Part 4: Oasis
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Daniel woke, disoriented. He sat up and shielded his eyes as he scanned the small, very bright room.
With the layout of the room, he could have sworn he was in an un-furnished version of his old, off-base apartment. After a moment, that ray of hope had flown and he realized it was just a freshly-built structure using similar blueprints. There was still a strong smell of sawdust and paint.
He was in the bedroom, but rather than sitting on his rarely used, queen-sized bed he was on an army-issue cot. The lighting in the room was also very different. For one, windows had been excluded from the floor plan, and several more overhead lights were added to compensate. He stood and took a few apprehensive steps towards the open door that led to the hall, onto the kitchen and living room.
He couldn't hear anyone around, not even idle chatter in the distance, and no barriers had been put in place to prevent him from exiting the bedroom. He stepped into the hall, and, still, nothing happened.
The last thing he remembered was returning with Teal'c to the briefing room to confess to Maybourne and General Hammond what happened. He couldn't really remember what was said, but at some point Janet came up to tell them about Sam and Jack. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what Janet said and what actually happened after she arrived.
He wandered towards the living room. The place seemed so familiar... The NID had obviously gone to great lengths to reconstruct a near-exact replica of a place he sometimes called home. It reminded him of when he'd first moved into that building: there was no furniture except for a single wooden bookshelf holding some of the books from his office. The kitchen was equally barren: a miniature refrigerator stood where the large one should have been; the open cupboards revealed that they were just as empty as the rest of the house; and several stacks of white paper cups were in a plastic bag by the sink.
The sliding glass door that was supposed to lead to the balcony instead opened into an entirely empty, warehouse-sized room.
"Nice to see that you're up and about, Doctor Jackson," Maybourne's voice called from the corner of the living room. He was suddenly standing beside the bookshelf as if he'd appeared from nowhere. "Or perhaps I should just start calling you Daniel. After all, I'll be getting to know you pretty well over the next... Well, who knows how long?"
Daniel was a little confused. It still felt to him as if no one were there: no heartbeat, breathing, or scent to signify that a living person was standing less than ten feet away from him. Although he was relieved to not experience such a strange sensation, he wondered if he'd been given a drug to dull his senses. He certainly hadn't been cured. His teeth and fingernails felt as sharp as ever, not to mention how thirsty he was.
"Don't you just love alien technology?" Maybourne asked rhetorically, passing his holographic hand through the wooden bookshelf. His entire image distorted for a moment and then solidified. "I'm broadcasting from the control room about a hundred meters away."
"I agreed to come with you and not make a scene, but why do you even want to keep me here?" Daniel demanded. "Why didn't you just lock me in a tiny cage like you do everyone else you illegally imprison?"
"This is all perfectly legal, I assure you," Maybourne said cheerfully. "And despite the obvious budget constraints on our projects, the President insisted that you be kept comfortable for the duration of your recovery. Apparently he appreciates your past efforts to save the world." He smiled. "On that note, you'll find a few packages of O-Positive in the refrigerator and some cups on the counter."
"Where are Jack and Sam?" Daniel demanded.
Maybourne shrugged. "Jack's probably up at his cabin recovering from that hit to the shoulder, and I think Major Carter has been prevented from going off-world until she's been psychologically evaluated."
Daniel wasn't entirely sure he was telling the truth. "So Sam wasn't infected?"
Maybourne nodded. "As much as we would have liked to have another subject for study, we got her here and she still wasn't showing any symptoms. Our scientists discovered that there weren't enough parasites present in her blood to initiate a transformation. She went back to SGC yesterday. She was shot, so I expect she won't be going off-world for a few more weeks."
He nodded a little, still hesitant to believe the good news. "How long was I unconscious?"
"72 hours." He smiled a little. "We gave you a few transfusions spiked with tranquilizers. We weren't convinced that you'd cooperate with us during your initial examination."
This time Daniel smiled. "Why do you think you can keep me in here?"
Maybourne stepped forward, still as cheerful as ever. "The area outside this room can be flooded with high-powered UV lights at the slightest sign of movement." He gestured towards the balcony doors.
Somewhere towards the farthest end of the room he heard the lock click and a door open. The whole room outside his apartment was suddenly brighter than anything Daniel had ever seen.
Daniel stumbled backwards into the kitchen and crouched behind the counters to hide from the lights flooding into the room through the glass doors. He'd been so distracted by Maybourne that he hadn't noticed the footsteps of the approaching soldier in charge of opening the door on cue. "You've made your point," Daniel called calmly, holding up his arm to shield his already singed face.
The door in the distance clicked shut and the lights turned off.
"This room is your only haven, and as long as you're inside here we won't be doing anything to you," Maybourne assured.
Daniel came out of the kitchen to face his captor again. The right side of his face was burned red from the demonstration. He craned his neck and opened his mouth to stretch the stinging, itchy skin. The color paled back to the shade of the rest of his face, and he resumed his conversation with Maybourne.
