Chapter Fourteen

"Having fun with your rock yet?" Jack asked sardonically from the doorway as he sipped casually on his coffee. The blond head in front of him didn't move from where it was poised directly over the smooth obsidian black stone, the small glowing red dot the only sign that the rock was anything but. That it was actually some form of very advanced alien technology that they had no idea what it was, or what it did, or even where it came from. Daniel was apparently following up some leads on that while Sam had simply chosen to lock herself up with the rock, poking and prodding at the thing until she could make it do something… alien-y.

Smirking at his sudden opportunity, Jack set his coffee down on the desk by the door and silently made his way over to where Carter was sitting, a small little smile on his face as he put his head almost directly over his friends shoulder and spoke loudly, his voice echoing in the small room. "What'cha doing Carter?"

The effect was immediate as Carter jumped nearly a foot in the air, half falling off her chair as she spun around to see her commanding officer standing just over her shoulder, a look of barely restrained mirth spread across his face as his eyes glinted mischievously. Her eyes snapped to a glare and he just grinned happily, making her roll her eyes in exasperation before she took her seat again.

"Daniel kick you out of his office again sir?" Carter asked tiredly. She'd been starring at this damned rock for nearly eighteen hours straight now, and had yet to make any progress on the matter. The stone seemed to absolutely refuse to give us its secrets to her. Only the faint pulsing of the little red light on the side of the stone reassured her at all that it was in fact a piece of alien technology, and not a simply garden stone from one of her neighbors yards. It had proved resistant to X-Ray, Cat Scan, MRI, Sonography, Ultrasound, even some of the Asgard methods they had at their disposal had still turned up nothing. If she was getting no where with her work, uninterrupted, then she could only imagine how Daniel was faring, with Jack harassing him endlessly. It was never out of any sort of maliciousness on Jack's part, he was simply bored out of his mind since they had been grounded to allow for both her and Daniels to work on the stone and felt the need to share some of that boredom and insanity around. She wouldn't have put it past Daniel to, upon reaching the end of his rope with their commanding officer, foist the man upon her by suggesting that she was spending too much time in her lab.

"Nah, he was even setting up a fresh pot of coffee when he mentioned that he hadn't seen you in the commissary over the last few… he did it again didn't he?" Jack suddenly asked, disgruntled at the prospect of having been manipulated by the little book worm.

"Yep," Sam answered with a happy little chuckle. "You know, for such a terrible liar, he sure has figured you out… sir."

Jack grimaced at Sam's observation, and a little more at the delayed address. Started mumbling under his breath about insubordinate little geeks thinking they could get away with… unfortunately that was when Sam's rather un-lady like chuckling snort broke through and she could no longer hear Jack's faint grumbling. She was certain he was about to go into a full blown rant about something or other when a sudden crashing thump from out in the hall caught his attention. The Colonel sat on high alert at the sudden intrusion, but Sam just sighed tiredly and put her head in her hands as none other than the walking disaster zone himself stepped into her lab not two seconds later.

"What did you break now Jay?"

"Who, me?" Felger asked nervously before glancing back out in the hallway. "Oh! That… that was just a mop bucket. No big deal. Happens to me all the time." He was smiling at her non-chalantly, obviously trying to appear calm cool and collected as he put his hand down on the nearest table to lean casually on it. The papers under his hand promptly slid across the surface and he flailed momentarily to remain upright as the small stack of paper fell crashing to the ground. "Ooh, sorry about that. I'll just…"

"Do you ever consider looking before you walk?" Jack asked rhetorically, gazing at the accident prone scientist incredulously. Before Jay could answer though, Sam cut him off.

"What did you want Jay?" Felger stood up, papers slipping from his grasp. At Sam's look, however, he let the fallen papers be and set the few that still remained in his grasp back on the desk. He grinned excitedly as he took a few steps towards her and shoved his hands into his pockets. Sam was about to ask him again what he was so excited about when he pulled two pairs of retro, red and blue 3-D glasses from his pockets.

"Swamp Man III, that iconic sci-fi film from the 1950's, has been colorized and reformatted to 3-D for your modern viewing pleasure!" Jay said in his best impersonation of a movie announcers voice. He was looking at Sam with expectant joy as she felt a sweep of cold dread pass through her body, realizing what he was asking her. "There's a showing down at the Dragon's Lair, it's this old comic book shop but they've got a back room all kitted out for movie showings that can fit almost a hundred people in it. They've only got the license for this weekend though before the DVD gets sent out for general release on Monday and I was wondering if…"

Sam was now looking desperately back at the Colonel, who was glaring at her completely unsympathetically. She looked back at Felger, mouth gaping desperately for some sort of answer that would get her out of this horrifying situation without crushing the admittedly very sensitive scientist.

