Monday, April 26
Reality L583
"Why do we not simply go through the mirror and take DanielJackson back?" Teal'c demanded angrily. Hammond was with the visiting Daniel, keeping him company and fetching things for him, a situation Jack thought Daniel found very peculiar. When the general had relieved the Jaffa, Teal'c had come to Jack's office.
Jack leaned back in his chair. "Well, first off, we can't really get there. Carter hasn't worked out how to make the mirror activate without the controller yet, and even if she could activate it, there's the problem of working out which reality to go to."
Teal'c let out a growl. "I do not like this waiting while DanielJackson is beaten and broken."
Jack shook his head. The words called back the nightmares he'd started having, and he didn't want to think about them. They weren't productive. "Do you think I like it, Teal'c?" he asked. Clenching his fists, he stared at the Jaffa. "There's nothing we can do. As men of action, we're both finding that more than a little frustrating."
"Captain Carter will find a way, and then we should go through with explosives and weapons and take back our DanielJackson."
Eyebrows rising, Jack studied Teal'c. He was serious. "It's not quite that simple, big guy," Jack said. Teal'c raised a single brow, wordlessly asking for an explanation. "We can't just go blundering in there, not knowing where we'll turn up or how strong a force we'll be facing."
"We have the basis for a reasonable guess, do we not?" Teal'c asked. "They are an SGC, as are we. There is only so much space within the mountain for troops."
"True," Jack said, and carefully considered his next words. "And if we got caught, if we were just sighted, what do you suppose that Hammond would do to our Daniel? There's a frigging bomb in his chest, controlled by radio signal." Teal'c scowled grimly. "That Hammond sees us coming, and our Daniel's insides get scrambled. I don't want to instigate that."
Teal'c let out a snarl of fury. "We must do something!"
A voice spoke from the doorway. "We have to wait for Maybourne," Carter said, walking in and sitting down dispiritedly. "I may have made a breakthrough."
Jack blinked. Her depressed tone didn't really match her words. Before he could say anything, though, Teal'c spoke. "Surely that is good news, Captain Carter?"
"I wish it were," she said, crossing her arms. "I could probably identify which reality this Daniel was from if I had enough time and a controller, but without a miracle, it would take me a minimum of three months to run through the various possible permutations." Three months was a long time. Jack bit his lip and started to speak again, but Carter wasn't done. "And that's assuming that I could activate the mirror, which so far, I still can't. I need to have access to one of those controllers, even for five minutes, to see what the power signature that activates the damned thing is. Given all the possible factors, and combinations of factors, that could be involved, it could take me fifty . . . a hundred years . . . to work out the proper method. It's neither reasonable nor realistic. I keep trying, but as I go through the possibilities, I keep realizing that there are far too many things that I can't even simulate. And within the week, I need to get to a lab with a superconductor to see if there are any possible applications. How do I gain unlimited, totally secure access to a superconductor?"
"I'll address the question to Hammond," Jack said, but he understood her point. She could keep trying until the next century, and there was no guarantee that she'd find anything useful.
"I don't know which is worse. Not being able to do anything, or having so much to do that you know will prove useless."
Jack grimaced. "I don't know either. I just wish we knew what was going on in the other reality . . . how Daniel is."
"I do not like this inaction," Teal'c said unhappily.
"You and me both, big guy," Jack said.
Suddenly, Sgt. Harriman's voice echoed through the base. "Unscheduled offworld activation!"
Jack jumped up and turned to Carter. "Go relieve Hammond." She nodded and went out. Jack headed towards the door. "Teal'c, come with me."
They went to the control room. As they arrived, Lt. Craig stumbled alone through the gate. She looked up at Harriman and nodded for him to shut down the gate. By the time Jack reached the gateroom, the gate was dark again and Craig had thumped down to sit on the ramp. Her right arm hung uselessly from her shoulder, and her hand was covered with dried blood.
"What happened?" Jack asked, glancing at the SFs to see that one of them had called medical. Private Jones was on the phone already.
Craig's voice was firm, but she looked utterly worn out. "We found an odd sort of structure, like a small hut, with some interesting stuff inside. Captain Chen went inside instantly to look at the artifacts." Jack nodded. He had more than passing experience with archeologists and their tendencies to rush in where ordinary soldiers feared to tread. "There didn't seem to be anything wrong, so Colonel Dempsey and Lt. Tyler went in with him. I stayed in the doorway, watching for possible threats. I don't know what any of them did, but all of a sudden the door slammed shut. I dove out, but it caught my arm. It took all three of them to pull the damn thing far enough back to let me slide my arm out, but after that it seated itself solidly in its frame and couldn't be budged. They can't get out, but Chen thinks that there's something in the writings both inside and outside the building that might help us get the door open again."