"If we bring you through those doors, the UV lights will be controlled manually, and you'll go through some standard testing. There are tables and some equipment at the far end of that room. We'll keep the UV off so long as you cooperate. If you step out of line or try to escape, we can turn on the lights again. That little hostage situation back at the SGC won't be effective here. Everyone on this project is a soldier first and will die rather than give into your threats."
Daniel was getting irritated. "You should know me better than that. I wouldn't have hurt anyone at the SGC and I honestly don't plan on hurting anyone while I'm here."
Maybourne nodded. "You might not know yourself as well as you think. You're the one who typed up those papers from the planet. What makes you think you're any different from them? If you need blood, you'll find a way to get it. Oh, and on the topic of alien technology and the possibility of you attacking my staff..." He clapped his hands together once and disappeared.
Daniel stood still for a moment, waiting for something to happen. Just in case, he backed up a few steps into the kitchen to assure that the exterior lights weren't about to be triggered again.
Maybourne reappeared by the bookshelf he'd first been standing beside. He held up a small disc, about the size of a milk bottle top, with a red blinking light in the center. He looked very excited, bursting to tell him all about the device, but waiting for Daniel to ask for the information.
"What's that supposed to do?" Daniel asked mechanically as he rolled his eyes. It was apparent that Maybourne wouldn't just give him the answer.
Maybourne smiled. "Glad you're catching on." He relaxed a little. "It was created on a planet where migrating carnivores, roughly the size of a t-rex, would come through and eat travelers on the way between towns."
"Long story short?" Daniel asked. As much as he always enjoyed hearing about the plights of people from other planets, at the moment he was more concerned with his own problems.
Maybourne sighed, disappointed that he'd have a less colorful story to tell. "It masks the vital signs of anyone holding this device. It keeps their heart rate, body temperature, respiration, and scent entirely masked from all other living creatures. It can't fool machines, and their voices can still be picked up, but one day we can adapt the technology for special operations." He smiled again, hoping for some reaction.
Daniel didn't say anything.
"The point is that every person you come in contact with will be wearing one of these." He waved the medallion a little. "Hopefully you won't start thinking my staff are an appealing snack, but who knows for sure?"
Daniel sighed. "So explain to me again why you want me here?"
Maybourne made a gesture as if setting the pendant on an invisible table in front of him. When he dropped it, it disappeared. He put his hands in his pockets. "We know everything that was in the books you got from your friend Breck, but our organization wants to verify the accuracy of the data. Besides, not all the details of your condition were in those records. We need a living specimen to answer a few specific questions."
Daniel was shocked. "You'd be wasting your time. The books are right. They've been gathering information for centuries." He raised his voice, finally too irritated to contain his emotions, "Why are you really keeping me here?"
"It should be obvious, shouldn't it?" Maybourne asked with another chipper grin.
Daniel nodded. "You want to make this parasite into some kind of biological weapon, and you need an endless supply of samples."
Maybourne smiled and touched his finger to the tip of his nose. "You knew exactly what I was thinking."
"But that's how Breck's world ended up the way it is now; the Goa'uld made this parasite as a weapon. Noone benefited."
"Ba'al successfully kept Anubis away from Breck's planet. It cut him off from resources and manpower." He looked around the room again. "We didn't do too bad of a job here, but you'll have to earn your furniture back. If you play nice we might even give you a television." With that, Maybourne's hands clapped together and he disappeared.
Daniel could hear some people approaching. The door opened again. He backed as far as he could into the kitchen, expecting the light. The only lights to come on were a series of normal halogen lights. It was bright, but it wasn't burning his skin.
"It's time to come with us," a woman's voice called after a few more seconds.
Daniel stepped out and saw five people: two well-armed men in uniforms and three women in lab coats. Maybourne had been right about the way the devices worked on him. It felt like they weren't even standing there; he felt like a normal person again. If he concentrated, he could pick up a few stray thoughts, but otherwise they may have been holograms just like Maybourne.
"Right this way, Doctor Jackson," one of the men added, gesturing with his gun.
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"General, it's been three weeks and there hasn't been a single word from Daniel," Jack said in an irritated voice. "Or from Carter!"
"You knew contact with them would be infrequent once they were removed by the NID," General Hammond said calmly from behind the desk.
Jack had been on desk duty every day for the last three weeks while his gunshot wound healed, and every day Teal'c would stop by Jack's office to ask about word from Daniel and Sam. The handful of people with clearance high enough to know about the parasite would also ask him about how Daniel or Sam were doing whenever they passed him in the halls. O'Neill finally convinced himself to ask the questions that protocol wouldn't normally allow.
"Didn't you make sure the President put in a good word for them with those psychopaths?"
"Of course we did but..."
"Then one of them would have dropped us a line, or made a call," Jack insisted.
Hammond sighed. "Regardless of how either one is being treated, the location is secured."
"Then they are being treated like a criminal?" Jack asked as casually as he could, his eyes catching a new photograph on the wall. He squinted a little to examine it.
"Just about all we're going to get out of the NID is that they are both still alive."
Jack looked at Hammond.
"Yes, I've tried to get an update," Hammond admitted. "They're alive," he said with a shrug.
