DISCLAIMERβ Stargate and its characters not mine. I am writing this because it's fun. No infringement of copyright intended, no money changed hands. Don't sue me! (Although I do have a law degree, I don't want to be my own lawyer, thanks.)
The Pandora Experiment
4. Little Men
Jack O'Neill awakened in a totally alien environment; at least, to his eyes the place appeared to be totally alien. His next realization was that he was flat on his back and he had a tremendous headache. His left hip and shoulder ached, too. To his mind, it was as if he'd fallen and landed on that side of his body. Gingerly, he turned his head to examine his immediate surroundings. He was inside. That much was obvious. He was lying on a cold, metallic surface. From what he could see of the walls, they were metal, too. In the dim light it was hard to see the ceiling, but he figured that it was probably made of the same stuff as the walls. The place where he lay was quite dark, but there was light coming from somewhere nearby. With a groan, he hauled himself into a sitting position. He had to shut his eyes for a minute as a wave of dizziness broke over him. He must have hit his head pretty damn hard. He probably had a concussion, he guessed. Well, it would be his first concussion, and it probably wouldn't be his last.
When he was able to open his eyes again, he got carefully to his feet. He turned in a slow circle, surveying the area. The light was coming from a wide opening in the wall, so he decided to head in that direction. The aperture led into another room, the size of which Jack had never seen. Looking straight up at the far-distant ceiling made him feel dizzy all over again.
"Hey!" he called out. "Hey! Anybody here!"
If anyone was there, they did not choose to answer him.
Peachy. Just peachy, Jack grumbled to himself. Where in hell was he? He felt like kicking himself when he recalled his last memory before losing consciousness. The box. He shouldn't have opened Daniel's stupid alien box. Just his luck, he'd probably activated some kind of weird transporter or something. Hell, the box could have been anything; a communication device or a weapon, or some alien's idea of a virtual reality game, even. Jack had a disturbing mental image of his body lying on a gurney back at the SGC while his mind took the worst trip it had ever been on.
--------------------
Unlike Jack, when Daniel had awakened, he knew exactly where he was; at least, he was reasonably certain he knew. The question was: how had this happened, and how was he going to get help to figure out how to fix it? Of course the obvious explanation for Daniel's current predicament was that Jack had opened the box, but that wasn't much to go on, especially considering the box was now the equivalent distance of several hundred metres away. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that far, Daniel conceded to himself, but it might as well have been on the moon for all the hope Daniel had of reaching it in his present condition.
Daniel had awakened to discover that he was lying somewhere very soft and warm. The surface was the exact colour of the chair in his office at the SGC, which had seemed an odd observation at first. When he'd rolled over and sat up, however, the fact became more frightening than strange. Lying beside him on the soft surface was a pencil. The writing implement was longer than Daniel was tall. It looked like a fallen tree. Being careful not to lose his balance on the unsteady surface of what was certainly his desk chair, Daniel had stood and looked around. His suspicion about what had happened was confirmed when he gazed up at his desk. His laptop loomed immense, the pictures of the temple ruins on P4X-789 still displayed on the screen. Next to the computer was Daniel's favourite coffee mug. The mug was probably big enough for him to bathe in, now. In the distance he could see his Chinese paperweight, the clay pot from 789 and the etched box.
What he didn't see was any sign of Jack O'Neill. That worried him. He had called out Jack's name several times, but he'd gotten no answer at all. Finally, he'd given that exercise up, in favour of trying to come up with a more concrete plan of action. He sat down to think, resting his back against the gigantic pencil. Somehow, he had to figure out a way to get out of this mess.
There were two possibilities, he reasoned. When Jack had opened the box the effect had either caused every inanimate object in the vicinity to grow or it had caused every animate object to shrink. Daniel could not decide which it had been. Either way, it was a problem. The sudden, exponential growth or shrinkage of the entire mountain wouldn't exactly go unnoticed. He wondered if the effect really had been widespread or if it had just been localized to this room. Logically, if the effect had only happened in Daniel's office, inanimate objects could not have grown. A sudden increase in size of the walls and ceiling of this room would have caused dangerous structural damage to other parts of the base. That meant, of course, that if the box's effect had only happened here, Daniel β and most likely Jack, too β had been reduced to the approximate size of an average hamster. That was not a comforting thing to contemplate.
