Down the rabbit hole

There sat a new test

Much harder then you bought in

As for the unseen,

Just take care of what you will

(Chevelle, Sleep Apnea)

"I hope this isn't a mistake," Colonel Samantha Carter mutters as the ring-transporter delivers them… well, somewhere that looks remarkably like a cave, after she fails to notice a control panel anywhere near the platform on this end.

"Well, that's certainly new," Dr. Daniel Jackson agrees, probably already has discovered the same. "Interesting manifestation of hospitality I would call it: everyone allowed in but no-one comes out."

Teal'c silently lifts his right eyebrow but obviously has nothing to add at the moment.

"That makes absolutely no sense," Sam continues, eyeing the cave that looks very much cave-ish ordinary - except for slightly luminous with red walls - and has no visual points of access whatsoever. Or anything else, for this matter - the damn cavern is absolutely empty. No carvings on the walls, no energy fields and no mysterious devises. "Why would anyone placed one-way ring platform here?"

Just in case she looks up; nope, nothing remarkable there as well, the same stone mass projecting dim red light. Carter starts to doubt Anubis had ever visited the place. So much for the secret lab that preliminary intel was hinting about.

"Maybe it wasn't originally meant to be this way," Daniel points a flash-light at the closest to the platform section of the wall – where the control normally would more likely be - and taps his finger at it. When Sam moves closer she can see that this piece looks like something has been removed from it – something remarkably reminding a transporter control panel by its size.

The Universe definitely has a foul sense of humor; her very first mission as the commanding officer of SG-1 after Jack O'Niell's sudden promotion - a simple reconnaissance, at that - and there they are, trapped God knows where with no way out.

Not that there's anything wrong about that; just another merry day off-world, right?

Sam procures a tablet from her back-pack and starts scanning the area while Daniel takes closer look at the other sections of the cave wall. Teal'c leans at his staff-weapon looking relaxed, but in this particular case appearance is very much deceptive. Samantha knows that he is fully alerted and ready for whatever surprise might – or more likely will - fall on their heads.

"There must be a way out," she says with what she hopes will pass as an unshakable confidence.

"Don't worry, Sam, we'll find it," Daniel offers instant reassurance and this time Teal'c joins to him with very firmly placed 'indeed'', which tells her in no uncertain terms that the entire fear-not-as-I'm-your-big-and-strong-commander act has been failed miserably.

Back to the being a geek then, she thinks studying the tablet screen. It appears that cave's surroundings give slight energy signature - probably due to the same thing that makes walls glow - which barely registers at all, except for the…

Now, that is interesting.

"I think I found something," she calls to her friends. "Look, the wall over their" – she points to the farthest from the platform part of the cave – "gives strange energy reading."

Teal'c proceeds to the point of destination immediately and gives the wall there a tap of his staff point.

"There is nothing here, Samantha Carter," he states as the wall produces only so much as a dull clack.

"Wait a minute, let me look," Daniel joins him and big Jaffa steps aside politely "Right here, Sam?"

The archaeologist brushes his fingers at the wall and snatches them back at ones as they actually dive in it. "Whoa!"

"What, what is it?" Sam hurries to them, startled, because Daniel does have a habit to poke his, well, in that case not nose but fingers in all kind of dangerous stuff. Got him killed once.

"Nothing," he calms her down quickly and adds in confused and apologetic tone, "I mean literally. There is nothing here, no wall."

"That's not what I thought Teal'c meant when he said 'nothing's here'. "

She looks at Jaffa who confirms her statement with a nod. Sam stares at the tablet, but there is not much to work with on screen too; unknown faint energy reading, period.

"Ok," she muses, "so we have something that acts like solid object as a reaction to the Teal'c's staff but lets Daniel's hand through as if it was a… hologram?"

"I state for this to be correct," Jaffa says. "Never before I have encountered such a technology."

"Not the Goa'uld handiwork then?" Daniel muses.

Sam sighs and puts the tablet aside, adjusting her grip on P-90. Teal'c catches up immediately and gives her querying look. She shakes her head; though he is a formidable warrior, but it is she who is in charge now. Hers is the first risk to take. Jaffa responds with respectful bow and stays put.

"Well, there is only one way to know for sure, isn't it?" Carter responds to Daniel's earlier question before stepping right into the wall.


"Now, that's more like it," she says looking at the large chamber, walls covered with a carving that Daniel recognizes at first sign as Ancient - very archaic Ancient to be precise - and some pieces of equipment have earned a lift of Teal'c's eyebrow, which marks them as a Goa'uld induced.

