Missing Souls
Part 17 of the Asgard Sequence
Sequel to 'Unseen and Unspoken'
By Gumnut
Oct 2003
He woke.
His head ached, his chest ached, and that blasted broken arm ached. And, consequently, he was in a foul mood.
But most of all he was angry because he couldn't remember what the hell had happened.
Upon opening his eyes he had found that he was lying under a bush. But as to how he had gotten there, he had no idea. The last thing he remembered was beaming into a garden full of armed Asgard. Everything from that point onwards was a blank.
Damn.
The world was swimming again. God, he was sick of being sick. He had only gotten the world to sit straight a couple of weeks ago. Whacking himself unconscious was not conducive to keeping it that way.
Putting a hand to his head, he realised he was still invisible.
Shit.
The next question was regarding the location of his team.
Peering out from the underbrush, he saw nothing but more plants. He climbed out from under the bush as quietly as possible, and, once his vision settled, scoped out the situation.
The entire section of the Garden was surrounded by a forcefield.
Double damn.
There was no sign of his team.
Triple damn.
And to top it all off, he was still covered in goo.
He muffled a cough, and was surprised to see an Asgard pop up in a shrubbery not twenty feet away. They were obviously looking for him
Shit, this was going to be difficult.
Okay, O'Neill, you have been in worse situations than this.
When? You are surrounded by aliens out to get you who have a technology for which gives you no concept of their capability. You're sick, probably concussed, and still haven't eaten a decent meal since sometime yesterday - at least he thought it was yesterday, his time sense had been thrown out of whack with the rest of his head. Face it, O'Neill, you're in deep shit.
Oh, shut up.
Kicking himself for zoning out for a moment, he focused and set out as quietly as possible to do some recon.
There were Asgard everywhere.
And in the centre of the area covered by the force field stood a familiar figure.
Frere.
Shit! What the hell was he doing here? Hadn't Thor locked him up for good?
Apparently not.
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!
But an over use of expletives did not solve the situation. Investigation was the only option.
O'Neill was an experienced woodsman. Give him a forest and he could walk the length of it, and set up and collapse camp three times within its perimeter, but nary a soul would know he was, or had been, there at all. No tracks, no noise, no disturbance.
But that was back on Earth.
And on Earth, plants don't tinkle, rattle, or ring bells. What had formerly been a pleasant relaxing garden, now became an alarm minefield.
Twice he nearly bought it. The second time, it was only sheer luck that saved him from discovery, as a branch took an extra couple of seconds to snap back. When it did, it set the whole bush tinkling, but he was far enough away not to be caught by the stun beams that immediately coursed through the spot where he had been.
Eventually, however, he did make it to the edge of the forcefield, and began tracking the perimeter of it, attempting to locate some sort of way out that did not involve yet another Asgard prison cell.
He was approximately halfway around the expanse when his pursuers tried a new tactic.
The forcefield began to move. Inwards.
It was collapsing.
The plan, obviously to snare him in the middle.
Crap, crap, crap, and double crap.
He skipped backwards as the shield advanced towards him, madly trying to think of a solution out of his current dilemma.
The invisibility gadget did have one other function. But he had no idea whether it would work. Thor had said it could make him appear as an Asgard. It was a necessary tool if you were an alien who was twice the size of the indigenous population, and you wanted to do anything remotely resembling covert. He could play bad guy and hope they took the bluff.
The Asgard hunting him were now appearing out of the brush, and, to his amazement, walking through the forcefield as it decreased in size.
Perhaps he could do the same.
Reaching under his now drying shirt, the goo cracking and flaking off, he fiddled with the device.
His body suddenly appeared around him.
Well, *a* body.
The ground seemed a lot closer, and he was alien-naked, but at the moment, beggars could definitely not be choosers.
There was a sudden excitement around him. Although he had hidden behind a convenient bush, they must have been scanning.
In a desperate move to avoid losing his chance, he made a dash for the forcefield.
God, he hoped the gadget could pull it off, if it didn't he was toast.
Eyes shut, he hit the forcefield....and passed through it as if it didn't exist. Way to go, Thor.
Not wanting to give his pursuers any chance to track him, he dashed out of the Garden and into the warren of the city walkways.
It was a long while, and an exhausted time later, when he finally allowed himself to stop and rest. There was no sign of pursuit, and he hadn't been beamed anywhere, so he figured the gadget was doing its job, and he was indistinguishable from any average Asgard.
