"Mommy!"
The memory of the scream that ripped out of her five-year-old's throat jerked Sam out of her dreamless sleep and back to reality with a jolt of adrenaline.
"It's okay," a voice soothed. "You're okay."
Sam blinked several times to try and clear the cloudiness of the sedative from her vision. "Vala?" She asked as she turned to find her dark-haired friend sitting in the chair beside her. "I thought Jack said he was sending Mark."
"Oh, he did." Vala said with a grin. "But Nicole and I tagged along."
Sam's brow furrowed in confusion. "You brought Nicole?"
"You don't think I was just going to leave her in Colorado, did you?"
"No," Sam said, shaking her head gently. "No, I guess I didn't." How, she hated these drugs that were keeping her from her usually high capacity for logic.
"Nor was I going to just sit around and wait for Daniel to return." Vala continued.
Sam looked over at her friend with a pained expression on her face. "Have you heard anything yet?"
Vala shook her head. "Not yet. But I'm hopeful."
Sam nodded. She knew all-too-well the toll that came from sitting at home and waiting while being unable to do anything to help. "Well, Jack's there. If nothing else, he and Mitchell will commandeer a sub and go down to rescue them single-handedly."
Vala brightened instantly at the thought. "And they would, too."
With eyes more accustomed to the fluorescent lighting, Sam looked around the room. "Where exactly is my older brother?"
"He said something about "old times" and took Nicole for ice cream in the cafeteria a few minutes ago." She said with a small smile. "They should be back soon."
Sam's worried brow softened into a relaxed smile. "Old times," she said with a knowing chuckle. "I'll bet."
"What was he talking about?" Vala asked.
"Mark's daughter, Kate, just got married last year to a computer tech wizard who got a job working for Microsoft, so they moved to Seattle after the wedding. After that happened, Mark started coming to visit us a bit more often." Her smile became somewhat rueful. "He claims he's just got more business here in Colorado Springs, but I think he misses Katie and is trying to ease his loneliness by spending time with Grace and Jacob."
Vala nodded. "Well, Nicole just loves him. And being that she doesn't have any actual aunts or uncles, I figured it couldn't hurt to let her get ice cream with him."
Sam nodded in agreement as the door opened and Nicole bounded into the room. "Hi, Mommy." She greeted as she ran to offer her mother one of the two bowls of ice cream in her hands. "We got you some ice cream!"
"Did you?" Vala asked, accepting the gift. "Did you say thank you to Mr. Carter?"
Mark chuckled as he closed the door. "Yes, she did. She has impeccable manners, Mrs. Jackson."
"Please," Vala said, looking over at him. "It's Vala."
"Vala." He said, nodding.
"So, you're charming little girls again, are you?" Sam asked with a hoarse chuckle.
"You know me," he said with a light shrug as he turned his attention to his sister. "How are you feeling?"
"Honestly?" Sam asked with a slight grimace. "I could be better." Then, she managed a thin smile. "Of course, I could also be a lot worse."
Mark nodded as he sat down.
"Thanks for all the help," Sam said, turning her attention back to her brother as Vala's attention became consumed by her chatty five-year-old.
"What help?" Mark asked with derision. "I'm a CPA, not a ghostbuster. What on Earth could I do to help you do what you do everyday?"
Sam laughed softly. "Truthfully, even the ghostbusters couldn't help us do what we do. And I don't really do this everyday. I do it part-time, on the side, if they need me."
"From what Jack told me, you're about five minutes away from winning a Nobel prize in physics and the Air Force promoted you to Brigadier General." Mark said as he shook his head in disagreement. "They wouldn't do that if they didn't need you."
"Jack is exaggerating," Sam said with a light blush. "He does that a lot when it comes to my influence as an astrophysicist."
"Name one quote-unquote famous astrophysicist who has ever done anything close to what you do, or used to do, everyday." Mark asked with an earnest look.
"There are a lot more famous astrophysicists without whom I couldn't have done any of what I may or may not have done." She countered.
"I mean, the ones alive today, Sam." Mark sighed with a bit of exasperation.
"Well, there's Mike Brown and Neil deGrasse Tyson who have changed the way we define a planet. I mean, they redefined the way we look at the solar system." She replied with ease.
"Um, yeah, how about we choose physicists who aren't getting hate mail from third graders." Mark said with a shake of his head.
She couldn't help but chuckle at the idea. "What I mean is that what we did may be important, but theories about wormhole physics aren't going to mean much if the world doesn't know where those theories came from. And honestly once they know, I doubt they'll even look at me as a candidate for a Nobel prize. I mean, all I've done in the history of physics is connect our understanding of physics with a greater, larger understanding of the universe. Whatever I write down in defense of wormhole physics is entirely someone else's idea. Just written in a form that our scientists can relate to."
Mark shook his head. "And you wonder why people want to kill you."
Sam's brow furrowed.
"You're too perfect. You're too smart. You're too humble. You're too nice. You're too precise." He rattled off. "Need I go on?"
"You're going to use the same argument Dad would give us anytime we came home from high school with a complaint against one of our classmates? That they're all just jealous?" She asked skeptically.
"Hard not to be." He said with a thin smile. "And, as the older brother who could never hold a candle to your brilliance, I should know."
"That's not true, and you know it." Sam defended. "You were smart too. You could run a lemonade stand like no one else I've ever met. You had employees and payroll taxes, for cryin' out loud! Me? I think my one attempt at a lemonade stand made about fifty cents. Because Mom took pity on me and gave me a fifty cent tip."
Mark chuckled. "Yeah."
"Look, I know that this new reality must be overwhelming for you," she said as the laughter subsided. "It was for me the first time I heard about it." She inhaled. "But I also know that without people like you making it all worthwhile, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing."
Mark offered a small nod in concession. "Yes. Those of us who need to be saved are quite the commodity, aren't we?"
Sam shook her head as she leaned her head back against the pillow.
"Do you need something? Should I call a doctor for more pain meds?"
Sam shook her head as she closed her eyes against the light. "No." She sighed heavily. "I just wish the phone would ring, and Jack would tell me that it's all over."
Grace had never felt the way she felt right now. Physically, she was practically paralyzed, but mentally...
She knew the precise location of every sentient being in the vicinity and their approximate location to her. Beside her was Jacob. Between them was a medical researcher and a biochemist, each alternating between Jacob and Grace in their studies. In the room behind her was Steve and his merry band of bad guys.
The room ahead was being filled with people, but she couldn't discern who they were. At least not until she had time to reach out mentally and gently reach each individual mind.
This shouldn't be happening, she thought to herself. I shouldn't have this ability—not with the Anti-Prior device active. It was designed to interrupt "higher" brain frequencies.
Who said this was a higher brain frequency? A voice floated into her subconscious. What if this is just the usage of a greater percentage of your brain matter for one task?
Like teaching her brain to have multiple uses for the same neural pathway? She wondered.
Exactly. It's not higher at all. It's just a refocus.
And completely alien. She thought in resignation.
That's not a bad thing. Just—different.
It made sense in a weird way. Perhaps that was why she couldn't move right now. She'd exerted all her power to this "map" of their prison.
This could work, she realized with the sudden hope of deliverance.
