Unity Chapter 9
FUBAR'ed
AA: (Acronyms Abound)
A/N: FYI - SOP = standard operating procedure.
The one thing I hate more than a broken night's sleep on another planet, surrounded by unknown enemies with no way of getting home - and no idea who you can trust - is being awoken after such a night's sleep, suddenly and violently, as the world literally shakes itself apart. Now I'll admit, this doesn't tend to happen all that often. In fact, in my life this has happened all of once.
This morning.
About fifty minutes ago to be exact. Just twenty minutes after Carter had returned from her watch. I knew this because I'd spent those twenty minutes listening to her relax back into sleep. She - like me - takes time to relax into her sleep pattern. So there we were, both of us listening to the other breathe - and I'm sure she was relishing the silent communication as much as I was - when the world fell apart beneath us. There was an almighty crack, a shuddering groan that almost deafened me, and then I seemed to be on a Disney-World ride. Without the benefit of a safety-belt.
"What the f-" I cried out, staggering off my makeshift bed.
"Serien?" I looked to the leader of the other team, who looked back at me looking just as shocked and confused.
"Earthquake!" Sam suddenly yelled.
"Sir, we need to get out of this building!" I of course, trusted Carter's advise implicitly and nodded. Which is how we found ourselves here. A nice night by the bonfire. Of course, the bonfire just happened to be Thor's old house. And the nice night was actually frigidly cold, our breath steaming out in large clouds around us. Borlois was limping, his sprained ankle an impediment to any kind of speedy evacuation. Serien was placing some sort of alien bandage over the foot, immobilising it for the time-being.
"What the hell do we do now?" Daniel asked, standing beside me and watching with me as Thor's house was razed to the ground. I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to voice what we had to do.
"We have to go back in, once the fire's out. Thor's still in there. Well, his body is, anyway. We have no weapons, no food, no means of transport. We're stuck on this rock until we can get a taxi home and our only trustworthy ally is more than likely a crispy-critter-"
"Jack!"
"General!"
"O'Neill." My team reprimanded me simultaneously.
"Sorry, guys. Didn't mean that the way it came out. Right now though, we need to get warm. None of us is going to last long out here."
"Why not get closer to Thor's place?" Arwew suggested. We all looked at her and she shrugged in response.
"The earthquake seems to have dissipated, and it is a fire. Warmth." Serien nodded his head, agreeing and I didn't have the care- factor to argue.
~~~o0o~~~
I suppressed my need to joke, manfully biting back a comment about marshmallows, as we all sat huddled by the remains of Thor's house. We were at what would have been the side of the building, had any of it still been standing. The fire raged tenaciously, lighting our faces in a ruddy orange glow. It looked amazing on Sam. On Teal'c and Daniel, well they just looked sunburned. I coughed to get my thoughts back on business at hand and rubbed my forehead. The headache I'd woken up with was getting worse. But I wasn't going to complain, I could have not woken up at all. Which would have been much worse.
"Sir." Carter half whispered. I turned to look at her profile. Eyes in shadow, the blue peering out dimly from beneath her sooty eyelashes. Lips chapped slightly from the cold and smoke, nose smudged with ash. Stunning.
"Sir, I don't think this was an earthquake after all."
"Why not?' Daniel replied, looking at both of us.
"Well.I've been in an earth quake before. I hadn't really thought about it until now, but this was something different." "What is that, ColonelCarter?" Teal'c asked, coming out of his Kel'no'reem suddenly.
"Have you ever been stood above a subway when a train goes through?" She asked Daniel and myself, excluding the aliens who obviously hadn't had that opportunity.
"Sure. You can feel it in your bones." Daniel said.
"And you hear it. A kind of sub-rumble, like background noise. But subterranean. Right?"
"Yeah." Daniel agreed.
"Well, earthquakes have the same kind of rumble. Only much louder, much more powerful. When an earthquake rumbles, the window's rattle. Your bones shudder. Then you get the actual noise of the quake. This didn't happen that way. I heard a loud crack, then a deep rumble."
