Jay Felger was drunk. He wasn't usually drunk at all, let alone drunk on a Tuesday, but he didn't have much else to do nowadays. The SGC had been stood down pending review, with only limited operations allowed until a full determination of the necessary oversight measures to avoid another Foothold situation could be implemented.
SG teams were still allowed to travel off world, but the NID would now have a permanent presence within the SGC under the leadership of Colonel Mayborne. Felger wasn't looking forward to letting the civilian agency's "practicality assessment" with regards to his research projects. He was already facing enough barriers to making a working plasma cannon without adding red tape to the list.
Felger, along with the other scientists who'd been on the disastrous Lunar expedition, had been suspended for their violations of the official secrets act. They'd determined at yesterday's hearings that he wouldn't lose his clearances or his program access, saving the planet has some perks, but he was going unpaid for at least another week.
It could be worse, he supposed. One hundred and twenty days had passed quickly, and only seven remained before he'd get back into the SGC to have a look at his Lab and figure out how many of his projects were able to be salvaged.
Honestly the worst part of being on a four-month suspension was the boredom. Due to the nature of his work and the ongoing investigations, his travel radius had been severely limited. Anything greater than a hundred miles and he had to be escorted to ensure that he wasn't going to flee or turn into an alien space crab creature.
It made a lot of sense, but Jay was running out of things to do. So tonight he'd decided to break from his normal habits and do something crazy. In this case, he'd walked the block to the local sports bar and gotten just utterly smashed. He didn't like alchohol. He didn't like the taste. He didn't like the feeling of being drunk. He didn't like being around drunk people. But for tonight, he just didn't want to have to feel a thousand different ideas running through his head knowing that he wouldn't be able to even legally talk about them for another seven days.
He stumbled back towards his house, wondering if he was on the verge of blacking out, and wondering if he would remember wondering if he was on the urge of a blackout. Realistically he knew that the couple of shots he had probably weren't enough to erase the memories of that night, but he was also drunk and couldn't reliably trust in his ability to do math.
Though, he supposed, his own math was probably more reliable than most sober people's math might have been. He tried, and failed to insert his key into the door of his apartment several times before the door opened inward. It took his drunken mind a few moments to realize that someone opening the door from inside his apartment was not only strange, it was impossible.
He yelped in shock and grabbed the nearest thing he could reach, holding up the doll of Samantha Carter like a club as he shouted. "Who are you and why are you in my house."
The woman snorted in amusement at Jay's attempt to intimidate her, smiling politely as she held out her hand. "Now Jay, there is no need for that. I want to be friends."
"I don't generally make friends with people who break into my house." Jay replied, internally adding 'even if they are beautiful with dark hair, long legs, and clever eyes.' He must have slurred that somewhat, because it made her giggle.
"Daddy he's just like you said he would be." She led the drunken Jay to his coffee table, sitting the inebriate Felger down in his favorite chair and putting him face to face with the other person who'd invaded his home. He was a man of average height and build, with strong and handsome features who appeared to be middle aged.
The man spoke in a slight British accent, idly playing with the thin brown tie that hung around his neck. "Jay Felger, you are a remarkable man."
"Thanks?" Jay replied in confusion, looking at the man's daughter as she sat down next to her father, curling up against him lovingly. "I – uh, why are you in my house."
"I'm something of a collector of remarkable people. Those of great intelligence and ambition." The man replied, rolling a silver coin between his fingers as he did so. For some reason Jay found himself unable to take his eyes from it. "I find people with talents and help them to reach their full potential."
"You want to be my life coach?" Jay snorted. "I've heard of going for the hard sell, but this is ridiculous."
"Boy – I see your ambition, your longing, your need to belong. You want to be a hero, but have never been taken seriously no matter how hard you try." The man spoke in a knowing voice as his shadow flickered across the wall in a way that didn't feel quite right. "So, answer me one question. If you tell me no, I promise to leave. But if you say yes – I would like to give you the opportunity of a lifetime."
"Look, I'm not really a God guy, so if this is a religious thing I've got to just let you know right now, there isn't much about the world that has me on 'team God' at the moment." Jay belched.
"Oh, I do like this one." The man's daughter purred.
"Not yet, pet." The man chided his daughter before turning to Jay. "You will find us very much aligned on that point, Mr. Felger. I'm not much of a 'team God' man either. My question is much more pointed. Do you want to be strong?"
"What?" Jay blinked.
"Do you want to be strong?" Replied the man. "Do you want to have the opportunity to do all the things you've been ridiculed for trying to do before? Do you want to make women see you as you've never been seen? Do you want to be as powerful as you've ever dreamed?"
"Yes," Jay replied slowly, nervous for reasons he couldn't quite place. It was a simple enough question, so why was he feeling his heart thunder in his ears. "I want that. I want all of that."
The man placed the sliver coin on the coffee table and pushed it towards Jay. "Then take it."
The silver coinage felt unusually heavy as he lifted it between his fingers and made eye contact with the man, wondering how a coin was going to make him strong. He must have been drunker than he thought he was, because he could have sworn that the man now had two sets of eyes.
He blinked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he tried to sober up enough to ask a coherent question, but when he opened them again, he was alone in the room again, with only the silver coin to affirm that either the man or his daughter had ever been there.