Fraiser had arrived in the meantime and was looking at Craig's arm. "I've got to get her to the infirmary now, colonel," she said sharply.
"I'll be along shortly," he replied, stepping back as Fraiser and her assistants got Craig to her feet. He could see Hammond in the control room and knew he'd have to report.
The lieutenant resisted for a moment, clutching at her arm. "Sir, someone has to go get them out," she gasped urgently.
"Of course, Craig," he said. "Go with the doc. I'll be there soon."
She went, and she was barely out of the room when Hammond joined them at the gate. "What happened? Where's the rest of her team?"
Jack gave him a synopsis of what Craig had told him, and they headed together to the infirmary. When they got there, Fraiser said, "Get what information you need quickly. Her arm is crushed. We're going to have to go into surgery pretty much immediately to avoid possible complications."
Jack went to Craig's side where she was being prepared for surgery. "Is there anything else you think we need to know?" he asked.
"We were about seven miles out from the gate," she said, her eyes glazing over from the pain, but she hung onto consciousness tenaciously, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. "There's a path, kind of old and winding, but if you follow it, you should find them, especially with the beacons. And Chen said the only person who had any hope of translating the inscriptions was Daniel Jackson."
Hammond's lips tightened. "Anything else?" he asked gently.
"No, sir, just get them out."
"We'll take care of things, lieutenant," Hammond said. "You just let Dr. Fraiser take care of you."
Craig nodded and lay her head back on the pillow. Fraiser shooed them out and they went. "We can't send Daniel," Hammond said. "It's out of the question."
Jack nodded. "Aside from the fact that it wouldn't be safe and wouldn't be fair to him, can you imagine what Fraiser would do to us if we even suggested it?"
"It does not bear thinking about," Teal'c said blandly.
Hammond grimaced. "What do you suggest, colonel?"
"I think Teal'c and I need to go, and we need to take a camera," Jack said without a pause. "We take another team with us to leave at the gate. When we get to the shack or whatever it is, we contact the team at the gate who open the wormhole and we start sending back images to Daniel, so he can translate for us."
"That's pretty much what I was thinking. Get things set up, colonel. Do you want Carter with you or here on base?"
Jack contemplated. It was difficult to say. It might be better to have her handy to her lab, but on the other hand, it would probably be better to have her on site so she could make her magic immediately if that turned out to be possible. She could always return to the base if necessary. "With us, I think, so I don't know who you can leave with Daniel."
"Daniel will stay with me. I'll have Teal'c put him in a wheelchair so we can get him to the office when the time comes. That way he won't have to request references from across the base. Between us, I think Rothman and I can manage to get him everything he might need."
Jack nodded. "Sounds like a plan," he said. "I'll go get my team prepped. Who do you want to send with us?"
"Makepeace and SG-3, I think," Hammond said. "There haven't been any signs of hostile locals on P(string), but it's as well to be prepared."
"Works for me," Jack said.
Their plan hit a serious hitch though when they presented it to Daniel. "Why aren't you taking me along?" he asked bluntly. "Cameras can only do so much. We need on site translation, and I can't do that from the base."
Hammond shook his head. "You have a broken foot and two broken ribs. We're not sending you to a potentially hostile –"
"The only hostility the team experienced was from a building," Daniel objected irritably. "I don't see how that makes any sense."
"We've only seen maybe ten square miles of the planet, though, Daniel," Jack said. "We don't know for certain that there aren't any people. I won't take someone who's at such an extreme disadvantage."
The archeologist's eyes narrowed. "If this is about my having been abused in that alternate reality, you've already proven that you're nice guys, so –"
Jack glared. "Would your Jack let you go along on something like this as injured as you are?"
"That's beside the point!" Daniel growled.
Jack grinned tightly at him. Like hell it wasn't the point, it proved the point. "Fine. Teal'c, get him into the wheelchair."
"You can't take me over terrain like that in a wheelchair," Daniel protested.
