A/N: Hope you've been enjoying this story so far, have been missing the reviews, so please guys, don't forget to review and tell me what you think! If you hate it, tell me you hate it, I've got great self esteem, don't worry! Okay, well anyway, back to the present.
Chapter 7
Lizzie had just escorted a family out her front door with calls of well wishes when the phone rang. Rushing back inside, she snatched the receiver off the table in the hallway and answered. "Hello, Lizzie Hayle speaking." She said very businesslike.
"Whoa! Never heard you answer the phone like that!" A man chuckled on the other end.
"Oh, Daniel! It's good to hear from you again. Sorry, I've been dealing with clients all day today, still in my business mode." Lizzie apologized.
"No problem." Daniel replied casually. "I've got some great news for you, Lizzie!" He burst out.
"Oh, really? Like what?" Lizzie countered.
"I finally got clearance for you to come to the base and give some yoga and meditation lessons!" Daniel said with exuberance.
Lizzie was speechless for a few moments. "Oh wow…really? This is going to be fantastic!" She bounced on her feet in glee.
"Yeah, I thought you would be happy. I called as soon as I found out." Daniel said. "So how's tomorrow?" He asked.
"Tomorrow what?" Lizzie asked, not thinking. "Oh, how's tomorrow to come to the base?"
"Yep." Daniel responded.
"That, that would be perfect!" She stopped to think. "Oh, but how am I going to get there?"
"Not a problem, Lizzie. I'll stop by tomorrow morning to pick you up on my way to work. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to stay with you the whole time you're there." He added reluctantly.
"What? Why?" Lizzie asked, a bit nervous.
"Oh, it's nothing to worry about. We've finished the major part of our negotiations with the ambassadors, and we're going to be giving them a tour of the facilities. Being the top liaison, I'm going to be heading the tour. It won't take too long, and I'll definitely be over by the time the session starts." Daniel reassured. "Oh, by the way, I've been spreading the word about it and there seem to be a lot of people interested!"
"That's great!" Lizzie said happily. "Well, I better leave you to finish your planning for your big day tomorrow!" Lizzie said jokingly.
"Your big day, too, you know." Daniel pointed out. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at seven, is that okay?"
"Seven, yeah that's fine. See you then!" Lizzie said, then hung up the phone. Leaning back against the wall, she sighed happily. Finally, she was going to get to see where her friend Daniel and his friends worked. Tomorrow really was a big day.
Right on time, at seven exactly, Daniel pulled up to Lizzie's house. Seeing him, she made sure her front door was locked, then rushed down to his car. Or tried to rush, the four or five rolled mats over her shoulders were slowing her down a bit. Laughing, Daniel called out the window.
"You need any help with that?" He asked with a smile.
Huffing, she reached the passenger door and leaned on it. "No, just open the door for me." Once he had and she had stepped in, she turned to look at him. "I wasn't sure what resources you would have, so I brought some mats with me for the session." Pulling the door closed and clicking on her seatbelt, she shoved the mats into her footwell. "Not that it will be enough, if your estimates where right about how many would be coming." She shrugged. Pointing down the road she said imperiously, "Drive on!"
They both laughed as Daniel pulled away and headed to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. When they had gotten through the first few checkpoints and finally reached the parking lot, Daniel came around and helped Lizzie with the mats. Smiling her thanks, Lizzie stepped out of the car and they both made their way to the entrance to the facility.
Reaching the sign-in station, Daniel approached the guard, who smiled up at him. "Morning, Dr. Jackson." He said.
Daniel nodded to him. "Morning, Tanner." He responded, the guard beaming at Daniel's remembrance of his name. "Tanner, this is Lizzie Hayle." Daniel pointed behind him to Lizzie, who smiled shyly and waved. "She's with me."
"Oh, the yoga lady!" Tanner said, recognition dawning on his face. "I'd go, but I'll still be on duty." He said with a sigh. "Just your signature here, Miss Hayle." He said, pointing to the line under Daniel's signature.
Lizzie leaned down and signed the sheet, Daniel noticing her neat handwriting again. Frowning, he leaned in closer to see the signature. Looking over to Lizzie, a questioning smirk on his face, he opened his mouth to speak. Without even looking up from the paper, Lizzie held up her hand.
"Don't even." She said.
Holding back laughter, Daniel shrugged as she returned the sign-in sheet to Tanner and they both passed into the facility. Once they were in the elevator on the way down, Daniel turned to Lizzie, not being able to resist any longer.
"Lysandrea?" He said, laughter in his voice.
