As soon as they arrived at the hidden structure, Daniel and Lani had practically run up the steps and settled at the doorway.
"Can you read it?" Daniel asked impatiently.
"Hang on." she said squinting at the text and reaching for her backpack. "It looks close, but its not exact. It'll take me a while to break it down."
"What can I do?"
"Leave me alone so I can think."
Daniel bit his tongue, looking at Sam, who grinned sympathetically at him. Daniel shook his head, and left Lani to translate the wall, and joined his team sitting on the steps.
"Gonna be a long day." he said
"Well you didn't exactly start it on the right foot." Janet commented.
"What do you mean?"
"The argument in the briefing room."
"What?"
"Oh come on Daniel. You questioned her work in front of a group." Jack blurted out.
"I didn't question her work."
"No, you basically told her she was wrong."
Daniel thought about it for a second before nodding. He hadn't meant to insult her, in fact, he hadn't meant to say his thoughts out loud. He took a power bar, that Janet handed him and carried it over to the woman, who was standing on her tipped toes, squinting at some shallow scribbles in the stone. Without turning to look at him, she spoke.
"I'm not done yet, so don't bother asking."
"Peace offering." he said holding the power bar up in his hand.
"Not hungry."
"Listen Lani, I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't mean to embarrass you..."
"I don't get embarrassed. Is there a point to this conversation, cause I'm really kinda busy at the moment."
"Fine, forget it." Daniel said defeated then turned back to Jack. "I'm going for a walk." he said, and tossed the power bar back to Janet.
"Whats with him?" Sam asked.
"She's hoggin all the rocks." Jack offered.
"Maybe we should talk to her."
"I think we should stay out of it. It's obviously been brewing for years. Not gonna go away cause a couple people she doesn't know talk to her about it. Let's just get this mission over with, and go back to a four man team. No offense Doc."
"Colonel O'Neill?" the woman's voice pulled them from their conversation and Jack stood to see what she wanted.
"What is it?"
"I think I found out how to open the door. I need another person."
"Daniel, we're opening the door." Jack said into his radio.
"I'll be right there." came his response.
"What do I do?" Daniel said as soon as he rejoined the group.
"Put you hand there. Where I tell you, push it in, then turn it to the left until it clicks." She directed, pointing to a design on the wall, which apparently was going to move.
The rest of the group stood in front of the door, watching in nervous interest as the two archaeologists counted down. On command, they both pushed in hard on the places on the wall, Daniel to the right of the door, Lani to the left and toward the ground. The wall gave way, and Daniel twisted his piece to the left. Suddenly, the woman's arm disappeared into the wall up to her elbow. She grunted in surprise and braced her other arm against the wall.
"Doc?" Jack questioned, not sure if that was supposed to happen.
"Fine, just, hang on. I can almost reach it." she grimaced before they heard a sharp crack and the stone beneath them shook. "Got it."
Before any of them had time to react, they found themselves falling. The stone beneath them dropping into a steep slope that had them all tumbling downward. Startled yelps, and brute grunts echoed in the hollow cavern below, as feet, arms, and gear tangled in each, rolling and sliding roughly to a stop nearly twenty-five feet below the door. They slid to a stop, in a heap, before any of them realized how dark it was. A flashlight flicked on, illuminating the large open cavern they were now in.
"Everyone alright?" Jack asked, spitting dirt from his mouth, and coughing as the dust settled in his lungs.
"Yeah," came a few muffled and winded replies.
"Janet? Dr. West?"
"Scrapes and bruises sir. I'm alright" Janet replied.
Haggard coughing from behind him had Jack spinning around with his flashlight. The light settled on the archaeologist sitting up on her right elbow, trying to catch her breath. The look on her face was not as Jack would have expected. She wasn't frightened, or in pain. She was laughing, through her coughs.
"Something amusing doctor?"
"Now that, cough was unexpected." she choked out. "Seems whoever built this place has a sense of humor."
"Not my idea of fun. Where the hell are we?"
"We're inside." Daniel answered. "Not how we had planned to get in granted, but we're in."
"Okay, now how do we get out?"
"O'Neill." Teal'c shouted from across the room.
Jack and Daniel joined Teal'c at the opposite side of the room, and found themselves staring at a sloped wall that led up to nothing.
"Well Daniel, any ideas?"
"It looks like a walkway, but it doesn't go anywhere. Maybe just an architectural thing?" Jack rolled his eyes.
"Carter, whats the status on that energy thing?"
"Strong signal now sir. We're closer to it."
"So its underground?"
"Looks that way sir."
"Doctor West, any idea how to get out of here?"