The only problem was that he may look like an Asgard, but underneath all the grey skin, he was just a sick and exhausted human who really needed to sit down.
He searched around the strangely deserted streets until he found an empty building. A gaping door provided entrance to an old storehouse of some kind.
O'Neill didn't really care. He grabbed a broken plastic crate, propped it in a corner, and, crawling under it, promptly fell into an exhausted sleep.
**********
Doctor Daniel Jackson, archeologist, linguist, and all round nice guy was pissed.
And it was not a Daniel-like angry, it was a Jack-like angry. He wanted to grab the nearest Asgard - as long as it wasn't Thor - and pound him into the ground.
They were in a cell....again.
They were missing Jack....again.
And all because they had disobeyed orders and put their lives on the line in the belief they would be coming to help these people.
At every turn they were treated as criminals where mere weeks before they had been celebrated heroes. Fickle bunch of grey-butted know-it-alls as far as he was concerned at the moment. He wondered if any of the Vikings had had days like this.
He had to admit, though, at the core of his anger was a big ball of worry by the name of Jack.
At some point in the scuffle following their abrupt beam in to the Garden, Teal'c had made an attempt to fling the sick Colonel out of harm's way. Jack affronted protests had been the last they had heard of him.
Despite their best efforts, all three of them had been caught by the Asgard stun weaponry. The weapon's fire had overloaded their invisibility generators, allowing the Asgard transporters to lock on to them, and they had all been beamed here.
All except Jack.
Damn it! When the man wasn't annoying him, he was worrying him.
And he wasn't the only one.
Sam had gone all quiet again, her face an illustration of distress. Teal'c, who was also recovering from a blow to the head, had repeatedly apologised for losing their commanding officer, even though it clearly wasn't his fault. If anything, if Teal'c hadn't thrown O'Neill from the fray, he would probably be right in here with them.
Daniel just wished he knew if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
But most of all, he just wished he knew the fate of his friend.
**********
"Hello?"
Jack jumped, his head hitting the packing crate, causing it to fall on top of him.
What the hell?
His shock was compounded when the crate was carefully lifted off of him.
"Are you all right?" A face peered around the plastic rim.
An Asgard face.
A disfigured Asgard face.
"Can I help you at all? I was worried when I found you lying here all alone. Ros always tells me to help people when I can. I can go and get him if you want. He will know what to do."
Jack finally reacted. "No, I'm okay. You don't need to go and get anyone." The Asgard flinched, and Jack realised he was staring. He looked away a little guiltily, and sat up, pushing the crate to one side.
He felt much better. His head still ached and he was starving hungry, but the world stayed pleasantly stable, and he wasn't feeling sick anymore. A little sleep can do wonders.
The Asgard had backed away when he had sat up, and had begun to look like he wanted to be anywhere but here. He was very small, even for an Asgard, and one side of his face seemed to droop, the muscles slack, its eye smoky grey.
Jack felt a chill run down his back.
The small alien flinched once again, and turned as if to leave.
No, this wasn't right. Jack held out a hand, still a little surprised when it came up small and grey. "No, don't go." The Asgard hesitated, so Jack continued. "What is your name?"
"Eelyn."
"Eelyn, I'm...." He suddenly realised that 'Jack' didn't sound particularly Asgardish. Since he looked like one, he should probably sound like one. He fossicked around in his head and grabbed the first exotic sounding name that came to mind. "Nemo. My name's Nemo. And, yes, you can help me."
Jack stood up - not as up as he was used to, four foot did little to compare with his usual six foot two.
Eelyn looked at him curiously. "Nemo? I have a Chanta by that name, do you know him?"
Oh, god, he knew nothing about Asgard naming conventions.
"No, I'm sorry, I don't."
"Do you want to meet him?" The little Asgard was positively jumping up and down with eagerness.
"No, I'm, sorry, Eelyn, I'm in a bit of a hurry." Eelyn looked crest fallen. Aw, hell. "Okay, perhaps we can go and see him afterwards."
The little Asgard brightened up. "That would be great! Chanta Nemo has been everywhere. He has this great collection of things from other planets, and he can tell the most wonderful stories...."
