I am." . The pair of big glasses the man was wearing slipped down his nose and he had to push them up again. It gave Mike a second to say something, because he already knew this guy.
"I know you. You work in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex! I have seen you several times in the canteen." The man gave him a surprised look. "But I don't know your name, though. We don't have to keep talking on my doorstep! Come in!", he added.
"My name is Daniel. Daniel Jackson.", the guy said after they sat down in the kitchen.
"I am Mike Adams. It is funny that we are neighbours and work at the same facility, isn't it?"
"Erm., yeah." , replied the man who just had introduced himself.
"So why are you here?" Mike asked because Daniel wouldn't be here without a reason. Daniel seemed to remember now what he wanted to say and answered.
"Ah, yes. Well. my.erm. I mean .our. neighbour who usually looks after my guinea pigs when I am gone seems to be away on a business trip and so I just wanted to ask you if you could look after them." Daniel took out a Kleenex and started cleaning his glasses, as if it would be really embarrassing for him to admit that he likes guinea pigs.
"Sure." Mike couldn't see any reason why he shouldn't do this. "For how long will you be away then?"
"Three days I think." , he put his glasses back on his nose. "Since you work at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex as well you can just ask the man at the reception on the ground level if I am back. Thank you very much, Mike! Do you have a cat or any other pets I can look after when you are on vacation?"
"No." Mike smiled. He liked his new neighbour. 'Nice man', he thought. 'I am wondering what he does in the Mountain.' But Daniel seemed to be in a hurry and so he decided to ask him another time. He showed him the way out and wanted to say goodbye when he realized that he didn't know what these guinea pigs were called.
"Daniel? I forgot to ask you. What are the names of your guinea pigs?"
"Ra and Thor. Their favourite food is carrots." , he handed Mike the key of his department over. "Thank you very much again! I owe you one!"
'Funny names', he thought and went back into the kitchen. He made himself a coffee and wanted to take the book he was reading recently out of his bag when he saw Sam's documents with the physical formulas on it. So he took them out first and looked at them. They hardly made any sense to him so he put them back.
---
Around noon he realized that he didn't have any vegetables left in the house to feed to Daniel's guinea pigs so he went off to the new huge grocery store that had opened two days ago. As he walked along the street he saw two big black vans right behind him. Mike didn't pay them much of his attention and looked instead into his side pocket for his money. Luckily he hadn't forgotten it. He turned to the right to use a shortcut he had found out the day he had had his first work day. It had been an accident because he had gotten lost on his way to the bus stop. 'Now it is a great convenience' Mike smiled and passed a ripped off advertisement on the back of a factory.
Suddenly he heard the noise of engines right behind him and watched the two black vans from a little while ago overtaking him; one on each side. Mike didn't have much time to realize what was happening. A dozen men, all of them dressed in a deep black, jumped out of their vans and started pointing weapons at him - weapons he had never seen before except in some Hollywood- Action-Movies in the movie theatre. Mike grew stiff and didn't dare to move, while one of the black men pulled him into the back of the van. Mike couldn't remember being afraid like this ever before and felt like breathing was getting harder. One of the black men pointed his weapon right at his head.
"Tell me what you know!" the man demanded.
'I don't know what you mean, who are you.' Mike wanted to ask them, but his voice failed him and an undefined croak came out of his mouth instead. He felt fear in every vein in his body making his heart beat so fast and strong that it seemed to explode.
"Tell me!!!". This time the voice sounded really impatiently. When Mike still didn't answer he got more specific: "What do you know about the Naquada Super Atom Generator?"
Mike didn't know anything about such a thing; furthermore he started to think that this must be some kind of a joke with a hidden camera. He started to feel more self assured and told them:
"I don't know about a 'Naquatsch Super Atom Something'. I don't know what you want from me, but I certainly don't think that this is funny. Where is your hidden camera? Show me, I want to greet my grandma. Hello grandma!!" he said and started waving in different directions.
The black-dressed men looked at each other rather confused. They didn't know how to deal with Mike waving and smiling and lowered their weapons. One of the men told the others:
"I think he tells the truth. Our source must be wrong. Release him!"
They threw him out of the van and took off at once. Mike started swearing. It hadn't hurt but he had landed in a huge dirty slop. 'They didn't even show the camera to me. Damn it! Maybe I cocked up their show and they got mad at me!', he thought making his way back to his apartment. He put on dry clothes and decided to go the other way to the grocery store this time.
---
With his bag full of carrots, apples and salad he got home. After washing some of the vegetables he decided to visit Ra and Thor. "Maybe they are already hungry" he said to himself and turned the key to Daniel's apartment.
A very strange view was revealed to Mike as he walked inside. Pictures of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, hieroglyphs on papyrus lying around and right beside the telephone stood a very nice statue of an Egyptian Mau. Mike knew this very special cat race because his wife had worked in an animal shelter before she had died. Somehow he felt being watched by this cat. He shook his head and started looking for the guinea pig cage.
He found Ra and Thor in a corner on a little desk. Their cage was nice and big and they squealed with glee when they saw him. Mike had never seen a guinea pig race like this. They were very tiny even for guinea pigs and had a fur like a peacock, shimmering in all colours. 'Maybe they are from far away or something' he thought, gave the vegetables to them and returned to his apartment.
At home he realized that it was already 8pm and he hurried into his living room, because he didn't want to miss the X-Files, his favourite TV show. Tonight's episode dealt with a conspiracy of the American Government hiding alien life forms inside a secret building. Eating Nachos with Cheese he thought about what it would be like to be part of such a conspiracy. 'I definitely would try to make it public. People have to know!' he thought while on his little TV screen Fox Mulder tried to explain to his partner Dana Scully that aliens were real and that the proof he got made it obviously. The episode ended with a painful
TO BE CONTINUED
This phrase also meant that he had to get ready for tonight's nightshift which was going to start at ten. Not very anxious about going to work Mike tried to cheer himself up by thinking about Sam and that there maybe a chance of her visiting him.
He went into the kitchen, placed the remaining nachos on the table and drank a glass of water. After that he went to wash his hands in the bathroom. Mike glanced into the bathroom mirror and two blue eyes looked back at him. Every time he looked into this mirror he saw two very sad eyes and he wondered if other people noticed them. His brown hair grew in every direction and needed a hair cut. He tried to style it a little, so it didn't look so bad, but afterwards it just looked worse.
