Thanks to the usual suspects. Special thanks to Kate for her quick and wonderful beta-work.


Chapter 8

"Hello?"

Jack's head perked up at hearing Major Samantha Carter's voice through the phone. He figured they weren't in the seventies when they found the card slot on the pay phone located at the turn off. They didn't have card slots back then. Carter's voice flooded him with instant relief, confirming that he and Daniel were indeed where they belonged in the year two thousand and four. "Carter! It's me!" He greeted her joyfully.

There was a short silence in which Jack could hear the humming of a dozen computers in the background. No doubt Sam was in her lab at Stargate Command trying to figure out what happened to him and Daniel. "Colonel, where are you?"

"Bay City… I think."

"Is Daniel with you?"

"Yes, we're all right. Carter, just to verify that Daniel and me didn't jump to another reality. We're not married are we?"

"Nope."

"I jumped through that mirror, right?"

"After the dog pulled Daniel in, yes Sir."

"Hammond is still in charge?"

"Yep."

"Teal'c's still part of the team?"

"Very much so, Sir."

"So, I guess it's safe to assume Daniel and I are where we're suppose to be?"

"I can't be sure until I run some tests on you, but yes. From the sound of it, you merely transported over to Bay City and neither jumped through time nor reality."

Jack turned in the small confines of the phone booth. Absentmindedly, he fumbled with the edges of Daniel's inserted card, careful not to pull it out. "Okay, in that case we have a Goa'uld on the loose."

"What?" She sounded shocked.

He explained about the sarcophagus they found in the cellar.

"I better go talk to General Hammond about this. Sir, if what you say is true we might have to close off Bay City."

"Just… hold that thought, Carter. Give me a little more time. We don't want to alert the Goa'uld that we're on to him."

"You think it might be inside either Starsky or Hutch, don't you?" She guessed.

"It might. Look… let me track them down first. The dog's here… somewhere, so it's a safe bet they're here too."

"If they are, then the mirrors must have worked together to transport them to our time and place. Sir, they don't belong here, and are in way over their heads."

"Yeah, especially if one of them is playing host to a Goa'uld."

"That doesn't have to be the case, Colonel."

"I know. At any rate, start working on a plan to get them home."

"Can't we just use both mirrors again to get them back to their own reality? It's probably the way they got here in the first place."

"Not really. I kinda… broke mirror number two."

There was a slight pause. "Right, I'm on to it."

"Anything else?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Are you sure neither you nor Daniel got bitten by that dog?"

Jack's eyes centered on Daniel who was pacing restlessly up and down the road. "Pretty sure, why?"

"I've analyzed the dog's saliva we found on the floor of the briefing room."

"And?"

"Sir, it's not good."

"And by that you mean…"

"Among other things I found traces of Mandrake root and thus a measurable amount of Atropa Belladonna."

Jack didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so he just repeated his first question, "And by that you mean…"

"Poison."

"As in… the deadly kind?"

"I'm afraid so. There's more, Sir. The saliva also contains chemicals that acts as a conductor."

"A conductor? To what?"

"I'm still working on that."

"Wait a minute, Carter. Didn't one of the cops got bitten by that dog?"

"Hutch… The blond."

Jack couldn't help but brag slightly, "I know Hutch is the blond, Major."

"It all depends on how much of it got into his system. Judging from what we've seen, the dog got him pretty good, so it's safe to say a fair amount found its way in. Not taking into account the unknown variables such as the conductive chemicals-"

Jack was getting impatient. "Carter… just bottom line this for me, will you?"

"Detective Hutchinson will die within the next couple of hours, Sir."


Hutch felt extremely tired. He had to concentrate to keep both feet on the ground. His head hurt, dizzy spells kept happening, and his stomach couldn't decide whether it should empty its contents through his throat. Still limping, he walked across the busy emergency room toward the exit. They led to an anteroom where a pair of revolving doors led outside.

Apart from his physical ordeal Hutch also felt damn disorientated, as if he had trouble waking up from a dream. He felt like he'd taken ten rounds of roller coaster rides. He stopped walking when the solid walls of the anteroom suddenly started spinning and shivers of intense cold froze him in his steps.

"Hey."

Hutch turned to stare at his partner, the only person in this world who felt real to him. Trying to answer the worried look his friend shot him, he only succeeded in getting more nauseous. He put an arm against the wall. Leaning forward, he closed his eyes to steady himself.

"Medicine's not helping?" Starsky asked calmly, referring to the two pills Bonnie had made Hutch swallow earlier.

Without looking up Hutch shook his head, deeply inhaled and exhaled, and then swallowed a couple of times in an effort to get rid of the queasy feeling.

"I'll go and get Bonnie."

"No," Hutch snapped. "No… just… stay here will ya?" He didn't know why, but the thought of staying behind, alone, even if it was just a couple of minutes, scared the crap out of him. "Stay here," he stated again, forcing his thoughts outward on his partner instead of on how miserable he was feeling. He looked up. Starsky's eyes had softened. It always amazed Hutch how a man with Starsky's hot temper and bursts of anger was capable of such peaceful quietness when it came to the ones he loved. It made him feel better and he regained some sense of balance. The room stopped spinning, his stomach settled down and the shivers stopped.

Starsky's eyes never left him. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Nodding more firmly, "Yeah." He took a deep breath. "Starsk," he asked, turning around to lean against the same wall with his arms behind his back. "Where the hell are we?"

Intelligent blue eyes beneath dark curls drifted from Hutch over to the revolving doors. "I don't know."

"C'mon, Starsk. You're the one who reads those magnificent believe-it-or-not books."

"Well…" Starsky sighed as he stared at a normal door next to the revolving one. It opened automatically to let a man in an electric wheelchair enter. The man and his chair disappeared inside through the sliding doors. "Apparently, it's the year two thousand and four." He looked back at Hutch. "And there's suppose to be this look-a-like contest based on a T.V. show… on us… back in the seventies."

Hutch managed a smile, "I'm not so sure you'd win it, buddy. You look like hell."

"Yeah," Starsky laughed, then his smile faded.

Hutch sighed, "It doesn't make much sense, does it?"

"Nope," his partner agreed, "but sense or not, I'm hungry. Come on, I noticed a diner close by. Think you can make that?"

Hutch nodded. Pushing himself of the wall, he thought grimly, well, at least your stomach is still working.


Tbc