SG1 goes Loony Tunes sequel to Sesame Street

by Aenea

Sg1 bring back an artefact from a mission. However, during the debriefing, several labs and storage rooms are destroyed by an unknown entity. The entire base is put onto alert. Through a convoluted chain of events cartoon characters run havoc around the b

Sg1 Goes Loony Tunes

by

Aenea aka Psych Animal

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DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters belong to MGM, Gekko Film Corp and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment purposes and no money exchanged hands. No copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Yada, yada, yada. The same goes for whoever owns the Loony Tunes, Animaniacs, Gremlins, Death and the Muppets. Um, if I happened to insult anyone, I apologise, bla bla bla, don't bother suing me cos you wont get much...that's about it.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Feedback: Much appreciated!! Flamers be warned, I have a fire extinguisher.This story was originally meant to stand in it's own right. But when I was about halfway through I realised that it seemed to be a sequel to "Sg1 goes to Sesame Street" and "Sg1 and the Magician's Apprentice." I then realised it didn't exactly follow the challenge guidelines of "it has to be REALLY simple" but by then it was too late to change it. So I left it the way it was. Sg1 goes to Sesame Street and Sg1 and the Magicians Apprentice aren't essential reading, but I suggest you do anyway as both a remarkably amusing stories. While I'm on the topic of suggesting, give all of Perry Tratchett and Pantalaimon's work a read, it's also good for a laugh. (For those who really want to know, Perry Tratchett is my father and Pantalaimon is my sibling.) I also have to thank the writer of this challenge, even if I didn't follow it entirely. I lost the name of the Challenge author, so I apologise for that.

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Challenge #1,231
SG-1 crossover with Wile E Cyote and Road runner. ANYTHING GOES!!!!! Although, Teal'c must throw a vase at Daniel. Leading up to Daniel being run over by the Road Runner. And Teal'c must be the one who kills the Runner, but it has to be REALLY simple.

Secondary Author's Note: Once again, I originally wrote this for the Heliopolis site, but thought I should give a wider audience the opportunity to view my work.

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Major Samantha Carter woke to the incessant beeping of her alarm clock. She cursed the world, and especially the bastard who invented alarm clocks, then rolled over to go back to sleep. The alarm obstinately refused to stop. She groaned, then threw her arm out to turn it off. The alarm clock tumbled to the floor with crash that was deafening in the morning quiet. But it still continued to ring. She cursed again, then resigned herself to her fate. She would just have to get up.

She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and let them hang there for a minute, swinging slightly. She blinked and tried to clear the gunk out of her eyes. It didn't work. She resorted to rubbing her eyes. That just made them hurt. So she screwed them shut and fumbled around on the floor for her dressing gown and slippers. This wasn't going to be a good day.

Clad in her fluffy dressing gown and matching slippers, Sam made her way slowly down the hallway towards the kitchen. She put some water in the kettle, then opened the cupboard. It was entirely empty with the exception of a single, small coffee jar. She pulled out the coffee jar and looked inside. Empty. She cursed a third time and went back into her room. She'd just have to get some coffee on the way to work.

Sam opened her wardrobe and surveyed the contents. And decided she really needed to go shopping. Her wardrobe consisted almost entirely of uniforms. If she looked carefully she could almost make out a pair of faded jeans and some old shirts. She frowned, then reached for one of her many sets of fatigues. She was forced to make a command decision: the green fatigues or the blue ones? She finally made up her mind by just reaching in and grabbing the first pair available. She pulled on the fatigue trousers and black undershirt, then headed for the bathroom.

*

A blue tinged blur flew past the security checkpoint of the Cheyenne Mountain military base. The security guard on duty frowned, then cocked his head. He reached decisively for his coffee and drank deeply. He still had the noise ringing in his ears.

"Meep meep."

*

Samantha Carter looked at herself in the mirror. She had blonde hair that was currently cut short and framed her face. She had an attractive face, with deep blue eyes and clear skin. She was currently in the middle of the transition from young to indeterminate age, and was just beginning the debate of how much (or how little) make-up best suited a face that had once glowed with it's own youthful collagen filled good looks. Her face now carried a few fine lines that she could cover if she chose to, but she wondered about whether that made her look younger... Or did it make her look like she was trying to look younger (Which is not the same thing at all), and whether that was a good thing or not. In five more years that conundrum would all be decided, right at the moment, that dilemma was still real. She decided against any make-up at all for the moment and concentrated on her hair.

It was currently in a startling example of disarray that usually comes from when she has been puzzling over a certain problem for several hours, and has been given much unwarranted attention from her errant fingers. Or it has spent the better part of a day squashed under a combat helmet. Or, as is the case today, she has been asleep recently and is suffering from a condition commonly known as "bed hair". She grabbed a brush and began ripping it through her hair with the kind of ferocity only a female can pull off. See, they're not worried about hurting themselves, they just want the hair brushed whereas males are less experienced in the area and are constantly worried about causing pain to themselves. But now Sam is finished her ministrations and is currently headed back out to her kitchen and we'll have to hurry to catch up.

She opened yet another of her cupboards and found it nearly in the same state as the first. Instead of the coffee jar, there was a single box of cereal. It was one of those interchangeable "eat our birdseed/cereal, it makes you feel younger and more energetic" brands. You know, the ones that consist of variations on the theme of oats and fruit. She pulled it out of the cupboard and dumped it on the table. Then she headed to a third cupboard in search of a bowl. It was in the same state as the previous two. Empty. She turned and eyed the kitchen searchingly. Finally she spotted what she was looking for and over to the sink and pulled the least gungy bowl and spoon out. She held them up to the light and frowned. Yes, they were salvageable. She turned on the water and rinsed them thoroughly, then put them down next to the cereal. She poured the cereal in and opened the fridge. Finally, something was going right. There was a bottle of milk in the fridge. And to top things off, it was still good. She grabbed and poured some into her cereal. Then she sat down on her couch, turned on the television and munched contentedly.

*

The security guard looked up again. There was that blue tinged blur again. He shook his head. As soon as he knocked off he was going straight to the infirmary. Not only was he hearing things, but now he was seeing them too. He frowned deeply and swished the dregs at the bottom of his coffee cup absently. Then he lifted the cup up and swallowed the last drops, savouring the taste. Check that earlier thought. First he was getting more coffee, then going down to the infirmary. Hey, everyone has priorities, and he just happened to rank coffee higher than his health.

*

Samantha Carter had finished her breakfast and was just brushing her teeth when the phone rang. She snatched the portable phone up and turned it on.

"Hello?" she said. Well, at least, that's what she tried to say. It actually came out more like "huwumph?" What can we learn from this? Don't answer the phone with toothpaste in your mouth.

"What?" came a tinny voice back. And now we can see why you don't talk on the phone while brushing your teeth. She made a few mumbled, confused attempts and then decided that the whole thing was too complicated to explain, what with the nature of toothpaste anyway. She made a noise that sounded like "wait here" spoken underwater, then leaned over the sink and washed her mouth out.

"Hello?" she repeated. This time it was audible, and understandable.

"Sam? It's Jack. Are you forgetting something?" came the tinny voice again.

"Like what?" Sam ventured cautiously.

"Like the mission debriefing that was scheduled to start ten minutes ago."

What followed has been censored. It contains adult language, and may offend some viewers. It could also be characterised by holding down the shift key and running your fingers along the number row on your standard keyboard.

"I take it you have," Jack answered mildly.

"Tell General Hammond I'll be right there."

"He says you have 15 minutes....Sam? Sam?" Jack wasn't talking to anybody any more. Sam had already hung up. She dashed into her bedroom, grabbed her fatigue jacket and her keys, then made a mad dash for the car. If it had been a race she would have broken several records.

*

The blue tinged blur reappeared. This time it streaked straight past the security station and into the compound. The security guard sat up straight. He was certain he had seen something run past. Saying "meep meep." He picked up the phone and contacted the NORAD commander.

"What is it?" said the commander.

"We have a possible security breach. An...entity...has entered the compound."

The NORAD commander frowned. This didn't sound like anything he'd done. Then he thought of the top secret command centre housed below his command post. He sighed.

"Increase the security at all checkpoints. No one gets through without proper clearance," he commanded, then picked up a central phone. He sighed again, then dialled the number for the SGC. If we look closely, we notice that he doesn't actually dial any numbers. The number is on speed dial. General Hammond's aide-de-camp, who immediately agreed with the NORAD commander's orders, answered the call. The phone was hung up, and the NORAD commander sat back. There was another worry passed on to those poor bastards below him. Sometimes he felt very sorry for those people. And other times he just felt very pissed off with them.

*

General Hammond was pacing the debriefing room. The coffee ritual had already been performed, and the sacred liquid was getting cold. He paced the room some more. He worked out that it was exactly 12 paces long. He looked at his watch. Sam was due in 5 more minutes. He resumed pacing the room. Seeing as there's not much else to look at we can take the time to study General Hammond. He was of average height and more than average girth and he was somewhat less than hirsute. In fact he had a head like a billiard ball and a neck like a bull. His uniform covered his barrel like body as though it was sown together while he was inside it rather than buttoned around him like everyone else's. It probably was sewn onto him. There can't be any other way that he could get that neck inside that collar.

No one ever saw him out of uniform, even to the point where no one could testify that they had seen him with his tie loosened, so the uniform might actually be embossed onto his skin for all any one in the stargate command would know. Which may go some way toward explaining the collar/neck interface. He was currently armed with a remote. This is a dangerous thing, which is probably why Dr. Daniel Jackson and Colonel Jack O'Neill were making subtle hints to put it down. Check that. Daniel was making subtle hints to put it down. Jack, being of a more forthright nature, was just short of downright demanding him to put it down. Neither were having much success. General Hammond resumed his pacing. The mission had sounded interesting from the snippets he'd already heard, and the mission reports were in their usual state. Brief and uninformative. Hey, you never knew who might get a hold of them. The reports generally followed the same structure for each member.

Jack O'Neill had once been told that reports should cover Who, What, When, Where and Why. He took this literally. His reports usually say something like "aliens, shot at us, on the mission, P4X- insert number here, no reason." Sometimes, if he feels like being legible, he puts the same details under subtitles. Prizes if you can guess what those are.

Samantha Carter's reports tend to be rather oblique in some areas (such as what exactly she did), and very detailed in others (photos of MALP telemetry, pages and pages of sample testing results and a glossary for those with a more limited lexicon.) General Hammond never looked forward to tackling those pages of techno-babble; they just made him feel hopelessly inadequate. So he fell back on the standard routine of SAN. For those who don't know, SAN stands for Smile And Nod. Just attend any military briefing (which obviously got their names from lawyer's briefs) and you'll notice that it seems to be standard procedure whenever the commander starts talking. This doesn't necessarily mean that the recruits are stupid, nor that the commanders are smart, merely that the military follows a hierarchy. Commanders prattle on to make themselves feel more intelligent, and the recruits support their egos by adding to the fantasy. But, I digress.

Daniel Jackson's report are even more of a challenge to decipher than Sam's. He also tends to leave out the important events such as "base camp invaded, firefight ensued" and cover more of the events such as "established contact with civilisation, seemingly derived from a combination of Babylonian and Greek bla bla bla, you get the gist." And, to make matters worse, Daniel happens to be a linguist. Therefore his lexicon is rather dense, and he can make a simple sentence infinitely more complicated. I will now prepare an example. The previous sentence shall serve.

Possessing a vocabulary of gigantic proportions, and familiar with the various structures by which the English language can be constructed; Dr. Daniel Jackson feels that it is his duty to provide the most concise and accurate reporting possible, and if details are required to provide this accuracy; not withstanding that many individuals may find the deconstruction of the text to be soul destroyingly tedious; he feels that it is his professional duty to employ a rare ability bequeathed to him and take a sentence, apparently simple in structure and transform it into something similar to like what you have just read. (Draw deep breath. Note that if this was spoken it would be said all on one breath while a pen is being twirled absently in one hand.) Now there is a sentence of 98 words instead of 16. Characteristic of Daniel's reports is the extensive use of green underlining, and a little heading in spell check that says "Long Sentence."

General Hammond tends to leave Daniel's reports alone unless he really feels like looking up a dictionary at every third word. Daniel hasn't yet learned a vital lesson in life and, unlike Sam, doesn't supply a glossary of terms at the ends of his reports. He just assumes that everyone else's vocabulary is just as extensive as his own. No one has the heart to tell him otherwise.

Teal'c's reports are, to General Hammond, a godsend. They are the complete antithesis to Daniel's. They usually are concise, cover everything, and are easy to read. Unfortunately, they don't tend to convey much emotion, but we can't have everything. Also, to their advantage, they can fit into a single folder, unlike Daniel or Sam, who tend leave references to obscure books that are out of print everywhere. Of course, the same point could be made in favour of Jack's reports. But 5 (and occasionally 10) lines of unstructured writing hardly constitutes a report, so that cancels all the good points out. Teal'c's reports never have the green underlining for long sentence. If there was one for "Sentence consisting entirely of monosyllabic (what kind of word is that? I mean, why does monosyllabic have so many syllables? And while we're on the topic, why is abbreviation such a long word?) words" then his whole report would be underlined. But I digress.

Those of you who actually sat and read that exhausting diatribe should be informed that General Hammond is still pacing, and Samantha Carter is yet to arrive. You haven't missed anything. Also for those who actually read the previous page: do not send me emails that say the following- "next time you write a story, take note of what the grammar check tells you, that was a long sentence. Please refrain from writing sentences like that in the future." You can expect a rude email back. Composed entirely of long sentences such as the ones above.

*

Major Samantha Carter threw her car into the only available car park (of course, it just had to be as far away from the entrance as possible), and yanked the keys out of the ignition. With a herculean effort, she managed not to break the shaft of her key off in the lock. It was a close won thing, a genuine battle between her instinctive anger and her self-interest. She then jumped out of the car, slammed the door harder than it really deserved, and stomped over to the checkpoint.