"I'm not taking you anywhere," Jack said. "Hammond and Rothman are going to take you to your office." Daniel's jaw dropped. He'd clearly taken Jack's reaction for assent. "Carter is already getting a monitor set up in there so that you can do your translation with as many of your linguistic resources around you as possible. She, Teal'c and I are going to the structure with a camera, and that's as good as it gets." Daniel started to speak but Jack just shook his head and uttered a monosyllabic nonsense sound that shut him up. "I'll be in touch," he said, and then left, the sound of Daniel's annoyed ranting followed him down the hall.
Makepeace didn't need any coaching to be ready to go, so Jack just checked to make sure that he was fully aware of the situation, and then headed to Daniel's office. Carter looked up and said, "Siler's getting our equipment together. You need to go see him to get fitted out. He's in my lab, I believe."
Jack nodded. "Daniel's not pleased, so be prepared for it if he shows up before you go."
She tilted her head. "Not pleased? What's he upset about?"
"He thinks he ought to go along," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "What is it about them? Our Daniel would pull the same crap."
She shrugged. "He's Daniel. I guess that's all there is to it."
He snorted. "All right. Meet us in the gateroom as soon as things are set up here."
"Yes sir."
He went down to the locker room and suited up, then headed over to Carter's lab. Siler gave him the cameras and fitted the transmission gear into a harness on his back. The camera fit into a holster on his hip so that it wouldn't occupy his hands and get in the way if he needed to defend himself at any point. He went down to the gateroom where he found Makepeace's team ready and waiting. Teal'c was there, too, so all they were waiting on was Carter. She arrived a moment after he did through the opposite door. "Is everyone ready?" Jack asked.
"SG-3 is ready to go," Makepeace said. Jack nodded and glanced at his team members who both signaled their readiness. Jack looked at Harriman through the control room window and gave him a thumbs up, and the gate started spinning.
It took about two hours to make the walk to the location that Craig had described. As they got closer, the path was made easier to follow not only by the beacons that were communicating Dempsey and the others' position but also by the drips of blood from Craig's injury, which got more frequent as they approached.
They'd made radio contact with Dempsey as soon as they'd arrived, and Carter was making periodic checks. Jack just kept wishing that Daniel . . . his Daniel . . . was at his side, where he belonged.
Reality A001
Daniel gazed up at the sky. It was a clear, chill blue with little wisps of white cloud decorating it. The air was crisp and very clear this high up on the mountain. Unfortunately it was not quiet. Between the six guards, Dr. Warner and Samantha, there was quite a convention up here on the mountainside. He'd walked somewhat apart from them to sit down on a rock, but he devoutly wished he was alone. That wasn't an option, of course. He might slip away to . . . he shook his head. He had nowhere to go. Didn't Hammond realize that the only thing he wanted was to go home? Sneaking away from the mountain wasn't going to achieve that.
He sighed and closed his eyes, reveling in the feeling of the sun on his skin, the fresh breeze in his hair, but his enjoyment of this rare moment of peace was spoiled by the chattering of the guards. It was making him ready to scream. After several moments of trying to put it out of his mind, he stood up. His sudden movement caught everyone's attention, and he felt like laughing and cursing at the same time. He was such a dangerous fellow, after all. Clearing his throat, he said, "Look, would you guys mind shutting up for awhile?"
Samantha had been engaging in conversation with Warner, but she looked up at Daniel's words with a dismayed expression. "Of course, Daniel," she said. "I'm sorry."
The guards all looked startled, but Daniel turned his back on them. He didn't want either sympathy or annoyance, and he suspected he'd get both. He wanted these people to show him the respect he deserved by allowing him to return to his home.
What were his Jack and Sam and Teal'c doing right now? Had Hammond put them on stand down as a team because they were missing a member? How was the Daniel who'd been so terribly injured? In his note, Teal'c had said he was recovering, but how badly had he actually been hurt to start off with? And how much of it had actually come from Hammond's goons rather than Jack?
Daniel shook his head. He didn't want to think about Hammond, he wanted to think about . . . he just wanted to stop thinking. He walked over to the edge of this little plateau and gazed out over the countryside. The silence behind him was almost as oppressive as the conversations had been. He couldn't win.
A hand on his shoulder made him jump sideways and turn. Samantha stared at him in shock. "I'm sorry, Daniel. I didn't mean –"
He shook his head. "It's not your fault. I'm just a little paranoid."
"Who could blame you after all that's happened?" she said, smiling sympathetically. She stepped towards him again and glanced over her shoulder. He looked too, and saw that no one was closer to them than fifteen feet. But surely . . . the location of this trip had to have been known. She turned towards him. "Hammond didn't think to ask us to identify our destination this time. We can't count on him not thinking of that in the future."