Lani had stopped grinning, and pushed herself up to her feet, ignoring the aches she knew she'd be feeling for the next week, and looked at the sloping wall. She scanned it for any signs of writing or directions, but found none.
"Its a sloping wall." she stated.
"No kiddin. What does it mean?"
"I don't know. There's no text of any kind on it."
Jack clenched his jaw in frustration. "See what you guys can find out. Everyone else, look around see if you can find a way outa here."
Daniel looked around the slope carefully, hoping he would see something they over looked. Staring at the slope for a second, Lani carefully set her foot against it, making sure it was stable before taking another step.
"What are you doing?"
"Testing a theory." She walked up the long slop until she came into a crouch against the ceiling. "Okay, so that wasn't such a great one."
Janet wandered through the dark for only a few minutes before joining Daniel at the bottom of the slope. She looked up to see Lani sitting with her feet braced against the slope, pushing at the ceiling.
"What is she doing?" she whispered to Daniel.
"Testing a theory apparently." he answered.
Taking in the look of concentration on her face, Daniel decided to see if he could help her brainstorm. It wasn't like either of them were going anywhere anytime soon unless they thought of something. He walked carefully, hunched over, until he came to sit next to Lani. He scanned the dirty concrete ceiling, running his hand over the dust, before blowing on it creating a cloud that made him sneeze. A light outline of an image became visible through the dust.
"Hey Lani look at this."
Janet heard Daniel's voice, and was curious to see what he had found. She took a careful step onto the slope, feeling it firmly beneath her boots, before going down to her hands and knees and crawling the rest of the way up. Halfway up, something felt very odd. The slope had began to level out as she crawled. She looked up, meeting Daniel's shocked face, as the ceiling he was looking at moved up and away from his hand.
"Oh shit." Lani cursed, as the slab they sat on fell faster down.
Janet felt herself stuck at the center of the giant seesaw as it went from one direction to another. Unable to balance at such an extreme angle, she prepared herself for another tumble, when she felt the stone connect with something solid. Daniel and Lani were jerked back on impact, feet over head as they rolled backwards from the slab onto the dirt below.
"O'Neill!" Teal'c yelled eyeing the movement of the slope.
Jack turned in time to see the bottom of the wall moving upwards, three members of his team disappearing down behind it. He ran quickly to the slope, with Sam at his heals, trying to grab the end before it sealed against the ceiling. They were too late.
"Daniel!" he shouted through the wall. "Daniel!"
"Janet!" Sam shouted next to him.
Quickly as the wall went up, it began coming back down. Janet sat on her back at the center, boots dug into the crevasses in the dirt, eyes wide.
"Janet, what happened? Where are Daniel and Dr. West?"
"They went off the other side. It's a giant teeter totter!" she exclaimed. "My weight must have added just enough to tip it the other way."
Jack thought this through for a moment before deciding, as much as he hated the idea of giant seesaws and moving walls, it was the only way out of this room. He didn't have much of a choice.
"Alright guys. Stay low, and move up to the top quickly."
"Sir, quickly probably isn't the best way to do this."
"Carter?"
"On teeter totter as a kid, you ever have someone keep their feet up and not catch their weight on the downfall?"
"Yeah, you bounce"
"Same principle. If we all pile up at the top, its gonna come down hard. Not only will we get hurt, but it could jeopardise structural stability if the other side hits the ceiling that hard. We need to spread out and balance our weight. Get it to come down easy."
"Gotcha. Teal'c you and Janet get to the top. Sam and I will stay at the middle. If it starts going down too fast, Teal'c you crawl up toward the middle a little bit til it slows down. Got it."
"Yes sir." Janet answered, scooting until she sat at the top.
Teal'c crawled up next, coming to rest just a few feet in front of Janet. Jack looked at Sam and she nodded in agreement, and they both crawled slowly to the middle. The stone cracked and dust fell as it lifted up from the ground slowly and began tilting backwards. Janet turned herself around so she faced the other end, so she wouldn't tumble backwards as she had seen Daniel and Lani do. Carefully, Jack and Sam moved their weight forward in tiny sessions, each movement causing the slap to tilt more. As it tilted higher, Sam felt herself sliding forward, and kicked into the dirt, desperately trying to find a foothold to keep her in place. Her grip slipped and she found herself sliding forward into Janet. The slap tipped forward quickly, with her added weight to the other end. Teal'c hopped forward, trying to throw his weight as much as possible to slow their descent. The stone touched down, with only a small bump and they all let out a breath they had been holding. Jack and Teal'c slid the rest of the way down the slope and joined their friends on the ground.
"Ok, I'll admit, under different circumstances, that would have been fun." Jack said, watching as the slope moved up again, closing up against the concrete above, sealing them in another room.