Trust my luck that Doc uploader is broken when I try to post this .. Thanks to all six of you who reviewed and to the one new person who liked enough to put this alerts.
For all of you who keep saying "Boy, those bad guys are stupid," let me remind you that dumber things have been done within the universe already. Included, but limited to, are: Trying to experiment on Teal'c, killing Daniel, kidnapping Sam, killing Daniel, waltzing into the SGC and trying to take over (I count twice in the first three seasons), killing Daniel, pissing Jack off in general and, of course, killing Daniel.
In short, I'm just fallowing a longstanding tradition.
And, just a note, when I said 'minor,' I meant 'legal minor,' like someone under the age of 18. A kid, child, munchkin, green bean by any other name.
Chapter 11 Damn You Murphy
In which things are found, dreams are had, drugs are administered and creepers watch people sleep.
Teal'c was vaguely aware of the Stargate disengaging somewhere in the background and O'Neill's approaching footsteps. These were tuned out accordingly as he continued to scan the small clearing, taking in the markings in the soil. He had followed the trail that began at the temple complex all the way to the small clearing he found himself in. It was a good distance within the perimeter scoped out and within eye-line of the 'Gate itself, making it the perfect staging area for anyone wanting to get off world in a hurry.
Two large distinct sets of boot prints were visible in the dry dirt, twisting and weaving through each other as their owners had walked about, juggling something large between them.
Something that had moved on its own.
A smudged handprint, its maker small but strong, lay beside a flattened area, the dusty soil loose and churned. A glimmer in the print's centre caught his eye and he carefully brushed it off, finding it to be a simple ball chain. The Jaffa grasped it, gently tugging it out of the soil until a metal disc hung before him.
"Find anything, T?" O'Neill had chosen that moment to appear, evidently looking around from the changes in his voice.
"Indeed I have, O'Neill." He stood, wiping the dirt away from the raised lettering and holding it so the colonel could see it as well. Over his shoulder, Jack swore as the text became evident.
It was Victoria's dog tag.
Sam jogged through the halls of the SGC, Victoria's camera clutched tightly in her hand; it had taken her nearly twenty minutes for her and Sgt. Seiler to find the right power chord to charge the stupid thing and she didn't want to waste anymore time.
She mumbled an apology as she slid around several of the civilian staff, nearly toppling over before righting herself as she turned the corner.
Dr. Davis raised a brow glancing at her fiery-haired companion. "What was that about?"
Dr. Turner shrugged in response. "You've got me."
The second Sam entered her lab she opened her laptop, digging the camera out of the plastic bag and groaning as it dripped on her desk; this was going to take longer than she thought.
It was dark. Very dark. The kind of dark that made his heart skip several beats in fear that he had suddenly gone blind. The faint outline of his hands came into focus soon, however, and Daniel breathed a sigh of short-lived relief; while he hadn't lost his sight, he still didn't have any clue as to where he was or why. There was no wind, no sound, just the utter emptiness of the void.
"Hello?" the scientist called, not really expecting an answer.
Consequently, the sound of something soft hitting the floor behind him made him jump, raising an arm in defense as he turned to find the source.
A large, absurdly purple stuffed orangutan sat looking at him, its head tilted slightly as if it were curious about him or their…location.
Oddly calmed, Daniel walked to the plush toy, familiarity tugging at the back of his mind; he knew this thing from somewhere. He'd seen it before, he was sure of it.
The primate simply stared back, unwilling to tell him where they'd met before.
Unsure of what else to do, Daniel crouched beside the thing, taking in every detail he could in an attempt to place the thing in whatever context he had seen it in before.
He didn't expect the thing's head to turn, following him.
"Jeeze!" the archeologist exclaimed, falling backwards as he scrambled away. When it began to talk, he nearly had a heart attack.
"She's coming." The words were muffled, the genderless voice rich while the finer phonemes sounded odd due to a suspicious lack of vocal chords or lips. "She's coming soon, Daniel."
"How do you know my name?" Of all the things to ask, of course he chose one of the least pressing.
"You have to be ready for her, she won't have much time."
"Who's coming? Why won't she have much time?"
Huge glass eyes blinked at him, agonizingly slow as the darkness began to clear.
"Be ready, Daniel."
The world bleached to white and the ape was gone.
Daniel woke with a start, jerking up in bed and immediately regretting the action as his chest screamed a painful protest. Fire spread out from his sternum and spots danced before his eyes in response and he sucked in breath by agonizing as he willed the world to stop spinning.