"Samantha, there are such things as parabolic mikes, and –"
"And anything like that will prove startlingly unuseful on this occasion. I have a little bit of a help that no one here knows about."
He blinked. "I see. Subtle enough, I take it, not to be noticed as interference?"
"I do believe they've started to look for possible geomagnetic sources for the persistent problem that's cropped up in quite a bit of our surveillance equipment," she said, glancing around. "There's a comfortable looking place to sit." He nodded wordlessly, surprised by this development, and followed her to the rock outcropping that she'd indicated.
"I'm guessing that you've got something to say," Daniel said after they'd been sitting for a few minutes. "Or you wouldn't have made quite such a point of the lack of surveillance."
"I've got a lot of things to say," she replied. "I'm just not altogether sure where to start."
"Well, we have limited time," he said.
"We do." She sighed. "We, several others and I, are trying to get you home, but it's going to take time. For one thing the mirror isn't on this base any longer, and it's not in Hammond's control."
He raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. "That has a wide variety of implications," he said. Both positive and negative, he thought, but didn't say aloud.
She nodded. "Maybourne has been in contact with your people. You really have to try to hold on. Do what you have to so that you don't get killed."
He looked at her. "Jack . . . my Jack . . . would very much appreciate your saying that, but I can't trade my life for the lives of others, particularly not those of children."
Grimacing, she shook her head. "Leaving that aside, let me tell you some people you can trust. In case . . ."
"I understand," he said hastily, not wanting more details. Missions could go terribly wrong.
"Sgt. Siler and Colonel Makepeace are working with me, as well as Lt. Colonel Maybourne."
"That's good to know." Siler wasn't a surprise, but Makepeace? A little unexpected.
"Dr. Warner is on your side, believe it or not. He didn't have any way of refusing the order to . . . to do what he did."
"Yes, well, on my side or not, he needs to learn to control his tongue," Daniel remarked. "There are moments when I have Jack and Hammond in that little room with me when I want to hit Jack for saying stupid things. Warner did that today. It's like they don't realize that Hammond likes hurting me, that he'll seize on whatever excuse he can to do it." He paused. "Why did he hate the original Daniel here so much?"
"There are a lot of reasons. Because he was like you," she said. "He believed that his own moral and ethical beliefs trumped Hammond's orders."
"That annoys both my Jack and my General Hammond, but they don't behave like this."
She shrugged. "Our Hammond is a greedy bastard, and he doesn't give a damn what he has to do to accomplish his goals. He resented the influence Danny had on Colonel O'Neill. The two of them were incredibly close, and there was nothing Hammond could do to split that up. Then, every Daniel we've had since the original who has had contact with people on base has gotten at least some of those people to try to help him. Never the colonel, but Hammond doesn't approve of a man who can so easily sway military personnel from what he regards as their duty."
"I see. It explains a lot. His little talks to me have been more than a little disturbing."
"I can imagine. You like your Hammond?"
"I trust him," Daniel said. "He's a very kind and gentle man, even if he is occasionally a little too military for my tastes."
She snorted. "Well, my father was going to try and get this Hammond retired before his cancer . . ." Daniel put an arm around her shoulders as it became clear that she was fighting back tears. "Is he dead in your reality? Did he have cancer?"
"He did," Daniel said, wondering how truthful he should be. "He's . . . he's blended with a Tok'ra."
"You're kidding!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening in surprise. "He's . . . what does he do?"
"He's Tok'ra," Daniel said, shrugging. "He comes back every so often, but most of the time we don't see him."
"But he's alive," she said, almost desperate.
"He is. He and Hammond are actually friends."
"That just seems so odd," she said. They sat in silence for a few moments while she absorbed this information. Daniel wondered what was going on in her head. Finally, she cleared her throat. "There is something else I need to tell you. Hammond is now convinced that I'm showing the proper practical attitude towards you and your presence here, so I'm still trying to find the balance for how I can behave with you."
Daniel pursed his lips. "Practical how?" he asked. "Greedy practical, or what? What would he be likely to believe of you?"
She bit her lip. "Not the level of ruthlessness he shows, I don't think. I've been too outspoken in the other direction. Practical in terms of wanting you to be able to do your job and stay useful to the SGC."