He sighed. Mike couldn't imagine that Sam liked his outer appearance. There were a few very nice muscles left, because he used to wrestle back in High School but he hadn't fulfilled the expectations of his parents and his coach and so he had quit. That had been 15 years ago.
Now his parents were dead.
Mike shook his head very hard. 'Don't think about it', he forced himself. 'Don't even try!" He hated this mirror because every time he looked into it he looked a little more like his father. Mike turned away.
Back in the living room he found his book and took it with him into the kitchen were he wanted to pack it into his bag. When he picked up his bag Sam's stuff fell out of it onto the floor. He just wanted to stuff it back into his bag when he read the headline of one of the papers.
Naquada Super Atom Generator - Practical Application
'Oh my God' he thought and remembered what the men with the weapons had asked him. His second thought was: 'Sam is in great danger! I have to warn her! Those men weren't from a TV show. They were real criminals and actually would have shot me, if I wouldn't have behaved so stupid!' he simmered with excitement.
'I have to warn her!'
After he had said that he couldn't wait to get to work. He laid down the papers beside the nachos and went to get his shoes and coat. In a hurry he got back into the kitchen and wanted to grip Sam's work to put it finally back into his bag but instead he knocked over the bin with the cheese cream and everything spilled over the papers making some of it unreadable.
Mike froze. What had he done?!
In panic he tried to wash it out, but made things just worse, because after he had juddered over the spots tiny holes were the inevitable consequences.
Mike was stumped. He looked at the clock and saw that he was already behind time and nothing else remained to be done than putting the wracked work into his back and going to the bus stop.
When he arrived at the bus stop the bus was late and so at least something was going well.
At the bus stop he jumped from one foot to the other so that an old lady looked very confused and asked herself if that man was as old as he looked like on the outside.
On the bus he chose a seat close to the door. His brain was all mixed up. The sky outside seemed to imitate his inner condition because a great thunderstorm came up and the wind started chasing the clouds. From time to time it became daylight outside and thunderbolts drowned out the noise of the bus engines.
How would he tell her? And how would he explain that he had looked into her stuff? He couldn't imagine that Sam would do anything illegal, but still.those men wanted to have her work! Somehow he had to think about the X-Files. Maybe he was involved in a conspiracy with unexpected proportions!?
'Don't exaggerate Mike!' he criticized himself. 'Maybe there is a logical explanation.'
Suddenly he had to grin. He sounded just like Dana Scully. He shook his head very hard and decided to leave out the episodes about conspiracies in the future.
Mike hadn't even realized that the bus had stopped before the bus driver shouted from the front:
"I can't drive you with the bus down there", he pointed at the Mountain entrance. "I am afraid you have to take the elevator from here!".
"Very funny", Mike said annoyed, but the bus driver hadn't listened to him anyway. He was busy to push the button for the back door which seemed to clamp.
The door opened with a loud whoosh and Mike stepped outside. The rain started pouring down on him and his hair was quite wet when he reached the Mountain entrance. The whole security procedure began and Mike couldn't wait to get down to his little locker to get a towel to dry his hair. Little drops dripped from his nose when the Lieutenant finally gave his okay for him to step into the elevator.
When Mike had put his shoes on the Lieutenant stopped him once more.
"Ah, Mr Adams?"
"Yes?" he answered with a tensed tone in his voice, because his bag seemed to become heavier every minute with all that important and dangerous stuff in it.
"Man, why is everybody so tensed today? Must be the weather. But anyway I was told to give you permission to Level 18. Here is your card." He handed over the card.
"There must be a misunderstanding Lieutenant. Level 18 is the Science Level and I am just an ordinary scullion. Maybe there is another man, a guest maybe, whose last name is also Adams!" Mike was pretty sure that this had to be a mistake.
To his surprise the man said: "No, I am certain that it is you who is meant. Captain Carter has asked for you and currently she is at Level 18. So just get down there!"
Captain Carter, Sam had asked for him? How can that be? He stepped into the elevator.
Level -02-
Level -03-
Suddenly he remembered.
Level -05-
Level -06-
He remembered what she had told him when they were talking in the canteen. She had told him that she had to get that stuff done by tomorrow.
Level -07-
'Today is tomorrow! How could I be so stupid??? She got to be really mad at me. I messed everything up. I probably got her into trouble or something. What did she say? It will be the end of the world? Just an idiom but still it sounded really important!'
Level -08-
Level -09-
Level -10-
And now everything was his fault and if the elevator hadn't stopped and somebody had come in there he would have started hitting his head against the wall.
Level -11-
Level -12-
Level -13-
Level -14-
Four more levels to go. Mike didn't know if the water running down his neck was rain or cold sweat. He was really afraid and upset now. He liked Sam so much and now he messed up everything.
Level -15-
Level -16-
Two more.
One more.
Level 18.
The door opened and Mike was already lost. There were a lot of men and women in white gowns and he didn't know where to go. Everybody seemed so busy that he didn't dare to ask anybody where Sam worked right now.
He took a glance to the soldier next to the elevator, who apparently was the only person not being busy around here.
"Hem, hem.", Mike cleared his throat.
The soldier continued staring straight forward.
"Excuse me.?"
Yet, the soldier kept a straight face.
"Excuse me. are you not allowed to speak? I need urgent information!" Mike got really impatient now.
Suddenly there was a voice right behind him.
"Mike?"
Mike turned around and looked into the face of his neighbour.
"Mike, what are you doing here? This is the Science Level!?" Daniel asked with a big question mark on his face.
"Daniel, thank God you are here! I need information! Wait, why are you still here anyway? I thought you were going on a trip?"
"Yeah, right, I was.", Daniel replied. "But a man stole my partner's work yesterday and so we couldn't go. Now we have to wait until he returns it.. Mike, aren't you feeling well? Why is your face turning so white?" Daniel sounded really worried.
And really, between the colour of snow and the colour of Mike's face wasn't much of a difference anymore.
It took Mike quite a while before he was able to speak.
"I, erm. the man.the man you were talking about. I mean." Mike made desperate efforts to find the right words to explain the situation to Daniel.
"Yes?" There was no way Daniel's eyebrows could have gone further up than they were already.