She began to feel subconscious when she realised that the security detail was already casting glances her way. Their gaze was not the sort of threatening, 'who the hell are you and what are you going to do wrong' sort of look. It was more the 'god I hate it when a body like that gets covered up in totally unflattering military fatigues like that' kind of look. It was all part of that misogynistic male thing, sort of a 'wouldn't I like to make a baby human with that one?' kind of thing. A sort of gut reaction, hind brain in charge of business, limbic system at the tiller repugnant reptilian behaviour that ensure that the species is continued. Recreational procreation is one thing, but the real business cares little about the personalities and interests of it's participants, it's only interested in the end goal, the perpetuation of the genome. All that other stuff, relationships with deep and meaningful engagements of the soul and such is just a frothy additive that accumulated somewhere along the way during the competition that was evolution. Of course the frothy part on the top of the genome-ic carrier that was Samantha Carter sort of had this intellectualisation thing going on. She thought it had some inherent worth of it's own, and I suppose it has when it comes to the provision of the best possible environment for the raising of the next generation of human genome carriers. Sort of puts everything into perspective though, when you get right down to it, what is it all about really?

Her already dark mood came under threat of becoming murderous whenever she caught them looking at her like that. It was that sort of 'thing' to her. She made the effort, placed her mouth on hold before it got the rest of her into trouble, and strutted through the car park like she owned the place. It might be prudent to point out that watching Carter is a common pastime in the SGC compound. It has something to do with the male half of the species' idea of the optimum female anatomical arrangement. Carter has easily the best combination of those traits in the SGC compound. So watching her walk through the car park wasn't such a great hardship for the security guard.

Unfortunately, having his attention drawn elsewhere, the security guard failed to notice the lack of humour on Sam's face. So he made a fatal mistake before he'd even opened his mouth. He smiled. Sam growled. It was unfair that someone be so chipper in the morning, especially one that was going so wonderfully as this one. The security guard looked taken aback, then smoothed his face into a suitably bland expression.

"Major Carter," he greeted her. At least he didn't tell her what a good morning it was. That could have been disastrous.

"Can I go through?" she asked bluntly. She wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.

"I'm afraid there's been a security lockdown. I need to see some identification," the guard mumbled in a rush. Sam snarled, then dug around her pockets for her I.D. She came up empty. She looked in the other pockets. Nothing. She thought back. She distinctly remembered leaving it on the kitchen bench so she wouldn't forget where it was. She remembered leaving the house in a hurry and...leaving the I.D. on the table. She scowled darkly. The guard winced and looked around nervously.

"I appear to have left it at home. But you know who I am, you can just let me through," Sam ventured. The expression on her face made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that she did not want to be denied. The guard shifted his feets and looked around. All he wanted was to have a quiet day, with no trouble. He should have volunteered for front line work.

"I'm sorry Major, I can't do that," he said. Sam stared at him in shock.

"But..." she started.

"I'm sorry, you'll have to produce some kind of I.D."

"But..."

"I'm sorry, but if you don't produce some sort of identification I'll have to ask you to leave."

"But..."

"Do I have to call General Hammond?"

"But...yes!! Call him and have me cleared," Sam demanded. The guard flinched, then reached for the phone. Sam put her hands on her hips and watched with a triumphant expression on her face.

*

General Hammond's aide-de-camp was a quiet, nervous man, and subsequently was very unappreciated at his job. He had held the nondescript rank of First Lieutenant for fifteen years, and it was his one goal in life to retire a Captain. If anyone had actually taken notice of the impressive feats he had performed in his job as the aide-de-camp, then he would probably be at least a Major. But he wasn't one to speak up unless it was totally necessary. Unfortunately, now it was. The aide-de-camp picked up the phone warily. He nodded several times (funny how people do that when they're on the phone, it's not like the person on the other end can see them), made lots of "uh-huh" type noises, then put it on hold. His straightened his shoulders, sucked his gut in, pushed his chest out and summoned as much courage as he could. Then he made his way into the briefing room.

General Hammond is still pacing the room. He obviously possesses and incredible attention span. He can pace a room continuously for 20 minutes. And check his watch every 5. Jack O'Neill was rather bored, so he had taken to ripping up a sheet of paper, scrunching it in to little pieces and flicking them into the bin. Teal'c was watching Jack with a perplexed expression on his face. Seeing as no one is doing anything remotely interesting, we will take a moment to examine Teal'c.

Teal'c is a bulky dark hued man, with a shaven head and a sour expression. He has the overtly bulbous lipped look that bad plastic surgeons might one day slip up and leave on the face of Angelina Jollie or Pamela Anderson when either of them gets her collagen injections updated. He also bears an interesting gold tattoo in the middle of his forehead. It is a badge of dishonour, telling people (well those who have sufficient security clearance to actually meet him, or those who have an unfortunate affinity for Teal'c plight) about the fact that he is a Jaffa. He has once wais that it meant "slavery", which is a fairly accurate observation. He has a Goa'uld larvae inside his body. It is symbiotically bound into his nervous system. A Forest of micro-filaments interface the Goa'uld larvae with every fucntion of his nervous system. Teal'c doesn't want it there, because the Goa'uld have a different opinion about self determination than the opinion held by their hosts, and he tries extremely hard to assist in the research into techniques to de-Goa'uld Jaffas. As you could probably imagine, Teal'c and his symbiont do not get on. One-day medical science is going to find a way to get the thing out of there and he is going to party big-time when it's gone. He might even smile... but no, that would be asking a bit much.

As you could probably imagine, Teal'c and his symbiont do not get on.

The goa'uld waits inside him and rages at it's own incarceration. We know all about their philosophy. They was born to rule, to make the decisions, to act like a god and generally make life miserable for those around it for it's own ends... Needless to say it is not happy to be stuck inside a jaffa who has control and the Goa'uld has gone quietly nuts in the sensory deprivation chamber that is the inside of Teal'c's body. And in the time it took for us to examine Teal'c there has been some kind of activity. We must pay better attention in future.

The aide-de-camp swallowed, breathed deeply, then knocked on the door to the briefng room. Jack jumped at the noise, and his little pieces of paper went flying. They floated to the ground like little flakes of snow and formed a pretty pattern on the floor. Jack watched them fall, transfixed, then realised that someone would have to clean that mess up. He quickly looked away and pretended he hadn't done anything. Teal'c watched this with some confusion, then dragged his attention elsewhere. General Hammond stopped pacing and turned for the door. Daniel looked up from whatever was keeping him amused and watched with a kind of absent expression on his face, and a slight frown furrowing his features.

Daniel Jackson was once the perfect example of the derogatory term "geek." He'd had the whole foppish hairstyle, glasses falling off and distracted expression thing going. But, after several years in the company of the military and not much else, Daniel has undergone some drastic changes. He still has the glasses falling off and the distracted expression thing, but has surrendered to military protocol and had the foppish hairstyle cut off. He also wears the military fatigues so often that they have almost become a second skin. But they suit Jack O'Neill so much better. After all, Jack has been wearing them for most of his life. But Daniel is becoming more military than he's like to admit. In fact things have got to the point where Indiana Jones and Lara Croft are not the only archaeologists who carry guns. Jackson doesn't do such a cool line in bull-whips, or look anywhere near as good in the tank-top and shorts combo, but he does a great line in distracted investigation in the face of pressing peril. But I digress.

General Hammond opened the door and stepped outside. There was a frantic conversation, just quiet enough to make it interesting but inaudible. Plus there was many expressive gestures involved that Jack had no idea Hammond even knew. He sat up and tried to listen in. His face was set in an expression of mild curiosity. It sat well among the other careworn lines on his face. Someone once told Jack O'Neill that he looked like a worn out version of the guy who played McGyver in that woeful old television program. He couldn't see the resemblance himself. And he has tried. A few times he had found himself in front of a mirror making critical assessments of the features nature had provided for him and he has cursed his luck. He was tallish, extravagantly fit for his age, which was middling, the aerobic fitness reflecting his active role in stargate exploration. And right now he was struggling to make out what was going on outside. He stood up, walked over to the door and pressed his ear against it. Which was exactly the position he was in when General Hammond walked back in. He gave Jack the kind of look that a teacher gives a student when the teacher know exactly what the student was doing, but wants the student to say it out loud and make a complete fool of themselves. Jack struggled to come up with an explanation.

"I was...er...looking for...um...my...oh, forget it," he gave a valiant effort, then gave up. General Hammond gave him another look, this time of amusement, then picked up the phone.

"Yes, let her through. No, I know she hasn't got clearance, but I'm giving her some! Send her through!!" he said, then hung up. He turned to the other three, who waited with eager expressions on their faces.

"She's coming up now," Hammond offered by way of explanation.

*

Samantha Carter watched the varying expressions on the security guard's face. It went from righteousness to outrage to submission. She smirked.

"He let me in, didn't he," she said. It wasn't really a question, more a statement. The guard looked embarrassed, then nodded. She grinned, resisted the urge to taunt him with "I told you so!" and walked off. The guard watched her go. Just because she was annoyed at him didn't make her any less attractive. It is probably a good thing she didn't see him watching. It could have had dire consequences.

*

Sam ran through the car park towards the elevator. She could see the doors closing on her. She was only 20 meters away...10...9...8...7...6...5....4...3...2...1...she made it...just to see the doors slide closed o in her face. She snarled, then jogged over to the stairwell. There was no way was going to wait for another elevator. Her hair was blown into disarray after her brief jog, ruining all the effort she'd put into it earlier. She ran her hands through it as she bounded down the stairs. It'd just have to do. She ran out of the stairwell and hit the down button on the second elevator. She shrugged on her flak jacket and waited for it to arrive.

The various (present) members of Sg1 arranged themselves around the briefing table. There was a quick discussion about whether to make a new pot of coffee, or whether the old one would suffice. Those for the new pot won. Everyone present (with the exception of Teal'c) clustered around the coffee percolator and waited attentively for one of them to work through the honoured ritual of pouring the sacred brown fluid from the transparent chalice, into each supplicant's proffered ceramic cup in turn. One after another they added variations on the milk and sugar theme to no apparent script. One by one they took a sip and uniformly they surrendered to the religious rapture.

In a moment of weakness and anthropological curiosity during a previous briefing , Teal'c had taken a sip from one of the cups, and to this day does not understand why such a sacred ritual needs such a foul tasting brew to make it valid. He was content to simply watch the others take part. After the ritual had been performed, the various members rearranged themselves around the table, positioning their coffee mugs in a seemingly random order. They sipped the coffee, following no apparent rhythm, and watched the door, waiting for the other to arrive.

Samantha Carter banged on the doors to the elevator in an attempt to urge it on. It wasn't successful, the elevator continued at the same speed. She snarled and watched the little numbers above the door tick past. Finally they reached the one she was looking for, and with a cheerful little "ding" the doors slid open. Sam rushed out and ran down the hall. She passed several labs, most of which were intact. The fact that some weren't didn't register until several minutes later. She burst through the briefing room door, snatched Daniel's coffee and sat down. She drank deeply from the coffee, then noticed Daniel was staring at her.

"...what?" she demanded. He made little "nothing, nothing" gestures with his hands and hastily looked away. Teal'c raised an eye brow in confusion. He looked to Jack for some sort of explanation. Jack looked at him and mouthed "I'll tell you later". Teal'c lowered his eyebrow.

General Hammond took a seat, placed a pile of file folders on the table in front of him and called the meeting to order. "Major Carter, if you'd like to begin..." he said absently as he searched through the pile. Finally he pulled out the appropriate one and looked up. He nodded at Sam to begin. She stood up, picked up a similar folder and biro and walked to the front of the room.

"From the beginning, please," General Hammond said. Sam nodded, cleared her throat and opened the folder.

*

A gigantic circular thing dominated the clearing. It carried the appearance of a carefully machined stone ring. But only the appearance, mind you. Around its periphery its builders had engraved it with runes, strange eldritch shapes that appeared to contain meaning beyond the squiggles that they might have appeared to be to an observer that indulged in just a hasty inspection. That might be the case if they had a flair for ancient Egyptian imagery. For the sake of the narrative, let's just say they do.

The ring was about forty centimetres thick and approximately five metres in diameter.

The heavy stone ring rotated slowly within the confines of its stone shroud; finally drawing to a halt with a precision that was impressive in a machine of that size. Something went click with a solid sort of sound that is characteristic of large stone hitting stone, but pure as though it was made from accurately shaped large stones with remarkably few impurities, oh and a nice line in audio engineering. At equal intervals around the circular stone structure, the builders had arranged stone chevrons that were able to move into and out of mesh with the ring. This motion was executed with a similar machine like precision to that exhibited by the rotation of the ring. One of those had just locked into place while we watched.

One after another, each of the chevrons dropped into position in sequence, landing with a pregnant click that might have signified something to anyone who happened to be standing around and watching things happen. Luckily there were none of those people things hanging around, so this introduction can take place without any of those inconvenient things to describe like what all the people standing around are actually doing. If they all just stood still it might be OK, but they insist in moving and exercising something they call free will and that plays havoc with the exposition phase of the narrative where we set the scene. This is especially true when an apparently inanimate object like a giant ring of stone takes it upon it's self to start moving purposefully without any obvious mechanism to do so.

If the ring had been formed from stone, it should have left a sizeable dent in the dirt.

The ponderous rotation and counter rotation continued remorselessly until a sixth hieroglyphic from among those engraved into the circumference of the giant stony toroid, dropped into place, forming a pattern that ancient Egyptians might have recognised. The key mechanism surrounding the giant circular stone locked with a final robust click.

There was a pregnant pause; it endured just long enough to lend an air of expectancy to the proceedings.

From within the ring, a burst of cloud rocketed a distance of almost five metres into the room. It swirled malignantly for a second before it retreated equally quickly and formed a shimmering interface that remained suspended inside the stone ring. It looked like the surface of a swimming pool, except it was vertical, and didn't slosh on the floor

The silhouette of a man stepped through the interface and surveyed the scene that confronted him.

Only moments (or aeons depending on which side of the singularity in the equations defining the gate operation you assumed that we approached the mathematical limit from) Colonel Jack O'Neill led the SG-1 team into the stargate and made the disorienting roller coaster ride to the other side. He stepped through the final portal, lurching to a halt on the far side of the interface and then proceeded to stumble clumsily to a halt after a fraught passage of fifteen or twenty metres away.

