Once again, they were all gathered in the VIP room. The module was on Xiaolin's temple, connected to the hologram projector. Everyone was holding his breath.

Slowly, an image formed…

The dagger had pierced right under his ribs, like if Baal knew exactly how to aim to spare his life while making him suffer.

- You will speak, chuckled the goa' uld. "You will speak, as many others did before you. All of them spoke. Nobody has ever resisted me!"

- Jack did, articulated Daniel with difficulty.

Sweat streamed on his forehead. His T-shirt was torn in several places and they clearly saw the purplish mark of violent hit on his abdomen, through a tear.

- Impertinent! spat Baal.

He moved like if this time he was going to kill him, then decided otherwise and had a devilish smile.

- Bring the slave!

The Jaffa were not long and came back pushing in front of them a woman with long red hair, heavily chained.

Baal grabbed her by the chin and lifted her head to make sure Daniel could recognize her.

- You know this woman, isn't it? She will make a host of choice for my daughter or my sister as was your wife, human… Abydos grows good harvest for the Goa' ulds.

Carter's horrified eyes were staring at the terrorized woman who was kneeling down. Teal' c got up, as if he wanted to intervene in the scene. O'Neill was scrutinizing the hologram, Xiaolin, everything, frantically looking for a way to change what was happening on screen. Jacob looked grave. Suzie Brightman twisted her hands.

- Olleya, stammered Daniel. Oh no, don't…

The young woman craddled her arms around herself. Her wrists bled, grazed by the chains. Blood also dripped from her cut lip. Her shoulders and legs were heavily bruised. Her dress hung on her like a bag and her belt was loose.

- Daniyel, she begged. "Daniyel, don't let them hurt me! Please! I beg you"

Baal twisted her arm and took a flask of poison.

- Give me the code, human, he ordered. "Otherwise…"

He poured a drop of poison on the arm of the young woman. She screamed and struggled to break free.

- I can't, Olleya, I can't… stuttered Daniel.

- Yes, you can! she sobbed. "Give him what he wants! Tell him everything! Daniyel! No - don't touch me! No! DANIYEL, PLEASE! Please, I beg you ! No! No – no, don't !"

Baal giggled as he watched Daniel avoid looking in the eyes of the young woman who whrithed in pain.

O'Neill gave a punch onto the table and hurt himself.

- How could you watch that? How?

His voice was so hoarse it hurt.

Daniel suddenly raised his head.

- Stop! Stop everything! I'll tell you!

Baal shot him a suspicious look, then poured the antidote on Olleya's wounds. He released his grip on her and she collapsed like a doll made of rags.

- Really, now. Well, I'm listening.

- Promise you won't hurt her anymore!

Daniel's eyes stared at the goa' uld, determined. His face reflected pain and bitterness.

- You are in no position to negotiate, whispered Baal, threatening.

- Promise me!

Baal took the flask of poison.

- Speak, or the woman you're protecting will die.

Daniel gave the code.

Carter and Teal' c exchanged a look with O'Neill.

The hologram went out and Xiaolin heaved a sigh of fatigue.

- What happened? asked Jacob.

- This was the first of the former codes that appeared last month, explained finally Carter. "Daniel lied, deliberately."

- It was a dangerous game, said Xiaolin.

- When did Baal noticed? asked Teal' c.

- As soon as he had the code tried, said the former lothar, settling a little more comfortably in his armchair and massaging his temples. "May I have something to eat?"

- Of course, said Carter without moving.

Doctor Brigthman looked at her during a few seconds then eventually got up. She stopped at the door frame and looked back for a long time.

- All of this doesn't explain why Daniel thinks he's back one year ago.

- They didn't make him drink their bluish drug, this time, noticed O'Neill aloud.

Nobody reacted. Everybody was still in shock.

- It's monstrous, murmured Carter. "How could even Baal have such an idea?"

- And how was he able to make us appear? specified Teal' c.

Suzie came back with a tray from the mess and sat automatically, without verifying Xiaolin's vitals. The man ate a little, drank a lot and looked surly. O'Neill strummed nervously on the table, unaware he was doing so.

- Ready? asked Jacob.