After they successfully left the cave – the wall did let them through without any problems - there was a lot of waking by long empty poorly lit and very much entangled corridors many of which leaded to the dead ends. Or so it would seem.

This chamber, lab, or whatever it is, was their first real finding.

"Daniel," Sam calls pointing at the writing at the walls, "I would really like to know what these say."

"On it," he responds enthusiastically, already working.

"Teal'c…"

"Indeed, Colonel Carter." Jaffa starts carefully set aside tech pieces he has recognized. "I must mention this not much of value, however. It is like various equipment was dismantled to the spare parts that meant to be reassembled in a different way. Like this."

He shows her some horrific hybrid of TEF*, zat' and something she didn't even recognizes and frankly speaking, not even sure she wants to know what it supposed to do.

"Well, I guess, that pinpoints the lab on Anubis after all," Sam mutters.

"That would be my thought as well," Teal'c agrees, "though Anubis wasn't the only one of the False Gods fond of technology. It is by its merits only they were able to have so many others fooled into worshiping them for so long."

"Then I say, it would be only fair if something we have found here will help us settle a score."

Smile is a rear guest on Jaffa's face, yet it appears when Teal'c lifts his head in agreement.

Sam leaves him to his current task and heads towards some strange sphere-thing placed on one of the desks. It doesn't look much like a devise – delicate wickerwork tangle of silver straps adorned with numerous sparkling crystals, blue and white – but more like piece of art. It is not that big, too, could be easily placed on her palm and then it would have some room left.

For what Samantha can see, there is no power source inside the item or somehow attached to it, too. It's beautiful, though.

"Daniel, where are we on this translation?" she says, taking the object and lifting it to her face for the better look. What Sam discovers is that the straps move, so the pattern of crystals changes.

It somewhat reminds her Rubik's Cube. Sam also smiles thinking that Goa'uld version would be a pyramid since they seem to fancy this particular form so much. She used to own one too, found it very easy to solve. Of course Goa'uld riddle ought to be golden-made instead of mere plastic.

"I'm not quite sure," Jackson mutters, fingers brushing gently ancient symbols on the wall. "It says something about going in circles, or it could be an endless journey. The dialect seems to be pretty old and the Ancients did love write in riddles."

He stops at one particular section. "There is a mention about infinity, I believe. Look, there is its symbol."

"The one we have seen before, similar to the Earth infinity sign?" Sam specifies.

The 'Ancients loving riddle' part gives her sudden idea.

"Ah, yes, yes that one." Her friend confirms.

Carter begins to work at puzzle-sphere in earnest ignoring curious glances from Teal'c who seems to be finished his own task. One last move of her fingers and she has a white infinity sign assembled, though blue crystals are still in disarray.

"Daniel, look…" is all she manages to say before the sphere that appeared to be a device after all flashes with blinding white light.

When Daniel and Teal'c are having their eyesight back, their new commanding officer is nowhere to be seen. The tricky sphere lies on the floor.

"This is not good', Daniel sighs.

"Indeed."


The light dissipates and Sam finds herself in a perfect replica of the lab she has just left. Only there is nothing here, at all. The walls still have carvings in Ancient she unable to read, of course, but that's pretty much it; no stone desks, no pieces of equipment and what is the most unsettling – Daniel and Teal'c are gone as well. Just like the exit.

"Guys, where are you?" she calls and that sounds stupid the very moment words have left her mouth.

It is only logical to assume that her teammates are still back in the lab whilst she is… well, God knows where, trapped. Again.

Carter exams surroundings carefully looking for any clues, for anything at all that might give her an idea as to why would ancient puzzle has her transported here. There got to be a reason, right? Also, she would very much like to know where exactly here is; is it even the same place?

The light that pulled her from the lab had certain resemblance to the Asgard beam, although the feeling was somewhat different, gentler, so to speak. If her assumption correct, however, she may just as well be on another planet completely at the moment as being at different part of original complex.

She really hopes for the latter, but you never know with the Ancients. There was quite startling precedent with Colonel O'Neill and former Colonel Maybourne.

Samantha scans the room in secret hope to find something similar the hidden entrance, like the one back in the cave, but to no avail. The readings are clear, no energy spikes at all. She briefly considers her possibilities.

If she is to know what lies behind the walls she could try to blast her way out with C-4 she luckily has on her. But if she is - for example - on the spaceship, that would be very, very bad idea especially if the wall is an exterior one.

The problem is - her scan wasn't designed for that kind of task, so there is no way for her to know for sure until she leaves this chamber.

