Author's Note: So the other day I was watching "48 Hours" and I had the Beatles' song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" stuck in my head and this is what my twisted mind came up with. My first attempt at a humorous story, so apologies if I didn't get it. R&R please!
Carter's Silver Hammer
Why now? Why her? And why him? Ever since Colonel Simmons had introduced the two of them, Major Samantha Carter had been trying to avoid Dr. Rodney McKay at all costs. Not that the scientist had said much. He'd just told her that the interface she'd designed to take the place of a DHD was full of flaws….
Calm down Sam. Taking a deep breath, Sam consciously unclenched her fists, letting the printout she had been reading settle back to the desk. That breath came out in a sigh when she saw the holes her nails had poked in the paper. Shaking her head, she turned to the computer and started running another simulation.
"Major."
Speak of the devil. "Doctor," she acknowledged, wishing that he'd just go away.
No such luck; he was coming around the desk to stand beside her. "I guess that we got off on the wrong foot…"
"Gee what probability factor did you use to figure that out?" she cut him off. Maybe if she channeled the Colonel he'd get annoyed and leave.
"For the record, I don't work for Colonel Simmons."
She looked over at him. "What difference does that make?"
"Well I sensed a little tension there." Yes, the man was a genius. "I'm on the Air Force payroll, I report directly to the Chief of Staff."
"Ah well that changes everything," she commented, turning back to the monitor. Hopefully he'd get the hint.
But no: "I just wanted to give you my honest analysis Major: it's a waste of time to assume that you're right about everything." Sam closed her eyes in frustration. "I just thought that we could get past that."
"Leaving more time to devote to your fan club," she retorted, thinking of a way to get rid of him. There were tools in the desk drawer to her right, including a silver hammer that would make a decent weapon in a pinch.
"The 'gate wasn't meant to be used without a dialing device," McKay continued, ignoring the barb. "Your computer system ignores 220 of the 400 feedback signals the 'gate can emit during any given dialing sequence. It is a fluke that you picked up the buffer warning. For that matter I'm surprised that you even bothered aborting the dialing sequence despite the error."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam looked at him, momentarily sidetracked from her planning on how she'd use the hammer to break his skull. He wouldn't dare…
"I've read the reports Major. You've ignored error data and bypassed dialing protocols on several occasions to get a lock."
Apparently, he did dare to refer to the K'Tau incident. It still scared her to think that she'd almost destroyed a planet. In fact, the memory of what had happened then was the main reason she'd aborted the dialing sequence when they picked up the error this time around. But there was no way she was going to let McKay know that. "My job," she replied, not bothering to hide her contempt for the man, "is to present the risks, not to decide whether to take them. Now if you have something positive to add," which I doubt, "do it. Otherwise, get out of my lab."
"Well…" McKay's response was cut off by the phone ringing.
Still fuming at the other astrophysicist, Carter swung around and grabbed the receiver. "Carter," she barked.
"Hey Sam, it's me," Daniel said.
Sam briefly forgot about McKay while she and Daniel exchanged progress reports. He informed her that SG-5 had gotten in touch with the Tok'Ra, who had confirmed that the problem had occurred because they didn't have a DHD. While she wasn't too surprised, Sam vowed to never let McKay know that he'd been right. Unfortunately, according to Daniel the Russians weren't about to let the SGC borrow their DHD "without giving back Alaska".
Sam grimaced at the news before wishing him luck and hanging up. She knew Daniel wouldn't give up; he'd keep trying to get the DHD so that they could get Teal'c home. Turning back to the computer, Sam wasn't too surprised to find McKay still standing there. The man apparently had no ability to follow orders, regardless of if he worked for the Air Force. But if dealing with him helped bring Teal'c home, maybe she could at least pretend to listen to him…
"As I was saying…" McKay started up again.
"Have you eaten yet?" Sam interrupted.
"What?" McKay asked, thrown by the change in topic.
"I'm heading to the mess for lunch. How about we continue this discussion over food?"
"Actually, that's a really good idea," McKay replied, stepping aside so that she could lead the way out of the lab. "I have this tendency to go into hypoglycemic shock if I don't eat regularly…"
********
"No switch. The uh crystals are wiped clean by the unstable vortex as they form a wormhole," McKay told her as they picked up food. "Do you have any idea how much excess energy one of those blasts gives off?"
"As a matter of fact," Sam responded, annoyed, "I do." Fortunately, during the walk from her lab to the mess she'd managed to sidetrack McKay from regaling her with stories of what would happen if he went into hypoglycemic shock. Unfortunately, this meant that he was back to explaining 'gate theory to her as if she was a child. "Now what we need to do is find a way to establish an event horizon without the vortex."
"Heh. That's impossible."
"We've seen it done before," Sam told him, remembering the Nox and how they could make the wormhole appear.
"What by magical fairy beings?" McKay taunted. Before she could respond, he turned to the server. "Is there lemon on the chicken?"
"It's lemon chicken," the young man, Calvin, responded.
"So it is," McKay noted with some displeasure. "I am mortally allergic to citrus," he informed Sam. "One drop of lemon and I could die. I'll have whatever that is," he told Calvin. In response, Calvin heaped several spoonfuls of the other entrée, some sort of pasta that didn't really look edible, onto the plate. Sam looked at McKay. "Have to be very careful," he told her, but he really didn't look too thrilled.
Sam led the way to a table. "So," McKay said, sitting down and digging in, "what would this fictional event horizon be connected to?"