"It was me, who took Captain Carter's work!" it burst out of Mike's mouth. "I am so sorry! I am here because she needs her work back! And there is another problem she doesn't know about yet. oh no!!!..." If Mike hadn't learned from his father many years ago, that crying wasn't something for men, he would have burst into tears.
Daniel seemed to feel sorry for Mike.
"You can't change it now. The work is really important, but now we have to save what we can, because a lot of lives depend on it. Come on, I show you the way to Captain Carter!"
They went around some corners and he almost gripped Daniel's hand because he was reminded of a hospital with all the people in white gowns. He had a major problem with hospitals because he had spent the saddest time of his life there - him being the only survivor of the car crash.
After a while walking through confusing corridors the gowns changed and there were quite a few people in Air force uniforms. Some of them had the letter 'A' on it which Mike had seen several times in the canteen.
Suddenly there was this strange alarm again which had interrupted Mike's conversation with Sam yesterday.
"Unscheduled Off-World Activation!"
Daniel and Mike turned and saw the red alarm lamps blinking.
"Unscheduled Off-World Activation!"
Mike wanted to ask Daniel what this was all about, when somebody overtook the two stopping right in front of Daniel.
"Daniel, where is Carter?! She doesn't answer the telephone in her lab. This is really getting annoying now. First we couldn't go on the mission because some addle brained guy stole Carter's stuff and now the Iris doesn't close properly and this base will soon be overrun. I need Carter to fix this damn Iris!"
Mike recognized the man who had just called him addle brained. It was Colonel O'Neill.
"We are on the way to see Sam as well. I show you - she isn't in her usual lab!" Daniel replied and a few seconds later Mike found himself having problems keeping up with the two hurrying down the corridors.
Gasping, he stumbled behind Daniel and Colonel O'Neill into Sam's lab. She was on the phone. When she saw the three men she hung up and came closer.
"I talked to General Hammond on the phone. A very important part of the Iris broke and as a matter of fact we used the only replacement part we got on the nuclear compensator we gave to the Mainicaicans yesterday. I have ordered a new one, but it will take at least a day to get here!"
If they had spoken Chinese he probably would have understood as much - namely nothing. Mike was totally confused. This base will be overrun? Iris? And who the hell were the Mainicaicans???? But he didn't dare asking.
"This day just gets better and better!" O'Neill said sarcastically. Mike thought exactly the same thing even though he had other reasons to do so.
"Sir.?" Carter sounded as if she rather wanted to keep the next sentence for herself.
"Carter..?"
"There is still another problem.concerning the Mainicaicans."
There the strange word was again. Mike started nuzzling in his memory for this word. He was a lot calmer now, because he thought that those incidents made them maybe forget about Sam's work or at least distract them from it until he had thought of a good way to explain what had happened.
"Yes.?"
"We have just received a radio transmission from the Mainicaicans. They seemed really angry about something. They say, if we don't give them the Naquada Super Atom Compensator in the next thirty minutes they will destroy our base. Colonel you know that they have advanced weapon technology. I just don't understand why they are that mad at us." Sam said at a loss.
Mike's heart slipped into his pants.
"Then we just give this damn Naquada Atom thing to them!" Colonel O'Neill suggested.
Mike felt his blood leaving his face.
"Jack!" Daniel tried to barge in. "We can't! Sam couldn't finish her work because a man abstracted it, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. By the way, Carter, have you found out who had taken it?"
Suddenly all of them looked at Mike. It had been too much for him. He had fainted and luckily for him Teal'c had just come into the lab and had been able to catch him before he would have banged sprawling onto the floor.
---
The first thing Mike saw when he regained consciousness were the face of Sam bending over him.
'An Angel.' he thought. But then this angel hit him very hard in the face and said:
"Come on, Mike. Don't pass out again!" Another hit and Mike found himself being back to consciousness.
He sat upright and looked into the very concerned looking faces of Sam, Daniel, Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill. Then saw that they had opened his back and the papers laid on the desk and felt like fainting again.
"Okay Mike. We need you to concentrate now." Daniel's attempt seemed not to be fast enough for Colonel O'Neill, because he said:
"Mike, tell us what happened to Sam's work!?"
Mike was shocked. He felt like sitting there in bonds around his body and his voice.
He cleared his throat. "Hem..hem. I.erm.I."
"Yes?" all four of them asked together.
"I..I accidentally dripped nacho sauce on it and tried.. I tried to wash it out, but it didn't work. I am so sorry."
"Sorry?????" Colonel O'Neill really seemed to have completely lost it.
Sam pushed the Colonel slightly aside.
"Mike have you looked at it? Can you maybe tell me what was in the missing spots?"
"No", Mike said like he was going to die anyway. "I don't know anything about it. I have looked at it, but I didn't understand it. Maybe that was my luck, because some black dressed men pulled me into their van this afternoon and asked me about it. I thought they were from a TV Show and so they released me thinking they got the wrong man."
"What???" Sam made big eyes. "Colonel !!! Maybe the NID have their fingers in the pie again. That is probably why the Mainicaicans are so mad. Maybe they wanted to make their own deal to gain access to the weapon technology."
".and really pissed them off." O'Neill completed the sentences.
Alert. Off-World Activation
"And here they come" said Daniel.
It was all Greek to Mike.
Colonel O'Neill got ready to leave the room. "I think I will need to talk to General Hammond about the NID matter. If it was them they won't get away with it again! Remember the last time they had stolen the Touchstone?! But for now we have to iron out what they have messed up! Teal'c you come with me. Daniel - you try to help Carter figuring this.Thing.out. Carter? Please remind me to tear off the head of this guy as soon as everything is over."
---
A few moments later they all sat around the desk watching Carter calculating very hard. Mike finally managed to ask Daniel what he wanted to know the whole time.
"Daniel? What is this all about? I don't get it. What does Off World Activation mean? What is an Iris? And what are the Mainicaicans?"
Daniel looked at Sam as if he wanted to see if she could work it out alone, what she did anyway.
"I already thought that you don't know what's going on here." He smiled a little. "Because you wouldn't have taken Sam's work if you had known what was at stake. I try to explain it to you the short way. Off- World Activation means what it says. This facility is a secret base which contains a Stargate which is capable of sending things from one world with a Stargate to another through a wormhole." Daniel did his best to explain it to Mike who started thinking that this had to be a dream.