Colonel Carter sighs and sets about studying writings on the walls, trying to remember everything she has ever learned from Daniel. All in all, it might be that the Goa'uld have picked up a habit unlock the doors by pressing certain glyphs from their predecessors`.


"Daniel Jackson, do you believe this is wise?" Teal'c says as his friend works on the sphere.

"Look, it's obviously that Sam's disappearance has everything to do with this," he shows Jaffa an item. "She had put together one symbol, but the puzzle is still incomplete. So, I've being thinking, if assembling one sign sends you… well, somewhere, the chances are that solving the whole riddle is what brings you back."

Daniel knows he is gabbling but can't really help it; it's not his fault after all that he thinks so much faster that normal speech wouldn't be able to catch up with.

Teal'c gives him one of his skeptical looks. "It also may do something undesirable to Colonel Carter or even get her killed."

"Point taken," Jackson nods, "but I really don't think this is the case. It's clearly designed for some transportation purpose; otherwise what was going to happen with Sam would have happened here, right? Also the Ancients really weren't into some perverted way of killing, quite the opposite, actually. I believe it's our best chance to get our commander back."

"Is it possible that disassembling a sign and than reassembling it again will send us to Samantha Carter?"

Daniel frowns, affected if only a little that he hadn't thought about it himself and moves a strap there and back. Nothing happens.

"Well, that was worth trying," she smiles to his friend and Teal'c responds bowing his head slightly. "Now, get yourself comfortable, it might take some time."


Sam stares at the damnable infinity sign she already starts to hate. Unfortunately, it's the only one she recognizes for sure. Carter makes a mental note to have Ancient studied properly when she is out of this mess.

Touching and pressing some other vaguely familiar and a lot of completely unknown glyphs did nothing at all. She was avoiding this in particular so far.

"Ok," Sam licks her lips nervously. "Here goes nothing."

Well,it's definitely something, she thinks when one of the walls simply disappears revealing either a huge niche or a small room with unknown device on the pedestal in the middle of it. There is also a ring platform near the farthest wall.

Triumphant smile curves her lips, "Now we going somewhere."

Ignoring the device – sorry, General O'Neill, not this time – she heads right toward the platform.


"Ok, I got it!" Daniel exclaims flourishing victoriously with the sphere currently bearing two signs.

Teal'c braces himself awaiting incoming transportation, weapon charged and ready - who knows what about to appear - but nothing happens.

"Daniel Jackson, I believe…"

The sphere flies up from Daniel's palm to the ceiling, hovers there for a few moments and starts spin rapidly casting white and blue flashes until it's just a blur giving them severe headaches and impossible to look at.

The air begins crack with electricity charges, it doesn't take long until they hit the tech on the desks. Zat' is the first one to go off.

Teal'c drops his staff and he and Daniel duck under the closest tables because there is no chance they could make to the exit now.

"So not good'". Jackson mutters eyeing wrecking havoc above.

"Indeed."


Just a few steps separate her from the platform when things start to go south.

The device activates by itself emitting low ominous rumble and electricity cracking feels the room. The air suddenly becomes viscous; every move is a straggle as if she is a wasp stuck in the syrup and when Sam tries to breath in it's a terrible mistake – clearly, it's not the air that surrounds her now, not the right kind of it, anyway.

An average person can make it from 40 to 50 seconds holding a breath, but she already out of oxygen. Her vision becomes black-stained and lungs burn – the signs of suffocation - when sudden incredibly bright outburst of light appears near the device. If anything, it looks like oversized globe lightning.

Samantha watches helplessly as it flows towards her, readying to the imminent death.

The moment globe consumes her, however, she is breathing again and the feeling of atmosphere is back to normal. She probably can move now, too, Sam thinks, until without having any previous intention and without a clue as to why she runs towards the damnable device. There Sam watches in astonishment her own hand hitting the crystal on top of the item and then something that looks very much like control panel slides out of pedestal.

She hears her mouth emitting what could only be curses in a language she does not know, while her fingers flutter about the console flashing with disturbing amount of red symbols.

Too late, the thought is loud an clear, and not hers. The damage is already done.

Sam – or rather her body - hits the panel, sending it back where it originally was and runs towards the transporter. When the rings already have being activated soundless blast wave - at least that what she thinks it is - hits pretty hard knocking her down and leaving ball-curling in excruciating pain.

So, when Colonel Carter finds herself being transported she has no opportunity to estimate where as her head takes almost immediate blow that sends Sam into dark oblivion, she almost feels a relief.


Goa'uld technology

*TEF - Transphase Eradication Rod – the device capable of bringing cloaked entity into visible field for humans; as a weapon it can fire blasts or stun beam.