Eelyn went on about his Chanta for quite a while, and Jack realised that there was something not quite right about him, apart from his face. If he had been human, Jack would have guessed by his speech patterns that he was a child. But the Asgard didn't have children - that he knew of.
"Eelyn, how old are you?"
The little Asgard stopped his Chanta adulations mid-vowel, and looked at O'Neill suspiciously. "Why?"
"I just thought I 'd ask."
"Oh, alright. I'm twenty-three."
"Twenty-three? Years?"
"Oh, no, silly. Twenty-three thousand Hallan sun cycles. Ros says I'm one of the oldest, but I don't know, he seems so much smarter than me. Now Peta, he's only nineteen, but he likes to boss me around. He thinks that since my last transference that I have changed too much, but I think he's just jealous of my age. Ros reckons...."
And Eelyn was off rabbling again. The word 'transference' rang in O'Neill's head. It would explain a lot. Twenty-three thousand years was a long time, no matter what sun your planet cycled around. Plenty of time to degrade DNA by cloning.
The image of the dying Kanya played across his mind, and he suddenly began to wonder exactly how old Thor might be.
But he really didn't have time for this. He had been delayed for far too long already. There were people depending on him.
"Eelyn." He interrupted the continuing monologue. "I need to get to the 'House of Fires'. Do you know where that is?"
The little Asgard looked up at him. "Of course, everyone knows where that is. I live very close to it."
"Can you show me?"
"Oh, yes, can I?" The jumpy eagerness was back.
"Lead the way, Eelyn."
The Asgard spun and was out of the room in seconds. Jack was taken by surprise and had to hurry to follow.
"Eelyn, wait for me." He called down the street. And it was only at that point that he realised the entire conversation had been in the Asgard language.
**********
"Where is Commander Thor?"
Sam Carter stared across the table at her accuser, and a chill ran down her spine.
Frere asked the question again.
"Where is Commander Thor?"
"I don't know."
"Where is Colonel O'Neill?"
"I don't know."
"Well, it appears you know little, doesn't it, Major. Perhaps you are no longer of any use to me."
She glared at him, still in shock at the fact that Frere would be in charge of anything other than his own holding cell. After all that he had done. After all he had done to the Colonel. Murder would be too good for him.
He simply stared back at her. Another chill ran up her spine.
"You do know that the Council is holding you and your friends responsible for the disappearance of Commander Thor. The fact that you returned here after clearly being asked to leave has not gone in your favour."
She still said nothing.
"Very well, let's see if Doctor Jackson can be persuaded to tell us a little more." He leant over the table, his face directly in front of hers. She could see her reflection in his dark eyes. "Oh, I do so hope he is as difficult as you. I do so like it when I have to be forceful." A sneer curled his small mouth, and it chilled her.
Or did it?
As she was beamed away, she realised what she had been feeling. It wasn't chills, it wasn't fear, but it was familiar.
She didn't know how it was possible, but she sensed it.
Frere was a Goa'uld.
********
Jack eventually caught up with Eelyn, who was now pleasantly chatting along, to no-one in particular, about his home and the House of Fires.
From the rambling monologue, Jack was able to piece together that the House of Fires was an ancient meeting place that was no longer used.
In fact, O'Neill was beginning to wonder if any of the buildings in this area were being used at all.
"Eelyn, why are all the buildings empty?"
Eelyn's voice took on a sad tone. "There are no people left to live in them."
Jack stopped in his tracks. "Why?"
Eelyn looked back at him. "I was lucky, Ros says, many can not be transferred anymore. I survived, but only just. And I don't look right anymore."
Again, Kanya's blind gaze wandered across his mind.
"Is all the city like this?"
"Oh, no, this is a very old part. Ros says people moved away to be with other people as their friends passed on. Only a few of us live here now. It is very quiet."
They turned down another street, cast in shadow by a huge spire at the end of the walkway. The building stood out from all the others. It was literally carved from fire, petrified flame reaching for the sky. Its architecture was old and broken, but it still maintained an austere grandeur.
There was no mistaking it, they had found the House of Fires.
Eelyn led him up to its grand opening, and, before O'Neill could say anything, he was bounding in through the door. Jack hastened to follow, unsure of what he would find.
They entered a foyer that echoed with familiarity. He had been here before, he knew it.
His assessment was interrupted by a squawk from Eelyn who suddenly scrambled to hide behind him. O'Neill looked up.
And came face to face with a monster.