When Daniel had finished explaining the Stargate thing and the Iris Mike asked: "And the Mainicaicans are aliens, or what?"
"Yes, they are, kind of. We discovered them on last week's mission. They live on an ice planet. They were taken from earth several thousand years ago and brought to that planet as slaves. They are originally from Siberia, because the name of the planet comes from the Siberian mythology and means something like -grand coldness-. The Mainicaicans need huge amounts of energy to power their heating. The problem is that their energy is ebbing and they will die if nobody helps them. We offered them something to power their energy system, but nuclear energy isn't enough and so Sam started building this special Naquada Generator. The men who kidnapped you were probably men from an organization which just wants to gain access to weapons which are more advanced. Well..." Daniel sighed. "They somehow made them really mad and now they are blaming us."
Mike found everything totally amazing. It was like being in a science fiction movie with the little difference that this was real and that it was his fault that everything went wrong.
Suddenly the phone rang and Sam picked it up. She switched it to a loud mode so Daniel and Mike could hear what was said.
"Carter? This is O'Neill. We were right - this base is going to be overrun. We couldn't.. ", they heard machine guns in the background. "We couldn't secure the Gateroom. Carter please hurry up!"
Colonel O'Neill hung up and Sam looked at her sheets again.
"I just can't figure out what there were in the spots. I am copying the formulas on a new sheet of paper. Maybe it helps."
Mike looked at her. He wished he could show her how sorry he was.
"Sam?" Daniel seemed to get nervous.
"I know Daniel. There isn't any time left. But I don't even know where to start. I hadn't figured it out yesterday. and now there are just chunks left..." Mike just wished to vanish.
"Oh, wait." Sam sounded really excited now. "This one actually makes sense without what was in the spot!" She started calculating again. It didn't cheer Mike completely up, but at least there was hope.
"Guys, I found the mistake I made yesterday!"
"You did?", both of them asked at the same time.
"Yes, it was so obviously and I didn't see." she was so excited and happy now that she almost hugged Mike and kissed Daniel on the cheek. "This spot", she lifted the paper and pointed at the spot. "This spot makes it work!"
Mike couldn't believe his ears. What did she just say? His spot makes it work?
Everything went very fast now. Sam informed Colonel O'Neill and he could stop the Mainicaicans.
The base, and probably the world as well, were saved - because of his little spot. O'Neill didn't tear Mike's head off, but grinned whenever they met and Teal'c was as polite as ever. Daniel and Mike became good friends and Sam continued visiting him in the canteen during his nightshifts. Every time they returned from a mission he loved to listen to what they had seen and experienced.
He didn't regret at all anymore that he had applied for this job in the first place.
THE END
Mike took another dish and dried it half-heartedly. "This is stupid", he thought and placed it on top of the others. It was his second week in this facility and he didn't know anymore why he had applied for this job in the first place. When he had spotted the job offer in a newspaper several weeks ago he already had had a strange feeling about it.
Still it hadn't sounded that bad and so he had called the number in the newspaper. His job interview had been really weird though. It had seemed to him as if they had been much more interested in his social background than in his actual skills. After he had told them three times in a row that his parents were dead and he had just moved to this area they were satisfied and he got the job without being able to tell them that he had studied catering and all the other stuff you expect to be asked in a job interview. He had to sign a lot paper that he won't tell anybody what he sees and hears during his work and on every page there had been stamps which unmistakably belong to the US Air Force.
Several days later he had received a letter.
Dear Mr Adams,
We would like to inform you, that your first working day will be on
Monday 12th.
We expect you to register yourself at the administration department.
The
Lieutenant will inform you were you need to go from there.
Sincerely,
Major M. Harren, USAF, Cheyenne Mountain
And now he was standing in front of a sink and washing dishes on story 4 underneath the surface at 4 o'clock in the morning. The paying was really good but he hadn't expected to do the dishes and hand out food when he started working. He felt unchallenged.
At this time of the day really few people came into the canteen to eat or drink something. Thus he was alone, most of the time. He preferred to be by himself and think about the sad things that had happened in his life.
Mike went out of the kitchen into the main room to replace the old coffee with a new and fresh one. Suddenly a woman came into the canteen. Although she seemed to be very tired she was pretty. Mike liked her a lot. He knew that she was one of those who work all night and can't sleep before they get their work done. She often came into the canteen during his night shift with a pile of paper and continued working there.
"Would you like a cup of coffee, Captain?", he asked being proud that he knew that she was a captain.
"Yes, please."
Her voice was not very loud. She seemed to be really tired this time.
"So, working all night again? You look awfully tired tonight, Captain. Maybe you should get some rest and continue working tomorrow". He placed the cup of coffee beside her and could see what she was working on. Physic formulas were spread all over the sheets of paper.
"That's really nice of you, but I can't. I have to have that done by tomorrow", she sighed.
"Well, it won't be the end of the world, if you are not done by tomorrow!", he smiled. She lifted her eyebrows and looked at him in a funny way.
"You won't believe it but it probably will be the end of the world soon if I can't get that done. Not our world though, but. .well never mind." she sipped her coffee and fell silent over her work. Astonished about the answer she had given him he went back to his dishes muttering that she just had to call for him if there was something she needed. He didn't really expect that she actually would call for him because he left her the whole jug of coffee. But nevertheless she did.
"Sir?"
He peered out of the kitchen door
"Yes?"
"Would you mind to come here and sit with me for a while?"
First he thought he had gotten that sentence wrong. Never ever had a pretty woman asked for his company except for a replenishment of coffee, of course. Suddenly he noticed that his mouth stood open. He must have looked really funny because she smiled. He closed his mouth and opened it again:
"Yes, well, I mean. of course!"
Mike went over to her table and sat down in front of her. Unable to think or speak he just looked at her. She broke the silence when she said with a warm voice:
"My name is Samantha!"
He wanted to say 'I know, I have heard your colleagues call you by this name' but he found that rather impolite to say because that would make it obviously that he had been watching her since his first day of work. Instead he answered:
"I am Mike" and he added: "Nice to meet you!"
"Mike, I just need a few minutes of avocation, because I think I have a blackout. Usually it helps if I think about something else. Can you spare a few minutes?"
'I have all time in the world for you' he wanted to reply but instead he heard himself saying something else.
"Yes, there is not much work for me to do right now, so I can chat with you."