Sam watched him eat a couple of bites. "Hungry?" she asked.
"Starving," McKay responded, swallowing. "Shockingly this is even worse than it looks, but uh it beats a hypoglycemic reaction."
Eager to stop him before he got going on that topic again, Sam answered his earlier question. "The event horizon is what dematerializes you and sends you into the wormhole. Now maybe we don't need to connect to a wormhole in order to form an event horizon."
"Maybe. Somehow. Someway."
"All we need to do is get the rematerialization process to work," Sam pointed out.
"Major? Even if you manage to create a viable event horizon, without connecting to a wormhole you'd never get the 'gate to reintegrate Teal'c."
"Why not?" To herself Sam admitted that McKay might have a point, but she really believed that it could be done.
"The crystals that retain the energy pattern before reintegration, they're not like a magnetic hard drive."
"I know. They're crystals."
McKay ignored the smart remark. "You can't just ignore the laws of thermodynamics. Entropy dictates the crystals won't retain their energy patterns permanently. I've measured it. It's what's called 'quantitative' evidence."
"I think the energy itself is unimportant past its initial imprint on the crystals."
"And this fantasy is based on…?"
"I suspect the 'gate is storing its ones and zeroes on a subatomic level within the crystals. So even though the energy is dissipating, the most recent pattern still exists."
"You suspect," McKay noted condescendingly.
"We're dealing with a level of quantum physics that is way beyond us," Sam reminded him, feeling her annoyance start to return to its previous levels.
"More than a third of the energy pattern that the 'gate requires to reintegrate Teal'c is already gone." McKay's voice carried his conviction in every word.
"I don't think so."
"You're guessing wildly, like you always do," McKay exclaimed. "Maybe you could find a way to fool the 'gate into reintegrating what it has stored in its memory, but I say you won't like what comes out."
"Well we'll see."
"Major, Teal'c is dead," McKay stated. "And this argument is a waste of time because the Pentagon is gonna order Hammond to resume operations in what," he looked at his watch, "sixteen hours?"
A horrible suspicion hit Sam, turning her insides cold. "That's how they came up with the forty-eight deadline isn't it?" she accused him. "You told them Teal'c would already be dead."
"That's why it's called a deadline," the other scientist noted, not denying the comment.
The cold inside Sam was replaced with the heat of anger and annoyance, and the need to get as far away from the man as possible. "God you're a jerk," she told him, abandoning her food and standing up to leave.
"I wish I didn't find you so attractive." McKay's remark had her turning back to face him, shocked. "I've always had a real weakness for dumb blondes," he continued.
That did it. "Go suck a lemon," Sam told him, turning and storming out of the room.
I'm going to kill him, she thought as she headed for the elevator. If he shows up in my lab again I will take that hammer and crack his skull. Sam couldn't believe that the Pentagon had listened to that moron and issued the forty-eight hour deadline in the first place, or that he couldn't even consider the fact that she might be right.
And he found her attractive. If that wasn't creepy, then nothing was. Sam shuddered as the elevator arrived and she stepped in. Maybe she should start carrying the hammer around with her. That or a lemon.
Sam felt her face break into a grin. Maybe douse the hammer in lemon juice…She stifled her expression as the doors opened once again and she exited the compartment. It was time to get back to work.
*********
Grinning to herself, Sam moved quickly around her lab, pulling together the tools she would need to connect the Russian DHD to the Stargate. They were going to get Teal'c back! Colonel O'Neill had found the information that they needed to create a wormhole without the initial vortex, and Daniel had managed to get the Russians to agree to let them borrow the DHD. She'd run multiple computer simulations, all of which indicated that this could work.
In addition to the information on how to retrieve Teal'c, the Colonel had also uncovered incriminating evidence on Colonel Simmons, which meant that the NID man had been arrested and would be going away for quite a long time. So, for that matter, would the Goa'uld who now possessed Adrian Conrad. Both of these things were good news for Sam; Conrad had once kidnapped her, and Simmons seemed to live to make life for the SGC hell.
"Major?"
Sam stopped digging through her desk, praying that she was hearing things. No such luck.
"Major?" McKay called again.
"Aren't you supposed to be on your way to Russia?" Sam asked, looking up over the desk.
McKay brushed the comment aside and stepped to the opposite side of the desk. "I still have forty-five minutes. Actually I was hoping that maybe you could convince Hammond to reconsider? I'd like to work on this with you…"
Sam suppressed a shudder and interrupted. "I thought you thought that this was a crazy idea."
"Oh I still think so," he assured her. "But if I help out then the chances of success go way up."
Sam smirked at the other astrophysicist. "Sorry McKay. Now get out of my office."
"Here you go again, guessing wildly," McKay exclaimed, obviously angry. "I still say--"
Sam came up from her crouch, holding her silver hammer in her hand. She brought it down on the desk near his hand, cutting him off mid-rant. "If you don't get out of my office in two seconds, McKay," she told him, "I will take this hammer and crack your skull."
McKay looked at the hammer and then back at her. "You wouldn't dare."
"Try me." Sam lifted the hammer again. Something in her eyes must have finally got through to him, because McKay blanched and backed quickly out of the office, muttering under his breath. Sam waited a few seconds after he had disappeared before dropping the hammer and grinning. She wouldn't have really done it, but it was worth it to see McKay's face. Still smiling, Sam finished packing up her tools and headed for the gate room. Time to bring Teal'c home.