"So did I." Arwew piped up, making it obvious they'd all been listening in to the conversation.
"Right. So, even though we're on a different planet, physics dictates that something like an earthquake would react the same, no matter where we were. Even if we were on the moon, you'd get the rumble before the crack, as it were."
"So?" Daniel asked. I was going to say the same thing, but my head was pounding and I didn't like the thought of actually speaking.
"So I think this was artificial. Some kind of.attack. Probably terrorist in nature, trying to either scare us, or get rid of us."
"Assassination?" Nyuil put in. He'd sat slightly away from his team- mates, hands propped on his upraised knees and face turned towards the dwindling flames.
"Could be. We have no way of knowing."
"We need to find a way." I decided, standing up. "It's time to do some recon, scout out the area. Split into four teams. One of us, one of you." I spoke to Serien, but my orders were to all seven of them. They obeyed like good little soldiers. "Stay within sight of the house." We all glanced at the glowing ruins. "And I want everyone back here in two hours. Carter, you go that way. Daniel, that way. T, you go over there and I'll go this way. Partner up, people." Seconds later we'd split into four teams of two, scattering into the trees in opposing directions.
~~~o0o~~~
I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally returned to the rest of the group, Arwew in tow. My team had all returned, and with them their scouting partners. I sat down beside Daniel and looked at the rest of the group.
"Findings? Carter?"
"Nothing, General." She replied.
"Serien and I scouted to the south of here. Lots of rabbit-type holes. Logs. Trees. Lots of trees." My team all smiled at that, including me. A little 'in' joke.
"But nothing that would actually scream 'conspiracy theory'."
"Same here, Jack. Trees and a river about half a click east of here. But that's it."
"I regret to inform you that I also found nothing of interest in my foray in to the forest, O'Neill." Teal'c intoned, bowing his head slightly.
"I did, however, manage to pursue some native fauna into a small ravine, not 800 meters from this position. Although there were no signs of. recent activity, I believe this could have been a likely hiding place for a person from which to observe us, or set off an event such as we experienced."
"Is there a reason he speaks like that?" Nyuil half grumbled. Carter smiled at him, teeth glinting.
"Believe it or not, you do get used to it." She reassured the alien. He grunted back disbelievingly. I didn't blame him. I cast a look at the razed house next to us and decided we could probably go in. Carefully.
"Right. We need to find the stasis chamber, see if the Asgard built those things to survive .. that." I nodded my head, indicating the mess that had been Thor's house.
"And then I think it's time we got proactive." We all stood up, Borlois hiding a wince and stumbling along after Teal'c. "Carter." I called to her. She hung back a second and started walking beside me. "Borlois had a sprained ankle, you say."
"Yes, sir." She replied, also watching his progress.
"Pretty good ambulatory rate, don't'cha think?"
"Yes, sir." She repeated. We said nothing more, but continued on in silence. Great minds think alike and all that.
We picked slowly through the blackened ruins, making our way back to where we thought the central chamber we'd all slept in should be. By the time we'd found it, our hands, clothes and most of our faces were covered in black soot. But we got there. And found Thor's stasis chamber intact.
"Where the hell did he go?!" I yelled, flinging back the chamber lid and staring at the completely empty padding inside.
"What?!" Daniel and Carter yelled, shoving me aside to look. "Holy Hannah!" Carter said softly. Then everything went white and bright at the same time. Asgard transporting device. I had enough time to identify that it was a transport device, before everything went from bright and white to dim and black. Very black, in fact. The unconscious kind. Damn. ~~~o0o~~~
Ouch.
Shit. That hurt. Maybe.. Nope, moving that way hurts as well. Okay note to self. Don't move head to the left or right. In fact, don't move head at all. Keep it still and maybe you can stay awake long enough to open your eyes.
Nope. Damn..
~~~o0o~~~
"Sir?" The voice entered my mind abruptly, flinging me back into reality with a thud. And a groan.
"Sir, can you hear me?"
