First things first, I have to apologize again; the C drive on my laptop got wiped out and I've spent the last three weeks trying to fix it and retrieve any files that I could off of it. It hasn't been going well.
Right now I have half of the next chap re-written, so I hope to have that out before August, but I rally can't make any solid commitments between work and family stuff. Sorry, and I hope you like this at least.
Chapter 20 Introductions
In which, well, people get introduced, Janet gets sneaky, Rodriguez gets no-where, and Victoria gets furry.
"You're sure she's awake?" Rodriguez asked, studying the green figure on the screen; she didn't really look like she was. Actually, he'd be hard pressed to find a difference between the image on the screen now and the one from more than an hour previous.
"She was just moving, sir," the younger man replied, typing in a string of commands; the feed rewound, showing her moving around her area before settling back on the bed.
"Have a couple of the gunmen meet me outside her cell, please," the psychologist said, gathering a clipboard and heading for the door. "And tell Colonel Wesker that I've started my evaluation."
"Do you want me to page Dr. Isaacs?" the techie asked, turning to him; Rodriguez groaned.
It was no secret that the other doctor didn't like him, but they had been ordered to keep each other in the loop, whether they liked it or not.
"Yes, but he can't be in the room, he can watch from here."
With that, he left the room, heading to their guests' cell.
v
"White, Addison, remember, weapons hot and keep 'em on her at all times," the commander was telling the other two soldiers waiting when the doctor arrived; he was tall and lean, with scraggy blond hair that looked in need of a cutting. His companions were similarly scruffy-looking, the stocky man sporting a few days' worth of stubble and the woman simply appearing to be in a foul mood.
All three of them looked capable and, in the wrong light, rather frightening
v
Victoria felt them before seeing them, the faint tingling sensation on the edge of her senses she usually associated with living creatures dampened by the shield; the gentle buzz of brain activity was muffled as well, barely audible as the three, no, four figures entered the room.
Three of them were tightly strung, ready to move at a half-second's notice and utterly unfeeling at the present. Body guards; probably military, probably marines. Definitely armed.
The fourth figure was somewhat looser, but not by much; male, thirties, scientist? Felt like a scientist; highly organized yet simultaneously chaotic in a way so similar to Sam and Daniel that it physically pained her.
She skimmed over their minds, finding out as much as she could through the fog before they came to a stop just outside the force field. The three military spread out, taking up positions surrounding her as the scientist halted near the closest thing the bubble had to a front.
Victoria remained motionless, eyes closed, waiting for them to make the first move.
v
Dr. Rodriguez stared, not taking his eyes from the slight figure on the bed as he sat on the rickety folding chair placed just outside the shield, wincing as it shrieked in the quiet. The girl flinched slightly at the noise, and he took that as he queue to begin.
"Good morning, Victoria…"
v
"Well, It looks like you are just about healed, Daniel," Janet said, reviewing his x-rays. "The last of your rib fractures are mending nicely and your sternum is completely fixed."
The archeologist didn't say anything, his tongue wedged firmly between his teeth as he rocked back and forth in impatience; it was Friday already, five days since their ill-fated mission to P3X-484 and they were no closer to finding Victoria, no thanks to him. The days of being stuck in the infirmary without anything productive to do had taken their toll on him and he was currently at the stage of cabin fever that made digging through the reinforced concrete with a plastic spoon look mighty appealing.
"You should be ready to go back to work by Tuesday, at this rate."
He blinked, not sure he had heard correctly. "Tuesday?" The CMO nodded.
"I want to keep you here for observation over the weekend, just to make sure that there are no adverse side-effects from such rapid healing," she replied, writing a few notes on her ever-present clipboard.
"I thought that you couldn't find any with that lieutenant V healed a few months ago?" Daniel snapped, struggling to figure out why the doctor was grounding him for so long.
"He had a different type of injury; soft tissue injuries take…" she continued to talk but held up the note she had written for him to read.
If I put you back on active duty, then the rest SG-1 won't be able to continue looking for her.
Daniel shut his jaw with a click and pursed his lips slightly in irritation; she was right, no matter how much he disliked it. She withdrew the note.
"…be three more days, at the very least. Until then, I'm going to have to restrict you to the base."
A smile tugged at her lips and he quirked a brow, spotting the loophole.
"Whatever you say, Janet."
v
Victoria had to give this, Rodriguez, guy some credit for persistence; he had been talking for the past hour, easily, and she had done her damnedest to make sure he didn't know she was awake. Of course, he could just be blowing smoke, but the effort was valiant if ultimately fruitless.
In the mean time, the teen had been mulling over what act to put on for her captors; the truth was waaay out of the question, so was the sobbing petrified teen (which, incidentally, was closer to the truth than she would ever admit), which left few options.