He nodded slowly. "Well, then, I'd say you could probably get away with behaving much as you have been. If he thinks you're practical in that sense, he'll put his own interpretation on your motives. You're getting me ice packs not because you're a gentle soul who wants me not to be in pain, but because you recognize that a man in pain will do substandard work. It's a question of avoiding any actions that it would be difficult to put a 'practical' construction on."
"That makes sense," she said. "I think I can do that."
"Good," he said, smiling. They didn't speak again for several minutes. A dark cloud bank was moving in and Daniel hoped the rain it portended wouldn't reach them before he was supposed to go inside. He sighed. "Does Jack really believe I'm your original Daniel?"
She paused, and he sensed the same sort of reservations he'd had earlier when they were discussing her father. She was trying to decide what she should tell him. Finally, she said, "Sometimes. Almost all the time when he's with you."
"How . . ." He cleared his throat. "How did your Daniel die?"
"It was an accident," she said, confirming his suspicion. "I don't . . . the colonel used to discipline Danny pretty severely when he'd disobey orders or do something that nearly got him killed. You've got to understand. He loved Danny like a brother, and if anything happened to him, he'd go berserk."
Daniel nodded. "I kind of guessed some of that."
"Well, things got a little out of hand and Danny hit his head. There was nothing to be done to save him, and he died."
"And Jack went crazy."
"With a little help from Hammond and the . . . did you know they're giving him drugs?"
"Teal'c mentioned it in the note," Daniel said. "He said that Jack was being given stuff to make him more aggressive."
"That helped to exacerbate the problem that led to Danny's death," Samantha said. Daniel tilted his head curiously. "Danny was being given drugs to make him more passive. It wasn't a good combination."
"Hammond probably thought it was funny," Daniel said disgustedly.
"Probably," Samantha said unhappily. "But the funny thing is that I don't think he got what he wanted out of it. Daniel still objected to theft and unwarranted harsh treatment, and the colonel still backed him up. He might take a little more convincing, but it still happened most of the time. All it did was make their relationship a step more unhealthy than it was to begin with."
"And lead to your Daniel's death, and thus my presence here," Daniel said. The dark clouds were coming closer. "We're due for a storm," he said.
"In more ways than one," she agreed. "The colonel is genuinely pissed off at Hammond, so you need to be prepared for just about anything. He's unpredictable, and while he wants to protect you, he also wants to get Hammond, and there's no telling which goal will be uppermost in his mind at any given moment."
"Terrific," Daniel said. He shook his head. "I really appreciate all the stuff you're doing for me. I know that it's a big risk. That night with Teal'c, I thought we were done for."
"Me too," she said. "Can you tell me a little bit about the Teal'c in your reality? I don't know if it will help in ours, but it might."
Daniel shrugged. "I can, but as you said, I don't know how much it will help. Let's see . . . Ryac is his son, and in our reality he already has a Goa'uld symbiote because he nearly died of an illness. He defected from Apophis when . . . do you know who Sha're is?"
"Daniel's wife?" Samantha said, her voice subdued. "I met her briefly, once, when I joined the team. That was right before Apophis raided Abydos, taking both her and her brother. She died when Apophis tried to put a Goa'uld in her. We haven't really figured out why, though Daniel thinks . . . thought . . . that she fought back mentally, and the Goa'uld killed her."
Daniel blinked. "My Sha're isn't dead," he said, wondering if that was right. His Sha're had shown possible signs of defying her Goa'uld captor, but as far as they knew she was still alive. As far as they knew . . . He gulped, remembering the last time he saw his wife, as she walked away from him with Apophis, protecting them by her silence. "When we tried to retrieve her, on my first mission with the SGC, she had already been Goa'ulded, and so we couldn't . . . we . . ." He bit back on his emotional reaction and forced himself back under control. "She's controlled by Amunet. But when we went after her and Skaara, Teal'c helped us escape the fortress and joined us."
Samantha's voice was quiet and full of concern when she responded. "Wow, that must have . . . she's not dead, though?"
"No, she's still with Apophis," Daniel said, his voice breaking. "She's . . . we're still trying to get her and Skaara back."
"You'll do it, I'm sure," Samantha said, squeezing his hand.
Daniel took a deep breath. "Anyway, Teal'c . . ." He contemplated the quiet man back home. "Our Teal'c is a man of honor and integrity. He would do anything to defeat the false gods who have enslaved his people for so long, and he's not the only one. Not all of the Jaffa are willing dupes, and some of those who believe what they have been taught can be brought to understand the truth and fight against the Goa'uld. Without the Jaffa, we wouldn't be where we are today. It was Teal'c's mentor, Bray'tac, who made it possible for us to survive the attack on Earth by Apophis and Klorel."