"I want to talk to them, or at least one of them," Jack said. "I know how twisted the NID can be, and for all we know alive means knocked out and strapped to a table with half their organs missing."
Hammond raised his eyebrows.
"Blame Fraiser," Jack said defensively. "She's the one who's been coming up with that stuff. That's part of the reason I'm down here! Everyone who knows what happened to Danny and Carter have been acting a little off ever since they left. Knowing our people have been locked up... We just want to hear it from their own lips that they're ok."
Hammond nodded a little and was silent for several seconds.
"Plus the NID should try to figure out why I wwas't infected," Jack added. "If they are making a weapon, they should at least know how to disarm it. Fraiser hasn't had access to the parasite since Daniel left. Maybe I'm immune or maybe my blood has a cure."
"Or maybe you were just lucky." Hammond nodded again, already having decided before the last portion of Jack's speech. "I'll make some calls."
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Daniel was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. He was sore all over, tired, dizzy, and above all hungry to the point of being able to think of nothing else. It was the middle of his third day since the Keepers decided he should be punished for another attempted escape. This wasn't the first, nor would it be his last, attempt at freedom, no matter how awful this type of punishment felt. He had kept his word and his morality during every attempt, not injuring NID soldiers in any way… Maybe that was exactly why he had failed.
After each failed attenpt they've waited only two days before resuming their daily delivery two bags of O+ to his doorstep at 5 pm sharp. By the end of the second day he had always been too weak for the scientists to run the tests they'd planned. Even if he drank enough water to fill a swimming pool, his body couldn't keep up with the needs of the parasites unless they supplied him with at least one unit daily. His performance on their tests was improved if he was allowed one unit every 12 hours.
By the start of the third day, Daniel realized that this time was probably not about punishment. He knew it was likely that they were going to see approximately how long he could go between transfusions. One of the books from Breck's planet generalized that after four days the transformed person, suffering from starvation, would attack anyone who came near.
Daniel's eyes turned towards the door, and he raised his eyebrows. He could hear four people approaching, and one of them wasn't wearing an alien device.
When it got to be this long since he'd eaten, he could hear the Keepers even more clearly as they approached, even with those devices to mask their life signs. It was at these times that he became more familiar with the layout of the building and the routine these soldiers were supposed to follow.
When the Keepers were coming to run practical tests in the empty room, two or three people would walk down a staircase, travel a winding hallway, and approach through the door to the right of the room. If they came to run simple blood tests and check his vital signs, two or three would come from a freight elevator and bring equipment through the door straight out from his glass door, near the examination tables. When people were coming to bring him food, one Keeper would approach, alone, from an elevator, walk down a hallway, and appear through the door to the left of his room. Aside from his first day, that was the only protocol that had happened during his five weeks of confinement.
This time, something was different. He could tell they were four people approaching from the doorway to the left – that he was sure of - and only three were walking; the other was unconscious and being dragged. Two of the sets of footsteps stumbled a little and had an erratic pace. The third was walking with heavier steps, probably armed and acting as a guard while the other two carried the fourth person.
He sat up slowly, keeping his balance on the arm of the sofa as he got to his feet. They were at least halfway down the hallway now, and he hated how that made him feel. It had been weeks since anyone without the alien device had been so close to him, and he knew they were only going to come closer. As long as he was alone, he felt like he could last a little longer, but as soon as anyone was close enough for him to hear even their footsteps approach his cell, he felt he was capable of acting like any other starving animal.
The one with the heavier footfalls opened the door and held it for the rest. The normal halogen lights clicked on. He was a soldier holding a large, heavy gun. The other two trailed in, dragging a bound and gagged person, just as Daniel had thought.
He licked his lips. This must be another test, the same test that the vampires on the other planet administered to freshly infected people.
The soldier let the door slam. He stopped walking, looking annoyed. "Hold," he ordered the others. His eyes turned upwards, towards one of the video cameras. "What are you waiting for?" he shouted.
The UV lights clicked on from above.
Daniel stumbled towards the kitchen, the one spot in the front room that was shielded from the light coming through the glass doors. His vision clouded from the head rush and dehydration as he fell into the shade of the kitchen counter, his heart beating fast. Once he hit the floor his vision cleared, but the room was almost too bright for him to open his eyes.
The doors opened and the two soldiers carrying the person walked in.
"What-" Daniel cleared his throat. It had been days since he'd spoken to anyone. "What are you doing?"
There was no answer and he was too weak to pick up any stray thoughts from them.
Daniel heard the rustling, then a thud as they dropped the unconscious man, and the glass doors closed again with a click.
He heard one of them mutter softly to the other as they walked back the way they'd come. "If we end up with skin cancer from these high-powered sunlight laps every day, they better give us a retirement bonus."
The other one elbowed him and whispered. "You know regulations. We're not supposed to talk until we're back to command. They say that thing in there can hear us."
The soldier with the gun gave the simplest reply, "Shhh!" as he opened the door for the other two. They walked through, and he followed, the door clicking shut behind him. All the lights in the room went out again.