She figured that creepy bad-ass would work best, assuming she could properly channel some strange mix of both her mother on a bad day and Bruce on, well, almost any day. And also assuming she didn't have a mental breakdown before this whole ordeal was over.
Outside, the shrink gave a frustrated sign, not the first, and ran his fingers through his hair. "Look, Victoria, I realize that this isn't the most ideal of circumstances, but we are on the same side, here." Oh, her tongue was almost bleeding from stifling her snort. Same side. Totally. "We both want the Goa'uld gone and Earth safe, don't we? All I'm asking for is a little help."
She stayed silent.
"Look, the sooner you talk, the sooner I can get you out of here."
That was the final straw; a sharp bark of laughter burst past her lips, bordering on cruel and making the four other humans jump.
"Yeah, right."
Rodriguez stared for a half-second before seizing of his perceived progress. She wasn't silent anymore, so it was a start.
"I'm serious, Victoria; if you help us, we'll let you go."
The teen opened her eyes, not even having to search for the doctor's own brown ones to boar into them.
"You are a civilian psychologist on what is obviously a military base; no matter how big a fish you think you are, you have next to no pulling power here and you know it."
The doctor continued to stare, trying to formulate a response when she cut him off again.
"Your superiors had me kidnapped from another planet, from out of the custody of the United States Air Force, have repeatedly drugged me without consent, and are now trying to coerce information out of me after letting me see several of your personnel; there is no way in hell they would ever let me leave here unless that were totally sure I was on your side, which is impossible."
"W-what's impossible?" he asked, blinking away his shock. "My superiors being convinced that you've joined us or you actually joining us?"
"Both." The teen closed her eyes again. "I've lived at the SGC for three months, during which time I built too emotional a connection to a good chunk of personnel, there's no way to be completely certain that I won't defect to them once again. And there's no way in hell I would actually help you." Her tone was clipped, the message obvious; piss off.
"But—"
Victoria cut him off, morphing into a huge green tiger and pouncing at him.
v
Isaacs bit his lip nearly to the point of bleeding as he tried to curb the unadulterated joy welling up within him at the grainy video. That moron Rodriguez had sat right in front of the girl, just outside the shield, for almost precisely seventy-four minutes before getting any response from her what-so-ever. And, boy, the show was fun, especially once he'd pinched the headphones of the tech guy (he didn't know what his name was. Didn't much matter).
The solid dressing down the teen dished out was priceless and Isaac bit his knuckle almost to bleeding trying to stifle his laughter.
But then, the girl transformed and what a beautiful thing to behold it was; the flawless transition from adolescent human to huge snarling feline was artful and elegant and the scientist wished he could have been in the room, cursing the poor quality of the security feed. Heat stirred deep within him and the sandy-brunet had to beat a hasty retreat, leaving the surveillance room before his excitement got any worse.
v
Victoria was pretty sure that the moment she transformed several things would happen, most of them being fairly detrimental to her health. The sound of three guns cocking and snapping to action made up the first one, the sound echoing threateningly in the large empty. The look of abject terror on the doctor's was the second, all blood draining from his face in a nanosecond as he scrambled backwards what seemed like an eternity later, so slow were his reflexes in comparison to hers in this state.
And the last one she wasn't absolutely certain of, but steeled herself for none-the-less as the heretofore invisible force field came closer. Her plate-sized paws hit the unseen wall about four feet off the ground, the shield sending currents of pain through her feline body as she dropped.
The tiger shook off the aftershocks, bearing her teeth in a feral snarl as she unsheathed her claws, swiping repeatedly at the field and ignoring the throbbing in favour of embracing the adrenaline coursing through her veins.
Tiny pricks, different from the constant hum of the shield, radiated from her shoulders and flanks, cooling as they hit and remaining ignored until the darkness they carried finally washed over, dragging her back into the inky black that had been her constant companion for the last week.
v
"Clear!" Captain Johnson barked, flicking the safety back on his modified CAR-15 and signaling the other two to do the same. Addison nodded, echoing his call and dropping her barrel. White waited a few seconds longer, eyeing the huge green cat for several long seconds before following suit.
A harsh scraping told him that Rodriguez was still breathing, the doctor scrambling to his feet and righting the folding chair he had tumbled over.
"You alright, doctor?" Johnson bit out, his eyes snapping back to their unconscious guest and not straying.
"Yes, I'm fine," the psychologist replied, gathering up his papers hastily. "I... I think that's enough interviewing for one day."
Johnson snorted, continuing to glare at the feline as he made a series of one-armed gestures. Without uttering a word, he heard the other two members of his team moving out, White lingering on Rodriguez while Addison got the door open.
Within seconds, the holding room was empty and silent, save the deep breathing of a green tiger and the steady electrical buzz given off by the shield generator.
Coming next time:
Chapter 21 Plan of Attack
In which a teen ponders, a colonel yells, a scientist yells more, and Victoria gets shot again.