She sighed. "Yes." Glaring up at him with a mock threatening look, she continued. "And don't you tell Jack or the others that, okay? I'd never hear the end of it. Why do you think I go by Lizzie?"
Daniel shook his head, "Okay, but…Lysandrea?" He said again. Lizzie nudged him with her elbow just as the elevator doors opened on the 22nd floor. Looking out, he stepped through. "Okay, this way to the rec-room." He said, turning to the left. Lizzie followed after him.
After a few minutes, they arrived at the rec-room, which served as a gym, weight room, and pretty much anything else recreation-wise the base needed. "Okay," Daniel said, spreading his arms out to encompass the room. "Here it is. You can set up in here, stretch, relax, whatever you want to do." He glanced down at his watch. "I should be back in about two hours, which is a half hour before the session starts. See you then!" He said with a smile, waving as he stepped out and wandered off down the hall.
"Bye…" Lizzie called after him, then glanced around at the large room. Smiling, she started setting out mats. "This is going to be great!" She said to herself. Once she was finished, she settled down on one of them and did a few sitting stretches.
Daniel got to the briefing room, hearing arguing before he even stepped through the door. Coming in, he saw the three ambassadors from the Union planet gesturing angrily at Jack. General Hammond was standing a bit back, the look on his face not too happy.
"We will not stand for this!" The leader shouted; Jack had decided to call him Twiggy, due to the small twigs that seemed to stick out of his medium length white hair, and for the fact that he was rather tall and thin.
Jack threw up his hands. "And I'm not going to stand for you seeding your crazy thinking plants all over the planet!" He shouted back.
"Jack…what's going on?" Daniel asked apprehensively.
Jack turned to face Daniel, a look of relief on his face. "Ah, Daniel! Now you can take care of Twiggy's crazy demands." He walked over, patting Daniel on the shoulder. "Good luck!" He started to leave the room.
"Wait! Jack, what demands?" Daniel grabbed Jack's sleeve before he could leave the room.
"Ehh…Twiggy here wants to be allowed to grow his stupid amplifiers on Earth as part of our trade agreement." Jack said with a sigh.
"Amplifiers?" Daniel thought for a moment. "Jack, they're called amphelos." He sighed. "And you're right, I don't think that's a good idea." He turned around. "General, what's your opinion on this?"
Hammond looked pointedly at the ambassadors, who were still standing there, seemingly having their own exchange, only a bit less openly. They were looking at each other, facial expressions changing every once in a while, and glancing back at Daniel, Jack and the General. It seemed psychic could be added to their list of abilities.
"I think that this requires more negotiation. Dr. Jackson, if you could discuss the matter with the leader, Jack can take the other two on their tour." General Hammond said, gesturing to the man and woman who were with the leader. Jack had dubbed them Spike and Flora, respectively.
A bit taken aback, Daniel nodded. Jack just shrugged and motioned for Spike and Flora to follow him. They exchanged glances with Twiggy, then followed Jack. Hammond nodded back to Daniel, then retreated to his office. Daniel and the leader were the only ones in the room now.
"Okay, well…" Daniel said, not so eloquently. "Let's talk about those seeding rights." He sat down at the briefing table, and the other man sat down across from him, reluctantly.
Jack started his tour out at the gate room, being the easiest room to start with. But by the time he got to the infirmary, he was fed up with the two silent plant people. Snatching a passing SF, he informed the young man that he was to take the two "guests" on a tour of the facility. Smiling at Spike and Flora, Jack left them in the not so capable hands of the completely out-of-water SF, and wandered off to the commissary to get something to eat.
Lizzie had almost finished her stretches when she heard someone's voice down the hallway. The snatches she could catch of what the person was saying had something to do with describing rooms. "It must be the tour group." She thought to herself, and continued doing her standing stretches.
Feeling a tingling in her spine, Lizzie turned around. Standing in the doorway were two people, a man and a woman, both with white hair and strange forest-dress. They both had a shocked look on their faces. Finally, the man stepped forward.
"Traitor!" He hissed, rapidly moving toward Lizzie. "Betrayer of the true Path!" Seeing Lizzie's confused look, he sneered. "Oh, yes. We have heard of you, those who would deny the true Union!"
Stepping closer, the woman joined the man. "Yes, our ancestors who came back from here hid you from us. But their children realized the corruption of the secret, and they gave it to us!" The two were now just out of arms length. Lizzie stood frozen. "We will hunt you down, like the filth you are!" The woman shouted, as both of them reached out their arms, flinging tendrils of vines at Lizzie.