"Carter, enough with the pushing. It hurts." I groaned, then tried to move my head again. Success! This time I didn't pass out afterwards. That was always a good sign. I opened my eyes in a squint and stared up at the bruised face of my 2IC. Her blue eyes stared down at me, relief flaring in them before being covered by professional dignity.
"What the hell happened?" I demanded, rolling onto my side and making my way slowly into a sitting position. I glanced around and saw the rest of our group scattered throughout the 'room'.
"You know those missions that go really well? Where we get all our objectives completed without any sort of injury or incident?" Daniel said, staring at his cupped palms.
"Yeah." I replied.
"This would not be one of those." Teal'c announced.
"Right." I replied. And although no actual information had been given, I had everything I needed to know from that exchange. We were screwed. Imprisoned with no obvious means of escape. SOP, then.
"Carter? Idea's?"
"Not a one, sir. I looked at what I thought was the door way, but it turned out to be some kind of fungi that was growing along the perpendicular crack in the wall. Far as I can see, there is no way out."
"Well no way out, no way in. That's a bonus for us, then." I replied with a small smile that she returned half heartedly.
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" Arwew almost screamed, pushing herself up the wall to a standing position, face red with anger.
"We've been captured and imprisoned by Gods know who, and there isn't any means of escape. We've been knocked unconscious and as far as any of us know, could be stuck here for the rest of our lives. And you four have the time to laugh?!"
"Ah." She seemed angry. I cast a look at Sam, who was staring at Arwew dumbly, blinking.
"This is sort of ." I started,
"A regular occurrence-" Daniel assisted,
"In our line of employment." And Teal'c finished.
"We get this a lot." Sam added with an apologetic smile.
"We find that if you panic or get emotional about it, it just wastes energy and brain power. So we don't do it anymore."
"Besides, it's not as much fun." I added.
"This is kind of a first for us." Serien admitted almost guiltily.
"Wow. You're doing pretty well then." I replied, then stood up with a groan, ignoring the pops as my knee's cracked into place. "Right. Assessment."
"Asgard transportation. So more than likely someone either has good contacts, or an Asgard had a hand in this." Daniel supplied.
"The bruising and discomfort signify that at some point, there was physical contact of an abrupt and violent nature." Teal'c added, looking pointedly at Carter's face. Actually, that was a point.
"Carter? You okay? You don't look so hot." I asked her, coming closer. She smiled, winced and then nodded, as she held a hand up to her bruised lip.
"Yeah. Woke up with them. It's not too bad - it just aches." She dismissed the injuries - and the concern - and I let her. Anywhere but on a mission and there was no way she would get away with being 'macho'. But we simply didn't have the time or the facilities for me to get protective and 'henny', as the rest of my team liked to call it. I didn't argue. They were right.
"Anyone else got problems they want to report?" I asked the room at large. Grunts of dissent abounded.
"Good. So, have we done a search of this room? Any idea where this light is coming from?"
"I was thinking, General." Carter said musingly, staring around at the grey walls. "When we first met Thor's Race in the Hall of Might, the Asgard tested us with illusions. Very real illusions that tested our fears and mental capacity. We had the Pi test."
"Pie?"
"As in the number, sir - 3.1415 not apple pie. But before that we had to cross a chasm on a very thin bridge."
"Oh!" Daniel suddenly burst out, eyes going wide behind his glasses.
"Oh, what?" I asked, when he said nothing else for a few seconds.
"What? Oh. Sorry." He replied, after staring blankly at me for a second. "We're not actually here." Daniel then told us. Not surprisingly, there was a period of disbelieving silence after that little announcement.
"Actually, Dr Jackson, I think we are." Borlois replied, rapping his knuckles against the wall behind him. Daniel shook his head again.
"We're not. This is like. an illusion. A really good one, but it's still just an illusion. More than likely there is a door. Maybe even a couple of guards outside, looking in. But what we see is different. And so convincing, that if this room were to fill with water, we'd all drown."
"In an illusion." Serien raised his eyebrows derisively.
"Yes." Daniel's head was nodding enthusiastically, the glasses bouncing slightly on the bridge of his nose.
"Sure." Arwew scoffed.