Xiaolin nodded. The hologram trembled over the polite surface of the table…

- Daniyel? Daniyel, please wake up … Daniyel… please, wake up, they will be back soon…

Olleya's long hair swept on the yellowish ground of the gravitation cell. She was leaning over the young archaeologist and shook his shoulder from time to time, trying to attend to his injuries.

- How come… began O'Neill, turning to Jacob.

- Xiaolin certainly watched this scene, shrugged the old man.

Slowly, Daniel was coming back to his senses.

- Olleya? You're alive?

- The god stopped his own poison.

- It's not a god. Just a disgusting parasite. Why did he put us in the same cell? What does he want of us?

- He granted you a favor, said the hollow voice of Xiaolin, who was invisible on the hologram. "Don't be ungrateful."

Daniel got up with difficulty and lifted his head, winking to distinguish who was speaking.

- Why do you allow him to treat us like this? What did we do to you to make you so insensible? Where are my other friends?

- Keep silent! You ask far too many questions and you are not respectful to my master.

Xiaolin probably turned his head away because the cell disappeared from the hologram, which only showed the orange corridors of Baal's base and two Jaffa standing on each side of the prison gate.

- Wait! Where's Jack? Where are the guys from SG14 ? Did you also capture them?…

Daniel's voice weakened as Xiaolin went away quickly. He turned left in a corridor and doors slid in front of him. For a second, the inside of a laboratory sparkled in shining sun…

… then the hologram diluted and failed.

- What's going on? asked Carter immediately. "The last thing we saw, I think it was...

- Can we have a break? asked Xiaolin in a tired and anxious voice.

- Surely not. Answer to this before! O'Neill intervened. 'I didn't dream, this was…"

- I also saw what seemed to be a laboratory, added Teal' c, gravely, getting up to take place between the brother of Freya and the door.

- You never spoke about a laboratory, continued slowly Jacob. "I suspected you hid something, Xiaolin. Tell us, now."

Xiaolin sat back slowly, his eyes on the four others who surrounded him, almost threatening.

- Not now, he sighed. Later… after...

- After what? cut in O'Neill.

- I know what you're doing! shouted Daniel. "Everything's fake! They're not real! You make me drink this suff to make me believe it but they're not my friends! You're lying to me since the beginning!"

- You're cleverer than I thought, human, chuckled Baal. "But you are wrong nevertheless. I did capture your friends and I shall execute them one by one in front of your eyes until you give me the exact code to open the gate to your world.

He caressed cherishly the iron claw he held in his black glove and turned around Olleya who was on her knees at his feet, head low.

- Did I make you drink anything, today? Did I not leave you in the presence of your slave friend during the night ? Are you sure she is not real ?

His voice was soft, cruel. A shiver ran down Daniel's spine.

- If you captured my friends, bring Jack here!

- Give me the code first thing, human.

- I'll never give you the Earth!

A tension of his jaw twisted Baal's wrathful face. He pressed brutally the iron claw on Olleya's neck and watched her writhing in pain without moving an eyelash.

- Noooooo! No please - stop! Please! Please, stop, please!

Baal took off the claw inquiringly and a cynical smile slid on his lips.

- Do you have something to tell me, human?

Daniel stared blankly at Olleya's body jolted on the ground, moaning and sobbing. Baal grabbed one of his Jaffa's spear and threw it in the young man's direction. The spear crashed into Daniel's ribs who released a cry of pain. He lifted his head and met the sarcastic eyes of the goa' uld.

- Well? What's your answer?

Another former code resounded in the VIP room.

- He didn't know what he was exposing himself to, murmured Jacob.

- He didn't know what to do any more, said O'Neill slowly, like if he was talking to himself . "He needed us… he wanted to save us - but we weren't there help him …"

- You're lying! spat the goa' uld. "You're lying, yet again! You want to defy me, arrogant human! Thus see the slave die because of you!"

Baal raised his iron gauntlet and the deathly light wrapped Olleya's forehead as she turned to Daniel in despair.

- No! Please don't! Don't do it! I'll give you the real code! I … Please! Please …

Tears were filling his mouth. The young woman's arms got up spasmodically, as to implore one last time, then she slumped slowly and rested on the sparkling floor, her eyes wide opened. Blood streamed slowly from her nose.