Moments later (actually, it was 3,67584359 seconds later, but that's just being pedantic), Dr. Daniel Jackson made a similar entrance, and found himself in a clearing surrounded by artistically arranged rocks.

"Well," he said jauntily, "this is nice."

Meanwhile, Teal'c made his entrance into the story. But we didn't notice, because he has a tendency not to announce his presence. But we will give him some attention now. He looked around with a sour expression on his face. This wasn't because he was in a bad mood, it was just because that was his natural expression. He performed a quick survey of his surroundings.

"Hmmm," he said blandly. Normally everyone would wait for the rest, but he has done this so often that everyone knows that there is no rest. He settled back into his natural posture of "guarding things that no one could possibly want to steal."

Teal'c and Jackson joined Jack O'Neill, (standing in the moist loam). They waited. Only three quarters of the team had come through as yet. For once the straggler was not Daniel Jackson, who had more ways to delay a departure through the gate than a Russian Airline. Seeing as there isn't much else going on, we'll just have to stand around and wait for the latecomer as well. After a pause, while we all stood around like a stale reception committee with something better to do, one more person came through the portal. Now that they're all here, we can do something interesting. They set off through the woods, deserting the MALP. Behind them, the Stargate disengaged. No one was there to see it. (With the exception of us, but we don't really count in this instance.)

*

Samantha Carter took a deep breath, twirled her biro around and opened her mouth to continue. But she was interrupted by the phone ringing. General Hammond shushed her and picked up the phone. She clamped her mouth shut like a Venus Fly Trap when you touch it with something, and waited impatiently. She tapped her foot, providing a counterpoint to her frequent glances at her watch. She wondered how long she would have to keep this up until General Hammond got the hint. She came to the conclusion that she would probably grow sick of doing it before General Hammond even noticed that she was moving. So she gave it up as a bad joke and stood quietly.

General Hammond made a series of those "uh-huh" noises that people make on the phone, then hung up. He turned to Sam and gestured for her to sit. She pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.

"That was damage control. It seems we have some sort of alien life form on the base, and it's causing quite a great deal of damage. Now, I know you brought some sort of artifact with you. I want Teal'c and Dr. Jackson to get to work on it right away." Daniel and Teal'c nodded. "Now, Major Carter is to go help in fixing the damage to the science labs." Sam nodded. "And Colonel O'Neill is going to continue the brieing. Dismissed."

Daniel, Sam and Teal'c stood up and left the room. A few seconds later Sam and Daniel ducked back in a grabbed some coffee, then left again. General Hammond waited until they were gone, then turned to O'Neill.

"If you'd like to continue..."

*

The four of them fanned out and looked around.

They nodded happily. There were no surprises and the place looked just like the video that their little robotic fiend recorded when it came through for a brief sojourn a day or so earlier. Unlike NASA's remote probe, this little roving sojourner managed to avoid colliding with the first rock it came near. It missed that one completely, by turning at right angles and colliding with the second one.

"Doesn't appear to be any one here, Jack," commented Daniel Jackson. It was a very astute, but wholly unrequired comment. His PhD was in Egyptology, so we can forgive him for making a statement like that, he can't help his lack of education, or the glaring conceptual gaps in his knowledge base. He ran his hand through his hair and straightened his glasses.

"Nope," agreed Colonel Jack O'Neill dryly. Most things of the things that O'Neill said were said dry. He could tell you it was raining and it would sound dry. The style of his vocal delivery might have something to do with his long career in military, or it might have been the fact that his son died as a result of an accident while playing with O'Neill's gun, or lots of other things. Most of the people who got to know him concluded that it could just be that his sense of humour was wired up that way and there ain't nothing that can be done about it. Some people are just like that. Hey it takes all kinds and he was certainly of the classification: kind, one of.

This is what they saw. The stargate was surrounded by rocks and grass. That was familiar. The terrain surrounding most of the gates they went through could be described in much the same way. It goes to show the Goa'uld are just as picky with their planets as they are with their hosts. They have to be pretty the first time you see them, but after awhile the beauty becomes monotonous.

Further away, they saw a lot of trees. Conifers to be precise. Further into the distance was a woody slope that became escarpments at greater altitude. They appeared to be in a valley surrounded by seriously craggy mountains.

"So where do we go?" Carter asked O'Neill.

"Well our instructions were pretty vague," O'Neill replied.

"Go through the gate, look around and return home is not really all that specific, no," commented Jackson. As was his want he spoke slowly, like a personal computer running windows (any version) which thinks it's a multi-tasking environment, when really all that is happening is that the program doing the talking is only getting a small portion of the available processing power, and it sounds like it to the outsider. Jackson was already itching to go exploring for whatever ancient culture the Goa'uld had deposited on this planet, and that planning routine was the piece of software that was hogging the processor and all the available RAM at the moment.

Of course they did not know that this was a Goa'uld colonial development. Daniel just hoped that it was, because the alternative was going to be pretty boring. There's not a lot of archaeology in a forest full of trees, supported by a fleet of symbiotic insects. It would make another of those reports that consisted mainly of trees, trees, trees. Oh, and insects, insects, insects.

*

General Hammond interrupted Jack O'Neill in mid paragraph. The damn phone was ringing again. Hammond glared fiercely at it, then picked it up. He went through a similar "making noises of agreement on the phone" routine that he'd performed earlier. Jack took the moment to scrape the pieces of paper scattered on the floor around his chair up with his boot. He waited until Hammond had his back to him, then ducked under the table and picked them all up. He raised his head and looked around. Hammond hadn't noticed. He grinned, then wandered seemingly aimlessly over to the bin, then covertly dropped the paper in it. He made a show of studying the noticeboard above the bin, the wandered back over to his seat. General Hammond made one last "uh-huh" grunt (isn't it strange how when someone's talking on the phone they instatnly revert to the speech of a primitive man i.e. grunts), then hung up the phone. Jack looked at him expectantly. Hammond sighed.

"That was Major Carter. Apparently the lab's are in a worse state than we thought," he said, grimacing. He wasn't looking forward to explaining todays budget the way things were going. Hammond stood up, straightened his uniform and walked out the door. Jack followed right behind him.

*

Samantha Carter looked up as General Hammond entered the room. She waved at him, then gingerly made her way over the broken glass and smashed equipment. General Hammond stared at the room, horrified. It was a disaster. The scientists were desperately trying to pick up all the mess before someone tripped over and broke something else. Sam looked at General Hammond apologetically. She has already had time to deal with the fact that many two-dimensional structures in this, and other labs were put in place to prevent various substances from intermingling (e.g. gas and air) have holes in them. Not only that, but a lot of things ore on fire and everything was getting a little smoky.

"Sorry sir. We're seeing how much is salvageable, but most of it's just trash now," she said as she ran her fingers through her hair. She creased her face into an earnest expression. In the background a poor tech struggled with the fire extinguisher, without much success. Now everything was smoky, and hazy with chemical suppresants.

"We're doing the best we can," she offered as way of consolation. Hammond nodded, then turned to Jack.

"We'd better finish this briefing. I want to know what you've brought back this time." Jack nodded, then realised what Hammond had just said.

"What makes you think it was Sg1?" he asked, annoyed. It really pissed him off how whenever something went wrong everyone immediately blamed Sg1.

"Because it's always you!" replied General Hammond in exasperation. He turned on his heel and stormed out. Jack stood where he was for a minute, then followed him. Sam turned back and started to sweep up the broken glass.

*

Jack O'Neill opened his mouth to continue the debriefing. General Hammond held up a hand, halting Jack in mid breath.

"Let's go from the first signs of civilisation, shall we?" Hammond asked. Jack nodded.

*

"Yes, I can see it's a temple, Daniel!" Jack O'Neill yelled in frustration. Daniel looked at him. The distracted expression that habitually took residence on his face disappeared, and he frowned.

"I was only saying..." he started, then broke off when he saw the look on Jack's face. Daniel may be a bit behind when it comes to social nuances, but even he knows a dangerous look when he sees it. He clamped his mouth shut. Jack surveyed the area. He also has a little personal computer in his head. It doesn't have anywhere near as much RAM as the one Daniel Jackson carries, but it suits his purpose. Jack was surveying the area, and that was using up all the available RAM at the moment. This could explain why he is taking so long to formulate the appropriate words. They seemed to be dragged physically out of his mouth.

"Well..." he managed, then lapsed back into silence. Daniel waited for the rest. If Jack had been a computer, he would be making those annoying whirring noises that they make right before they freeze up. Daniel couldn't be bothered waiting anymore (he has the patience of a saint unless there's something he wants to do), so he simply stood up and walked off towards the temple. Teal'c watched him go with a perplexed expression on his face. He remembered all the times they'd left Daniel Jackson alone, and came back to find him lying unconscious, or dead in the middle of the floor next to some artefact. He came to the conclusion that leaving Daniel Jackson alone wasn't such a good idea, so he set off after him. Samantha Carter watched the pair of them go, then flopped onto her stomach. She pulled her M-5 up and lay it down on the ground in front of her.

"Well, looks like we're guarding the entrances," she commented inanely. It was a waste of breath, no one was listening.

*

Daniel looked around the entrance to the temple, deep in thought. The PC in his head was running at full speed as he ran his fingers along the writing. He began mumbling to himself. Teal'c listened in an attempt to keep up with him. Unfortunately, Daniel wasn't making a great deal of sense to anyone who doesn't hold doctorates in linguistics or anthropology. Teal'c understood about one sentence in three. Which was entirely normal for Teal'c, he often had trouble deciphering the meanings of some of the things Jack came out with. Phrases like the "road to nowhere" and "storm in a tea cup." Now, we all know what those mean, but imagine an alien with a phrase book trying to decipher them. Teal'c is doing an incredibly good job at understanding what Jack is talking about. But he was used to Daniel making more sense than this. Teal'c looked at Daniel in confusion. Daniel glanced up, and grinned apologetically.

"Sorry, I was thinking out loud," he said, then went back to work. Teal'c tried to figure that one out. How could someone think out loud? He gave it up, and did something he did understand : guarding.

Teal'c tends to extended silences and has an ingrained ability to stand in one place and stare straight ahead like a statue. The lack-of-activity is known as 'guarding' the universe over and is, with out a doubt, the greatest waste of talent that you could possibly imagine. I mean look at what you have. There, in that shaven pated skull, is one of the most sophisticated, self programming, biological neural-net wet-ware, parallel processors that the universe has ever seen. It was created with the capacity to interface through a series of articulated peripherals that combine manipulative functions with tactile feedback to allow the biological processor to grasp the universe by the throat and wring the life out of it. And what do they do with it? They find ways to stand there and let it lie idle for long periods of time to guard things that never get stolen. It is a pastime similar to another known as the "military wait", except without the things that no one would ever want to steal.

At the moment, the thing that no one could possibly want to steal was a temple. It looked like every other temple they'd visited- made of some variation on the theme of stone, overgrown with much too lively plants (notice how plants never grow where you want them to, make are perfectly happy to grow where you don't want them?) and covered in little the little pictures that some cultures used as writing. But, for some reason, Daniel was equally excited about each one they visited. But then again, Daniel's PhD was in Egyptology, so we can forgive him for making a statement like that, he can't help his lack of education, or the glaring conceptual gaps in his knowledge base.

Daniel ran his hand through his hair and chewed absently on his lower lip. He was struggling to make out what exactly the writing said.

*

"Who do you know he was having trouble reading it?" asked General Hammond, confused. Last time he'd checked, Sg1 weren't telepathic. But he wouldn't put it past them.

"What? Oh, he was frowning more often than he usually does. Anyway..."

*

Daniel struggled to make sense of the writing in front of him. It wasn't following any rules of grammar he'd heard of. He tried using Latin grammar. No result. He tried Egyptian. No result. He tried Babylonian. No result. He tried kicking it. That got a result. His toe hurt. Finally he grew so frustrated that he took a few photos and left it where it was. He could always take the back to the SGC and get someone else to figure it out. He pulled out his camera, took a few pictures, then walked into the temple. Teal'c ceased guarding and instead followed Daniel quietly. Well, as quietly as an over 6 foot tall Jaffa with enough weapons to supply a guerrilla army hanging off him in every manner possible can be. But we will give him credit for trying.

*

Jack O'Neill stopped talking. General Hammond waited. And waited. Jack's silence continued. Jack looked around the room, as if waiting for someone else to take over. He leant back on his chair and started spinning slightly from side to side.

Well? What happened next?" General Hammond asked finally, suspense getting the better of him.

"Huh? Oh, I don't know. I wasn't there, remember," Jack said. General Hammond frowned at Jack, then walked over to the phone. Jack continued to swivel the chair around. He spun in a full circle, caught the edge of the desk and spun himself in the opposite direction. It is a very childish activity, but no one ever said that Jack O'Neill was mature.

"Send Dr. Jackson up," Hammond said, then hung up. He watched Jack spin around wearily.

*

Daniel was...somewhere in that godawful mess he called an office. The table(?) was covered entirely with pieces of paper and old books. The paper was in serious danger of falling onto the floor and being lost forever in the fire hazard that was the carpet. The books weren't much better. Somewhere on the table was a computer, but there was no hint of it to the untrained eye. But we, of course, have trained eyes, and can make out the computer screen. It is a state of the art piece of hardware, and is being put to good use. It's covered in little post-it notes with unintelligible scrawl all over them. There is a faint smell of old coffee, probably coming from the array of coffee cups half filled with old coffee. The chalkboard was covered in a mixture of Egyptian squiggles and birds standing on one leg and Latin lines and little pointy things. Pinned to the corners of it are enlarged photos of the temple walls.