Lizzie brought up her arms to hide her face, but the vines split, a few grabbing her arms and pulling them down, the rest wrapping around her neck. The vines sprouted thorns which dug into Lizzie's skin, causing blood to bead to the surface. Falling to her knees, Lizzie stared up at the two people and their triumphant expressions. Bleeding and suffocating, Lizzie tried to hold on to consciousness, feeling a nudge of support from within. But it wasn't enough. Black spots started creeping into her vision.
Just as she was about to pass out, someone came running into the room. They looked at the scene and immediately punched a big red button on the wall, causing an emergency alarm to sound. The jarring sound managed to keep her semi-conscious long enough to see a figure she thought was Jack come running in and drag the two people away from Lizzie. Unfortunately, at the time of the dragging, she was still attached to them, so she fell face first to the ground and was pulled with them.
A hand brushed against her neck, roughly trying to pull the vines off of her. She had closed her eyes and was drifting away when she felt someone roll her onto her back. The last thing she felt was a soft caress of her face. Thinking it was him, her mind felt an onrush of green as she smiled and slipped into unconsciousness.
Daniel rushed into the infirmary, looking around till his gaze fell on Jack standing at the end of a bed talking to Dr. Frasier. He rushed over. When he got there, he could see Lizzie lying on the bed, asleep with her arms at her sides. Both her forearms were wrapped with bandages, as was her neck. Daniel shot a concerned look at Frasier.
"Is she okay? What happened?" He asked frantically. "I heard that the other two ambassadors are in holding cells under armed guard. What's going on?"
"Calm down, Daniel." Janet said, gesturing for him to lower his voice. "Miss Hayle is fine, for the moment." Seeing Daniel's worried gaze, she elaborated. "All I can tell you is that she has puncture wounds and abrasions on both her forearms and her neck. She was suffering from blood loss and the loss of oxygen to her brain." Gesturing toward Lizzie's prone form, she picked up the clipboard hanging from the end of the bed and walked closer. "We've treated her wounds, and given her some medication for pain, and to allow her body to re-normalize itself. She's sleeping soundly now."
"See, Daniel. Lizzie's doing fine." Jack reassured, resting his arm on Daniel's shoulder.
"But what happened, Jack. Who did this to her?" Daniel asked. "Was it the ambassadors?"
"Yes. It was." Jack said matter-of-factly. "I didn't see the whole thing, but when I came in, they both had their viny things wrapped around her neck and holding her arms down." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know how accurate this is, but the SF that was with them said that he heard them shouting something about 'Betrayer' and 'Traitor'. I dunno."
"An SF?" Daniel said, confused. "You were supposed to be with them, Jack. Are you telling me that you pawned them off on some SF and went off on your merry way?" Daniel thought for a second. "And if the SF was with them, how is it that he didn't know what they said, and why would he have let them do that?" Daniel collapsed into one of the chairs near the bed.
"Yes, I know, I'm sorry Daniel." Jack said seriously. "I should have been with them, but I wasn't. The SF told me he had been stopped by one of the scientists. He didn't know that the ambassadors weren't still with him until he heard the shouting. Then he went to investigate."
A nurse bustled into the room with a medical report and handed it to Dr. Frasier. Janet flipped through it, then frowned. "This is not good." She said.
"What?" Jack and Daniel said simultaneously.
"This is a recent report on Lizzie's condition." Janet shook her head. "After all we've done, she should be getting better, but for some reason, she's not. Her vitals are deteriorating rapidly, and it seems like several of her organs are beginning to fail. This makes no sense." She said half to herself.
"What? Organ failure?" Daniel stood up, his concern renewed. "How?" He asked desperately.
"I don't know." Janet Frasier said, shaking her head sadly.
"I've…been….poisoned." A quiet voice came from the bed. Daniel rushed over and looked at Lizzie.
"What? Poisoned? How do you know?" He tried to resist patting her hair down, choosing to grasp her hand instead.
"We've been warned…about this…for a long time." Lizzie took a deep breath. "I never…thought it would happen…in my generation…though." Daniel opened his mouth to say something, but Lizzie shook her head. "Call my…parents." She said, before falling back into unconsciousness.
Daniel glanced around frantically. "Her phone! Where's her cell-phone?" He looked up at Jack desperately. "It will have her parent's phone number in it, we have to find it!"
Jack nodded grimly at Daniel, ushering him out of the infirmary. "We will, Daniel. We will."
A/N: Okay, I know this one is a bit shorter than past ones, but I hope it made up for it with content. I hope you enjoyed it, please review, and stay tuned for the next chapter!