Crankcase wiped her cheeks with a quick backhand.

- Baal still tried this code, isn't it? said Xiaolin. "He didn't know what to think of your friend's courage. One day he took him for a coward, the next he wanted to rip him with his own hands …"

Jacob removed the module. Xiaolin took it back slowly and put it back on his temple, shaking his head.

- Now, you must know everything. Your friend needs to know as well. Why he suffered. What I did. How I betrayed my kind while thinking I was being useful to them. How Daniel Jackson showed me the path to reedeme my soul…

The hologram danced slowly over the table, before first images of the laboratory appeared …

- Are you done, now? asked Baal's voice as he moved in his wave-like fashion, going the other side of the table.
- I'm almost done, master. These beings were made of an advanced technology but I was able to improve them.

Xiaolin's hands entered the picture as he lifted the white fabric that covered a human shape on the table. Teal'c's half-body appeared.

- The shol'va was the most difficult to reproduce. To make a clone of Jaffa from a machine was …

- Oy, intervened O Neill. "I'm having troubles following. What machine are you talking about? And what clone?"

Jacob signed him to keep quiet. Carter wrinkled her eyes, trying to understand. Teal' c glared at his double who laid on the table.

- This Harlan believed he prevented us from succeeding, with his self-destruction, but …

- Harlan died, then… murmured Carter.

- His researches were perfectly preserved, as well as the notes he wrote about SG 1, added Xiaolin. "I can promise these clones will be operationals in a few days."

- And convinced to be the real ones? asked Baal with a sneaky smile.

- Convinced, my Lord, confirmed Xiaolin. "And without any means to prove the opposite, because they will be very human, this time."

- What have you done? articulated Jacob, livid.

The hologram worn off. Xiaolin reopened his eyes. His face was completely drained out.

- I was convinced this could serve the Tok' ra purposes, one day! He defended himself. "I thought you would have more hosts without having to wait for human beings to be at death's door! Baal was not wary of me and had provided me with his laboratory …"

- And what was Daniel's role in there? asked O'Neill, sharply.

Xiaolin rested his head against the armchair. He breathed in deeply.

- Doctor Jackson's coming into the picture had nothing to do with my plans. Really nothing …

The hologram started again to sparkle.

Doors opened all of a sudden and Baal whirled in, very excited, his long black coat floating behind him.

- Here comes the perfect opportunity to test your clones! he exclaimed. "Human are stubborn when it comes to betraying their kind but they hate when their friends suffer. I want you to bring them one by one in front of doctor Jackson till he understands I am his master!"

- Forgive me, my Lord, but my clones present an inconvenience …

Baal's eyes glistened with fury.

- I will remedy to it, of course! insured immediately Xiaolin.

Baal relaxed little, eyebrows still frowned.

- What is it?

- My clones were made from machines based on SG 1 before the human called O'Neill withdrew from the battlefield. They call each other colonel and major, and they could reveal everything by mistake.

- What are you going to do, then? responded Baal, annoyed.

- Give me one more day, master, and I shall prepare a beverage which will disturb the senses of the prisoner and will prevent him from noticing the anomalies.

Baal tilted his head, satisfied.

- A day. Good.

Suzie Brightman grabbed Xiaolin's sleeve.

- What was in there? Is Daniel going to be affected by it for the rest of his life?

- No, answered Xiaolin. I suppose he's regaining his memories bit by bit, now he situating himself in the right year.

- But the trauma persists! Insisted the young woman.

- It will stop when you show him these images. When you show him what he went through because of me…

- Daniel will forgive you, because we are alive, said Carter.

- Olleya was not a clone, sighed Xiaolin. "She was here to destablise him even more. He fought against the drug much more strongly than we expected."

- You're a monster, dropped O'Neill.

- Baal is a monster, corrected Jacob.

- No, he's right. I could have prevented the…I should have done something before he…

- What? asked Carter, feeling a dreadful shiver run down her spine.

- The last of your teammates hasn't yet been seen, murmured Xiaolin. "For this one, Baal wanted doctor Jackson to give in…"

- The last one ?

There was a long silence. Then everybody turned to O'Neill. The light of the hologram slid on his face, giving him a ghostly appearance.