AN: Morning campers! It's Thursday and you know what THAT means. Oh so my boss is back from vacation. She laughed when I said I'm sorry if I was as naive as the new guy who is super nice but drives me up a wall with his idealistic opinions. She laughed and said we all were at the start. Hopefully the kid has learned some stuff but he's very resistant to being told he's incorrect so possibly not. Our regular assistant manager comes back at the end of the week hopefully and my boss IS still looking for someone to be my part timer. The youngest wants to be a commando Pea from Plants Vs. Zombies so I'm modifying a base costume to look like an actual Pea plant from the game cover. Oldest wants to be rainbow super cat. A character of his own creation. I have to sew this costume. I will apparently be a tired mom. lol

Chapter 5

Lisa started school the next day. Jack randomly wondered why everything always started on Tuesday in his life. Jack and Sam dropped Lisa off before they left in separate cars for their respective jobs. Jack had gotten a call that he was needed to teach chemistry yesterday just before they left for Lisa's orientation. Jack had shrugged and made jokes about potassium until Sam wasn't sure if he was joking any more about making bombs or not. But she'd laughed with him for hours about it.

Last evening, Lisa had sat in his lap and read to him just like Cassie used to and Jack soaked it up. Sam had watched them from the love seat across the room and fell in love with him all over again. She realized she was being ridiculous as she stared at him covertly over her magazine and cup of tea but she couldn't help it. He was so absolutely sweet.

The memory of him affectionately hugging Lisa before bed was on her mind when she showed up for her first day at work as the 'new records manager'. The SGC had issued her an aging red Escort with Colorado plates because her cover was she'd just moved from there when her boyfriend got a teaching job offer. Her resume said she'd worked at the NORAD reception desk and had been taking night classes to earn her degree in office management. It was just enough to interest her employers without making them suspect anything unless they knew for sure who the SGC was which they did not. The program had only ever had code letters and Department of the Air Force on the paperwork. Nothing about NORAD, Colorado, or the SGC.

She walked into the slightly musty reception area and was greeted by a middle-aged man who had clearly dyed his hair a darker shade out of seeming vanity but Sam strongly suspected he thought someone was looking for him. She smiled nervously at him. "Hi, I'm Sam Carter. I met you last week?"

"Oh… oh yes, the nice young lady Kevin was showing around for an interview. I assume they decided you were a good fit?"

"Yes, he told me to come back today to fill out my I-9 and get started."

"Right. Of course. Well, come on back. I'll need the copier for your driver's license and stuff." he said absently as he turned around and headed for the office behind the reception area. "You're probably going to be pretty bored until we start working on the patents." He warned her.

Sam shrugged. "As long as you are okay with me reading and working on classwork when I don't have other things to do. I want to try to finish the rest of my degree actually." Sam told him. She was dressed in a dowdy sweater, brown slacks, and a pair of large glasses that made her look owlish. Her hair was darker than usual but she'd had hers done professionally and was closer to a light brown that didn't stand out like her natural blond tended to.

"Yah sure, that's fine. Mostly you'll just be answering the phone if it rings, making coffee, and cleaning the office until we get more work or have a breakthrough on our current project." He said absently as he sat at a vintage metal desk and pulled out some forms. "You okay with us cutting you a paper check? We really aren't set up for direct deposit yet."

"No, that's fine. I've worked for small businesses before." Sam said, looking around the dull looking room. "A little paint wouldn't hurt."

"It wouldn't." Bill agreed. "Don't really have anyone to do it though."

Sam grinned. "My fiancé and I could do it one weekend." She said brightly. "He's pretty handy."

"He some kind of contractor?" Bill asked, clearly reluctant to pay for the service.

"Oh no, he's a schoolteacher at the Jr. High." Sam said brightly. "He's trying to get a permanent position so he can get tenure."

"Guaranteed pay and your summers off." Bill said, with envy in his voice.

"Yah. He loves it. Goes up to his grandpa's cabin in Minnesota every summer and fishes."

"Hopefully he takes you with him." Bill said conversationally.

Sam chuckled. "He offered when we first met but I haven't yet."

"What's stopping you?"

Sam shrugged. "We only just got engaged. We were just friends when he asked the first time."

"Ah… an old fashioned girl, huh?"

"Something like that." Sam agreed as though the thought of spending a week alone in a cabin with Jack before they were romantically involved somehow scandalized her when in reality it had been more about how she'd worried that it might look inappropriate… because let's face it… she would have seduced him and she knew it even if Jack thought he could have kept his hands to himself.

Bill watched his new employee. She was a pretty average looking secretary. Not very fashionable. Seemed unaware she was cute under the glasses. Friendly but a little shy. More interested in her engagement than how the job worked. The last girl had asked too many questions. They didn't want questions. They wanted someone who just did their job and went home. This girl seemed like she was the right choice for that. Had gotten a dreamy look on her face when she mentioned the fiancé. Good. She'd spend more time daydreaming about her love life than working. Best of all, she probably wouldn't ask questions. The receptionist was just for appearances anyway. Just in case someone walked in and had questions.

"So I have a set of keys for you." He said as he grabbed them off a cluttered desk and handed them to her. "Feel free to arrange the office however you want as you'll be the only one in front most of the time. I work with the guys in the back. If you need anything, just hit extension 502 and it will page everyone in the back on the overhead system. That way you don't have to hunt people down or if Mike has his headphones on again someone can give him a poke."

Sam giggled. "I think I can remember that."

"Great. There's not much to training really. When we need you for paperwork, someone will show you what they need done."