"Jay…"

"Whoa, did you see this?" Sam was saved from having to say anything by Jay's excited proclamation as he starred at the black stone, still as silent as always, with the exception of the small blinking red light, with something approaching reverence.

"See what?" She asked, now honestly curious. Jay may have been many things, but he was not an incredible actor, and right now he was looking at the small blinking stone on her desk as if it were the greatest thing since the stargate.

Glancing back at Sam, still wearing his ridiculous 3-D glasses, Jay suddenly looked as if lightning had just struck his brain. Wrenching Carters own 3-D glasses from her hand, he crammed them on her head, with a faint burst of complaint from Carter and a raised eyebrow from Jack, and spun her in her chair to look at the stone. Same was about to complain firmly about Jay's sudden erratic behavior and kick the man out of her lab, when she felt her breath leave her chest.

The black stone before her was nearly completely covered in flashes of minute, scratchy, symbolic script that pulsed and glowed in a variety of colors and a variety of tempos, all independent of each other. She couldn't distinguish one portion of script from another if not for the slightly varying patterns of light. The small glowing red light that they had all seen under normal light was not the only one. Other specs of color littered the stones surface, usually with more script surrounding it, though some had symbols apparently buried within the small glowing dots. The sight of it was breathtaking, and made something pull at the back of Carters heart. She could scarcely breath, her pulse was hammering rapidly in her ears and she could barely hear the choked sob that escaped her throat before she was roughly turned around in her seat, the 3-D glasses ripped from her face.

Jack was standing in front of her, face full of worry and concern. She'd forgotten he was even here. Jay was standing in a far corner of the room, rubbing not so discretely at his damp, red rimmed eyes, his back turned to them. Carter swiped at her cheek absent mindedly and was surprised to find moisture there. She hadn't realized that she was crying.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked, both stern and worried at the same time. She would have needled him for being such a mother hen if her heart didn't hurt so much. She hadn't felt this bad since her mother…

Realizing that Jack was still waiting for an answer she tentatively cleared her throat, surprised at how hoarse she sounded when she actually managed to speak. "No sir… I'm really not…"

Jack gave her another cursory glance over, obviously looking for any signs of physical damage. Resigning himself to the fact that he would find none, he nodded reluctantly and helped Carter to her feet.

"Come on then, let's go see Janet." They were leaving the lab when he remembered the bleary eyes scientist still huddled in the corner and grabbed him by the sleeve to drag him along as well. "You too Felger. Can't have you moping through the hallways looking like someone just killed your cat."

Jack felt a little bad about his comment when he heard a choked sob coming from the other man, but squashed that down as he focused on guiding the two distraught scientists towards the medical labs.

No one saw four men in fatigues cross the quiet parking lot, darting in between cars as if their camouflaged uniforms would help to hide them against the gold sedans and blue mini-vans. A large jeep soon found itself being hotwired as it was carefully parked into place, sitting parallel with the large metal doors on the front of the building, not two inches between it and the doors. A few quick jabs at the tires and the jeep was slowly sinking closer to the earth, ensuring extra resistance against what would eventually be a panicked mob as the four men returned just as quietly to the tree line before making their way around to the back where their commander stood waiting. As they crossed into the trees they could hear the faint echoing puff of a small explosion followed by the sounds of a tree crashing back down to earth a few clicks away. That would be three more men to join the surge when they approached the back. Amongst the trees, the men smiled, eager to apprehend their target and complete their mission. Up on the roof, it was a different story.

Lieutenant Andrew Walters was a twenty two year old green recruit, fresh out of the academy and easy pickings as they had steadily infiltrated the military operation. What they hadn't counted on was the young mans willpower and level of resistance. He grimaced, his hands shaking as he tried to work the latches on his pack. One of the other men, the leader of their little side op, noticed this and grimaced at him.

"Get control of yourself boy. It's your body, you'd best make it do what you want or someone else will make it for you," the man barked.

Walters swallowed nervously and, with a violent surge of will, forced the shaking of his hands to quiet down, at least for now. "Yes sir. Everything's under control, sir."

"See that it stays that way," was his commanders parting remark as they all turned towards the glass elevator. A small amount of plastic explosives had been fixed to the cable wires hauling it up, the small detonator blinking back at them as they waited for the signal, three men holding a half a dozen smoke grenades between them, the fourth with finger on the trigger switch of the small plastic detonator. Two minutes later, the order came.