"Thing," Daniel muttered, almost as shocked by their view of him as he was by the fact that he'd give anything to just jump up, grab onto the person on the floor, and drink his fill before even bothering to examine exactly who the man was. He looked towards the unconscious man, doing his best to try to avoid thinking about what he was feeling.
The man was wearing a generic dark green uniform and a green hat. He didn't smell the way he thought a person should, but when he was so hungry he guessed his senses might be getting desperate.
Daniel leaned against counter's cupboards, looking towards the ceiling-anywhere but the man on the floor. "C'mon... you're better than that," he assured himself with a sigh.
Maybourne appeared by the bookshelf, just as he had several other times. "You don't need to worry about infecting him. Consider it a peace offering. You get what you need, and we get your continued cooperation."
Daniel glared at Maybourne.
"He's just some Jaffa unlucky enough to follow an SG team through the gate," he continued as if there was nothing wrong with the arrangement. "It turns out your parasite can't take hold in a Jaffa. It can't do anything to convert them. We don't know for sure what keeps it from happening, but so far the big brains say it has to do with their immune systems. Since your parasite was designed by a Gao'uld to use against humans, they might have built in a safety feature for the Jaffa soldiers." Maybourne strolled towards the Jaffa and bent down to look at him for a moment. "Besides, it looks like he'll be dead pretty soon anyway." He straightened up and looked at Daniel.
Daniel's hands were balled up into fists. No wonder the guy smelled different; he wasn't human. He didn't need Maybourne jeering at him when he was doing all he could to keep from grabbing onto the Jaffa and doing exactly what Maybourne was saying. He licked his dry lips again.
"There's no way out of this," Maybourne said simply, strolling back towards the bookshelf. "It's either him or... you don't eat. Now, if you'll excuse me, I seem to have a guest." Maybourne clapped his hands and disappeared.
Daniel closed his eyes tightly. It seemed to be true. He couldn't imagine any way out of this, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could wait.
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"Nice place you have here," Jack said sarcastically to the back of Maybourne's head as he entered the office attached to the main control room. "Everything a sadistic bastard like you could ever want."
Maybourne was standing beside his desk with his eyes closed, his hand on a glowing crystalline paperweight.
The wall behind Maybourne's desk was full of monitors that were showing several different angles of Daniel's apartment and the area outside his room. Jack was a little confused when he saw Maybourne on one of the monitors standing near Daniel. Maybourne was saying something. As he strolled towards the bookshelf, his image jumped from one screen to the next. As soon as Maybourne's image clapped his hands and vanished from the screen, the paperweight stopped glowing.
Maybourne opened his eyes. "Hi, Jack. What brings you to our little oasis?" His hand moved off of the crystal and he strolled back to the chair behind his desk.
Jack realized that crystal must have been some sort of machine, so he tried to not act too surprised. "The middle of a desert as a prison for a vampire is so predictable," Jack said with a sigh. "Obviously, I'm here to see Daniel."
Maybourne didn't answer.
Jack frowned. "You guys claim to be all about arming our planet against alien threats... or something like that," he added quickly. "Well, Daniel has been doing that too... only with a conscience," Jack emphasized. "The President let me come here because he wants to get a more reliable report on Daniel's conditions."
"Complying with the President is more of a curtsey than a mandate when it comes to my organization." Maybourne admitted with a smile. "Besides, the only difference between the Daniel that's helped you save the world, and the Daniel we're holding, is that now he's become the alien threat."
Jack gave a genuine laugh. "You're more of a threat to our planet than Daniel is, even with that parasite making him a little weird..." Jack hesitated and continued a little more quickly, "-er than anyone who speaks that many languages and travels to other planets every couple of days."
"You don't believe me? See for yourself," Maybourne said. He turned around and gestured towards the monitors, sliding his chair to the side of the mural so Jack could see every one of the screens. Maybourne pointed to the one with Daniel in it.
Jack took a few steps forward to see the details of the images a little more clearly.
Two people were on the floor near the kitchen, just inside the sliding glass doors. The image wasn't very clearly shown on the small security monitor, but all he could see was one person was laying still on the floor and the other was bent over him. Another screen beside that monitor showed the same scene from a different angle, but in no more detail.
"What's going on?" Jack demanded.
"It looks like he's having some dinner," Maybourne said as cheerfully as ever.
Jack was furious. "Take me to him right now," he demanded.
"I think he's a little busy," Maybourne said in a voice of mock-concern.
Jack glared at him. "The President gave me authorization, and I said now."
Maybourne sighed and got up from behind his desk. "I'm serious, Jack. It probably isn't very safe for you to go down there." He gestured towards the abstract sort of metal and crystal paperweight on his desk.
Jack continued to watch Maybourne carefully.
"But, if you insist in talking to him, I have another way."
Jack looked at the device. "You mean what you were doing when I came in?"
He nodded. "Press down the short green crystal with your index finger. Your image will be projected into his room. You can walk around like usual, and when you want to leave, clap your hands. Your real hand will lift up and you're be back in the room."
Jack quickly pressed the crystal with his hand and suddenly found himself standing in the living room of Daniel's apartment. "Daniel! What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded, walking past the couch and towards the pair on the floor.