"Actually, he's telling the truth. In the illusion we experienced before, our friend fell off a very thin ledge and was hanging down below the floor. When the illusion was taken away, there was no hole, no area for her to fall down. But she had been. It was so convincing, so encompassing, that somehow our bodies were able to react as though it were real."
"So how does this help us?" I asked.
"Well, if it's an illusion, something has to be generating it. All we have to do is find it and shut it off." Carter suggested. We all looked around the blank room.
"We shouldn't be using our eyes." Serien suddenly realised. I looked at him in confusion. "Think about it. If your team is right, using your eyes only strengthens this illusion. We need to use other senses. Touch. Smell. Sound. Everything but our eyesight."
"Of course!" Daniel exclaimed. I agreed, it made sense. So we went around, hands out to the walls, eyes tightly shut, feeling our way around the room slowly and carefully. If nothing else it was keeping us entertained, and more than likely keeping anyone who happened to be watching entertained as well. If there was anyone watching us. The Asgard tend to be very arrogant about their technological prowess. Which often gave us a distinct advantage. Because we weren't arrogant and never assumed anything when it came to new technologies. To put it simply, we had a lot of 'stupid' idea's - as Thor had once told us. And to be honest, walking around a cell with our eyes shut, didn't mark up there with the world's brightest idea's.
"Got it!" Nyuil yelled out suddenly. Okay, so not the world's brightest idea's but sometimes they worked.
"Good. Where?" I opened my eyes to see Carter walking over to him, then close her eyes as she stood next to him and place her hands over his. Which had disappeared through one of the cell walls. I walked up to them and put my hand against the wall, tapping my fingers on the hard surface. The hard surface that both Nyuil and Carter were now busy working beneath. It was a very disturbing sight.
"Almost. Nyuil, twist that bit to the left just a fraction." Carter muttered, eyes tight shut and face impassive as she dealt with whatever it was she was dealing with, behind this illusion thingy. "Good, now just... there." She opened her eyes just as the illusion dropped.
"Oh, this is much better." My voice dripped with mockery, looking around in stunned disbelief. This just couldn't be possible.
Could it?
The one thing I hate more than a broken night's sleep on another planet, surrounded by unknown enemies with no way of getting home - and no idea who you can trust - is being awoken after such a night's sleep, suddenly and violently, as the world literally shakes itself apart. Now I'll admit, this doesn't tend to happen all that often. In fact, in my life this has happened all of once.
This morning.
About fifty minutes ago to be exact. Just twenty minutes after Carter had returned from her watch. I knew this because I'd spent those twenty minutes listening to her relax back into sleep. She - like me - takes time to relax into her sleep pattern. So there we were, both of us listening to the other breathe - and I'm sure she was relishing the silent communication as much as I was - when the world fell apart beneath us. There was an almighty crack, a shuddering groan that almost deafened me, and then I seemed to be on a Disney-World ride. Without the benefit of a safety-belt.
"What the f-" I cried out, staggering off my makeshift bed.
"Serien?" I looked to the leader of the other team, who looked back at me looking just as shocked and confused.
"Earthquake!" Sam suddenly yelled.
"Sir, we need to get out of this building!" I of course, trusted Carter's advise implicitly and nodded. Which is how we found ourselves here. A nice night by the bonfire. Of course, the bonfire just happened to be Thor's old house. And the nice night was actually frigidly cold, our breath steaming out in large clouds around us. Borlois was limping, his sprained ankle an impediment to any kind of speedy evacuation. Serien was placing some sort of alien bandage over the foot, immobilising it for the time-being.
"What the hell do we do now?" Daniel asked, standing beside me and watching with me as Thor's house was razed to the ground. I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to voice what we had to do.
"We have to go back in, once the fire's out. Thor's still in there. Well, his body is, anyway. We have no weapons, no food, no means of transport. We're stuck on this rock until we can get a taxi home and our only trustworthy ally is more than likely a crispy-critter-"
"Jack!"
"General!"
"O'Neill." My team reprimanded me simultaneously.