Daniel Jackson was standing next to the chalkboard, piece of chalk in his hand, and frowning. He was re-writing the photographs of the walls onto the board, and subsequently has chalk dust all over his hands. Teal'c watched in abject curiousity. He wasn't being much help, seeing as there was nothing on the photos he could read. But maybe it was in some sort of Goa'uld code, so Teal'c was forced to sit and try to figure it out. Daniel had resumed mumbling to himself and scribbling into a notebook. Every so often he would stop and pull a book off the shelves. He was still doing this when the phone rang. He dropped the book on the floor (and we wonder where all the mess came from...hmmm), and grabbed the phone. He nodded, made "uh-huh" and "uh-uh" noises, then put it back down again. Then he noticed the chalk dust. He absently cleaned his hands on his shirt and turned to Teal'c.

"That was General Hammond. He wants me to go up there and answer a few questions. Can you stay here with that...thing?" he asked, gesturing to the small, black sphere that he was currently using as a paperweight. Teal'c raised an eyebrow. Daniel took that as a yes. He grabbed some folders off the table, picked up his coffee and jogged out. Teal'c stared at the writing on the board with a perplexed expression on his face. He turned his attention to the artefact. Nope, no help there. He looked back at the board and stared at it some more. Maybe if he stared at it long enough some sort of pattern to the pictures would emerge.

*

General Hammond resumed his pacing and waited for Dr. Jackson to arrive. He certainly was taking his time. Jack lounged in his chair and began flicking paper again. It was more amusing than it sounded. He was tempted to start spinning in the chair again when there was a knock on the door. Jack sat up straighter, and looked at Hammond. Hammond opened the door, and caught the pile of papers before they hit the floor. Daniel seems keen to make fire hazards wherever he goes.

"Sorry about that," muttered Jackson as he entered the room. He dumped the remainder of the pile on the table, and took the papers of Hammond.

"Thanks," he said, and the papers joined the others. Daniel straightened his glasses and peered owlishly at General Hammond.

"You wanted to see me sir?" he asked, brushing at the chalk dust on his shirt. General Hammond watched him for a minute, then shook himself. He couldn't believe that the military had actually hired this man. But then Daniel was the one who had managed to get the Stargate to work the first time, and he went on the original mission. He saw things that the military didn't feel that civilians should see. Naturally, the military couldn't have a man who stayed at school until her was twenty five, sprouting things to anyone who would listen, that were almost true. They had could of choices; they could have him shot, or they could hire him on to work for them. Eventually, the idea of hiring him won out.

"Yes, we ran into a little problem in the debriefing and were wondering if you could straighten us out a little," explained Hammond. Daniel nodded, and put his coffee on the table.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked. Jack lounged back into his chair again.

"Tell us what happened after you went into the temple."

"Oh...okay then. Teal'c and I entered the temple..."

*

Daniel Jackson and Teal'c entered the temple. It was just like any other temple they'd ever entered. Big, musty, old, and covered in little pictures. There was even the customary pedestal at the back, with the treasured artefact placed lovingly on it by someone. It was small, round, and very boring to look at. For a treasured artefact, it was very unaesthetically pleasing. But Daniel seemed to like it. We can assume this by the way his face lit up and ran over to it. He stood in front of the pedestal, examining it. Teal'c approached with a little more caution. He bent down and studied the artefact carefully. It was completely blank with the exception on two small symbols. He looked closer at them. They looked vaguely familiar. Daniel dropped his gear and immediately began filming the artefact and the area surrounding it. Then he put the camera away and studied the pedestal for any sort of trigger for an ancient trap. There didn't appear to be any, so he grabbed the artefact and stuffed it into his bag.

"Okay Teal'c, let's go," he said, and he grabbed his gear and walked towards the door. Teal'c looked around the room one last time, then joined him.

*

There was a pregnant pause. Broken by General Hammond.

"Is that it?" he asked, confused. Normally there would be gun fights or rolling boulders or poisoned darts. After all, this was Sg1 they were talking about.

"Yeah, then we went home. Why?" asked Daniel, puzzled.

"No reason..."

*

Teal'c was still staring at the chalk board resolutely. He was determined to make some sense out of this thing. He glanced at the artefact, then back at the chalkboard. Then back at the artefact. And kept his stare at the artefact. It was...glowing, and...swelling. It was also making this strange humming sound. Teal'c regarded it warily, then headed outside for the phone. This seemed to be one of those things that Jack had explained to him- a situation where you pass the responsibility onto someone else as soon as possible.

"General Hammond? The artefact is doing something," he stated blandly, then hung up. He decided to wait for someone else to come along and have a look rather than have another himself.

*

Unobserved by anyone, the artefact swelled. Then it made a strange popping noise. Out of the artefact burst a rather altitudinally challenged man carrying an enormous shot gun. It looked up, cocked the shot gun, and walked out. The artefact deflated for a minute, then began swelling again.

*

The altitudinally challenged man burst into the electrical junction, guns blazing. The power boxes experienced many drop outs, then died altogether. Emergency back up power supplies engaged. The altitudinally challenged man surveyed the room for wabbits. Coming up empty, he strode back out again.

*

General Hammond hung up the phone, and looked at the photo of the artefact that Daniel has ever so kindly put up on the data projector. The photo wasn't doing anything; what did he expect?

"That was Teal'c. The artefact is...doing something. Dr. Jackson, I think you should go take a look." Daniel nodded. He scraped up all his things and headed out the door. He managed to do an impressive job in keeping everything off the floor this time.

"Oh, and Dr. Jackson?" Daniel turned. "Send Teal'c up, would you?" Daniel nodded again and headed off to his office.

*

The blue, feathered creature ran into an open doorway. It stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. It had a puzzled expression on it's face. It didn't like this room very much. So it started running again. The room was still for a moment. Then certain objects that are supposed to a) remain horizontal and b) support heavy things ceased to do either. There was a deafening crash. After a moment of stillness a single piece of paper fluttered to the floor. It is an essential narrative result that any writer with a flair for the dramatic must add.

*

Sam looked around the lab. It had undergone a drastic improvement. The science team had fixed everything salvageable (thank god for electrical tape!), and scavenged as much equipment as possible from the other labs. Replacement two-dimensional structures had been found, and the various substances were no longer mingling. There was still a faint smell of chemicals from the struggle between the techs and the fire extinguisher, but the air was much appropriate for human consumption now. It was almost back to normal. She smiled to herself and dusted her hands off. Nothing could ruin her mood now. She was just about to make another cup of coffee when the phone rang. Okay, maybe some things could ruin her mood. She scowled and snatched up the phone.

"What?" she answered rudely. Thankfully, it was Teal'c on the other end, and he didn't notice things like that. Or, if he did, he ignored them.

"Major Carter, I believe you should take a look at this," he said, then hung up. Sam growled. Looks like that coffee will just have to wait a little while longer. She took one last look at her handiwork, then walked out the door. Amazingly enough, the room didn't fall apart as soon as she left.

That took several minutes and an errant Road Runner.

*

The artefact, unobserved by anyone, made a small belching sound. Out popped a strange, brown, furry thing. The artefact deflated back down to normal size. The brown, furry thing unravelled and looked around. It pulled a wooden box out of nowhere. If we look closely we can see ACME stencilled on it in bold, red writing. Wile E. Coyote grinned devilishly and set of after it's "friend".

The artefact began to swell again. The glowing and humming was yet to cease.

*

Teal'c was waiting patiently for Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter to arrive. Sam came first, panting slightly. She doubled over and tried to regain her breath. Teal'c began to explain, but she waved him quiet and concentrated on more important things such as the consumption of vital substance like oxygen. Seconds later, Daniel arrived and performed the same "lungs not receiving enough of that great stuff oxygen, so they're working overtime to make up for it, give me a minute" ritual. Teal'c cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. He waited until he was sure they'd finished (and were giving him pointed looks and hints) before he began explaining again.

"The artefact is glowing and humming," he said succinctly. He lowered his eyebrow. It was starting to hurt. He looked at Daniel and Sam for some kind of explanation. Daniel had an abstracted look on his face. It was the kind of look that people get when they're trying to remember something...or their probing their teeth with they're tongue. Finally it clicked.

"Teal'c, General Hammond wants to see you," he said after a lengthy pause. Teal'c merely turned and walked off. Daniel turned to Sam. He gestured into his office.

"Shall we?" he ventured. Sam shot him a filthy look and walked in. Daniel shrugged and followed her.

*

"Teal'c, this is just for the record. If you could give me your version of events on the mission to P4X-896," General Hammond began. Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"Start at the beginning please," Hammond finished. Teal'c inclined his head, then took a deep breath...

*

The Stargate engaged with it's usual pompous flair. We'll just ignore it. Out stepped 4 figures- two human males, one human female and a Jaffa. They engaged in some banter, then walked off. The Stargate disengaged.

The 4 people reached a temple. The two males began arguing, followed by one walking off to the temple. The Jaffa followed him, leaving the remaining male and the female to guard the temple.

The Jaffa and the male looked at the writing, entered the temple and noticed an artefact. They studied it for several minutes, then the male took it. The pair joined the rest of their team.

The 4 figures repeated the opening scene, but this time they entered the gate, as opposes to emerging from it. The clearing was once again silent.

*

General Hammond sat still for a few minutes. He had almost forgotten how unimaginative Teal'c was. Teal'c sat equally still and waited patiently. General Hammond shook himself and turned to Teal'c. Teal'c met his gaze passively.

"Teal'c, you are to finish helping Dr. Jackson in deciphering that artefact. Dismissed." Teal'c inclined his head again, and walked out. Hammond turned to Jack. Jack ceased flicking the paper (he'd run out, anyway) and looked back at him attentively. Hammond shook his head and walked out. Jack sat still for a few seconds and tried to work out what had just happened. He could be at it for awhile, so we'll skip to someone else and come back to him later.

*

Teal'c walked back into Daniel Jackson's office. Daniel was standing in front of the chalkboard again, book in hand. It had taken several minutes of desperate searching before Daniel had remembered that he'd dropped it on the floor on the way out. Sam was hunched over the artefact, prodding it with everything she could think of. It wasn't doing much. Teal'c pondered over who he could help the most. He decided that standing where he was until someone asked for his help was a good course of action.

"Ahh, Teal'c?" asked Daniel absently. Teal'c waited patiently. He could keep this up indefinitely.

"Could you pass me that?" Daniel asked, pointing vaguely in the direction of his desk. Teal'c examined the desk intently. He picked up the item that he thought Daniel was pointing to and turned around...

Let's examine what happened during the next few seconds. We will use slow motion, so we can have some hope of understanding what went down.

A strange, blue, feathered creature ran into the room at high speed. It then stopped comically in front of Daniel Jackson and stood dead still. "Meep meep," it said.

Sam dropped the tools and did the only thing she could under the circumstances. She yelped in surprise. She wasn't much help. She dropped her equipment. It scattered all over the floor. She looked down at it, embarrassed, then began to pick it up.

Teal'c looked around for a weapon. The creature was disturbing. Finding nothing at the ready, he hefted the vase in his hand. It seemed heavy enough...

Daniel turned around to see what was going on. All he'd asked for was a pen, what could possibly be taking Teal'c so long? He saw the blue, feathered thing and dropped his book, making a rather noisy clatter.

Back to Teal'c. He pulled back and let loose with his newly made projectile. It suited it's new purpose rather well.

The bird thing jumped at the combination of the noise of the equipment hitting the floor and the noise of the book following the same action a fraction of a second later. It did the only thing it could think of. It ran over and hid in the corner at the same speed it had entered in. It stood there, quivering.

The vase flew across the room at high speed. Teal'c had thrown well. The vase performed a perfect parabola...

And hit Daniel Jackson square on the head. Daniel slumped to the floor. He groaned and reached for his head.

The bird took off again, running over the prone form of Daniel Jackson and out the door. Daniel groaned again.

There was a moment of silence...

Daniel sat up, rubbing his head. It was really painful. He pulled his hand away and looked at it. Good, no massive trauma. Just a massive headache.

"Geez, Teal'c, I didn't mean it literally!" he said. Teal'c looked puzzled. Sam looked around sheepishly. She prided herself on being independent, and hadn't put on a great demonstration. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice. (Except us, but once again we don't really count). She kneeled down in front of Daniel and examined his head. There didn't seem to be any permanent damage, but it couldn't hurt to make sure.

"Teal'c, go and tell General Hammond what just happened. We'll be at the infirmary," she said.

*

Dr. Janet Fraiser shone a light into Daniel Jackson's eyes and then she shone it away, then in and then away again. Jackson allowed the inspection with good grace. By now the SG-* teams were used to that sort of thing. It happens to them every time they come back from a mission. It is extremely tedious, but then again, so are a lot of things in life.

"You know," Daniel said in an aside to Samantha Carter. "I have never worked out what she thinks she's going to see when she does that?" Sam gave him the secretive grin of those on the inside.

Janet switched the light out with a metallic click and placed the light on the bench.

"Well," judged Janet. "I can't see that there's anything wrong with him. Other than a headache and a slight concussion, he's fine. You're free to go."

Daniel hopped off the examining bed and accepted the aspirin Janet offered him. He walked out of the infirmary after Teal'c. Janet chewed on her lower lip, then turned to Sam. She folded her arms and leant on the examining bed, looking at her expectantly.

"Sometimes I don't know who's worse: him or Colonel O'Neill. But the Colonel has never managed to get himself hurt when working," she complained. Sam smiled.

"Yeah, but you don't have to put up with them off world. It's worse," she complained back. Janet frowned. No one likes a matyr. And Janet thought she had the worse end of the deal.

"Touche. But I have to fix them up when they come back though," Janet countered. Sam thought this over. She couldn't think of anything worse.

"Okay, you win," she conceded, grinning.

*

The artefact made a belching sound. Out popped a dozen Gremlins, all giggling maniacally. They ran around in circles, munched on the paper, ripped up some books and smashed open the ventilation grille. The entire group converged on the opening and ran inside.

The artefact continued to swell.

*

The gremlins had found the explosives. This is a potentially dangerous situation, as we'll see why in a moment. They tore open a box marked C-4. "Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah...nyah-nyah!" they sung, and giggled raucously. Two of the Gremlins ripped the lid off the box and threw the C-4 around. The detonators weren't far behind. There was a minute of experimentation as the Gremlins tried out the many different uses of a detonator. Then one particularly intelligent Gremlin came up with the idea of sticking his into the C-4. The others followed suits and waited expectantly.

