Things were never as easy as people said they were. In this instance, the water was freezing, the control room wasn't right by the ladder, a doorway almost locked him inside, the correct lever wasn't easy to find, and when he did find it, it was a dead man's switch.
In spite of all of those obstacles, Jack O'Neill got the job done. He emptied the jumper bay, saved Sam and the rest of the haphazard rescue team, and didn't drown.
He might be a desk jockey right now, but he still had it. He could still save the day when he needed too. There was something exhilarating about that knowledge.
When he got to the hatch he used the ladder to pull himself up. He wiped a hand across his face and shook his head to get rid of the excess water.
"Woo!" he yelled. "Yeah!"
Jack turned around and his confidence sank. Two Replicators stood above him, aiming weapons at his head. He glanced over to see that even more were holding Woolsey captive. Seeing the numbers, he couldn't even feel angry that Woolsey let himself be captured. It would have been a difficult fight even for someone who was trained.
"Don't move!" the Replicator directly in front of him shouted.
"Where would I possibly go?" Jack asked.
The Replicators didn't respond to his rhetorical question. They just waited for him to exit the water, grabbed him, and shoved him back towards the stairs.
As he and Woolsey were marched along the corridor, Jack tried to think of the positive. For example, they weren't dead yet. He assumed they were going to be interrogated - tortured - for information. While he wasn't looking forward to that, he also knew it wasn't the worst possible outcome. As long as they were alive, they still had a chance of making it out of here.
The Replicators had brought quite a crowd to capture them. He should be flattered they thought those numbers were necessary. One Replicator had a tight grip on his shoulder as they walked and Jack could see that Woolsey's shoulder was in a similar. He asked a few minutes earlier if they could let up on the pressure, but his request had just been ignored. In fact, the grip went even tighter.
Maybe if he did survive, he could convince Sam to massage his shoulders.
The sharp hold only released when the Replicators pushed them into the Atlantis brig and shoved them onto a bench in the holding cell.
"Ow!" Jack shouted, wincing at the pain in his shoulder and reaching a hand up to rub it.
"Where are the others?" the lead Replicator asked.
Jack glanced over at Woolsey, trying to keep his face mostly blank. He hoped to hell the guy tried to keep his mouth shut. The more time they could buy for the others, the better.
He knew he'd held that lever down long enough. They were in the city. It was their turn to save him.
Now, he just had to stall.
"What…others?" he asked, drawing out the question.
The Replicators didn't like his answer. This was going to turn into a real interrogation soon and Jack wasn't looking forward to it.
All he had been trying to do for a month and a half was go on vacation. Instead he had to deal with Ancients and Replicators and being in the damn Pegasus galaxy.
His job sucked.
"What were you doing in the flooded sections of the city?"
Jack glanced up at the first Replicator and purposefully looked confused.
"The backstroke, I think."
He always did enjoy being a smartass to the bad guys, even if he usually ended up paying for it in the end.
"What are you planning?"
There were a lot of ways to answer that question. It was the second Replicator's fault for not being more specific.
"Well, I was planning to retire," Jack started with a laugh, "but, man, is that overrated. I mean, it's not like I'm a workaholic or anything, but, you know, I like to stay active…with the community. It's...it's a health maintenance sort of thing, you know?"
Tool late, he realized that the machines had grown tired of the banter.
The two Replicators behind them moved forward to grab their shoulders and hold them in place. The two Replicators in front of them took a step forward.
"I don't like where this is going," Jack muttered.
Woolsey looked around nervously.
"What are they doing?"
Jack wasn't sure if it was better to be prepared for this experience or if it was easier to not know what you were getting into.
He decided not to answer the man beside him. Woolsey would find out soon enough what it was like to be interrogated by a Replicator.
Their hands reached out and one pressed into Jack's forehead.
"Ow."
Soon enough he was in his own mind with the taller Replicator standing next to him in the 'gate room, an active wormhole glowing blue beside them.
The difficult thing with Replicators was that they could look so human, and almost kind. The one in front of him had messy brown hair, curling at the edges, and pale skin. His eyes were as brilliantly blue as Carter's.
"Whatcha doin'?"
"Probing your mind," the Replicator responded, not at all concerned about the inherent violation.
Jack looked around. Sometimes he wondered what it meant that the interior of his mind looked like an empty 'gate room.
Once upon a time, he said that his mind took this form because he worked at the SGC. He knew now that the reason wasn't that simple. He no longer worked at Stargate Command and yet here he was.
Then again, he much preferred this mental image to one of his office in D.C.
"Kinda roomy, ain't it?" he quipped.
The Replicator smiled and there was something eerie about it.
"Your ability to resist is quite remarkable, General O'Neill."
He felt a little smug at the compliment and might have smiled back.
"It's not the first time I've had a hand in my head, as it were."
Jack did his best not to think back on those other times and the bits and pieces he remembered of the experiences. He'd gotten better at resisting each time and he wasn't sure if it was really because he learned something from those awful events or if his supposed superior ability to resist had something to with his own Ancient ancestry.
Not that the Ancients had fared very well in the long run.
All Jack knew was that the Replicators could skim his brain for certain memorable events, people, details, and locations...but in order to get all the facts, they needed his cooperation. He could hide away certain information in the chaos of his mind for a limited amount of time if he tried hard enough.
"If you do not give me what I am looking for, I am sure Richard Woolsey will."
He didn't even bother to refute that statement. They all knew that Woolsey was the weak link here. Jack's job was just to keep the Replicator's preoccupied, without giving away too much information, until help arrived.
"I'll tell you what," he offered, "you look around, and I'll tell you if you're gettin' warmer or colder, alright?"
The Replicator looked smug and only waited a few seconds before responding.
"Ah. There it is."
Damn, he really had hoped it would take longer for the sentient machines to get what they needed.
"So…hot, I guess."
For his own pride, Jack hoped that Woolsey had given up the information and his mind hadn't failed him that quickly.
Jack shouted in pain as the Replicator removed the hand from his temple. He found himself back in the brig, breathing heavily. Richard Woolsey leaned forward on his knees beside him, panting and holding his head as the Replicators left the room.
"That was the worst thing I've ever experienced," Woolsey shared, voice shaky.
Jack put a hand on his shoulder, a small bit of comfort before he shared the bad news.
"Yeah. It gets worse."
He knew that from experience.