He tried to say that as casual as it can sound but it didn't work out quite well. He was able to hear himself say it with a sound of excitement in is voice.
She smiled again.
Mike wondered if she had noticed that he was excited about talking to her, so he decided to smile back.
"Actually, I don't know what we can talk about", she laughed. "Normally the Colonel on my team distracts me from my work and makes me laugh but he sleeps like a log right now and anyway I don't want him to know that it really cheers me up. It would make him unbearably."
Mike was quite speechless. He had to say something but instead he broke out in a sweat and stammered: "Erm, .yes." He was really nervous. Mike was used to little chats with guests about weather and gossip but it has been a long time that he actually sat down and talked seriously.
"Oh, you have met Colonel O'Neill? So, you know who I mean! You can't overlook his ego."
Mike knew who she meant. It must have been the guy that had argued with him about the fish he had served on his second day. Later he found out that the Colonel had just been messing with him.
"Yes, I know him." He was very glad now that he had had that quarrel with the Colonel, so he had something to respond: "He tried to discuss the content of fish in fish sticks and got very angry. Later I found out that he just wanted to kid me."
She beamed. "Yeah, that's his way of debugging new personnel."
Mike became more self-assured now. "So, there isn't a lot of change of personnel in this facility?"
"No, there isn't. It is really difficult for the USAF to find suitable employees.", she replied and reached for the coffee pot.
'Why is that' he wanted to ask her when a shrill alarm interrupted their conversation.
-- Unscheduled Off-World Activation-- was repeated several times.
"At this time? There are no teams on a mission right now." She mumbled more to herself then to Mike. Then she seemed to notice that he was looking fairly confused. "I am sorry, I have to report to General Hammond." Sam rose from her chair and ran out of the office. Although she couldn't hear him anymore he said surprised:
"Sure .erm.I mean.see you later." A few seconds later he continued staring at the door when the sheets of paper Sam had been working on the whole time attracted his attention. 'She left her stuff', he thought. 'Maybe, I just take it with me so it doesn't get lost. I will give it to her at my next shift.' Mike piled it up and put it together with his book in to his bag. Luckily his colleague was on time, because Mike already felt like his bed being the most wonderful place in the world.
All the way up to the surface and on the bus he was re-living the conversation over and over. It had been really nice talking to her. Since the car crash in which his parents and his wife had been killed he always had been really successful in avoiding other people. But this woman was able to cause a warm feeling inside him which he hadn't felt for a very long time.
Back at home he made himself a cup of warm milk and went upstairs, still thinking about the talk with Sam. The incident which made her leave came suddenly into his mind.
'Unscheduled Off-World Activation. Unscheduled Off-World Activation....' , he repeated in his mind. 'This is so odd'
Nobody had ever told him, what this facility was really about. All he knew was that he had to keep his mouth shut about what he hears and sees during his hours in this Mountain Complex.
'But what did I see and hear so far?' , he asked himself. He started listing what, according to him, had been really odd:
'On my first day, there had been this guy with that weird big emblem on his forehead. A really polite guy with lots of hunger. And then all these obvious weapon injuries . of people who work inside a mountain! And this strange announcement about an Unscheduled Off-World Activation.wait a moment.Off-World ???'
That just didn't make any sense. But he was far to tired to think about it any further. The last thought was: 'Maybe it is a kind of code for something else' Then he decided to think about it sometime tomorrow and fell asleep.
---
The next morning his doorbell woke him up. Mike had been dreaming about working at a reception desk in a hotel and Colonel O'Neill kept hitting the bell. Very slowly he realized that it only had been a dream. Stumbling down the steps he finally reached the door and opened it. A nervous looking man stood there clearly embarrassed when he saw that Mike was in his pyjamas.
"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up.", the man tried to apologize. "I think we haven't met yet, but I am one of your neighbours. I am." . The pair of big glasses the man was wearing slipped down his nose and he had to push them up again. It gave Mike a second to say something, because he already knew this guy.
"I know you. You work in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex! I have seen you several times in the canteen." The man gave him a surprised look. "But I don't know your name, though. We don't have to keep talking on my doorstep! Come in!", he added.
"My name is Daniel. Daniel Jackson.", the guy said after they sat down in the kitchen.
"I am Mike Adams. It is funny that we are neighbours and work at the same facility, isn't it?"
"Erm., yeah." , replied the man who just had introduced himself.
"So why are you here?" Mike asked because Daniel wouldn't be here without a reason. Daniel seemed to remember now what he wanted to say and answered.
"Ah, yes. Well. my.erm. I mean .our. neighbour who usually looks after my guinea pigs when I am gone seems to be away on a business trip and so I just wanted to ask you if you could look after them." Daniel took out a Kleenex and started cleaning his glasses, as if it would be really embarrassing for him to admit that he likes guinea pigs.
"Sure." Mike couldn't see any reason why he shouldn't do this. "For how long will you be away then?"
"Three days I think." , he put his glasses back on his nose. "Since you work at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex as well you can just ask the man at the reception on the ground level if I am back. Thank you very much, Mike! Do you have a cat or any other pets I can look after when you are on vacation?"
"No." Mike smiled. He liked his new neighbour. 'Nice man', he thought. 'I am wondering what he does in the Mountain.' But Daniel seemed to be in a hurry and so he decided to ask him another time. He showed him the way out and wanted to say goodbye when he realized that he didn't know what these guinea pigs were called.
"Daniel? I forgot to ask you. What are the names of your guinea pigs?"
"Ra and Thor. Their favourite food is carrots." , he handed Mike the key of his department over. "Thank you very much again! I owe you one!"
'Funny names', he thought and went back into the kitchen. He made himself a coffee and wanted to take the book he was reading recently out of his bag when he saw Sam's documents with the physical formulas on it. So he took them out first and looked at them. They hardly made any sense to him so he put them back.
---
Around noon he realized that he didn't have any vegetables left in the house to feed to Daniel's guinea pigs so he went off to the new huge grocery store that had opened two days ago. As he walked along the street he saw two big black vans right behind him. Mike didn't pay them much of his attention and looked instead into his side pocket for his money. Luckily he hadn't forgotten it. He turned to the right to use a shortcut he had found out the day he had had his first work day. It had been an accident because he had gotten lost on his way to the bus stop. 'Now it is a great convenience' Mike smiled and passed a ripped off advertisement on the back of a factory.