There was a colossal series of explosions. Each one set off another one in a horrific parody of a chain. The doors blew open and hit the opposite walls. Scorched pieces of shelving were thrown out the doorways, where they sprinkled to the floor in a kind of black, smelly snow. Gremlins became either lumps of barbecued meat or very textured wall paper. The smell was rather unpleasant.

*

It had been a reasonably quiet day in the security station. Corporal Punishment (yes, he cops a lot of stick over that name) had been enjoying watching the worn out version of 'Basic Instinct' he'd borrowed from Jack O'Neill. He was rather disappointed by the degradation of the tape during that infamous scene, it had been almost the entire reason why he'd borrowed it. He debated whether or not to rent it out on DVD from a video store on the way home. At least they don't wear out. He hasn't been able to watch much of it in the past half hour, as the phone has been ringing almost none stop. He doesn't know much about the SGC, lacking the clearance required. But from the content of these phone calls he can gather that there is definitely something strange going on down there. Something dramatic, too. He gave the security monitors to the explosives storage a passing glance. He did a double take. The phone was given a break from the deluge of incoming calls, and utilised to perform an outgoing call.

"We have reports of explosions in level 4, sections D,E,F,G,H and J..." he reported dutifully.

"We know," came the reply. "We're not very far away, and it was quite loud."

*

Seargeant Siler has a very boring job. He is to walk around the base and check the status of the various storage rooms, excluding explosives and weaponry. But he likes his job, it pays well and offers very little personal risk. He whistled as he opened the next door on his list. The whistling dwindled, and died a rather undramatic death. Seargeant Siler stared at the mess with a shocked expression on his face. What had once been a small-ish room, lined with shelving that held up the considerable amount of paper and stationery that the base went through was now a smaller room. The shelves had ceased to line the wall and now lined the floor in no discernible pattern. The supplies were apparently under there somewhere, but no longer visible. Somehow, Seargeant Siler doubted he'd be able to salvage much, if any, of it. He sighed and walked back outside. He slumped against the wall and thought for a moment. He reached absently for the phone and dialled the central switchboard.

"We have a problem in storage room K-14," he sighed. The voice on the other end informed him that he was being transferred to security. Siler waited. The security extension informed him that, due to heavy traffic, his call would be put on hold until the next operator becomes available. Siler slumped down the wall and prepared himself for a long wait.

*

Jack O'Neill was handling the many attack reports with the ease of a pro. Well...maybe not a pro, but a very good amateur. He was surrounded by constantly ringing telephones and a few intercoms. He was grabbing the phones as fast as humanely possible and reciting the same message to all of them.

"Yeah, yeah, you've been attacked by something...yeah, I know. Try and get to the embarkation room, General Hammond is running things from there."

General Hammond watched Jack work, then walked over to the observation window. He looked out over the gate room. (Now, I have a serious question: is it the gate room or the embarkation room? I can never figure that one out.) There was depressingly few people in there. He frowned. Looks like they'll have to wait a little longer. He was contemplating what he was going to say when Teal'c burst into the room. He opened his mouth to explain, but was interrupted by Jack.

"Yeah, everyone else's been attacked too. Go and find Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter, they seem to know what's going on usually." Teal'c inclined his head and walked out. General Hammond came to a decision. He reached over and put the base on alert. There was a moment's silence. Then all the lights went out, and the red sirens went on, and on and on... Jack's phones began ringing a touch more frantically.

*

Daniel Jackson stood in the corridor and watched, very bewildered, while all the doors sealed shut. He frowned. That was a sure sign that things were happening somewhere that some one thought was a threat. Then the lights went out. He frowned harder. It was only when the klaxons began screaming that he realised what was going on. Things were getting very serious somewhere. The whole thing might be pear shaped. He turned and jogged back to the infirmary. When things got serious, that was usually the place where you could find just about everybody at some time or other.

Samantha Carter was also standing in the corridor when the lights went out. She frowned. The klaxons started, and the red lights went on. As an ambience substitute they weren't very good. The corridor was filled with the noise of people running (in time) and the sound of sirens going hear me, hear me, hear me! at the top of their lungs. They have an impressive lung size for an electronic device. She walked down the corridor slowly, searching carefully for an open door. Suddenly, the sounds of running footsteps got much louder and someone ran into her. She yelped, bumped against the wall and almost fell on her butt. For once the universe's tendency toward maximum embarrassment was averted (well in her case at least). Daniel Jackson picked himself off the floor, fumbled around until he found his glasses and placed them on his nose. He blinked once or twice while he worked out who they both were and then looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. She growled, grabbed his arm and dragged him into the storage room.

*

It looked like everyone who was going to get to the gate room was already there. General Hammond sighed. Then he straightened his uniform and headed down there himself. They all looked at him expectantly, weighing him down with the weight of responsibility. He was a stout man, just the right shape for supporting a large heavy load. He stood at the front of the group and cleared his throat. There was the usual shuffling and muffled apologies that happen before any speech. Then there was silence. General Hammond took a deep breath.

"Well...now's the time for me to say something dramatic and inspiring...but I've said everything in my repertoire before, so we'll just get down to business. The base is being overrun by alien creatures. You are to split up and search for any of these aliens. You are to shoot to kill. Dismissed."

The people mingled for a few more minutes while they got themselves organised. Then they armed themselves with suitable weaponry and split up. We will have to watch them carefully. A great deal is going to happen.

*

The artefact made a popping noise. Out burst three dancing...

Dancing...

Things? That's going to have to do.

They referred to themselves as the "annnnnieeee-maaaaaayyyyn-iacs." We know this by the way that they are singing it (if you take into account their lack of musical talent) at the top of their lungs. For such small creatures they have an impressive lung size. They were deafening, and hyperactive. They bounded out the door and down the hallway.

The artefact swelled some more.

*

Samantha Carter ran over to the cupboard at the far end of the storeroom and yanked it open. A mountain of toilet paper and toothpaste that had been shoved in there before the door was hastily slammed shut to stop it from falling out until later, poured out over the floor with a loud clatter. The universe chose that moment to extract it's revenge on her for managing to stay upright during the collision with Daniel Jackson. Sam kicked it out of the road absently and dug around the back of the cupboard.

"It should be in here," she said to herself cryptically.

Daniel watched on placidly, making no attempt to help. She must have a reason for this behaviour, but he didn't know what it was, so it was best to just let her be. Finally Sam found what she was looking for. She grabbed a box out of the cupboard, instigating yet another avalanche of toiletries and slammed the cupboard shut before any more fell out. She then dropped the box on the table, wehre it landed with a resounding thud, and ripped it open roughly. Inside were emergency supplies. She reached in, dug around for a second and retrieved two guns and two flashlights. She handed Daniel one of each. He looked down at them stupidly. Sam sighed, then turned her gun's safety off and the flashlight on. After working out which one was which, Daniel followed suit.

Then they crept out into the hallway.

One last roll of roll of toilet paper fell from atop the pile beneath the cupboard door and rolled almost to the entry door, trailing itself behind like a left over and badly stale streamer. Daniel and Sam completely ignored the catastrophic mess they'd created, instead shut the door and hoped no one would notice.

"We have to get to General Hammond," Sam whispered. Daniel shot her a filthy look. Even he had figured that out. Sam assumed that holding gun and flashlight position that seems to come naturally to Mulder and Scully (or more accurately their replacements). Daniel tried to imitate it and failed dismally. He gave up and held both items normally. If worst came to worst he could always ditch the torch and rely on the dismal lighting provided by the siren lights. It wasn't as if he'd had particularly good vision to begin with.

*

The animaniacs burst into the control room, singing and giggling maniacally. The piled to a chaotic halt and looked around them. The room was filled with those dull grey plastic cases, and all of them full of alarmingly complicated electronic equipment, all of which interfaced to the network of sensors and servos and mechanisms that made the stargate compound and all of it's hermetically controlled environment, function so smoothly.

"Oooooh," the animaniacs said comically. For the only time since they had emerged from the artefact, they made a perfect three piece harmony, but that is the nature of the universe, and it's perverse sense of humour. They looked at each other and giggled again. Suddenly one of them bounced over to the alert control. It cocked it's head to one side. Above the button were the words "Do Not Push." Anyone with half a brain knows that the words "Do Not Push" are a hand magnet. The animaniac's have unbelievably poor impulse control. It couldn't resist. It reached out and pushed the buttons. The lights came back on and the sirens ceased. The animaniac looked around. It giggled hysterically, then pushed the button again. The sirens started again.

"Lights go on...lights go off...lights go on..." it sang, giggling stupidly all the while.

"Let me try," demanded another animaniac.

It reached for the fire control. It smashed the glass and cocked it's head. Then it reached out and twisted the handle. The sprinklers came on. Tiny droplets of water that were supposed to gang up on a fire rained all throughout the control room. More alarms rang out, adding to the cacophony. The animaniac grinned stupidly and then danced around under the sprinklers.

Unfortunately for the SGC personnel, the military had purchased the best in weather proof computer gear. Nearly all of it continued working, despite the deluge. All except the one computer upon which the sprinkler animaniac danced. That computer let out a vivid blast of sparks, a belch of green smoke, groaned softly and then sort of fumed in a vivid blue cloud.

The last animaniac, not wanting to get left out, climbed onto the table. It looked at the keyboard that sat on the desk in front of it.

"Pretty pictures!" it announced, then poked seven at random. The Stargate chevrons began to click into place. The other two animaniacs stopped what they were doing and watched. The seventh chevron clicked into place. There was a pregnant pause. Then a cloud of "water" burst out of the Stargate. It then sucked back in and stabilised. The animaniacs stared, enthralled.

"Oooooh...pretty..." they said in unison.

Then the loud speaker came on. "Unauthorised offworld activation..." it said, "unauthorised offworld activation..." The animaniacs looked at each other, then back at the gate. They looked at each other again. They burst out laughing. Then they ran back out of the control room, singing at the top of their lungs again.

"We are the aaanimaaaniaaacs!!"

*

Jack O'Neill looked at his watch. It was the same black, plastic, cheap thing he'd worn for about 7 years. He had grown rather attached to it, and wasn't looking forward to the inevitable day he would be forced to part with it. That would happen when the battery ran out and he would have the problem of finding somewhere that could a) get the back off the watch and b) had the right kind of batteries in stock and c) charged less for them than the cost of a new watch and of course not to forget d) could be found by the befuddled Jack O'Neill in the dangerous environment of the local shopping mall. He glanced at the LED display that was sort of vaguely in the centre of the watch face. It had been a bit closer to the centre and more square to the axis of the watch before taking a beating at the hands of many Goa'ulds (and occasionally from Jack O'Neill himself.)

Teal'c had been gone for half an hour. That was 29 minutes too long for Jack O'Neill. He reached a decision; it was time he took matters into his own hands. He left all the phones off the hook and stood up. He stretched his cramped muscles and looked around. Good, no one had noticed. He performed a quick survey of his armament. He had a small Sig Sauer and a standard issue knife. Nowhere near enough. A rocket launcher, several grenades and a few machine guns would be nice, but that's asking a bit much. He crept down to the embarkation room and looked around. There seemed to be enough weaponry to cover him nicely. He selected an AK-47, a machete (god only knows what he'll need that for, but he believed in being prepared) and a decent supply of hand grenades. He stashed the various weapons amongst his person and walked out into the dark hallway.

*

The artefact popped. Out from its bowels burst a small, yellow canary-like thing and a sort of black and white ... cat?

The canary took one look at the cat and flew off squeaking it's head off and leaving one comical feather behind to float slowly to the floor. The cat grinned and ran after the bird.

The artefact swelled some more.

*

Teal'c crept (as much as a Jaffa can creep, which isn't much; they do a much better line in storming along a corridor brandishing a staff weapon) down the corridor. He was having trouble seeing, what with the lights being out and the combined emergency-siren/light thingies mounted all over the wall providing a very unreliable substitute. He wouldn't admit it to anybody, but he was thoroughly, and understandably lost. He wandered around the corridors like the Flying Dutchman (about as well captained) with a puzzled expression on his face while trying to find some kind of room to get his bearings off.

Over the barrage of noise from the sirens and the echo of booted feet line dancing elsewhere in the corridor, he heard a hoarse giggling coming from inside what looked like a storage room.

That discovery didn't help him much, there was storage rooms all over this base, and they all looked the same to Teal'c. he still had no idea where he was, but perhaps the source of the laughter would be able to help him. He stopped "creeping" and walked over to the door.

"Meep meep?" asked the same voice that Teal'c had heard before. It came from the very fast blue feathered thing.

There was a ticking sound... it stopped for what was actually only two seconds but felt like about nine minutes before...

BOOM!!

The blue, feather thing burst through the door and ran past Teal'c at an extremely high speed. The slipsteam of it's passage whipped paper off tables and would have badly mussed up Teal'c's hair if he had any. "MEEP MEEP!!" it screamed.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow and watched it go by. Somehow it seemed to be unaquanted with the whole concept of inertia, seeing as how it managed to take the right angle bend in the corridor without hesitating, let alone slowing.

Teal'c raised one ironic eyebrow and then walked over to the now disorganised storage room and looked inside. Before the explosion, the contents of the storage room may have provided some help in Teal's search for a recognisable landmark, even if it was just the identification number. But now it was almost unrecognisable as a storage room. In fact, it was hard to classify it as a room at all now, but the name will just have to do until we can come up with something more accurate. In the middle of the 'room' stood a brown, furry thing. It was a slightly scorched brown furry thing with a sheepish expression on it's face.

"I can never get that bloody thing," it growled.

Teal'c nodded understandingly. Perhaps if he listened long enough the creature would help him find his way back.

*

The artefact popped again. A grotesque caricature of a mouse popped out. It grinned goofily at the world. The world cringed back. The mouse like thing hoped down off the table and began a search for, "Pluto..."

It was going to be a long search because we all know how far away that planet is.

The artefact swelled...and swelled...and swelled...and swelled (god, this next thing must be HUGE)...and swelled...we'll come back later.

