When the phone rang in the silent house, Vala had given up on her project. She was too worried about Grace and Nick to really focus anymore.
"Hello?" She asked instantly.
"Vala, it's me." Daniel said, urgently.
"Daniel!" She cried in relief. "Nicholas has been trying to reach you."
"I turned my cell phone off so that I could concentrate." He apologized. "Look, I'm headed home, and I'm bringing Teal'c. I think you, Nicholas, Teal'c, Grace and I need to talk. There's something going on."
"It's not going to happen." Vala said, instantly. "Grace is at the cabin, we think, and Nicholas went to protect her."
Daniel cursed angrily. "Pack a bag for each of us, Vala. We're going to Minnesota."
-
Nick picked up a rental car at the airport upon landing in Minneapolis. He hoped he remembered how to get to the O'Neill cabin from here.
In reality, he had been rather surprised that it had only taken him four hours to drive to Denver, book a flight, wait for the flight, and fly into Minnesota. If he needed to stop and ask for directions, he still felt he'd get there in a reasonable amount of time.
As long as someone wasn't following her, he thought to himself.
He shook his head. "Focus, Jackson. There's no room to wish for something different. That just leads to mistakes."
He needed to get into his Emergency Room mindset – where he didn't question his actions, just did them as quickly as he knew how.
Within a few moments, he found himself in an area which he recognized. He'd get to the cabin in only a few more minutes.
He only hoped it would be fast enough.
His heart pounded in worry at the thought that he might not be there in time to protect her from whatever threat may have taken her parents' lives.
He increased the pressure on the gas pedal instantly. He needed to get there sooner rather than later.
-
Grace sat on the floor, her legs crossed in front of her as she tried to perform the kel'noreem ritual that Teal'c had taught her years ago. She closed her eyes as she tried to imagine her mind was actually a building with many different doors which each held a portion of her memory. Hopefully, her parents had mentioned the NID at some point so that she could have at least an idea of what she was up against.
The sharp rap of an urgent knock caused her to jump.
"Grace! Open the door!"
Her heart was racing as she realized that the voice she heard belonged to Nick.
She stood, her knees shaking as she walked to the door. "Nick..." She whispered as she opened the door.
"Grace. Thank God you're all right." He said, hugging her tightly.
She held onto him tightly. "Nick," she whispered as tears welled up in her eyes. "I thought you were..."
"I'm sorry. I tried calling your mom's cell, but you weren't answering..."
"I turned it off so no one could track me..."
"You're so smart." He said, running his fingers through her hair, grateful that he hadn't just discovered yet another body in the apparently long list of victims.
She pulled away from him, getting back down to business. "Maybe you can help me with this..."
"Okay." He said, managing to collect himself again. "Grace, my mom told me about your theory."
She looked at him somewhat nervously. "Do you think I'm crazy?"
He shook his head. "No, but I am curious about how you came to that conclusion."
She bit her lip before she reached for her mother's laptop. She played the message for him, waiting for his reaction.
"That's pretty powerful evidence." He said after a moment.
"I thought so." She said, softly.
"What did you need my help for again?" He asked, looking over at her.
"Right..." She said, rubbing her forehead for a moment. She'd just realized she'd forgotten to go to bed last night – she'd been too wound up about this mystery.
"Grace..." He prompted again.
"Uh, what do you know about the NID?"
"Only that our parents brought down a rogue faction of the organization before either of us was born." He said, looking over at her.
"Damn." She sighed. There went one theory.
"Why?"
She sighed. "My mother hid notes here in the cabin. One of the notes was that Major Jennifer Hailey had called her before she was involved in a car accident a year ago that left her comatose." She showed him the notes. "It says that Hailey told her that the SGC was running experiments that would have been sanctioned by this rogue faction, but I don't know what that means."
He bit his lip in concentration. "Well, what changed a year ago in the program?"
"That's just it. The only thing I know about are the colonies."
He paled. "Which was started a year ago."
"You don't think..." She whispered as he looked at her.
"Grace, I don't know." He said, seriously. "But you have to wonder why they waited nearly thirty-five years to send families through the Stargate."
She felt sick to her stomach as she looked at him, worriedly. "You mean we were doing something we shouldn't have been doing?"
"What were you doing?"
She inhaled. "Uh, well...we had a lot of exploring to do. We'd learned just enough about the planet to know that it was relatively similar to Earth. It orbited a yellow star, it was roughly the same distance from its sun. Uh, the planet went through seasons like Earth does..."
"So, they were trying to put you on a planet similar to Earth?"
"I think that's a safe assessment."
"Why would someone do that?" He asked, seriously. "Why would you have a group of people leave their home planet only to go to one almost exactly like it?"
"I don't know."
"What experiments were you running?"
"I was working on something to do with various forms of electromagnetic waves."
"Tell me about that." He prompted almost instantly.
"Well, we were working on a way of harnessing electromagnetic waves on Earth."
He looked at her, somewhat confused.
"Okay," she said, preparing to explain it to him. "Our atmosphere here on Earth blocks some of the energy waves sent through the universe."
"Okay...like some awesome shield, right?"
"Exactly," she nodded. "But the atmosphere gets in the way sometimes."
He looked at her, confused.
"For example, when we want to look at stars and judge their distance from us, it takes something like the Hubble and Webb telescopes that is actually in Earth's orbit so that we can get more realistic pictures of stars, planets, and galaxies."
He nodded, following her very slowly.
"We've figured out how to use radio waves to better understand our galaxy by using a technique of mathematically compensating for the atmospheric anomalies."
"Okay..."
"My superiors were hoping there might be a way of harnessing the power of the other electromagnetic waves and basically send the power through the atmosphere, even if we don't use the actual waves themselves."
"There's got to be a reason why our atmosphere protects us from those waves."
She nodded. "Yes, but if there's a way to harness the energy being absorbed by our atmosphere, we could theoretically revolutionize the energy industry.
He nodded. "Okay."
"On the planet I was working," she explained. "Some ultraviolet rays are able to penetrate the atmosphere. This has changed what we thought about ultraviolet rays. We thought they were too radioactive for our atmosphere, but this is making us question our initial assumptions. I mean, it is radioactive, but maybe it's not quite AS radioactive as we'd thought at first. Maybe our atmosphere can handle a little bit of radiation and it won't kill us..."
"Right away..." He said, inhaling.
"In short, we're trying to figure out what the difference is between Earth and this other planet. The colony on '745 is studying something similar, but instead of ultraviolet rays, they have Gamma rays."
"How many different kinds of electromagnetic waves are there?"
"Um...let's see: visible light, radio waves, ultraviolet rays, Gamma rays, x-rays, microwaves and infrared."
"Which ones can't get past the atmosphere?"
"Um, only the last five."
He paled. "How many colonies are there again?"
"Uh, five...last time I counted..."
"What would happen if we could harness the power of all seven forms of electromagnetic waves?"
She stared at him in horror. "Even with our margin or error, you could easily destroy all life on this planet..."
"Exactly." A woman said as she walked through the one of the cabin walls.
Grace's eyes widened as she stepped back and bumped into Nick who caught her with his hands, equally as concerned about the situation.