Daniel paused, not turning towards his friend. For a moment, even he wasn't sure what he'd done. He'd been sitting a few feet away, trying not to think about the man, and suddenly he was drinking from the Jaffa's arm.
Jack still couldn't tell what had been going on, but he had a pretty good idea. "Did you just bite that guy?"
"Is that really you, Jack?" Daniel asked at a whisper, still not looking towards his friend.
"Who else would it be?" Jack asked quickly.
"Maybourne."
"Ah," Jack said quickly. "Good point. Well, assuming I'm me, tell me what just happened!" he said more urgently.
"It must be you," Daniel said just as quietly, still not turning around, "since you have such great timing." He looked around for something to stop the bleeding. He saw a rag on the floor by where he had been sitting, so he reached forward and grabbed it.
Jack walked over to see exactly what he was doing. Daniel was holding a bloody kitchen towel to the arm of the unconscious man.
"I didn't have a choice," Daniel said quietly, still not looking at his friend. He tied the towel around the cut and looked up to Jack, wiping his mouth with his hand as if it could hide what he'd just done.
Jack was shocked and a little disgusted. All he could do is gesture at the guy on the floor and then at Daniel.
Daniel sighed, licking his lips to get the last of the blood from them. He was still very hungry, but at least he could think again. "They haven't given me anything to eat in more than three days, and today it looked like they were going to test me the way the vampires on Breck's planet wanted to."
Jack was still finding it hard to form words, but he tried to calm down enough to ask his next question less harshly. "So were you?" He gestured again.
"Going to kill him?" Daniel offered calmly. The parasites were apparently very appreciative of the meal because, even with what he'd just allowed himself to do, he was still feeling more relaxed than he had been in days. "He was dying before I touched him. Maybourne said he can't be transformed by the parasite, but I-I couldn't have..." Daniel's expression tensed a little, wondering if he really was telling the truth. "I mean..."
Jack wasn't really convinced. "When a dying man needs help, the Daniel I know would have helped him, not taken a bite out of his arm."
Daniel clenched his teeth, finally fed up with having to excuse every one of his actions. He stood face to face with the projection of his friend. "I've been shot, and burned, and they broke my wrist. It's been three days since they gave me anything to help me recover. You'll excuse me, Jack, if I finally gave in. One second I was sitting there, trying to convince myself that I'm any better than those the vampires like Bethany, and the next I've already got my teeth in him," Daniel shouted a little more harshly than he'd intended. "I blacked out!" He licked his lips again and turned away from his friend, looking down at the Jaffa. Daniel could feel his injuries mending, but he could also feel his thirst becoming stronger again.
Jack didn't really have a reply. He was stunned. Daniel never shouted like that at anyone unless they disserved it. "What did you just say?" he asked, trying to contain his renewed frustration.
"Sorry," Daniel said after another minute. Above all else, he needed to stay calm. Daniel wanted to make sure he didn't slip up and hurt the man again. He looked his friend straight in the eyes. "I swear I had no idea what I was doing, and under different circumstances I might have been able to last a few more hours. That's the most I could have hoped for... a few hours." He looked away again. "At least we know I have three days before I really lose it."
Jack nodded a little. "With the things that creep Maybourne was saying about you..."
"This was the first time they put someone in here with me." He looked back to Jack and then continued. "I almost made it to the freight elevator shaft," he said more distantly. The starving parasites must have already finished off their meal because the euphoric feeling had completely dissipated. All that was left was an ache in his gut and a fresh pain in his chest… And the Jaffa's heart was still beating just a few feet away.
"You what?" Jack asked, still irritated and disgusted, but foremost confused by the change in subject.
"I drank what was left in the refrigerator and found a blanket to use when I got to the surface," he continued. "I put all the energy I could into that fixture over the sink." He nodded upwards, still looking at his friend. Now on top of the aches he was just left with the reality of his nearly having finished off a dying man. Jack was right by using the phrase the Daniel I knew because he defiantly wasn't the same man he was two months ago. "If I'd have just tried to step across that threshold the motion sensors would have turned on twenty-two panels of UV lights."
Jack could see scorch marks on all of the lighting fixtures in the kitchen. He realized they must have been from sparks that shot out when the light bulbs blew. "Twenty-two panels? That's one hell of a power bill."
"I shorted out the whole base, from what I could tell," Daniel continued with a laugh. "I passed through the glass doors-literally-, made it across the room, and was almost halfway down the hall to the main stairwell when the lights came back on. I covered up pretty fast but by then the soldiers were already surrounding me."
"So you tried to escape?" Jack was finally calmed down enough to really follow the story.
"This place is a lot smaller than I thought it was, at least compared to the SGC," Daniel said. "Just seven floors up and I'd have been at the surface. You and Maybourne aren't even in the same building as me. Turns out the device you're using to talk to me has a fifty-five mile range. About twenty miles from where I am is a town. I could have had shelter and found a car. Eventually I could have made it back to a gate."
"Aren't you supposed to not know stuff like that?" Jack asked. "What with being their prisoner, and all?"