A noise just at the periphery of his hearing drew Daniel out of his contemplation. He concentrated, trying to determine what it was. Somebody was yelling. The voice sounded as if it were coming from very far away.
"Hey! Anybody out there? Daniel! Anybody!"
Jack! Daniel scrambled to his feet and promptly fell on his backside a second later, having lost his footing on the spongy surface of the chair. He decided right away that he'd be safer if he didn't try walking on the soft chair seat. He crawled across the surface as fast as he was able and came as close as he dared to the chair's edge. He took a deep breath and shouted as loudly as he could.
"Jack! Where are you?"
He waited for the answering yell. Jack hollered, "Over here!"
Vague and unhelpful directions, Daniel thought. He peered over the edge of the chair, but he couldn't see Jack anywhere. It was possible the colonel was hidden behind something on the floor. He might even be on the other side of Daniel's now colossal desk.
"Jack, I think I know what happened," Daniel yelled to his friend.
"What?" came Jack's shout. "Daniel, where are you?"
"On my chair!"
This announcement was met by dead silence. Daniel wondered if Jack had heard him. More likely than not, wherever the colonel was, he was standing there with a typically bewildered look on his face. Daniel waited. With any luck, Jack would try to move in Daniel's direction. If he did, that would make communication a whole lot easier.
--------------------
Daniel wasn't sure how much time had passed since he'd awakened to his current predicament. For that matter, he didn't know how long he had been unconscious before that. To him, it felt like hours had passed while he sat there on his outsized chair. He wished he hadn't taken his watch off. When he looked up at his desk, he could see the watch there, facedown next to his coffee mug.
Daniel kept thinking about Jack, wondering if he was okay. Daniel hadn't heard him in a while, though he'd called Jack's name several times. Jack was on the floor, so he could be just about anywhere in the room. Daniel was sure he was still in the room because the door was closed. Jack would not be able to open the huge door, and anyway, if the door had opened, Daniel was sure he would notice it. It was probably a good thing Jack couldn't leave. If everybody else on the base had retained their normal sizes, the corridors could be a very dangerous place for a little colonel. Someone might drop something on him, or step on him, orβ
A loud noise off to his left startled Daniel out of that particular line of thought. He caught his breath when he turned to look and realized someone had opened the door. A second later, the person appeared in the doorway. It was Sam Carter. The fact that Sam seemed to be her normal size in relation to the door and the rest of the room was comforting.
Daniel watched as Sam looked around. She didn't call out Daniel's name. She was a practical person, and if she didn't see him at his work table, she would find no cause to call for him. Daniel thought fast. He had to attract her attention somehow and let her know he really was here. It was the giant pencil that provided him with the inspiration he needed. He scurried back to it, and shoved at it. The pencil was unwieldy, but once it started rolling, things got much easier, and Daniel succeeded in pushing it over the edge of the chair's seat.
The clatter the pencil made when it hit the floor made Sam turn around. Daniel wanted to cry with relief when he saw his friend heading his way. Within seconds, Sam was right next to the chair. She looked slightly puzzled. She crouched to retrieve the fallen pencil, putting the seat of the chair almost at her eye level.
Daniel waved his arms and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Sam! Look over here!"
Sam stared right at him, and her eyes widened in surprise. "Daniel?"
"Yes!"
"What happened?" Sam asked him. She was almost whispering. Whether this was a result of her being surprised or of her respect for his relatively tiny eardrums he didn't know, but he was grateful nevertheless.
"We have to find Jack," he told her.
"Do you know where he is? General Hammond's looking for him, too."
Daniel shook his head. "He's got bigger problems than being wanted by General Hammond," he said.
Sam grinned briefly. "Right," she said. "Can you explain what happened?"
"It'd be easier if I didn't have to yell."
"Okay," said Sam. "We'll figure something out. Come on." She put her hand on the chair, palm upward.
The whole situation painted a disconcerting picture in Daniel's mind, but he realized he really had very little choice. He climbed onto Sam's outstretched hand and sat down, cross-legged, on the middle of her palm. He trusted her. He told himself everything would be fine, but even so, he couldn't control the jolt of panic that shot through him when Sam covered him with her other hand and lifted him up. A moment later, he knew they were moving. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to quell the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. His friends would never let him live it down if he got sick all over Sam's hand.