*

Jack marched purposefully down the corridor. His weapons swung from his belt heavily, and banged against his thigh in just the right way to boost his confidence and eliminate the vestigial fear that he might have entertained, if he was that way inclined. The fashion statement made by the weaponry was suitably set off by the cut of his military fatigues. The ensemble would have looked heroic if not for the small, yellow bird that kept flying around in front of his face.

"I tawt a taw a puddy tat!" Tweetie announced in a voice just pitched high enough to produce the maximum amount of annoyance in the listener. Jack had never liked Tweetie much to begin with and this noise was the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak. He levelled his AK-47.

(There is no word that can accurately describe the noise an AK-47 makes when it's been discharged. But bang bang bang said in rapid succession comes pretty close.)

The room was full of feathers and the sound of echoing gun shots. Tweetie Pie takes up more room in this form then he had before.

"You don't have to worry about it any more," Jack dead-panned rhetorically. There was a lack of suitable laughter from his audience.

But there was a black and white cat watching on and looking quite disgruntled by events. "How am I supposed to eat him now?" it asked plaintively.

*

The marines were marching down the corridor. They looked like suitable heroes who will save the day, what with their jar heads and the ludicrous amount of weaponry they were carrying. And their gung-ho attitude compliments it nicely.

They marched down the corridor, making a wonderful display of precision stepping. If we listen carefully, there is one set of almost inaudible footsteps just out of step with them. We must watch closely. The marines were hunting wabbits...no, wait, that's what the person behind them was doing.

Colonel Makepeace turned around. He saw a small, cartoon man with a hunting cap holding an enormous shotgun. The man, who (we must add) wasn't particularly tall, held a finger to his mouth.

"Shhh," said Elmer Fudd. "We mustn't alert the wabbits."

"No we shouldn't," Makepeace nodded soothingly, then levelled his M-5. He squeezed the trigger.

Yeuch.

Elmer Fudd wasn't going to be hunting wabbits, or ducks or anything, any more. It looks like Bugs Bunny has won that little dispute for good.

Speaking of Bugs...

*

Janet Fraiser looked up from her reports. There hadn't been much action on the medical front lately, so she had resigned herself to tackling the paperwork mountain. It seemed like an impossible task, but she had nothing else to do. Armed with the right metaphorical pitons and ropes, she set to and...

She was sure she'd heard something. Her shortish auburn hair was partially recovered from the intimate attention of the fingers that she pushed through it during the previous few hours while she had set about scaling-of-the-Paperwork. She creased her elfin features into a perplexed expression and regarded the door through gamine eyes. Her eyes widened in confusion that was there for all to see. We should take a look at the sort of thing that could engender that sort of reaction in a woman who had seen and done some of the things she had been required to do by the teams who went wondering through the stargate network.

She saw a figure standing in her doorway. Her mouth dropped open. We have got to see this.

A grey, floppy eared rabbit hopped into the infirmary. It munched on a carrot that it pulled out of nowhere.

"Eh...what's up, Doc?" asked Bugs Bunny.

Janet answered the only way she knew how. She pointed at the ceiling.

"Thanks," Bugs said and bounded away. Janet stared stupidly after it.

*

General Hammond decided it was time to announce a general alert. He reached for the intercom.

"This is General Alert....no, this is General Hammond issuing a general alert," he said, then clicked it off. "OK," he said out loud. "What am I supposed to say after that?" He had never been required to issue a general alert in the past. Oh well there was always the operating manual, that might explain it.

No, there were better things to do.

He then turned towards the weaponry that was placed so carefully on the rack behind his head. He reached tentatively towards the M-5 in front of him. He lifted it off the rack and gingerly flicked the safety off. It was time he joined the rest of his people and helped defend you and me from the scum of the universe.

*

The artefact was still swelling...no, wait, something's coming out.

A lanky (literally) figure dressed in a midnight (not midnight coloured, midnight) cloak stepped out. It grinned at the audience. It didn't really have much choice, not being all that well endowed in the skin or flesh department. It plunged a skeletal hand into the artefact and pulled on the reins that were worn by a majestic white horse.

"WHERE TO BEGIN?" asked Death in a voice that sounded like tombstones being struck together. He heaved himself atop the horse, who he called Binky of all things, and rode off dramatically.

It looks like a quarter of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse has arrived. Is that a Quartalypse?

The artefact deflated, as if exhausted. If it was, then that would be entirely understandable. After all, it has been working almost non stop for a couple of hours now.

But no, wait, it seems to have recovered now.

It began to swell again.

*

General Hammond walked along the hallway. He looked remarkably similar to Rambo. If you subtracted several guns and added a few kilos and a couple of decades. On second thoughts, he doesn't look much like Rambo at all. He looks more like one of the many actors who have portrayed James Bond. After they'd made a few movies, and given up wearing those lame toupees and was starting to look a little decrepit, just before they replaced them with a younger and more athletic actor.

He turned the corner and saw...

"It's duck season!" suggested Bugs in restrained frustration. He was determined to come out of this on top and knew just the way to gain the upper hand over daffy duck.

"Wabbit theathon!" sprayed Daffy Duck. Bugs pulled an umbrella out of nowhere. Daffy folded his arms (wings?) and looked defiant. This may be the first argument between him and Bugs that he wins. He has kept his cool admirably in the face of overwhelming guile and stupidity.

Bugs looked across at the approaching figure of General Hammond. He appeared to be an order of magnitude more imposing and competent with that gun than Elmer Fudd ever did.

"Duck!" Bugs yelled.

"Wabbit!" Daffy yelled back, missing the point entirely.

"Open season," announced General Hammond. Maybe Daffy won't win this time after all.

But at least Bugs didn't either, which is almost as good. Daffy and Bugs turned and looked at the newcomer.

He didn't look very nice. Bugs and Daffy looked at each other. In unison, they turned and ran. General Hammond ran after them, giggling hysterically.

*

"Vun mythical character personified in the form of a muppet...two mythical characters personified in the forms of muppets," came a loud voice, heavy with Eastern European pronunciation. The doorway to Daniel's office exploded into splinters. A statuesque, 7 foot tall yellow bird walked out.

"Vun demolished doorway!" announced the voice gleefully. They strode down the hallway in search of something.

The artefact swelled some more.

*

Footsteps pounded down the hall. Captain Riley made an uncontrolled skid around the corner, bounced off a wall and kept on running. Every so often he would turn and fire off a few more rounds at the deranged Big Bird that loped down the hall after him, grinning dopily. Riley turned on his heel and began running backwards as he fired. The walls around Big Bird rained debris down onto the hallway. Big Bird disappeared behind a particularly large pile of debris. Captain Riley sighed in relief and turned around...

Events of the next couple of seconds happen so quickly that we will be forced to watch them in slow motion. It is going to be a bit like a fight sequence from the Matrix.

Riley pivoted slowly around to find him self teetering over the edge of an open elevator shaft. That's not supposed to happen. They have double doors to stop that very thing from happening, of course the control system for the elevator doors was the only computer that blew up when the animaniacs got loose in the control room. The actual elevator car is actually a couple of floors higher in the compound. If we look up, and we will because, Riley's eyes flick up that way while he makes his desperate attempt to stay out of the elevator shaft, we can see it. Yep there it is.

The perversity of the universe is unrelenting and unforgiving, and it never ever stops, oh sorry that's actually a terminator, but then it's just another agent of the universe.

Riley dropped his AK-47 and windmilled his arms, trying to get back on more stable ground. After a long time, the sound of the AK-47 landing in the bottom of the elevator shaft sounds with a feeble little plot. If we work out that gravity sucks at the rate of 9.8 metres/second squared and that it took a long time to get down there, then we will be able to work out that it was a long way down. Wile E. Coyote might survive that fall, albeit he would look like a piano accordion for a few moments afterward, but Riley has no hope. There is only one thing that he can do under these circumstances. He knows that it's impossible, but he is going to try any way. He is going to try to fly. He should know better, even the bird lying under that pile of rubble behind him wouldn't have been able to fly under these circumstances (ninety kilogram weight and not much wing area) and it had wings, all Riley had were a pair of arms and they were never going to be able to grab enough air help him fly. His toes started to slip over the edge. He threw his back out in one final attempt to counteract his momentum and the inevitable movement forward. He made it. He started congratulating himself on that feat of prestidigitation.

What do you know?

I'll bet that feat got the universe's attention.

Seargeant Fletcher raced toward the elevator shaft while shooting wildly at the black duck that ran (hopped, skipped and danced) in front of him. It kept saying things like "Whoop, whoop," while it was running.

Fletcher found that he was not able to suspend the laws of motion the way that the duck could and he struggled to make the turns without slowing down. It was just as well that there were walls to bounce off, and elevator doors to bounce off and off course there was also Captain Riley who so kindly stood in for the decommissioned elevator door. Fletcher knocked Captain Riley's back, only gently mind you, but it didn't take much to upset Riley's precarious balance, sending him catapulting forwards.

Captain Riley lost the battle to gravity. Our score line reads gravity 1: Riley 0.

He fell down the shaft, screaming all the way. The universe will not be denied.

Riley reached desperately for the elevator cables...and missed. The bottom of the shaft is getting closer. He's screaming louder now and...

Oh, the screams have stopped suddenly.

We risk a look over the edge.

Oh, gross.

We won't describe that, we'll lose our rating for sure.

Seargeant Fletcher peered over the edge. He swallowed when he saw the gory mess (that was close, we almost said it) at the bottom.

"Do you think he's okay?" he asked hesitantly of the figure that he sensed standing behind him. The tall, black robe figure that was standing behind him looked over Seargeant Fletcher's shoulder.

"NO I DON'T THINK HE IS," said Death calmly. You see a lot of disgusting things in his job. And this was certainly the most recent.

*

Sam peered around the corner. She saw...well, the same scene that had greeted her around every corner: peronnel running (still in step, old habits die hard, and this habit was very old), odd creatures yelling the strangest thing and a lot of smoke. There is also a lot of gunfire, and the smell of recently created smoking corpses is performing an all out assault on her olfactory senses. She wrinkled her nose and crept around the corner. None of the creatures seemed to notice her arrival. Sam waved Daniel on.

He rounded the corner, wrinkled his nose and crept gingerly down the hall, Sam following. He would appreciate avoiding any sort of conflict, or treading in the remains of any sort of conflict, so as a consequence they weren't making much progress. We'll come back to them later.

*

Sg7 crept down the hallways, following the lead of their commander, Captain Connors. The whole team was pretty twitchy, what with the noise from all the alarms and the dim red light from the emergency back-up system. Captain Connors held up a hand for them all to halt and they sort of concertina'd together behind him.

They could see shadows around the corners.

Captain Connors waved his team quiet. They pulled the weapons up to the ready. Connors mouthed the counting of: 1...2...3

Sg7 burst around the corner and let loose.

The hall was briefly lit up by muzzle fire. The sounds of gung-ho yells echoed through the corridors. The ammunition was depleting at an extremely fast rate. Spent shells bounced off walls and onto the floor in a staccato tinkling that hadn't been seen since the climactic scenes from the Matrix. It couldn't last forever of course, there is just so much ammunition that a man can lug around on an ammo belt before his legs buckle under the load. Finally the guns stopped going "bang, bang, bang" and began going "click, click, click."

There was silence.

It was followed by some very human groans. Connors checked and decided that it wasn't his team that was making them.

Connors looked at the floor. For alien enitities, they had very human blood. Oh.

That's why.

Sg7 has unfortunately compromised Sg12.

"Snap," said the wall. "Crackle. Pop."

This might be a good time to sneak quietly away and pretend they were somewhere else when it happened.

*

The door to the cafeteria decided it was time to fall down. The thump of it's landing echoed into the far-from-quiet corridors. No-one gave a damn because they were really busy.

"Two demolished doorvays," intoned an Eastern European voice triumphantly.

Alright, so one - person? - cared.

*

Out of the artefact popped out a strange, whispy thing. It flew around the room for a minute, then flew through the wall. This in itself wasn't particularly amazing, there are lots of people outside doing the same thing. The amazing thing about this creature was that it didn't leave a hole and didn't slow down on the way through.

The artefact continued to swell.

*

If we listen closely we can hear the clatter of booted feet. From the speed that they're hitting the floor it is safe to assume that they're running. Ooh, there's a scream. It sounds faintly human. Oh, I see why. Sg5 is under attack by the animaniacs. Well, technically, they're under attack by the aaaaaaaniiimmaaaaaaaniaaaacccss!!! Let's pop in later and see how they're going.

*

The artefact made a strange noise. It wasn't a pop this time, more like a belch. Another brown thing has appeared. That's all we can make out at the moment. This would most likely be because the creature is spinning around way too fast to watch. It just looks like a brown, swirling blur. Oh, and it's growling. The artefact swelled up again.

*

Jack O'Neill stepped gingerly over the holy (holey?) remains of Elmer Fudd. He thought about the corpse the same way he thinks about dog droppings (looks gross, smells worse, wouldn't want to step in it). He dodged the door that decided that horizontal was the way to go and jogged around the corner.

The door hit the floor. It just happened to hit the floor where Elmer Fudd had been. Now Elmer looked really gross, smelt just as bad as before, and you definitely wouldn't want to step in it. The cleaners are going to have a long job ahead of them.

*

The Count ran happily around the base. "twohundredandsixtyseven running footsteps! And tree demolished doorvays!!" it yelled gleefully. It rounded the corner and stopped dead. Jack had been here. Tweetie was still here. The Count grinned. "Vun feather...two feathers..." it began. He could be at this for awhile. We'll come back later.

*

Samantha Carter was halfway down the corridor when she noticed Daniel was no longer next to her. She turned to see him standing in the middle of the hall with a slight frown on his face. As we covered earlier, Daniel does a great line of distracted investigation in the face of great peril. He clapped his hand on his head. Sam gave him a puzzled look.

"Oh, duh!! On and off!! They were on and off!" he said, paying no heed to the chaos around him. Behind him a door burst open (literally, it then collapsed to the floor and formed a good pile of firewood) and out strode a...I have no idea what the hell that is. I guess thing will just have to cover it. Out burst a thing.