"The Jaffa fought for you?"
Daniel shook his head. "They fought with us. Jack, Sam, Teal'c and I went through the gate to Klorel's ship, not that we knew it was a ship, but . . ." He shook his head – he was getting bogged down in irrelevancies. "We wound up getting captured, but Bray'tac freed us and his rebel Jaffa helped us to destroy both ships. Many of them died in the process. We all almost died . . . it was a near thing."
"We sent two platoons of marines," Samantha said. "None of them came back, but both ships were destroyed."
"Wow," Daniel said. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, that must have been awful."
"It wasn't pretty. The president was furious."
"Because so many people died?" Daniel asked.
She gave him a disbelieving look. "You must have a much more appealing president than we have. He wasn't angry because of the loss of life. He was pissed because he didn't get anything out of it. No poll boosting headlines, no technology, just eighty men dead with nothing to show for it."
"Except for fact that the planet wasn't destroyed."
"That's not very tangible. Kinsey thinks in terms of tangible benefits."
Daniel stared at her. "Kinsey's president here, and you still have a stargate program?"
"God, yes, he wants to take America's 'manifest destiny' out to the stars."
"If ours were president, he'd have the gate wrapped in mothballs so quickly, we'd never see it again. We might not even have time to bring all our teams home first." He shook his head. "Manifest destiny? Did he really say that?"
"More than once," Samantha said. "It gets old."
"I'd imagine." He grimaced. "Teal'c, though. I told you his mentor is Bray'tac. His wife is Drey-Auc, and they have just the one son, Ryac."
"Thank you." He could see her storing up the information for future use. "Anything else?"
He shrugged. "I'm not altogether certain. Those things should probably be the same, but I don't know what else might be. If I tell you too much that's not the same as it is here, it might be the opposite of helpful."
"I can see that," she said. "On the other hand it might persuade him that the alternate reality thing makes sense. What did he see in that note? Is there any chance he could have been misled by what your Teal'c wrote?"
"Not unless he's stupid," Daniel said frankly, shaking his head. "No, he lied, flat out, with Ryac's health on the line. I mean, he did have the benefit of knowing that if Hammond was calling on him to double check my translation, there wasn't anyone else who could do it, which measurably lowers the chance that he'd be caught, but still . . ."
"Yes, I agree. It says something. I'm not sure what, but something."
"As for the note, Teal'c identified himself by name, spoke to me directly using Goa'uld equivalents for my name and for Maybourne's. He said he was the Teal'c from my reality. There is a very puzzled Jaffa in whatever cell Hammond's keeping him in, wondering just how we came to be in possession of a note written in his hand regarding people and events he knows nothing of and using as camouflage a story his father told him when he was very young." Daniel shook his head. "He told me two versions of it, by the way. The one his wife knew, and the one he knew, and there were small but significant differences between them. That's got to be something else this Teal'c found a little odd. The version that was written down was a merging of the two versions that he and Drey-Auc worked out between them to tell their son, a compromise. It's a very personal thing, between him and his wife. That, too, has got to be startling him."
The first spatters of rain started, huge cold drops. "Ma'am, I think we'd better get inside," said one of the guards.
"A few more minutes, please," Daniel said urgently, and Samantha nodded dubiously for the soldier's benefit.
"Just a few," she said, waving the guard off. Unwillingly, the man went. She turned to Daniel. "Okay, if Hammond asks you why I spent so much time talking to you privately, tell him it was a 'pep talk' of sorts. I was telling you how much better things could be if you cooperate, how much worse things could get if you don't. Is there anything you desperately want that I could realistically ask him for?"
"Music," Daniel said instantly. "Unlimited. I can work with music playing, and I can't bear the constant silence. Surely a cd player wouldn't be that much to ask for."
"I'll see what I can do. But be warned, if I do get it for you, Hammond will probably play games with it."
"I know," Daniel said. "I'm familiar with bullies. That's all your Hammond is, a bully with power."
There was a brilliant flash of light, and the guard came forward again. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but it's not safe up here for any of us in an electrical storm."
Daniel nodded and got up. As they headed back inside, he wondered if getting hit by lightning would set the bomb off or short it out. It probably wasn't worth finding out. He looked up at the incredible shades of gray that made up the storm clouds and tried not to wonder if he'd ever see the sky again.