"It took me a long time to find the information. They have some sort of device that blocks me from hearing their thoughts. That, and no single person knew everything I'd need to get out." Daniel leaned against the back of the couch, looking towards the kitchen. "The people who have the closest contact with me all the time are blindfolded when they're higher than the third floor, and they were all transported on cargo planes and covered trucks. I think the third floor is where they have most of the labs. It's just far enough away from me that I can't hear them. I got most of the above-ground specs from one of the armed guards." Daniel smiled a little. "He was on his lunch break and took a short cut through a staircase on the fourth floor. Most of the others don't even know they're in a desert."
"So you wanted to get back to the SGC?"
Daniel shook his head a little, folding his arms.
"Of course not," Jack smiled. "It would have been easier for you to sneak across the border to Russia and use the gate they have in storage."
Daniel just nodded. "Any word from Breck?"
"Nothing," Jack said. "With all the super-powered troubles they were having that night he might not have survived. We dialed once, but the wormhole wouldn't connect. Guess you might want to revise your escape plan."
Daniel nodded a little, considering what else he might do if he escaped and quickly drawing a blank. "What actually brings you to this little zoo?"
"You don't call, you don't write..." Jack complained in a very casual, joking manner. "I'm just making sure they didn't have you locked in a freezer or chained up in a dungeon."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "Dungeon?"
"You can blame Teal'c for that last one."
Daniel nodded a little. "So... you're just here to catch up?"
"Well, yeah," Jack said simply. "How have you been?"
Daniel played along and answered in a sign-song voice. "You know the usual. Daily blood tests, the occasional sunburn... Every now and then I manage to get myself shot," he added, pulling up his pant leg to show a softball-sized bruise with a red scab in the center. "It should start to clear up now that they've fed me." That wasn't the only pain that hadn't gotten around to healing itself. His headache was getting worse than it had been before Jack arrived. Admittedly, his wasn't exactly staying as calm as he probably should have been.
"That's from three days ago?" Jack said with a wince. "And not so much as a band-aid from those mad scientists?"
A pain shot through his chest, but he ignored it. "Is Sam alright? When I got here t-they told me you went to your cabin to recover and that she wasn't infected so they sent her back to the SGC."
"I did for a few days," Jack said as calmly as he could. "But Carter never came back. I was hoping you knew where she went."
Daniel shook his head and sighed. "They told me that neither of you were infected."
"Fraiser didn't have your blood samples to test them with mine. The sneaky SOBs here probably got some of mine, so I hoped they are trying to figure it out."
"When I went back to the planet, Breck told me the God of their planet was Anubis and that Nirrti was involved. Breck and I figured out that Baal probably used Nirrti to create this parasite as a weapon against Anubis," Daniel said quickly. "Ask around. If you could follow-up on that angle, maybe you won't need my blood to find a cure."
Jack looked around a little, trying to keep from acting on his impulse to clap his hands just so he could go back to the office and punch Maybourne. "Is it just me, or didn't you used to live in a place like this off base?"
Daniel nodded. He went into the kitchen and filled one of the paper cups with water, drinking it and then crumpling up the cup.
"You need water?" Jack asked, a little surprised.
"Do you ever read even a little of the reports people type up?" he asked, his eyes falling on the Jaffa again. "
Jack folded his arms, also looking down at the unconscious man. "Who is that guy?" He positioned himself to see the face more clearly. "He looks familiar."
Daniel tilted his head a little, scanning the man's mind. "An average Jaffa," he said simply, pulling the hat off his head to reveal the tattoo. "Strong-willed but no match for the NID."
"That's where!" Jack said quickly, pointing at the Jaffa as if he'd just spotted a face in a crowd. "A few days after you left, SG-7 was coming in hot and he was the only Jaffa to follow them through before we closed the iris."
"They took his symbiote three days ago; the same night I tried to escape," Daniel continued. He looked hard at the unconscious Jaffa. "He's almost dead. Even if I hadn't taken some of his blood, I don't think he'd every have woken up again," he added in a sad voice.
"Well, he was trying to kill all of us," Jack confirmed.
"His name was Rowak, and it wasn't him trying to kill you. It was some Gao'uld he thought was a God." He clenched his teeth, angry at himself and the universe in general. His own heart was racing and it was just making his head hurt more. He raised his voice again out of frustration. "This soldier spent his whole life training to die in battle. Instead, he's taken apart piece by piece to be used by the NID. They interrogated him for information on the Gao'uld for the last two and a half weeks. After they'd stripped him of his honor and made him betray his God's secrets, they took his symbiote. When he was finally too weak to answer questions, they decided to feed him to some monster they have locked up in their basement. He doesn't even know it's happening..." He crossed one arm around his middle and put the other to his head, his temple throbbing and his chest working painfully.
This was the Daniel that Jack really remembered, and he was very glad to see some of that Daniel alive and well inside this new version. "Even if you weren't locked up in this place they'd have still just let the guy die," Jack assured. "We all do things we might not like when we want to stay alive. In your case, you were basically under the mind control of the parasite. Did they ever figure out if your little bugs really are like the big worms?"