"Just shut up and run!" Carter shouted and pulled him by the crock of the elbow. She was very well aware of her surroundings, and wanted to be very far away from them. They seemed to be along the lines of mass screaming and destruction.

*

Jack O'Neill ran through the corridors. He encountered many crackling and popping walls, several doors that decided to fall down and a few smoking corpses of unidentifiable things. He wrinkled his nose at the latter. Things smell a variety of ways before they're burnt and only one way after. He fought the urge to vomit and kept on running. Suddenly a white shape floated through the wall in front of him. Jack didn't even blink. Then he registered the facts that a) there was no convenient hole in the wall and b) it was still moving around. Jack instinctively aimed his gun at it. He was of the opinion of shoot. That's it, less questions. The white shape raised it's hands in an attempt to stop him. If we look closely we notice that the shape only has four fingers on each hand.

"You can't shoot me...BANG!!!...cos I'm already dead!!" announced Casper the Friendly Ghost proudly. His face mutated into a grossly disfigured monster with serious problems with halitosis and swept down on Jack. It growled menacingly, completely failing to notice that tall figure atop the majestic horse behind him.

"REALLY?" asked Death. Casper the (not so) Friendly Ghost paled (even more than he already was, anyway) and turned around.

"Oh, darn..." he said. Jack didn't stick long enough to see anymore. He ran off. Can we blame him?

*

The artefact popped again. Out stepped a...well, martian. It wore a green helmet with a small broom head attached to it. It looked around. A strange looking puppy followed the martian. The pair of them strode off in search of the ka-booms. The artefact swelled some more.

*

Sam dragged Daniel bodily into a relatively quiet room and let his arm go roughly. Then she shot at the creatures hanging from the ceiling and watched them fall to the floor. She emptied a few more rounds into them, just in case, then turned to Daniel. He wasn't paying any attention again. She decided to get his attention. She let off another round into the wall just behind him. Daniel jumped, then glared at her. She looked at her with a questioning look on her face. This had better be good.

"I've worked it out!!" Daniel announced. Sam sighed and nodded at him to continue. "It's actually quite simple! The Goa'uld bobbadah bobbadah hoe daddy yanga langa doo, beegiewama furjeezama bing jingle oh yeah," Daniel explained, or words to that effect. He paused for a breath and noticed the look on Sam's face.

"Did you get it?" he asked. Sam looked at him, a frown creasing her features.

"Er...no. But I'm glad you did. Thank you for sharing. English please?" she asked hopefully. Daniel looked at her.

"It was in English," Daniel pointed out. Sam thought this over.

"...oh. Is there a glossary of technical terms?" she asked tentatively.

"Er...no," came his reply.

"...oh."

*

Teal'c was puzzled. Where had that coyote gotten that box from? It was approximately 90 by 110 by 60 centimeters. It was made of unstained wood and held together with rusty nails. On the side someone has stencilled the letters CMEA. Not necessarily in that order. It actually spelt the word ACME. If that counts as a word. It could be an acronym (all creatures must eat? Anonymous callers mustn't enter?) Teal'c turned to the coyote.

"What's in the box?" he asked. Curiousity had finally got the better of him. He had to know. Wile E. Coyote grinned.

"Explosives. Wanna look?" Teal'c prised open the lid and peered inside.

"Did you buy this from the lowest bidder?" asked Teal'c.

Wile nodded cautiously.

"We buy ours from DuPont," Teal'c offered. Wile thought this over. The stencilled writing changed from ACME to DUPONT. Teal'c nodded approvingly.

*

Sam and Daniel were on the run again. This time they had a destination planned: Daniel's office. Sam didn't know why they had to go there, but as long as Daniel had a reason she didn't see why not. She looked at the hallway in front of her. It didn't look particularly stable. As if to prove her point, the door at the end chose to surrender to gravity. It fell with a crash, sending dust flying. Daniel sneezed violently. Sam decided to take a short cut through the cafeteria. She grabbed the still sneezing Daniel and dragged him inside. Three figures jumped on the table in front of her and began dancing.

"I'll provide a diversion!" yelled Sam and she skidded gracefully to a halt. Daniel kept running. Sam grabbed the first weapon she could find. It was a fry pan. The creatures, having growing bored with just dancing, decided to sing as well.

"We are the aanimaani..."

WHACK!!

"missed me! Try again!"

WHACK!!

"missed me!"

WHACK!!

"missed me!"

WHACK!!

"missed me!"

WHACK!!

"missed me!"

WHACK!!

"missed me!"

WHACK!!

"missed me!"

Mickey Mouse ran into the closest room he could find. Some big people with guns were after him. He skidded into the cafeteria. A blonde lady was playing whack-an-animaniac on the kitchen bench. She wasn't having mush success. Mickey spotted an open door. He ran inside...

Sam slammed shut the microwave door and hit 10. A pair of white gloved hands pounded on the door. Oh, wait, we can't see them anymore. Everything's gone red. Oh, it's turning black now. And the smell is wafting through the room. Sam let out a hysterical giggle, then turned back to the animaniacs. They were still dancing around. She raised the frying pan.

WHACK!!

"got the bugger!"

WHACK!!

"two down, one to go..." The colour (should I say ink?) drained from the last animaniac's face.

WHACK!! Whack whack whack whack whack whack whack whack whack whack!

"Sam? I think it's dead," said Jack O'Neill. Sam turned around. She looked at the frying pan, then at the table. Sam looked embarrassed and dropped the frying pan on the floor.

"Err...what was it?" Jack asked uncertainly. Sam looked at him.

"Can't you tell?" she asked.

"Not anymore. Let's leave it for the cleaners," Jack suggested.

*

"2.98374 x 1025 feathers!! Ve have all ze feathers!!" announced the Count. "Oh, and four demolished doorvays!!" it added as an afterthought. It bounced off in search of other things to count. There wasn't any lack of those now.

*

Bugs rounded the corner, still chewing on the carrot. He saw what awaited him and skidded to a halt. The carrot dropped to the floor, forgotten. Janet Fraiser stood in front of him. She was armed...with a needle. Bugs grinned and backed away slowly. Janet grinned back. Then she lunged. The needle embedded itself in Bugs' leg. Bugs slid to the floor, unconscious. Janet's grin just changed from slightly deranged to completely demented. She'd just had a brilliant idea.

*

Daniel felt a little bad about leaving Sam back there with all the monsters. But he had to get to the artefact and turn it off. He ran down the hall, threw out his hand, grabbed the wall, slid around the corner and skidded to a halt. At the other end of the corridor sat a cat.

Sylvester grinned. Cats have nine lives.

Daniel grinned back. He has a ten shot Lugaer.

He lined up the shot.

BANG!!

"That's one," said Sylvester.

BANG!!

Sylvester climbed back up off the floor. "Two," he said.

BANG, BANG, BANG!!

"4, 5, 6," stated Sylvester. "That's all 6 shots."

BANG!!

"Seven," said Daniel.

BANG!!

Sylvester began to feel a little afraid. He hadn't counted on this.

BANG!!

Sylvester slid to the floor, dead. Daniel let out a little, hysterical giggle. "Curiousity killed the cat," he said. If we look closely at Daniel's gun we can see the word Curiousity written in flowery script.

*

Colonel Makepeace skidded to a halt and turned to his 2IC.

"Was that Wile E. Coyote back there with an explosives box?" he asked.

"Wouldn't surprise me," replied the 2IC. Makepeace decided that leaving would be a good idea.

*

He had heard something in the corridor, something familiar and uncomfortable. O'Neill was sure that he had heard some one counting furiously just around the other leg of the bend in the corridor. Who ever it was, they had stopped and then announced in a loud voice, heavy with eastern European pronunciation; "Seven demolished doorways!"

"It's a Count," spat Carter in disgust. She really doesn't like those things. She had been exposed to it at a young age, and was consequently traumatised for life.

"Yes it's a Count," O'Neill agreed. "And we need to plan the next few..."

O'Neill had been watching Samantha Carter absently and it took O'Neill a moment to realise that she had a grenade in her hand. Camped in a corridor while they were being stalked by the Loony Tunes (among others) seemed a strange time to be playing with a grenade, but O'Neill had seen people play with all sorts of things when combat nervousness became intense enough to require physical movement.

It took O'Neill a moment to work out what Carter was doing. The asrophysicist bit the pin and pulled the grenade. She spat the pin onto the floor and lobbed the grenade around the corner. The pin landed on the floor and made a feeble little clatter at the Count's feet.

"Vun small projectile!" announced the Count gleefully.

"Carter, what're you doing?" O'Neill demanded. "It's stake first and then grenade, not the other way around."

"Oh yeah," she said and banged her forehead with the heel of her hand. "Well, it worked for Daniel..."

"Jes.." BANG! "..us." O'Neill shook his head and then buried it beneath his arms. Sam followed suit.

The corridor ahead of them was momentarily full of light and noise and then it began raining broken body parts. Smoke and smell replaced the noise and light, but when it comes to changing your lawyers you can never go by their names.

Sam and Jack climbed to their feet and stepped gingerly around the corner. It was a scene to remember, albeit not terribly happily, in fact it would normally come to you just before you woke up screaming. All around them, the walls were coated in gore. It was everywhere, like someone had chosen a scarlet paint scheme and then gone wild with the textured finishes.

"See?" Carter asked. She looked around the devastation that she had wrought, wearing a triumphant expression.

"Just shut up and run," said Jack. He grabbed her hand and pulled her over the debris.

*

Janet was decked out in the typical medical uniform, long white coat, stethoscope slung around her neck, pocket full of pens accompanied by a plastic wrapped tongue depressor. She had a radiation monitor pinned to her breast pocket. It was an image that was supposed to promote comfort amongst her patients. But, given the devilish glint in her eye and the scalpel clenched in her, it wasn't exactly achieving it's intended purpose.

She held her tape recorder up to her mouth.

"We are here to determine the cause of death of subject number 273..." she said. She glanced over at the table. Bugs Bunny had been gagged and tied to the operating table. He squirmed in fear. Janet let out a hysterical little giggle. A glint of light twinkled off the scalpel. She pulled on a pair of clean latex gloves and snapped them on her wrists. Bugs jumped and looked at her fearfully through the corners of his eyes.

"Performing Y incision...now." Bugs followed the scalpel down with his eyes. He had stopped squirming and was frozen to the spot. He watched the blade descend towards his chest in a kind of slow motion that can only be achieved when a sharp blade is descending towards your anatomy. Bugs squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the inevitable.

We can't describe what happened next without sacrificing our Pg-13 rating. And we don't want to do that. So we will just leave that to your imagination. But we can tell you it was really gross. At the end it looked reminiscent of that poor man at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

Janet lowered the scalpel back onto the trolley carefully. It no longer caught the light. It had developed a distinct red tinge to it. Her uniform white coat wasn't really white any more. It's incredibly stupid, really. Why would you wear a white coat when you're going to be performing an autopsy. It's a remarkably messy operation, most likely because the surgeon doesn't have to worry about putting it together properly when they've finished. Janet pulled off her (no longer clean) latex gloves and picked up her tape recorder again.

"It appears that the cause of death was the autopsy," she said, still giggling hysterically.

A tall figure behind her unfolded it's arms and stood up straighter. "YES," said Death.

*

General Hammond pounded around the corner, hot on the heels of a fat orange bear. He raced around the corner, slipped on some entrails that had once been Sylvester the Cat, but now more closely resembled Sylvester the holey corpse with a pressing problem when it came to fluid retention. Hammond turned his uncontrolled slide into a more controlled (or less uncontrolled, depending on your point of view) dive. He grabbed the creature's foot just as he landed face first on the ground. He lay there, dazed, for a minute, then climbed back to his feet. He held the squirming creature in the air by it's foot for a closer examination. He let out a slightly deranged giggle.

"P is for Pooh and Playtime too," said Winnie the Pooh dopily. It seemed completely oblivious to the fact that it was being held in the air by a demented looking rotund man with a suspicious red stain covering the front of his clothing. General Hammond grinned devilishy. He had an idea. He carried the orange bear into the toilets and shoved it inside. He then took great pride in pushing the buttons. Water rushed out, pushing Pooh Bear under.

"Who's a Pooh bear now then?! Huh? Huh?" he asked to the kicking feet sticking up out of the drain. He waited for them to go down. It didn't happen. He flushed again. Nothing. He flushed again. That got a result. Water spilled over the edge of the bowl, drenching Hammond's trousers. It mixed with the blood already decorating his uniform to make an interesting shade of pink. Hammond watched it with a sick fascination, then turned back to the still wildly kicking feet. He growled, and picked up the plunger. He lifted it high...

*

Jack and Sam shouldn't have left the Count alone. It just always comes back...and today is no exception.

"Vun bone..." came a disembodied (literally) voice heavy with eastern European accent. A single bone spun around on the floor. A second bone appeared with a quiet "click." "Two bones..." the voice continued.

He could be at this for awhile. We'll come back later.

*

Teal'c clicked the last piece into place. He allowed himself a slight grin. Wile E. Coyote had a look at the masterpiece. He grinned. Teal'c handed him the detonator.

"Now we wait..." he said.

*

"We can take a shortcut down here!" Jack yelled at the end of the corridor. He threw out a hand and skidded gracelessly around the corner. Carter performed the same manoeuvre with much greater success. They hurtled around the corner and skidded straight into Daniel. They fell on the floor in a jumble of limbs. In other words, Daniel and Jack measured the length of their bodies using Sam as a comparison base. Sam began the awkward task of extricating her arms and legs. Daniel and Jack joined her in this effort. Eventually they all had two arms and two legs each. There was one extra. Jack picked it up and frowned. He threw it over his shoulder haphazardly. The severed limb described a perfect arc from the Jack's grasp to land behind Carter. All eyes followed the passage of the limb with hypnotised intensity. It hit no-one on the way past, more through good luck than good management. Sam looked at the hallway in front of her. It may have once been a shortcut, but now resembled a Navy ship after the bombing off Peal Harbour. The rubble built up by the many consecutive explosions and the occasional still moving Gremlin part now blocked the entire passageway. They were standing outside what had once been an explosives storage room. It was more like an explosive crater now. Sam sighed.