Suddenly he heard the noise of engines right behind him and watched the two black vans from a little while ago overtaking him; one on each side. Mike didn't have much time to realize what was happening. A dozen men, all of them dressed in a deep black, jumped out of their vans and started pointing weapons at him - weapons he had never seen before except in some Hollywood- Action-Movies in the movie theatre. Mike grew stiff and didn't dare to move, while one of the black men pulled him into the back of the van. Mike couldn't remember being afraid like this ever before and felt like breathing was getting harder. One of the black men pointed his weapon right at his head.
"Tell me what you know!" the man demanded.
'I don't know what you mean, who are you.' Mike wanted to ask them, but his voice failed him and an undefined croak came out of his mouth instead. He felt fear in every vein in his body making his heart beat so fast and strong that it seemed to explode.
"Tell me!!!". This time the voice sounded really impatiently. When Mike still didn't answer he got more specific: "What do you know about the Naquada Super Atom Generator?"
Mike didn't know anything about such a thing; furthermore he started to think that this must be some kind of a joke with a hidden camera. He started to feel more self assured and told them:
"I don't know about a 'Naquatsch Super Atom Something'. I don't know what you want from me, but I certainly don't think that this is funny. Where is your hidden camera? Show me, I want to greet my grandma. Hello grandma!!" he said and started waving in different directions.
The black-dressed men looked at each other rather confused. They didn't know how to deal with Mike waving and smiling and lowered their weapons. One of the men told the others:
"I think he tells the truth. Our source must be wrong. Release him!"
They threw him out of the van and took off at once. Mike started swearing. It hadn't hurt but he had landed in a huge dirty slop. 'They didn't even show the camera to me. Damn it! Maybe I cocked up their show and they got mad at me!', he thought making his way back to his apartment. He put on dry clothes and decided to go the other way to the grocery store this time.
---
With his bag full of carrots, apples and salad he got home. After washing some of the vegetables he decided to visit Ra and Thor. "Maybe they are already hungry" he said to himself and turned the key to Daniel's apartment.
A very strange view was revealed to Mike as he walked inside. Pictures of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, hieroglyphs on papyrus lying around and right beside the telephone stood a very nice statue of an Egyptian Mau. Mike knew this very special cat race because his wife had worked in an animal shelter before she had died. Somehow he felt being watched by this cat. He shook his head and started looking for the guinea pig cage.
He found Ra and Thor in a corner on a little desk. Their cage was nice and big and they squealed with glee when they saw him. Mike had never seen a guinea pig race like this. They were very tiny even for guinea pigs and had a fur like a peacock, shimmering in all colours. 'Maybe they are from far away or something' he thought, gave the vegetables to them and returned to his apartment.
At home he realized that it was already 8pm and he hurried into his living room, because he didn't want to miss the X-Files, his favourite TV show. Tonight's episode dealt with a conspiracy of the American Government hiding alien life forms inside a secret building. Eating Nachos with Cheese he thought about what it would be like to be part of such a conspiracy. 'I definitely would try to make it public. People have to know!' he thought while on his little TV screen Fox Mulder tried to explain to his partner Dana Scully that aliens were real and that the proof he got made it obviously. The episode ended with a painful
TO BE CONTINUED
This phrase also meant that he had to get ready for tonight's nightshift which was going to start at ten. Not very anxious about going to work Mike tried to cheer himself up by thinking about Sam and that there maybe a chance of her visiting him.
He went into the kitchen, placed the remaining nachos on the table and drank a glass of water. After that he went to wash his hands in the bathroom. Mike glanced into the bathroom mirror and two blue eyes looked back at him. Every time he looked into this mirror he saw two very sad eyes and he wondered if other people noticed them. His brown hair grew in every direction and needed a hair cut. He tried to style it a little, so it didn't look so bad, but afterwards it just looked worse.
He sighed. Mike couldn't imagine that Sam liked his outer appearance. There were a few very nice muscles left, because he used to wrestle back in High School but he hadn't fulfilled the expectations of his parents and his coach and so he had quit. That had been 15 years ago.
Now his parents were dead.
Mike shook his head very hard. 'Don't think about it', he forced himself. 'Don't even try!" He hated this mirror because every time he looked into it he looked a little more like his father. Mike turned away.
Back in the living room he found his book and took it with him into the kitchen were he wanted to pack it into his bag. When he picked up his bag Sam's stuff fell out of it onto the floor. He just wanted to stuff it back into his bag when he read the headline of one of the papers.
Naquada Super Atom Generator - Practical Application
'Oh my God' he thought and remembered what the men with the weapons had asked him. His second thought was: 'Sam is in great danger! I have to warn her! Those men weren't from a TV show. They were real criminals and actually would have shot me, if I wouldn't have behaved so stupid!' he simmered with excitement.
'I have to warn her!'
After he had said that he couldn't wait to get to work. He laid down the papers beside the nachos and went to get his shoes and coat. In a hurry he got back into the kitchen and wanted to grip Sam's work to put it finally back into his bag but instead he knocked over the bin with the cheese cream and everything spilled over the papers making some of it unreadable.
Mike froze. What had he done?!
In panic he tried to wash it out, but made things just worse, because after he had juddered over the spots tiny holes were the inevitable consequences.
Mike was stumped. He looked at the clock and saw that he was already behind time and nothing else remained to be done than putting the wracked work into his back and going to the bus stop.
When he arrived at the bus stop the bus was late and so at least something was going well.
At the bus stop he jumped from one foot to the other so that an old lady looked very confused and asked herself if that man was as old as he looked like on the outside.
On the bus he chose a seat close to the door. His brain was all mixed up. The sky outside seemed to imitate his inner condition because a great thunderstorm came up and the wind started chasing the clouds. From time to time it became daylight outside and thunderbolts drowned out the noise of the bus engines.
How would he tell her? And how would he explain that he had looked into her stuff? He couldn't imagine that Sam would do anything illegal, but still.those men wanted to have her work! Somehow he had to think about the X-Files. Maybe he was involved in a conspiracy with unexpected proportions!?
'Don't exaggerate Mike!' he criticized himself. 'Maybe there is a logical explanation.'
Suddenly he had to grin. He sounded just like Dana Scully. He shook his head very hard and decided to leave out the episodes about conspiracies in the future.
