The world outside the cave entrance was pitch black, and Sam wondered how many hours she'd lost this time. But even the thought of checking her watch – of moving a muscle – was painful and exhausting. She tried to blame the berries for the nausea she felt, but it was a lie. She was hot and damp and parched and icy, all at once, and that wasn't good.
The creature still watched her from the corner.
No. The child still watched her. Given the dates of the program, it – he or she – couldn't be more than thirteen. And from the growth on the valley, he'd been on his own for at least six or seven years. He, Sam decided, because with all he'd been through, it seemed absolutely inhuman of her to call him 'it.'
She had no idea what to say to him. No idea how to even address what had happened to him or how he'd managed to survive. But she didn't have much choice. Whether he could speak or not – whether he could understand her or not – she had to find a way to engage him. If she didn't, he'd end up still crouched in the corner, watching her die of sepsis. Or shock. Or internal bleeding. Or….
That was an unhealthy line of thought. She tried to abandon it, but a shiver rattled through her, shifting broken bones and making her grunt in pain. It spurred him into action, scooping a torn blanket off the floor and gently laying it over her. The last time he'd been so close, she'd been terrified. Now she felt nothing but compassion.
"My name is Sam," she told him softly, pointing at her chest with her mostly intact right hand. "Sam. What's your name?"
He didn't run away. But he didn't answer, either.
"Have you been alone all this time?" That got her nowhere, either, though his clear blue eyes were glued to hers. "I'm so sorry for what happened to you."
He turned and loped off into the dark.
~/~
The rising sun hadn't made it over the mountains yet, and the gray light that surrounded them matched Jack's mood. Morning gave Carter a better chance of survival and gave them a better chance of finding her. But it also signaled that she'd spent two full nights there already, injured and alone. And that pissed him off.
"Sam?" Daniel called for the forty thousandth time. "Sam?"
"Major Carter!" Dixon's voice was further off, bouncing through the trees.
"Reynolds to O'Neill," their radios crackled. "We found it, Jack."
It wasn't Carter, but it was a break from the monotony, at least. Eyes still scanning the forest floor for his second, he said, "Yeah. Talk to me."
"Lieutenant Fisher restored a system backup from last week and compared it to yesterday to find the missing files. And they're doozies. They were working on a genetic engineering program, gene-splicing human embryos. The program moved in on patients at a bunch of infertility clinics. If the parents were healthy, with good genes of their own, they'd experiment on those embryos and stick 'em back in. If they weren't as top-notch, they got embryos that weren't even theirs."
"Some sort of eugenics program?" Jack asked. "Creating a perfect human?"
"Hell, no, they already do that. This is much worse," the other colonel said, and SG-1's leader glanced at Rina to find her mouth screwed up tight. "The genes they were splicing in weren't even human. They were trying to breed thicker skin, larger cardiovascular systems, increased muscle mass. In the first batch, fur for cold climates."
"I don't understand," Daniel piped up through the radio. "I mean, I get it, I guess. To choose gender, or blue eyes. Or better teeth. But why this?"
"It was a military program, Doctor," Reynolds said simply. He didn't elaborate. And Jack couldn't, pressing his lips together as he swallowed down rage.
"They weren't trying to make better kids, Jackson," Dixon's voice said finally. "They were trying to make better soldiers. Super soldiers. Y'know how Russia used to freeze out enemy armies? That would be tough to do with a squad that grew its own coats."
Jack glanced over to see the archaeologist shake his head in disgust.
"They tried for exoskeletons," Reynolds went on. "Better hearing, better eyesight. Claws."
"They can't have kept this secret," Jack managed finally. "These people wanted to be parents. Didn't they figure it out?"
"Most of the women miscarried within a few weeks," the radio told him. "Ninety percent. Thousands of nonviable fetuses, over seven years. The majority died in utero; some were stillborn. But the parents were told they died, regardless. Under two hundred survived, and half of those didn't live to age two. They were sent to camps for more medical testing. Training. But that went about as well as you'd expect. They scrapped the program six years ago."
There was a pause before Daniel asked, "What did they do with the children who survived?"
Another pause. Then, "You don't want the answer to that."
No, he really didn't.
"No sign of Carter yet?" the man in town asked, more than ready to be done with the subject.
"Signs, yes," Jack said. "Carter, no."
"All right. We're secure here. We'll keep the home fires burning for you."
And then it was silent. Dead silent. The leader of SG-1 looked up to find three of the four members of SG-13 staring at Rina and Ferin with unmitigated murder in their eyes.
Because they were fathers.
Jack had been a father, too, once. And the idea of someone mutilating the child he'd wanted so badly lit a fire of rage in his gut he wasn't sure he'd felt before.
But Carter was still missing.
"Let's move," he ordered, and it came out a growl. "Eyes open."