"Any other brilliant ideas?" she asked sarcastically.

"Um...go back the way we came before the walls fall down on us?" Jack ventured.

"Works for me," Sam agreed. She grabbed Daniel's arm and they ran back down the hallway. They had the right idea. Get out before the walls cease being walls and become a strange form of carpet.

*

Lieutenant Graham Simmons looked up from his computer. There was something in his room. He glanced at the doorway. It was a wreck. He looked back around the room. There was a brown, spinning blur racing around. Everything it touched it was destroyed. Graham Simmons stared for a minute. The brown thing stopped. It grabbed a jug of water from the table and had a quick drink. Then it dropped the jug on the floor. Graham Simmons had an idea. He picked up the computer, lifted his feet off the floor, and threw the computer into the puddle. There was a lot of sparks. Taz the Tasmanian Devil stood still for a moment with a stupid look on it's face. Graham watched for any appreciable result. Taz began spinning around in hectic circles. Smoke puffed out of his ears. That was normal. Then Taz stopped and fell to the floor. Graham waited for a moment. It didn't move. He grabbed a broom and prodded Taz with it. It still didn't move. Graham decided to take that as a good sign. He grabbed an M-5 off the table shot a few rounds into Taz's head. There. Now Graham was certain it was dead. He bent over, picked the hard drive up and examined it. His work was ruined. Someone should tell him that if you're planning on demolishing your computer but saving the laptop, you should probably remove it before you proceed. His hard drive was now in the same state as every other component- a charred, smoking, sparking mess. Simmons threw it on the floor and marched off in search of coffee. It always helped.

*

A tall, robed figure approached the remains of Simmons' quarters cautiously. He may have been metaphorical, but it still payed to be careful. It stepped gingerly over the water and lifted the smoking carcass that had once been Tazzie Devil. It's face wrinkled up in an impersonation of a sneer. It threw the carcass aside and turned to the non corporeal form beside him. It grinned, showing an amazing array of sharp teeth glistening with saliva, then spun off. Death shook his head in disgust, then strode on.

*

Jack bolted down the corridor and skidded into the first room he saw. Daniel and Sam were right behind. And behind them...

Big Bird lurched into the armoury, bursting in from the hallway. It grabbed a staff weapon off the shelf and waved it at Sg1. O'Neill and Jackson skidded to a halt, sliding gracelessly across a floor, before they made two low speed pirouettes. They ran on the spot for a moment trying to reverse their direction, lacking traction on the freshly washed lino floor. Their windmilling arms fooled the Big Bird for a moment while it tried to work out what weapon they were bringing to bear and the hesitation was fatal. O'Neill shoved Samantha Carter's head from the road and reduced Big Bird's head to a bloody stump with a blast from his AK47.

Jackson dived for the floor in an understandably self-preserving move. The muzzle flash lit up the room like a spotlight.

O'Neill grabbed Carter's hand and pulled her over the steaming corpse of the former Big Bird. Daniel looked at smoking corpse. It was no longer statuesque. He fought the urge to vomit, stepped gingerly over it and followed O'Neill and Carter.

*

Big Bird stood back up and looked around. It was decidedly confused. Then it saw it's smoking corpse on the floor. It's faced dawned in understanding. It looked up at the approaching hoofsteps. Wearing a midnight robe and riding a pale hose, a quarter of the horsemen of the apocalypse looked down on the body (remains? Carcass? Corpse?) of Big Bird and tutted.

"RIGHT ON TIME," said a voice that Boris Karloff would have died for. It seemed to come from within the folds of it's hood. How that voice was generated from with a barren fleshless skull is anybody's guess, but there it was all the same.

"That bastard," said the self-projected form of Big Bird (with minor improvements. It no longer that ludicrous beak, for one thing.)

"DON"T LET IT BOTHER YOU. YOU WILL HAVE PLENTY OF COMPANY SOON," Death commented dryly.

*

Trailing along behind Sg1 came a 25cm tall fluffy pink bunny, frantically beating a snare drum that it had suspended around it's neck. A gleaming relatively-new pair of Energiser D-cell batteries nestled snugly in it's back. It had a blood stained bandaid on it's forehead.

*

"205 bones..." Spin, spin, spin click. The last little bone in the pinkie fingers clicked into place. "206 bones!! Ve have all ze bones! Vun skeleton!" A single muscle grew and stretched over the left foot. "Vun muscle..." The Count could be at this for quite some time. We'll pop by later and have a look.

*

Marvin the Martian wandered around the base aimlessly. It was rather dull. Just the usual havoc and chaos that he had come to expect from Earthlings. He came up to a bomb. He stared at it. He prodded at it. He fiddled with it. Oddly enough, it seemed structurally sound. Marvin had never seen a structurally sound bomb on Earth before. He looked around expectantly.

"Well? What happened to the ka-boom?" he asked. "There's supposed to be a ka-boom!" He sounded quite put out. Marvin likes ka-booms. They sparkle up the night sky.

"Not yet there's not," said Wile E. Coyote. Marvin turned around. He saw a coyote armed with a remote detonator. Marvin grinned. Well, as best as he could, which just meant that little white lines arranged themselves on his face in the artists impression of what a grin should look like on a martian with no facial features. But we should give the artist credit. It was vaguely recognisable as a grin. If you squinted and looked at it sideways. But that's beside the point. Marvin followed the coyote. This could be interesting.

*

Jack O'Neill stopped running, frowned for a moment and turned to face the little Bunny. He snatched a fire axe of the wall and threw it at the bunny. It embedded itself in it's skull.

The sound of tiny snare drums ceased. The bunny fell onto its side and tumbled against the wall. One reasonably-new Energiser battery rolled forlornly across the floor. The axe remained steadfastly stuck. Not that anyone wanted to retrieve it at the moment.

"Thank god for that," commented Daniel Jackson.

*

A skeletal figure stalked the hallway. The midnight cape was flapped in the metaphorical breeze. On the floor it found the body of the Energiser Bunny. He picked it up off the floor and examined it critically.

"NOT ONE OF THESE AGAIN," groaned Death. He picked up the loose battery and placed it back in the cavity in the Bunny's back. After a second, Death shuddered pulled the battery out. He reversed the polarity before putting it in again. The Bunny immediately resumed beating the snare drum. "IT HASN'T IMPROVED AT ALL."

He pulled out the battery and threw the Bunny back onto the floor. We need cultural icons like that like we need a hole in the head. The Bunny had one of those already. It also has an axe now, just in case.

*

General Hammond marched purposefully down the corridor. He had the weapons, he had the blood smeared clothes, he had nearly everything. The only thing he was missing was the bandanna tied around his head. It had been a long time since he'd experienced actual combat, and the adrenaline was pumping. He'd forgotten how exciting combat was. He had also forgotten how messy and smelly combat was, but refused to dwell on that. It would bring him down to a negative state of mind. He also conveniently forgot what he'd just done to Winnie the Pooh. His 5 year old grandson was at home, and would probably ask for a Pooh story before bed. Somehow, Hammond didn't think he could face that. Instead he concentrated on tracking the creature in front of him. The little bugger had pushed him too far. No one, I repeat no one destroys General Hammond's coffee machine and gets away with it. No amount of guilt would stop him from extracting revenge from this...duck. He turned the corner and faced the duck cowering at the end of the hall. He lifted his M-5 and smiled righteously. The duck whimpered.

BANG!!

Daffy's beak spun around his head comically. It finally came to a halt. Just the wrong way around. It looked like a baseball cap that homies wear. Daffy smiled in relief. General Hammond smiled back. He wasn't finished yet.

"That was just a sighter," he said. The duck's smile faded.

BANG!!

It looked like Peking Duck was going to be on the menu tonight.

*

Death looked at the creature in front of him. It appeared to be a duck. Sort of. There was something slightly wrong with it. He reached down and pulled the beak around the right way. The creature spluttered, then began complaining loudly. Death listened for a moment, then put the beak back the way it was. It was an improvement. He watched in relief as it disappeared to wherever it's belief system dictated. Thankfully, this one wasn't the kind who hadn't quite made up their mind. They tended to meander along slowly.

"HUMANS...YUCK," he commented disdainfully, and set off for his next appointments. He didn't have far to go. They were just down the hall.

*

Jack O'Neill panted in relief. The elevator was just down the end of the hall. He ran harder, avoiding the many pieces of what may have once been live matter, but is now just little smelly piles on the floor. His boots made a loud clatter on the floor. He wasn't being very covert. A pig jumped in front of the elevator. It had obviously heard Jack's approach. Which wouldn't have been hard, he wasn't particularly subtle. Jack sighed, then raised the object in his hand. He was growing a little tired of all this.

"It's a it's a itsa itsa itsa guh guh guh guh guh guh..." stuttered Porky Pig. He never had the chance to finish.

BANG!!

"It's a gun," finished Jack O'Neill. He wiped the scarlet fluid off his face with his sleeve and walked calmly over to the elevator. He pushed the down button and waited patiently for it to arrive. He looked back at the mess he'd just created. He wasn't going to be eating bacon anytime in the near future.

*

Wile E. Coyote leaned out the door. He peered around deviously. He could hear his prey approaching underneath the cacophany of human screams and gunfire. A single human ran past the door. Seconds later, a giant chicken came running after him holding a large plank of wood. No, wait. A large plank of wood with a nail in it. It was yelling dementedly at the human. Wile ignored it. He listened carefully. He could hear Porky Pig stuttering around the corner...followed by a particularly loud gunshot. Pig brain matter sprayed out across the wall in a pinkish-red geyser of fluid. There was a surprising amount of it. Pigs, contrary to popular belief, are actually very intelligent. Wile cringed and looked away. Normally he had no qualms about eating a pig, but that was just disgusting.

Wile dragged his attention back to the task at hand. Way off in the distance he could hear something...it was coming closer...Wile opened the door to the storage room just in time. Road Runner tore down the hallway and ran smack into the now open door. It stood, dazed, for a minute, then ran into the room. Wile grinned and rubbed his hands (paws?) together gleefully.

"Meep meep?" Road Runner squeaked plaintively as the doors slammed shut. It looked around. It appeared to be locked in a room with an intricate looking device in the middle of it. It cocked it's head and watched the numbers tick down on the LED screen. 3...2...1... Road Runner tried to run. It didn't very get far.

*

BOOM!!!

*

Marvin clapped his gloved hands together. That was spectacular, what with the debris flying everyone, the door being blown off it's hinges and the strange bird thing's sudden transformation into many portions of a strange bird thing. It was easily the best show of Road Runner he'd ever seen. And this one had the advantage of being real. He reached over and patter Wile on the back. Wile grinned proudly.

*

Road Runner stood in front of the tall, lanky figure. The figure grinned. There was a blue glint in it's empty eye sockets. It grinned evilly. (What choice did it have? We've covered this already.)

"FINALLY! I'VE BEEN TRYING SO HARD TO GET THIS ONE," Death said. The Road Runner blinked and cocked it's head. "Meep meep," it said, and tore off. Death grinned and ran after it. There wasn't very far it could get to in this state anyway.

*

Daniel bolted into his office and stopped dead. It was in ruins. He shook himself and searched desperately for what he had come for. It wasn't hard to miss, it was growing at an exponential rate. Daniel snatched up the artefact and examined it quickly. He chewed his lip, then pushed down on one of the glyphs engraved on it. It stopped swelling and resumed the state it had been in before.

"Thank god," said Daniel, relieved. Then he turned back to the mess before him. This could take awhile.

*

Foghorn Leghorn was confused. One minute he was chasing someone with a plank of wood (with a nail in it, can't forget the nail), the next he was standing in front of a skeleton in a midnight cloak. The skeleton had tied a Road Runner to something that appeared to be constructed of nothing and was brushing itself off proudly. It noticed Foghorn and frowned. It pulled an hourglass from somewhere within it's robe and looked at it closely. It then pulled out an ornate looking book and opened it to the first page.

"HENRIETTA HEN, THIS IS YOUR LIFE...OH, DAMN, THERE'S A FOOTNOTE," said Death. He frowned and ran his finger down the page until he found the footnote. His lips would have moved as he read it, but he didn't have lips.

"That's not the only mistake," said Foghorn Leghorn glumly. There wasn't much else he could have done.

..........................................................................................................................................

The Stargate engaged with it's usual pompous flair. Seeing as we've described it earlier on I won't go into the details. Five figures emerged from the Stargate. Jack reversed the direction of his cap and put on his sunnies. After making his customary (outdated) fashion statement, he turned to Wile E Coyote. Wile looked at Jack eagerly.

"Off you go then," he said, gesturing to the plain. Wile looked around, then scampered off. Samantha Carter watched him go, then turned to Daniel Jackson.

"Come on then, you never did tell us what was going on," she said. Daniel glanced up at her from his notebook.

"I've told you already. Bobbadah bobbadah hoe daddy yanga langa doo, beegiewama furjeezama bing jingle oh yeah," he said. Sam glared at him. "Alright, alright. The symbols on the artefact were derived from a mixture of Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian cuniform. Loosely translated they meant "on" and "off". Someone must have accidentally pressed on one of the symbols and turned it on. Anyway, I'm assuming the Goa'uld stole the Tok'ra phages and programmed them to form shapes from our childhood. When the device was turned on, the shapes started to take form. When it was turned off, the shapes disappeared." Sam goggled at him for a minute. Something about this wasn't quite right.

"You came up with that while we were running?" she asked incredulously.

"Well...no. I came up with the "on" and "off" buttons while we were running. The rest I figured out after we'd turned it off.," Daniel admitted.

"Ah."

Epilogue

"Ve have all ze bones! Ve have all ze muscles! Ve have all ze organs! Ve have vun Count! And 247 demolished doorvays!" announced the Count gleefully. He turned around to find a Smith and Wesson pointed squared at his temple.

"Count this," said Makepeace. He pulled the trigger at point-blank range.

BANG!!

"...Vun bullethole!" announced the Count obediently. After all, the man had told him to count.

"...that didn't follow the script..."

THE END!

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