Mike hadn't even realized that the bus had stopped before the bus driver shouted from the front:
"I can't drive you with the bus down there", he pointed at the Mountain entrance. "I am afraid you have to take the elevator from here!".
"Very funny", Mike said annoyed, but the bus driver hadn't listened to him anyway. He was busy to push the button for the back door which seemed to clamp.
The door opened with a loud whoosh and Mike stepped outside. The rain started pouring down on him and his hair was quite wet when he reached the Mountain entrance. The whole security procedure began and Mike couldn't wait to get down to his little locker to get a towel to dry his hair. Little drops dripped from his nose when the Lieutenant finally gave his okay for him to step into the elevator.
When Mike had put his shoes on the Lieutenant stopped him once more.
"Ah, Mr Adams?"
"Yes?" he answered with a tensed tone in his voice, because his bag seemed to become heavier every minute with all that important and dangerous stuff in it.
"Man, why is everybody so tensed today? Must be the weather. But anyway I was told to give you permission to Level 18. Here is your card." He handed over the card.
"There must be a misunderstanding Lieutenant. Level 18 is the Science Level and I am just an ordinary scullion. Maybe there is another man, a guest maybe, whose last name is also Adams!" Mike was pretty sure that this had to be a mistake.
To his surprise the man said: "No, I am certain that it is you who is meant. Captain Carter has asked for you and currently she is at Level 18. So just get down there!"
Captain Carter, Sam had asked for him? How can that be? He stepped into the elevator.
Level -02-
Level -03-
Suddenly he remembered.
Level -05-
Level -06-
He remembered what she had told him when they were talking in the canteen. She had told him that she had to get that stuff done by tomorrow.
Level -07-
'Today is tomorrow! How could I be so stupid??? She got to be really mad at me. I messed everything up. I probably got her into trouble or something. What did she say? It will be the end of the world? Just an idiom but still it sounded really important!'
Level -08-
Level -09-
Level -10-
And now everything was his fault and if the elevator hadn't stopped and somebody had come in there he would have started hitting his head against the wall.
Level -11-
Level -12-
Level -13-
Level -14-
Four more levels to go. Mike didn't know if the water running down his neck was rain or cold sweat. He was really afraid and upset now. He liked Sam so much and now he messed up everything.
Level -15-
Level -16-
Two more.
One more.
Level 18.
The door opened and Mike was already lost. There were a lot of men and women in white gowns and he didn't know where to go. Everybody seemed so busy that he didn't dare to ask anybody where Sam worked right now.
He took a glance to the soldier next to the elevator, who apparently was the only person not being busy around here.
"Hem, hem.", Mike cleared his throat.
The soldier continued staring straight forward.
"Excuse me.?"
Yet, the soldier kept a straight face.
"Excuse me. are you not allowed to speak? I need urgent information!" Mike got really impatient now.
Suddenly there was a voice right behind him.
"Mike?"
Mike turned around and looked into the face of his neighbour.
"Mike, what are you doing here? This is the Science Level!?" Daniel asked with a big question mark on his face.
"Daniel, thank God you are here! I need information! Wait, why are you still here anyway? I thought you were going on a trip?"
"Yeah, right, I was.", Daniel replied. "But a man stole my partner's work yesterday and so we couldn't go. Now we have to wait until he returns it.. Mike, aren't you feeling well? Why is your face turning so white?" Daniel sounded really worried.
And really, between the colour of snow and the colour of Mike's face wasn't much of a difference anymore.
It took Mike quite a while before he was able to speak.
"I, erm. the man.the man you were talking about. I mean." Mike made desperate efforts to find the right words to explain the situation to Daniel.
"Yes?" There was no way Daniel's eyebrows could have gone further up than they were already.
"It was me, who took Captain Carter's work!" it burst out of Mike's mouth. "I am so sorry! I am here because she needs her work back! And there is another problem she doesn't know about yet. oh no!!!..." If Mike hadn't learned from his father many years ago, that crying wasn't something for men, he would have burst into tears.
Daniel seemed to feel sorry for Mike.
"You can't change it now. The work is really important, but now we have to save what we can, because a lot of lives depend on it. Come on, I show you the way to Captain Carter!"
They went around some corners and he almost gripped Daniel's hand because he was reminded of a hospital with all the people in white gowns. He had a major problem with hospitals because he had spent the saddest time of his life there - him being the only survivor of the car crash.
After a while walking through confusing corridors the gowns changed and there were quite a few people in Air force uniforms. Some of them had the letter 'A' on it which Mike had seen several times in the canteen.
Suddenly there was this strange alarm again which had interrupted Mike's conversation with Sam yesterday.
"Unscheduled Off-World Activation!"
Daniel and Mike turned and saw the red alarm lamps blinking.
"Unscheduled Off-World Activation!"
Mike wanted to ask Daniel what this was all about, when somebody overtook the two stopping right in front of Daniel.
"Daniel, where is Carter?! She doesn't answer the telephone in her lab. This is really getting annoying now. First we couldn't go on the mission because some addle brained guy stole Carter's stuff and now the Iris doesn't close properly and this base will soon be overrun. I need Carter to fix this damn Iris!"
Mike recognized the man who had just called him addle brained. It was Colonel O'Neill.
"We are on the way to see Sam as well. I show you - she isn't in her usual lab!" Daniel replied and a few seconds later Mike found himself having problems keeping up with the two hurrying down the corridors.
Gasping, he stumbled behind Daniel and Colonel O'Neill into Sam's lab. She was on the phone. When she saw the three men she hung up and came closer.
"I talked to General Hammond on the phone. A very important part of the Iris broke and as a matter of fact we used the only replacement part we got on the nuclear compensator we gave to the Mainicaicans yesterday. I have ordered a new one, but it will take at least a day to get here!"
If they had spoken Chinese he probably would have understood as much - namely nothing. Mike was totally confused. This base will be overrun? Iris? And who the hell were the Mainicaicans???? But he didn't dare asking.
"This day just gets better and better!" O'Neill said sarcastically. Mike thought exactly the same thing even though he had other reasons to do so.
"Sir.?" Carter sounded as if she rather wanted to keep the next sentence for herself.
"Carter..?"
"There is still another problem.concerning the Mainicaicans."
There the strange word was again. Mike started nuzzling in his memory for this word. He was a lot calmer now, because he thought that those incidents made them maybe forget about Sam's work or at least distract them from it until he had thought of a good way to explain what had happened.