"Sorry, guys. Didn't mean that the way it came out. Right now though, we need to get warm. None of us is going to last long out here."
"Why not get closer to Thor's place?" Arwew suggested. We all looked at her and she shrugged in response.
"The earthquake seems to have dissipated, and it is a fire. Warmth." Serien nodded his head, agreeing and I didn't have the care- factor to argue.
~~~o0o~~~
I suppressed my need to joke, manfully biting back a comment about marshmallows, as we all sat huddled by the remains of Thor's house. We were at what would have been the side of the building, had any of it still been standing. The fire raged tenaciously, lighting our faces in a ruddy orange glow. It looked amazing on Sam. On Teal'c and Daniel, well they just looked sunburned. I coughed to get my thoughts back on business at hand and rubbed my forehead. The headache I'd woken up with was getting worse. But I wasn't going to complain, I could have not woken up at all. Which would have been much worse.
"Sir." Carter half whispered. I turned to look at her profile. Eyes in shadow, the blue peering out dimly from beneath her sooty eyelashes. Lips chapped slightly from the cold and smoke, nose smudged with ash. Stunning.
"Sir, I don't think this was an earthquake after all."
"Why not?' Daniel replied, looking at both of us.
"Well.I've been in an earth quake before. I hadn't really thought about it until now, but this was something different." "What is that, ColonelCarter?" Teal'c asked, coming out of his Kel'no'reem suddenly.
"Have you ever been stood above a subway when a train goes through?" She asked Daniel and myself, excluding the aliens who obviously hadn't had that opportunity.
"Sure. You can feel it in your bones." Daniel said.
"And you hear it. A kind of sub-rumble, like background noise. But subterranean. Right?"
"Yeah." Daniel agreed.
"Well, earthquakes have the same kind of rumble. Only much louder, much more powerful. When an earthquake rumbles, the window's rattle. Your bones shudder. Then you get the actual noise of the quake. This didn't happen that way. I heard a loud crack, then a deep rumble."
"So did I." Arwew piped up, making it obvious they'd all been listening in to the conversation.
"Right. So, even though we're on a different planet, physics dictates that something like an earthquake would react the same, no matter where we were. Even if we were on the moon, you'd get the rumble before the crack, as it were."
"So?" Daniel asked. I was going to say the same thing, but my head was pounding and I didn't like the thought of actually speaking.
"So I think this was artificial. Some kind of.attack. Probably terrorist in nature, trying to either scare us, or get rid of us."
"Assassination?" Nyuil put in. He'd sat slightly away from his team- mates, hands propped on his upraised knees and face turned towards the dwindling flames.
"Could be. We have no way of knowing."
"We need to find a way." I decided, standing up. "It's time to do some recon, scout out the area. Split into four teams. One of us, one of you." I spoke to Serien, but my orders were to all seven of them. They obeyed like good little soldiers. "Stay within sight of the house." We all glanced at the glowing ruins. "And I want everyone back here in two hours. Carter, you go that way. Daniel, that way. T, you go over there and I'll go this way. Partner up, people." Seconds later we'd split into four teams of two, scattering into the trees in opposing directions.
~~~o0o~~~
I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally returned to the rest of the group, Arwew in tow. My team had all returned, and with them their scouting partners. I sat down beside Daniel and looked at the rest of the group.
"Findings? Carter?"
"Nothing, General." She replied.
"Serien and I scouted to the south of here. Lots of rabbit-type holes. Logs. Trees. Lots of trees." My team all smiled at that, including me. A little 'in' joke.
"But nothing that would actually scream 'conspiracy theory'."
"Same here, Jack. Trees and a river about half a click east of here. But that's it."
"I regret to inform you that I also found nothing of interest in my foray in to the forest, O'Neill." Teal'c intoned, bowing his head slightly.
"I did, however, manage to pursue some native fauna into a small ravine, not 800 meters from this position. Although there were no signs of. recent activity, I believe this could have been a likely hiding place for a person from which to observe us, or set off an event such as we experienced."
"Is there a reason he speaks like that?" Nyuil half grumbled. Carter smiled at him, teeth glinting.