"They never told…" The room started to spin. Daniel wobbled and he fell to his knees. It felt like something was squeezing all the air out of his lungs while at the same time impaling him with a rod through the abdomen. One arm was still around his middle, the other bracing him up from the floor. All he could do was let out a faint groan as the pain began to spread.
"You OK?" Jack asked urgently.
Daniel shook his head a little, lowering himself gently to the floor. He was lying flat on his back, just as he had several times over the last few days. Before it had helped, but now it was steadily getting harder for him to breath.
Jack was getting nervous. "This isn't just a way of getting out of this room right?" he asked at a loud whisper.
Daniel shook his head a little, gasping for air. He rolled over on his side. It must have been the Jaffa blood. Breck's records never mentioned Jaffa on their planet after the parasite was introduced, and since Maybourne said they can't be transformed that was the only thing that could be making him feel so sick. "Jaffa," he panted. "I shouldn't have... Bad..."
"I know biting the guy was bad." As had happened several times already, Jack wasn't following Daniel's train of thought. "Daniel, just tell me what's wrong," Jack said more urgently.
"Transfusion," he panted. "Not Jaffa. Need regular human." That was all he could manage to say.
Jack could feel a hand on his shoulder, and faintly hear someone calling his name. He looked down at Daniel. "I'm going to be right back with help. You gonna be ok for a minute?"
Daniel nodded quickly, concentrating hard on just getting another breath.
Jack clapped his hands and found himself standing in Maybourne's office.
"We hear that Daniel is requesting human blood," Maybourne said smugly.
Jack's concerned expression jumped back to on-guard irritation. There was a red light blinking near one of the monitors. "Only you could say that in a way that's creepier than the actual vampire! It's not like he was asking for a snack! You guys made him sick when you gave him that Jaffa and now he needs it. Do you have any medics heading down there?"
Maybourne nodded. "We have a doctor and a guard on standby to verify his condition."
Jack glanced at the monitor when he saw the lighting change.
The UV panels outside Daniel's mock-apartment had been activated.
The monitors in that room only played the audio softly, but he could faintly hear Daniel screaming in pain.
"What the hell are you doing now?" Jack shouted, charging at the monitors to get a better look at his friend's condition.
Daniel's image flipped onto his stomach and was helplessly reaching for the foot of the counter, trying to drag himself into the familiar shade of the kitchen. He wasn't moving very fast, and even on the black and white monitors Jack could tell that Daniel's bare arm was being burned very badly.
"Shut off those damned lights!" Jack shouted at Maybourne.
Maybourne walked over to a panel of un-marked buttons beside the monitors and hit several of them in sequence. "He would have gotten away from the light if he could have," he agreed remaining calm and unconcerned.
The lights outside his room reduced to half the intensity, signifying that the UV lights had been turned off and the halogens had taken over.
Daniel's arm stopped thrashing for the shade and fell motionless to the floor.
"Gosh, Jack, you think we'd let our favorite little vampire get all burned up?"
Jack glared at him. "Whatever you've been doing to him, stop it. Give him a break."
The nurse rolled Daniel onto his back, unsnapped the Velcro of his shirt and slid the IV directly into Daniel's chest.
"We've been doing just as the President ordered: treating him better than any of the Gao'uld we have ever managed to capture."
"That is a pretty poor standard! Daniel and Gou'ld should never be put in the same category," Jack shouted back, irate. "Daniel's just a nice guy who has to go on a liquid diet because of some bugs in his system. That's all. Period. And are you even working on a cure? Did you try to figure out why I didn't get infected? Am I immune or something? Or were you just planning on keeping Daniel in that room until you had all your questions answered?" Jack demanded.
"To make a cure, we first have to study the parasite, and see exactly what..."
"Cut the crap," Jack interrupted.
Maybourne looked into Jack's eyes. "We aren't currently working on a cure, and we haven't looked into the reason for your recovery."
Jack threw his hands up in the air and went back to the device, pushing his finger into the small green crystal. He found himself by the bookshelf again.
The nurse and the guard jumped a little when he materialized, tense around the creature they were supposed to look after.
Jack walked over to the duo so he could get a better look at Daniel.
Daniel had been flipped onto his back, his breathing labored. His right arm was so badly burned that it looked like it had been dipped in some sort of flaky black batter and allowed to dry.
"Daniel," Jack said to him gently. "Doin' any better?"
Two more soldiers arrived with a gurney, loading the Jaffa onto it to remove him from the room.
Daniel's eyes moved up to his friend, but he couldn't answer, his mouth still open to gasp for air.
Jack looked to the nurse. "How is he?"
"A direct line will cause the heart to circulate the transfused blood more quickly. Research suggests that it should start to recover as the heart circulates it." The nurse squeezed the bag a little to speed the flow. "And we've brought another package for it to drink once it's strong enough to move around."
"Did you just call him it?" Jack asked quickly.
The two guards carrying the Jaffa opened the door to the hallway. It slammed heavily shut behind them.
The remaining guard and nurse both looked at Jack, as if confused by his comment.