"Dr. Jackson! Calm down before you hurt yourself!"
He turned, vision blurry from pain and the fact that his glasses were on the side table; a slender figure, noticeably taller than Janet, was striding towards him, bright red hair beginning to escape its severe bun. She was vaguely familiar, especially because of her hair colour, and he struggled to recall her name as she pushed him back down onto the mattress.
"You have three fractured ribs, two more that are broken and several cracks in your sternum, all of which will be aggravated and hurt more if you don't keep still," she snapped, her pen moving furiously over her clipboard as she took in all of the readings from the switchboard of devices beside him.
Well, that explained the pain…
"Where's Janet?" he croaked, his throat dry and sore from its earlier abuse.
"She's left for the night, follow the light, please." Her tone was sharp, her manner brisk, and he did as he was told, squinting slightly at the brightness.
"What happened?" Daniel asked as soon as the penlight had been pocketed, resisting the urge to breathe deeply and rub his eyes to rid his vision of the spots that now sprinkled the far wall.
"Apparently," the doctor said distractedly, tweaking a knob one of the machine beside him, "You fell into a lake of some sort and breathed in a good amount of water." No… it wasn't a lake…. It was a pool… in a temple? Maybe a temple, he couldn't remember. But he could see a high domed ceiling and a dais rising out of crystal clear waters. Victoria was floating cross-legged about half-way up the far wall with papers and a camera, documenting it.
"Someone performed CPR on you, did a pretty good job of it too, but that's why your chest is in the state it's in." A soaking wet face the colour of grass looming above him, a familiar voice shouting at him to 'wake up, damnit!' before she torched his office as punishment for dying on her.
The redhead finished her notes, sliding the pen into a pocket before fixing him with an intense green stare.
"Now, do you remember anything about what happened today?"
Aside from flashbacks…? "No. Not really."
She pursed her lips, raising a brow as she fixed him with a disbelieving stare. "Right… Now, because it's the middle of the night and you need to heal, I'm going to give you a mild sedative. It will help you sleep until morning." She left, returning within moments sans clipboard and with a small needle.
Daniel watched her tapping it, getting the air out as a question floated around the outskirts of his mind; there was something wrong, something important that he couldn't remember but he really should because it was, well, important. The needle went into the IV line and a cool trickling sensation danced up the inside of his arm. His lids grew heavy, threatening to shut just as he remembered his question.
"Where's Victoria?" The words were mangled and slurred, but the message was received more or less.
The doctor raised a brow again, capping the syringe. "Haven't the foggiest. I didn't work the day shift, so I wouldn't have done her post."
The answer satisfied his drugged brain and he gave in to sleep.
"How much longer until it's ready?"
"We should be ready to leave in an hour, maybe less, sir; we're just running last minute checks to make sure that the cloaking device is fully operational and encompasses the entire ship."
"Good work, Clare. I want to know the second we can leave."
"Y-yes, sir."
"Something the matter?"
"…Just didn't realize you'd be leaving, sir."
"Yeah; orders from the top. Zachary's in charge from now on."
"Major Newman?"
"The very same."
"When were you going to tell us?"
"When we leave for Earth. Now, go finish those checks; I have to check on our guest of honour."
"Yes, sir."
She was immaculate, even in her dirty too-large BDUs. Her purpure hair fanned out over the pillow, the strands long since cleaned of the dust that had held them together, and her skin was free of any of the usual teenaged blemishes. The jade flesh was smooth, dotted with emerald freckles that clustered on her elegant nose and high cheekbones, the latter arching beneath thick plum lashes.
Lying there, face relaxed and serene, he was very hard pressed to believe much of what Frasier's file had contained.
He could see no instability, no volatility to the girl; to the contrary she showed an overwhelming air of grace, of almost animalistic fluidity that he was sure translated to her movements, not that he would see her move.
It was his job to keep her under, after all.
But this adolescent before him begged his attention, even unconscious, and it was in his observations that he realized that she was no freak of nature, no genetic fluke.
She was nature.
She was all things mammalian, reptilian, human, everything wrapped up in one. She was the next, most logical evolutionary stage of human development and all he really had to do was find out just how she had occurred, which proteins had mutated past their original parameters in order to produce so efficient, so complex a creature.
And he could barely wait until they got back to Earth to figure out how.
PS: Purpure is really a colour, it's a royal purple.
Coming next week:
Chapter 12 Mad Scientist Alert
In which situations are analyzed, memories kind of come back and prognosis's are made.