"Believe it or not, you do get used to it." She reassured the alien. He grunted back disbelievingly. I didn't blame him. I cast a look at the razed house next to us and decided we could probably go in. Carefully.
"Right. We need to find the stasis chamber, see if the Asgard built those things to survive .. that." I nodded my head, indicating the mess that had been Thor's house.
"And then I think it's time we got proactive." We all stood up, Borlois hiding a wince and stumbling along after Teal'c. "Carter." I called to her. She hung back a second and started walking beside me. "Borlois had a sprained ankle, you say."
"Yes, sir." She replied, also watching his progress.
"Pretty good ambulatory rate, don't'cha think?"
"Yes, sir." She repeated. We said nothing more, but continued on in silence. Great minds think alike and all that.
We picked slowly through the blackened ruins, making our way back to where we thought the central chamber we'd all slept in should be. By the time we'd found it, our hands, clothes and most of our faces were covered in black soot. But we got there. And found Thor's stasis chamber intact.
"Where the hell did he go?!" I yelled, flinging back the chamber lid and staring at the completely empty padding inside.
"What?!" Daniel and Carter yelled, shoving me aside to look. "Holy Hannah!" Carter said softly. Then everything went white and bright at the same time. Asgard transporting device. I had enough time to identify that it was a transport device, before everything went from bright and white to dim and black. Very black, in fact. The unconscious kind. Damn. ~~~o0o~~~
Ouch.
Shit. That hurt. Maybe.. Nope, moving that way hurts as well. Okay note to self. Don't move head to the left or right. In fact, don't move head at all. Keep it still and maybe you can stay awake long enough to open your eyes.
Nope. Damn..
~~~o0o~~~
"Sir?" The voice entered my mind abruptly, flinging me back into reality with a thud. And a groan.
"Sir, can you hear me?"
"Carter, enough with the pushing. It hurts." I groaned, then tried to move my head again. Success! This time I didn't pass out afterwards. That was always a good sign. I opened my eyes in a squint and stared up at the bruised face of my 2IC. Her blue eyes stared down at me, relief flaring in them before being covered by professional dignity.
"What the hell happened?" I demanded, rolling onto my side and making my way slowly into a sitting position. I glanced around and saw the rest of our group scattered throughout the 'room'.
"You know those missions that go really well? Where we get all our objectives completed without any sort of injury or incident?" Daniel said, staring at his cupped palms.
"Yeah." I replied.
"This would not be one of those." Teal'c announced.
"Right." I replied. And although no actual information had been given, I had everything I needed to know from that exchange. We were screwed. Imprisoned with no obvious means of escape. SOP, then.
"Carter? Idea's?"
"Not a one, sir. I looked at what I thought was the door way, but it turned out to be some kind of fungi that was growing along the perpendicular crack in the wall. Far as I can see, there is no way out."
"Well no way out, no way in. That's a bonus for us, then." I replied with a small smile that she returned half heartedly.
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" Arwew almost screamed, pushing herself up the wall to a standing position, face red with anger.
"We've been captured and imprisoned by Gods know who, and there isn't any means of escape. We've been knocked unconscious and as far as any of us know, could be stuck here for the rest of our lives. And you four have the time to laugh?!"
"Ah." She seemed angry. I cast a look at Sam, who was staring at Arwew dumbly, blinking.
"This is sort of ." I started,
"A regular occurrence-" Daniel assisted,
"In our line of employment." And Teal'c finished.
"We get this a lot." Sam added with an apologetic smile.
"We find that if you panic or get emotional about it, it just wastes energy and brain power. So we don't do it anymore."
"Besides, it's not as much fun." I added.
"This is kind of a first for us." Serien admitted almost guiltily.
"Wow. You're doing pretty well then." I replied, then stood up with a groan, ignoring the pops as my knee's cracked into place. "Right. Assessment."
"Asgard transportation. So more than likely someone either has good contacts, or an Asgard had a hand in this." Daniel supplied.