**********
FIN.
Part 17 of the Asgard Sequence
Sequel to 'Unseen and Unspoken'
By Gumnut
Oct 2003
He woke.
His head ached, his chest ached, and that blasted broken arm ached. And, consequently, he was in a foul mood.
But most of all he was angry because he couldn't remember what the hell had happened.
Upon opening his eyes he had found that he was lying under a bush. But as to how he had gotten there, he had no idea. The last thing he remembered was beaming into a garden full of armed Asgard. Everything from that point onwards was a blank.
Damn.
The world was swimming again. God, he was sick of being sick. He had only gotten the world to sit straight a couple of weeks ago. Whacking himself unconscious was not conducive to keeping it that way.
Putting a hand to his head, he realised he was still invisible.
Shit.
The next question was regarding the location of his team.
Peering out from the underbrush, he saw nothing but more plants. He climbed out from under the bush as quietly as possible, and, once his vision settled, scoped out the situation.
The entire section of the Garden was surrounded by a forcefield.
Double damn.
There was no sign of his team.
Triple damn.
And to top it all off, he was still covered in goo.
He muffled a cough, and was surprised to see an Asgard pop up in a shrubbery not twenty feet away. They were obviously looking for him
Shit, this was going to be difficult.
Okay, O'Neill, you have been in worse situations than this.
When? You are surrounded by aliens out to get you who have a technology for which gives you no concept of their capability. You're sick, probably concussed, and still haven't eaten a decent meal since sometime yesterday - at least he thought it was yesterday, his time sense had been thrown out of whack with the rest of his head. Face it, O'Neill, you're in deep shit.
Oh, shut up.
Kicking himself for zoning out for a moment, he focused and set out as quietly as possible to do some recon.
There were Asgard everywhere.
And in the centre of the area covered by the force field stood a familiar figure.
Frere.
Shit! What the hell was he doing here? Hadn't Thor locked him up for good?
Apparently not.
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!
But an over use of expletives did not solve the situation. Investigation was the only option.
O'Neill was an experienced woodsman. Give him a forest and he could walk the length of it, and set up and collapse camp three times within its perimeter, but nary a soul would know he was, or had been, there at all. No tracks, no noise, no disturbance.
But that was back on Earth.
And on Earth, plants don't tinkle, rattle, or ring bells. What had formerly been a pleasant relaxing garden, now became an alarm minefield.
Twice he nearly bought it. The second time, it was only sheer luck that saved him from discovery, as a branch took an extra couple of seconds to snap back. When it did, it set the whole bush tinkling, but he was far enough away not to be caught by the stun beams that immediately coursed through the spot where he had been.
Eventually, however, he did make it to the edge of the forcefield, and began tracking the perimeter of it, attempting to locate some sort of way out that did not involve yet another Asgard prison cell.
He was approximately halfway around the expanse when his pursuers tried a new tactic.
The forcefield began to move. Inwards.
It was collapsing.
The plan, obviously to snare him in the middle.
Crap, crap, crap, and double crap.
He skipped backwards as the shield advanced towards him, madly trying to think of a solution out of his current dilemma.
The invisibility gadget did have one other function. But he had no idea whether it would work. Thor had said it could make him appear as an Asgard. It was a necessary tool if you were an alien who was twice the size of the indigenous population, and you wanted to do anything remotely resembling covert. He could play bad guy and hope they took the bluff.
The Asgard hunting him were now appearing out of the brush, and, to his amazement, walking through the forcefield as it decreased in size.
Perhaps he could do the same.
Reaching under his now drying shirt, the goo cracking and flaking off, he fiddled with the device.
His body suddenly appeared around him.
Well, *a* body.
The ground seemed a lot closer, and he was alien-naked, but at the moment, beggars could definitely not be choosers.
There was a sudden excitement around him. Although he had hidden behind a convenient bush, they must have been scanning.
In a desperate move to avoid losing his chance, he made a dash for the forcefield.
God, he hoped the gadget could pull it off, if it didn't he was toast.
Eyes shut, he hit the forcefield....and passed through it as if it didn't exist. Way to go, Thor.
Not wanting to give his pursuers any chance to track him, he dashed out of the Garden and into the warren of the city walkways.
It was a long while, and an exhausted time later, when he finally allowed himself to stop and rest. There was no sign of pursuit, and he hadn't been beamed anywhere, so he figured the gadget was doing its job, and he was indistinguishable from any average Asgard.