Jack was getting even more irritated. "Does it make it easier for you to treat him like garbage when you don't call him a him?" he demanded.
They still didn't answer. The package of blood was nearly empty.
Jack threw up his hands in frustration.
"With respect, sir, it's not really a person," the guard finally said. "Not anymore."
"His name is Daniel and he's one of the best people I've ever known," Jack replied.
"It may have been a good person before, but it's not one now," the guard continued to argue. "Look at it," the guard said with a nod towards Daniel with an expression of disgust. "It drinks people's blood to survive, and has strange powers. It can read people's minds or just electrocute them with its hands. It's more like a Goa'uld than a human; it's a dangerous animal."
"And yet he's still the most moral person on this base," Jack replied, very frustrated.
The package of blood attached to Daniel was finally empty. The nurse pulled the needle from his chest, and gave a nod to the guard. She turned around and walked through the open glass doors.
The guard backed out, his weapon aimed at Daniel even though Daniel hadn't moved.
"Let me ask you one little thing before you go," Jack called, standing in the line of fire as he followed the guard out.
The guard raised his eyebrows, and kept his weapon aimed at Daniel through Jack's hologram.
"Has Daniel actually hurt anyone since he got here?"
The nurse turned around, but neither answered.
"He hasn't zapped anyone with his hands?" Jack offered. "Maybe tried to bite a guard? Or scratch someone? Oh, has he talked to you in your head? 'Cuse I bet that if he wanted to he could sing a song over and over again until you wanted to shoot yourself."
"No, sir, it hasn't," the guard admitted, almost in a disappointed voice.
"Not even when he tried to escape?" Jack continued to prompt. He passed through the open glass doors, but seemed to have hit a barrier a few paces outside the door frame. He stopped. "A big, bad, alien monster who can walk through walls just happens to get recaptured without a fight?"
The guard and nurse still didn't answer, and kept backing towards one of the doors.
"So if he's such a dangerous animal, why hasn't he tried to hurt a single person?"
"It bit the Jaffa," the guard said quickly, stopping for Jack's reply.
Jack laughed. "If you so-called decent human beings hadn't starved him for three days he wouldn't have hurt anyone!"
Again the guard didn't answer. He turned around and followed the nurse across the empty room towards the door they'd arrived through.
"Besides, as a member of the NID I bet you've done some pretty despicable things just as part of your job description," he shouted as they kept walking away from him. "You'd better spread the word to his other jailers that it's actually a person you have locked up alone down here!"
The door slammed shut as they left the room.
Jack turned around and went back into Daniel's apartment.
Daniel's burnt hand reached towards the package of blood the nurse had left on the floor beside him.
"Feeling any better?" Jack called as he made it to his friend.
"Thank you for saying that," Daniel said softly with an airy voice. It was still a little hard for him to breath. Daniel held the bag in his burnt hand as he used his good one to sit himself up. He leaned against the counter.
Jack shrugged. "I can't believe they were calling you an it."
Daniel shrugged a little as he used his teeth to tear open the edge of the package, just as he had always done before they'd started to starve him. He started to drink from the bag.
Jack looked away from his friend, distracting himself from Daniel by passing his hand back and forth through a lamp.
"Unless you guys find a way to get me out, this is what the rest of my life is going to look like," Daniel said as he finished the last few drops of the bag and tossed it towards the sink.
"That does it," Jack said finally. "Screw the regulations they have at this nut house. I'm going to make them take me down here."
Daniel slowly pulled himself to his feet. Steadying himself, he walked over to the couch and plopped down heavily, putting his face in his hands and bending forward towards the floor. "Don't bother. It would probably be better for everyone if you didn't."
Jack didn't argue. "I'll give my report to the President and see if I can swing something."
"Thanks, Jack," Daniel said unenthusiastically, still not looking at him.
Jack walked in front of the couch. "Give me a chance to do something before you make any more escape attempts, ok?"
"I don't think there will be any more escape attempts," Daniel said quickly with a flat voice, still not looking up.
"Daniel?" Jack said in his usual scolding tone. "I mean it."
Daniel let his hands fall and then he looked up with another sigh. "So do I," he finally said with much more passion. "Where would I even go? The SGC would send me right back to Maybourne and if I can't dial into Breck's planet, then why should I even bother?"
"Just stay put," Jack said. "It'll just get you hurt before I can do something."
"All I have to do is step through those doors, and there'll be enough direct light to turn me to dust in a few minutes," Daniel added, his focus shifted to the blackened skin covering his arm. Using his other hand, he lightly scratched at the charred covering. It flaked off with ease, revealing new, completely healthy pink skin beneath. "That is, if they'd ever let me die."
"Don't plan the barbeque yet," Jack argued quickly. "Give me at least a week. That's a full seven days sortof week, not just a work week. When the President hears they haven't looked into why I didn't get infected I'm sure we can get you reassigned to the base, at least for a while."
Daniel nodded, brushing the last of the leathery ashes from his skin and finally looking back to Jack. "A week."
Jack clapped his hands and reappeared in the office.
Daniel put his feet up on the couch, shielding his tired eyes with his forearm as he reclined.