"That's fine." Sam said. "You're okay with me rearranging the files?"

"Yah, the last girl left a mess." Bill said dismissively. There wasn't anything she'd learn by rifling through what paperwork was there. She'd filled out an I-9 he'd never file as they would be dummying up a pay stub showing taxes paid and paying her under the table. They planned to disappear into the wind as soon as they solved their energy problem and sold the tech to the highest bidder. The guys had suggested leaving the girl with the mess when they disappeared but Bill honestly wanted to just leave her in the dark and nothing pointing at her or the last girl at all. He wasn't interested in hurting anyone. He just wanted his money and a slice of beach.

Sam appeared entirely oblivious to all of this as she sat at the reception area and dug her novel out of her bag. She waited for Bill to leave and continued reading as though she didn't have a care in the world other than saying "Silent Bolt Engineering" if the phone rang.

Bill went to the back, punched in a code on the door and closed it behind him.

Sam's face didn't change expression. She'd need to bug that work area which meant breaking in after hours to do so. She smiled a little to herself, seemingly at something in the book. Piece of cake as Jack would say.

In the engineering lab, Bill looked at his team. Mike, their specialist, had noticed the tech they were working on was well above the normal stuff they were usually contracted to do and Kevin who had the idea to take off with it and sell it to the highest bidder when they got it working in the first place.

Bill wasn't sure this was the best idea. They could have been paid to finish the tech then sold it without the military knowing but Kevin had argued that they needed to just all disappear as if they had been kidnapped and let everyone wonder who took them. Later they would be long gone and whoever bought the tech would be left holding the bag. Kevin said he had a buyer so Bill was just along for the ride and the money at this point. He had nothing to lose. His wife had left him for some military guy anyway so it didn't bother him even a little that they were screwing over the armed forces. Kevin was just a shady shitbag. No one knew why Mike did anything.

"She all right up there?"

Bill nodded to Kevin. "Yah. Has no clue and less interest. More worried about getting married then the job."

"Not to one of us I hope?" Kevin asked in a worried tone.

"Nah. She's engaged."

"Huh. She wasn't when I interviewed her."

"Was she seeing someone?"

"Hell, I don't know. I didn't ask. You should probably dig a little on that. See if she trips over anything."

Bill shrugged. The girl seemed genuinely excited about the engagement so he doubted this was anything new. Kevin just wasn't one for details. Speaking of details… "Mike. How's it coming."

"We need one of those crystal things or figure out how to interphase that box thing Bobby stole for us."

The box thing was a weird glowing blue box that Bobby had swiped from his own government project and switched out with a duplicate. It had just been sitting in a vault anyway. Bobby only knew about it because he'd been a security guard at the facility it was stored at. Mike had shown him how to make the security reel read in an endless loop and the replacement looked like the thing but it was just a costume prop from an old movie. It would be a while before they figured it out and hopefully the glowing box was the solution to their power needs for the souped up engine Mike was working on.

Meanwhile, Sam was carefully cleaning the coffee maker so she could make a pot but also so she could covertly observe her surroundings. They didn't have the place bugged nor had they set up security cameras for the outer office. so they didn't have anything important out here as they had no issue with her arranging things to her liking… so she would. If nothing else for appearances. She'd settle in some before she railroaded them into letting her bring Jack over to help her 'paint'. They would actually paint… but in the meantime, Sam would spend her time breaking into the lab and planting some bugs of her own.

She cleaned out the fridge as well and made a show of tidying up the break room with one eye on the door in case anyone came in or the phone rang. Satisfied she wouldn't get some sort of stomach virus touching the counters she swept the floor and went back to the front of the office to sit and read her book. She wanted to break into their computer system but she decided she better do that from home. It was possible they didn't have internet on their less than legit stuff and she'd need to find that out. She'd have to wait though until they had some paperwork for her to do before she had a reasonable excuse to be on one of the terminals in the office.

They had time. Jack was signed up for the first semester of the school year after all. Not that she thought it would take them that long to nail these guys. They were sloppy. It was their first heist and it showed.

At lunch time, she went out to sit in her car and call Jack.

"So?" he asked her.

Sam chuckled. "They have no clue what they have stepped in."

"They might just want you to think that." Jack suggested.

"Possibly but I don't think so." Just then, a large orange tom cat jumped up on the hood of her car and stretched out. Sam started to giggle.

"Why are you giggling, Carter?" Jack grumped.

"I made a friend." She said laughing and snapped a picture to send to him.

Once he got it Jack laughed too. "Maybe he's a spy." Jack joked.

The cat yawned and put his head down on his paws.

Sam chuckled. "Are you suggesting the Furlings found us, sir?"

"It's not the craziest thing we've come across."

Sam laughed. "It's really not."

"So they are oblivious?"

"Well, they know someone is probably going to come after them obviously. The guy that hired me never even said hi, had some other guy give me orientation. I won't be able to access the computers until they give me some paperwork so I'm going to pretend to daydream about my upcoming wedding and apply for a local college to continue my degree."

"Sounds like a plan. No one looks twice at a moony secretary."

"I also planted the idea that I could talk my schoolteacher husband-to-be into helping me paint the office one night." She said smugly.

"Good job." He said of her sneaky way of getting into the office after hours.

"I learned from the best." She reminded him.

Jack's voice was smug. "So you did." There was a pause. "That was the lunch bell. Back to teaching impressionable adolescents how to blow stuff up." Jack said cheerfully.

"Have fun, sir." she said.

"You too, Carter." He said, his voice was warm with affection.