The only problem was that he may look like an Asgard, but underneath all the grey skin, he was just a sick and exhausted human who really needed to sit down.
He searched around the strangely deserted streets until he found an empty building. A gaping door provided entrance to an old storehouse of some kind.
O'Neill didn't really care. He grabbed a broken plastic crate, propped it in a corner, and, crawling under it, promptly fell into an exhausted sleep.
**********
Doctor Daniel Jackson, archeologist, linguist, and all round nice guy was pissed.
And it was not a Daniel-like angry, it was a Jack-like angry. He wanted to grab the nearest Asgard - as long as it wasn't Thor - and pound him into the ground.
They were in a cell....again.
They were missing Jack....again.
And all because they had disobeyed orders and put their lives on the line in the belief they would be coming to help these people.
At every turn they were treated as criminals where mere weeks before they had been celebrated heroes. Fickle bunch of grey-butted know-it-alls as far as he was concerned at the moment. He wondered if any of the Vikings had had days like this.
He had to admit, though, at the core of his anger was a big ball of worry by the name of Jack.
At some point in the scuffle following their abrupt beam in to the Garden, Teal'c had made an attempt to fling the sick Colonel out of harm's way. Jack affronted protests had been the last they had heard of him.
Despite their best efforts, all three of them had been caught by the Asgard stun weaponry. The weapon's fire had overloaded their invisibility generators, allowing the Asgard transporters to lock on to them, and they had all been beamed here.
All except Jack.
Damn it! When the man wasn't annoying him, he was worrying him.
And he wasn't the only one.
Sam had gone all quiet again, her face an illustration of distress. Teal'c, who was also recovering from a blow to the head, had repeatedly apologised for losing their commanding officer, even though it clearly wasn't his fault. If anything, if Teal'c hadn't thrown O'Neill from the fray, he would probably be right in here with them.
Daniel just wished he knew if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
But most of all, he just wished he knew the fate of his friend.
**********
"Hello?"
Jack jumped, his head hitting the packing crate, causing it to fall on top of him.
What the hell?
His shock was compounded when the crate was carefully lifted off of him.
"Are you all right?" A face peered around the plastic rim.
An Asgard face.
A disfigured Asgard face.
"Can I help you at all? I was worried when I found you lying here all alone. Ros always tells me to help people when I can. I can go and get him if you want. He will know what to do."
Jack finally reacted. "No, I'm okay. You don't need to go and get anyone." The Asgard flinched, and Jack realised he was staring. He looked away a little guiltily, and sat up, pushing the crate to one side.
He felt much better. His head still ached and he was starving hungry, but the world stayed pleasantly stable, and he wasn't feeling sick anymore. A little sleep can do wonders.
The Asgard had backed away when he had sat up, and had begun to look like he wanted to be anywhere but here. He was very small, even for an Asgard, and one side of his face seemed to droop, the muscles slack, its eye smoky grey.
Jack felt a chill run down his back.
The small alien flinched once again, and turned as if to leave.
No, this wasn't right. Jack held out a hand, still a little surprised when it came up small and grey. "No, don't go." The Asgard hesitated, so Jack continued. "What is your name?"
"Eelyn."
"Eelyn, I'm...." He suddenly realised that 'Jack' didn't sound particularly Asgardish. Since he looked like one, he should probably sound like one. He fossicked around in his head and grabbed the first exotic sounding name that came to mind. "Nemo. My name's Nemo. And, yes, you can help me."
Jack stood up - not as up as he was used to, four foot did little to compare with his usual six foot two.
Eelyn looked at him curiously. "Nemo? I have a Chanta by that name, do you know him?"
Oh, god, he knew nothing about Asgard naming conventions.
"No, I'm sorry, I don't."
"Do you want to meet him?" The little Asgard was positively jumping up and down with eagerness.
"No, I'm, sorry, Eelyn, I'm in a bit of a hurry." Eelyn looked crest fallen. Aw, hell. "Okay, perhaps we can go and see him afterwards."
The little Asgard brightened up. "That would be great! Chanta Nemo has been everywhere. He has this great collection of things from other planets, and he can tell the most wonderful stories...."
Eelyn went on about his Chanta for quite a while, and Jack realised that there was something not quite right about him, apart from his face. If he had been human, Jack would have guessed by his speech patterns that he was a child. But the Asgard didn't have children - that he knew of.