"The bruising and discomfort signify that at some point, there was physical contact of an abrupt and violent nature." Teal'c added, looking pointedly at Carter's face. Actually, that was a point.
"Carter? You okay? You don't look so hot." I asked her, coming closer. She smiled, winced and then nodded, as she held a hand up to her bruised lip.
"Yeah. Woke up with them. It's not too bad - it just aches." She dismissed the injuries - and the concern - and I let her. Anywhere but on a mission and there was no way she would get away with being 'macho'. But we simply didn't have the time or the facilities for me to get protective and 'henny', as the rest of my team liked to call it. I didn't argue. They were right.
"Anyone else got problems they want to report?" I asked the room at large. Grunts of dissent abounded.
"Good. So, have we done a search of this room? Any idea where this light is coming from?"
"I was thinking, General." Carter said musingly, staring around at the grey walls. "When we first met Thor's Race in the Hall of Might, the Asgard tested us with illusions. Very real illusions that tested our fears and mental capacity. We had the Pi test."
"Pie?"
"As in the number, sir - 3.1415 not apple pie. But before that we had to cross a chasm on a very thin bridge."
"Oh!" Daniel suddenly burst out, eyes going wide behind his glasses.
"Oh, what?" I asked, when he said nothing else for a few seconds.
"What? Oh. Sorry." He replied, after staring blankly at me for a second. "We're not actually here." Daniel then told us. Not surprisingly, there was a period of disbelieving silence after that little announcement.
"Actually, Dr Jackson, I think we are." Borlois replied, rapping his knuckles against the wall behind him. Daniel shook his head again.
"We're not. This is like. an illusion. A really good one, but it's still just an illusion. More than likely there is a door. Maybe even a couple of guards outside, looking in. But what we see is different. And so convincing, that if this room were to fill with water, we'd all drown."
"In an illusion." Serien raised his eyebrows derisively.
"Yes." Daniel's head was nodding enthusiastically, the glasses bouncing slightly on the bridge of his nose.
"Sure." Arwew scoffed.
"Actually, he's telling the truth. In the illusion we experienced before, our friend fell off a very thin ledge and was hanging down below the floor. When the illusion was taken away, there was no hole, no area for her to fall down. But she had been. It was so convincing, so encompassing, that somehow our bodies were able to react as though it were real."
"So how does this help us?" I asked.
"Well, if it's an illusion, something has to be generating it. All we have to do is find it and shut it off." Carter suggested. We all looked around the blank room.
"We shouldn't be using our eyes." Serien suddenly realised. I looked at him in confusion. "Think about it. If your team is right, using your eyes only strengthens this illusion. We need to use other senses. Touch. Smell. Sound. Everything but our eyesight."
"Of course!" Daniel exclaimed. I agreed, it made sense. So we went around, hands out to the walls, eyes tightly shut, feeling our way around the room slowly and carefully. If nothing else it was keeping us entertained, and more than likely keeping anyone who happened to be watching entertained as well. If there was anyone watching us. The Asgard tend to be very arrogant about their technological prowess. Which often gave us a distinct advantage. Because we weren't arrogant and never assumed anything when it came to new technologies. To put it simply, we had a lot of 'stupid' idea's - as Thor had once told us. And to be honest, walking around a cell with our eyes shut, didn't mark up there with the world's brightest idea's.
"Got it!" Nyuil yelled out suddenly. Okay, so not the world's brightest idea's but sometimes they worked.
"Good. Where?" I opened my eyes to see Carter walking over to him, then close her eyes as she stood next to him and place her hands over his. Which had disappeared through one of the cell walls. I walked up to them and put my hand against the wall, tapping my fingers on the hard surface. The hard surface that both Nyuil and Carter were now busy working beneath. It was a very disturbing sight.
"Almost. Nyuil, twist that bit to the left just a fraction." Carter muttered, eyes tight shut and face impassive as she dealt with whatever it was she was dealing with, behind this illusion thingy. "Good, now just... there." She opened her eyes just as the illusion dropped.
"Oh, this is much better." My voice dripped with mockery, looking around in stunned disbelief. This just couldn't be possible.
Could it?