"Yes.?"
"We have just received a radio transmission from the Mainicaicans. They seemed really angry about something. They say, if we don't give them the Naquada Super Atom Compensator in the next thirty minutes they will destroy our base. Colonel you know that they have advanced weapon technology. I just don't understand why they are that mad at us." Sam said at a loss.
Mike's heart slipped into his pants.
"Then we just give this damn Naquada Atom thing to them!" Colonel O'Neill suggested.
Mike felt his blood leaving his face.
"Jack!" Daniel tried to barge in. "We can't! Sam couldn't finish her work because a man abstracted it, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. By the way, Carter, have you found out who had taken it?"
Suddenly all of them looked at Mike. It had been too much for him. He had fainted and luckily for him Teal'c had just come into the lab and had been able to catch him before he would have banged sprawling onto the floor.
---
The first thing Mike saw when he regained consciousness were the face of Sam bending over him.
'An Angel.' he thought. But then this angel hit him very hard in the face and said:
"Come on, Mike. Don't pass out again!" Another hit and Mike found himself being back to consciousness.
He sat upright and looked into the very concerned looking faces of Sam, Daniel, Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill. Then saw that they had opened his back and the papers laid on the desk and felt like fainting again.
"Okay Mike. We need you to concentrate now." Daniel's attempt seemed not to be fast enough for Colonel O'Neill, because he said:
"Mike, tell us what happened to Sam's work!?"
Mike was shocked. He felt like sitting there in bonds around his body and his voice.
He cleared his throat. "Hem..hem. I.erm.I."
"Yes?" all four of them asked together.
"I..I accidentally dripped nacho sauce on it and tried.. I tried to wash it out, but it didn't work. I am so sorry."
"Sorry?????" Colonel O'Neill really seemed to have completely lost it.
Sam pushed the Colonel slightly aside.
"Mike have you looked at it? Can you maybe tell me what was in the missing spots?"
"No", Mike said like he was going to die anyway. "I don't know anything about it. I have looked at it, but I didn't understand it. Maybe that was my luck, because some black dressed men pulled me into their van this afternoon and asked me about it. I thought they were from a TV Show and so they released me thinking they got the wrong man."
"What???" Sam made big eyes. "Colonel !!! Maybe the NID have their fingers in the pie again. That is probably why the Mainicaicans are so mad. Maybe they wanted to make their own deal to gain access to the weapon technology."
".and really pissed them off." O'Neill completed the sentences.
Alert. Off-World Activation
"And here they come" said Daniel.
It was all Greek to Mike.
Colonel O'Neill got ready to leave the room. "I think I will need to talk to General Hammond about the NID matter. If it was them they won't get away with it again! Remember the last time they had stolen the Touchstone?! But for now we have to iron out what they have messed up! Teal'c you come with me. Daniel - you try to help Carter figuring this.Thing.out. Carter? Please remind me to tear off the head of this guy as soon as everything is over."
---
A few moments later they all sat around the desk watching Carter calculating very hard. Mike finally managed to ask Daniel what he wanted to know the whole time.
"Daniel? What is this all about? I don't get it. What does Off World Activation mean? What is an Iris? And what are the Mainicaicans?"
Daniel looked at Sam as if he wanted to see if she could work it out alone, what she did anyway.
"I already thought that you don't know what's going on here." He smiled a little. "Because you wouldn't have taken Sam's work if you had known what was at stake. I try to explain it to you the short way. Off- World Activation means what it says. This facility is a secret base which contains a Stargate which is capable of sending things from one world with a Stargate to another through a wormhole." Daniel did his best to explain it to Mike who started thinking that this had to be a dream.
When Daniel had finished explaining the Stargate thing and the Iris Mike asked: "And the Mainicaicans are aliens, or what?"
"Yes, they are, kind of. We discovered them on last week's mission. They live on an ice planet. They were taken from earth several thousand years ago and brought to that planet as slaves. They are originally from Siberia, because the name of the planet comes from the Siberian mythology and means something like -grand coldness-. The Mainicaicans need huge amounts of energy to power their heating. The problem is that their energy is ebbing and they will die if nobody helps them. We offered them something to power their energy system, but nuclear energy isn't enough and so Sam started building this special Naquada Generator. The men who kidnapped you were probably men from an organization which just wants to gain access to weapons which are more advanced. Well..." Daniel sighed. "They somehow made them really mad and now they are blaming us."
Mike found everything totally amazing. It was like being in a science fiction movie with the little difference that this was real and that it was his fault that everything went wrong.
Suddenly the phone rang and Sam picked it up. She switched it to a loud mode so Daniel and Mike could hear what was said.
"Carter? This is O'Neill. We were right - this base is going to be overrun. We couldn't.. ", they heard machine guns in the background. "We couldn't secure the Gateroom. Carter please hurry up!"
Colonel O'Neill hung up and Sam looked at her sheets again.
"I just can't figure out what there were in the spots. I am copying the formulas on a new sheet of paper. Maybe it helps."
Mike looked at her. He wished he could show her how sorry he was.
"Sam?" Daniel seemed to get nervous.
"I know Daniel. There isn't any time left. But I don't even know where to start. I hadn't figured it out yesterday. and now there are just chunks left..." Mike just wished to vanish.
"Oh, wait." Sam sounded really excited now. "This one actually makes sense without what was in the spot!" She started calculating again. It didn't cheer Mike completely up, but at least there was hope.
"Guys, I found the mistake I made yesterday!"
"You did?", both of them asked at the same time.
"Yes, it was so obviously and I didn't see." she was so excited and happy now that she almost hugged Mike and kissed Daniel on the cheek. "This spot", she lifted the paper and pointed at the spot. "This spot makes it work!"
Mike couldn't believe his ears. What did she just say? His spot makes it work?
Everything went very fast now. Sam informed Colonel O'Neill and he could stop the Mainicaicans.
The base, and probably the world as well, were saved - because of his little spot. O'Neill didn't tear Mike's head off, but grinned whenever they met and Teal'c was as polite as ever. Daniel and Mike became good friends and Sam continued visiting him in the canteen during his nightshifts. Every time they returned from a mission he loved to listen to what they had seen and experienced.
He didn't regret at all anymore that he had applied for this job in the first place.
THE END