"Eelyn, how old are you?"
The little Asgard stopped his Chanta adulations mid-vowel, and looked at O'Neill suspiciously. "Why?"
"I just thought I 'd ask."
"Oh, alright. I'm twenty-three."
"Twenty-three? Years?"
"Oh, no, silly. Twenty-three thousand Hallan sun cycles. Ros says I'm one of the oldest, but I don't know, he seems so much smarter than me. Now Peta, he's only nineteen, but he likes to boss me around. He thinks that since my last transference that I have changed too much, but I think he's just jealous of my age. Ros reckons...."
And Eelyn was off rabbling again. The word 'transference' rang in O'Neill's head. It would explain a lot. Twenty-three thousand years was a long time, no matter what sun your planet cycled around. Plenty of time to degrade DNA by cloning.
The image of the dying Kanya played across his mind, and he suddenly began to wonder exactly how old Thor might be.
But he really didn't have time for this. He had been delayed for far too long already. There were people depending on him.
"Eelyn." He interrupted the continuing monologue. "I need to get to the 'House of Fires'. Do you know where that is?"
The little Asgard looked up at him. "Of course, everyone knows where that is. I live very close to it."
"Can you show me?"
"Oh, yes, can I?" The jumpy eagerness was back.
"Lead the way, Eelyn."
The Asgard spun and was out of the room in seconds. Jack was taken by surprise and had to hurry to follow.
"Eelyn, wait for me." He called down the street. And it was only at that point that he realised the entire conversation had been in the Asgard language.
**********
"Where is Commander Thor?"
Sam Carter stared across the table at her accuser, and a chill ran down her spine.
Frere asked the question again.
"Where is Commander Thor?"
"I don't know."
"Where is Colonel O'Neill?"
"I don't know."
"Well, it appears you know little, doesn't it, Major. Perhaps you are no longer of any use to me."
She glared at him, still in shock at the fact that Frere would be in charge of anything other than his own holding cell. After all that he had done. After all he had done to the Colonel. Murder would be too good for him.
He simply stared back at her. Another chill ran up her spine.
"You do know that the Council is holding you and your friends responsible for the disappearance of Commander Thor. The fact that you returned here after clearly being asked to leave has not gone in your favour."
She still said nothing.
"Very well, let's see if Doctor Jackson can be persuaded to tell us a little more." He leant over the table, his face directly in front of hers. She could see her reflection in his dark eyes. "Oh, I do so hope he is as difficult as you. I do so like it when I have to be forceful." A sneer curled his small mouth, and it chilled her.
Or did it?
As she was beamed away, she realised what she had been feeling. It wasn't chills, it wasn't fear, but it was familiar.
She didn't know how it was possible, but she sensed it.
Frere was a Goa'uld.
********
Jack eventually caught up with Eelyn, who was now pleasantly chatting along, to no-one in particular, about his home and the House of Fires.
From the rambling monologue, Jack was able to piece together that the House of Fires was an ancient meeting place that was no longer used.
In fact, O'Neill was beginning to wonder if any of the buildings in this area were being used at all.
"Eelyn, why are all the buildings empty?"
Eelyn's voice took on a sad tone. "There are no people left to live in them."
Jack stopped in his tracks. "Why?"
Eelyn looked back at him. "I was lucky, Ros says, many can not be transferred anymore. I survived, but only just. And I don't look right anymore."
Again, Kanya's blind gaze wandered across his mind.
"Is all the city like this?"
"Oh, no, this is a very old part. Ros says people moved away to be with other people as their friends passed on. Only a few of us live here now. It is very quiet."
They turned down another street, cast in shadow by a huge spire at the end of the walkway. The building stood out from all the others. It was literally carved from fire, petrified flame reaching for the sky. Its architecture was old and broken, but it still maintained an austere grandeur.
There was no mistaking it, they had found the House of Fires.
Eelyn led him up to its grand opening, and, before O'Neill could say anything, he was bounding in through the door. Jack hastened to follow, unsure of what he would find.
They entered a foyer that echoed with familiarity. He had been here before, he knew it.
His assessment was interrupted by a squawk from Eelyn who suddenly scrambled to hide behind him. O'Neill looked up.
And came face to face with a monster.
**********
FIN.