SOOOOOOOOO sorry for the delay. Exams, holiday in Yorkshire and more exams
just don't go with updating fanfics. But I did finally get round to writing
it (so please don't hate me for taking so long) and so I must also
apologise for this chapter as a whole. 2 of my friends (please blame them –
it's all their fault and my wacky imagination's) bet that I couldn't write
a chapter which fulfilled all of their demands, i.e. as many words as they
could think of that I had to include in it. If this kind of thing is not
your thing, please feel free to ignore it; the only thing you need to know
is that Jack is getting suspicious of Daniel. Normal services will be
resumed next week I promise, so if you hate it please don't be put off
forever.
RUpuzzled2?: Hope you don't hate this, but if you do please feel free to pretend it never happened. Thanks sooo much for all your support, I really appreciate it.
Icealina: Well I wasn't going to do it that way, and I did have a plan, but after thinking about it I came up with another idea...
adora-chillwind, Aviva Blumenthal: thanks, I hope I don't disappoint you.
The next week went by very quickly for Daniel, and he needn't have worried at all about a certain captain. The very next day SG1 were sent on a trade negotiations mission to try to acquire some new technology that could help in their fight against the Goa'uld. They had heard about the Meshes one week previously, and SG7 with which first contact had been made had said that they were an extremely friendly race (along with a load of other babble that Jack hadn't been listening to during the briefing) ad were quite willing to come to some agreement.
The full scale of their technological advances were first discovered by Jack when he first stepped onto the planet. He had barely got out his first "Hello Meshland" before their weapons were, in true Star Trek style as Jack liked to point out, 'beamed' off of them by some strange laser beam. Then they were escorted straight to the 'negotiations room', where they had no been sitting for the last four and a half hours. Jack had counted every second of it.
"Isn't it time we had a coffee break or something here?" Jack burst out suddenly, causing everyone to stare directly at him. Eventually he became uncomfortably with the attention, and so to fill the silence said "Well you've been going on for hours and..." failing to find a good argument, or even any at all, continued "But Daniel I'm bored!"
"Come on Jack, we've just got to a vital part of the negotiations" said Daniel with more than a hint of a smile. He knew all to well just how bored Jack was feeling, as he himself was feeling a little fed up himself with the amount of progress being made, if not to such extremes. But he knew that he couldn't stop yet, and that Jack would just hold things up. He would have to come up with a compromise.
"There isn't a kids' room here, is there?" he turned suddenly towards Lushep, the Mesh who was leading the meeting. At Lushep's blank look he went on "You know, where all your children are hanging out at the moment. Only I think my friend here" he gestured towards Jack "needs some people of his own mental age to play with." 'He he' he thought to himself 'that'll teach him not to drag me away from my rocks when I'm not ready. Oops, I mean artefacts of course. I really have been spending way too much time with Jack.' Lushep didn't seem to quite understand this request, but agreed to it anyway, and people soon came up to Jack.
"Well at least there aren't any trees" Daniel called over to Jack as he was escorted to the nearest 'kiddies' room'. Jack was really looking forward to find a room full of kids playing games that he could join in with, and maybe even teach them a few of his own (he had yet to find a planet where baseball was popular) and most of all where there were no trade negotiations taking place. But what he didn't expect to find was a huge square box. There were children in it, which could supposedly make this count as a 'kiddies room', but while there were too many to count or even make a rough estimate they were far from playing baseball. They were just sitting in no particular order that Jack could see, and they were all looking in totally different directions with no one even looking at anyone else. They didn't seem surprised that a man in a strange outfit had just walked into the room. The only reaction that he received at all was a middle-aged man, the only one in the room, who was stationed just inside the room.
"Ignore the ignominious pig and continue" was all the man said without even looking up. Jack, quite obviously, thought that this was quite rude, and was about to automatically come back with one of his facetious remarks when something stopped him. He started to feel queasy, as if his stomach was trying to find its way to his head without a map, and he was just starting to wonder if he had suddenly gotten high on drugs when he saw a bright pink, polka-dotted cat appear right in front of him. He took a step back, and found himself pressed against the wall 'I don't remember the room being this green' he thought 'I knew I shouldn't have taken those sweets Collins gave me, he made me drunk!'
He somehow made his way to the door, and jumped out quickly for a breath of air, still feeling very confused and above all stressed – he really needed a holiday. But he wasn't free yet, as he felt a tickle at his feet only to find some strange ivy lining the floor and creeping towards him, however when he touched it, it was only to find that he could put his hand right through it as if it was a hologram. Making a mental not to kill Daniel for making him come out here on his own, he was about to leave when he saw out of the corner of his eye a weird old sword that looked exactly like something you saw in one of those old samurai films. He tried to kick a particularly devious looking cat out of the room with a move he'd learnt in Iraq, failing quite obviously, and walked up to the large weapon on the other side of the room. He fingered it gently, remembering when two of his old friends Ali and Becky had actually shown him one of these, years ago when he was still in college. He saddened as he remembered how little they'd kept in touch after the death of Joan, one of Becky's kin, and he had joined the air force.
However he was quickly pulled out of these miserable thoughts by a loud bang and the sound a car would make if it had just crashed into a marsh - squelch. It wasn't until he was sure that there was no danger, and it was just another 'hallucination', that he pulled himself off the floor, ignored the pounding in his head that he received for jumping head first onto the floor, and looked at the remaining items on the table – only three of which he realised with a shock he didn't recognise. The table was covered with their weapons which had been 'beamed' from them by the pink lights that looked as thought they had come from the laser park in Stevenage. The only things he didn't recognise were two small daggers arranged in a cross shape with XXXX engraved on the handles, and the large curved sword, a katana as he later found out: but why were these things in Daniel's pile?
A sudden crash brought his mind back to the stravaganza that was this planet as a giant daffodil broke through the door to the 'kiddies room'. He left his weapons on the table, waving his arms through a pencil case in the shape of a set of traffic lights just to make sure that they still weren't real, and added strangulation to the long list of deaths he was planning for Daniel when he saw him next. He tried to ignore it all, and block the world out, but the little puppy in a Sherlock Holmes outfit talking about how "orange squash is just gospel, darling" he couldn't take it any more. He ran into the next room as fast as he could, and then the next, and then the next, until he crashed straight into Daniel, who was grumbling about some gramatic treason that had just been committed.
"Ah Jack, we were just coming to get you" Daniel said, and as the last Big Mac filled with sweeties disappeared into oblivion, Jack pointed his finger accusingly at him.
"It was bad enough that you drew polka-dots all over my atlas so that I couldn't even see England, let alone Cornwall, but this as a practical joke is ridiculous!" Jack cried to his friend, who to his surprise just smiled.
"Oh, did you have the one of a circus on a cloud?" he said way too eagerly "I hear that one's very popular among young children.
"No, but I did have the one of a chicken wearing a cardigan." Jack was practically screaming by now. "So Daniel, tell me, what the hell is going on here!"
But now Daniel's look was not of excitement, but rather of puzzlement. "Didn't you know?"
"NO!" yelled Jack, but Daniel was too used to him by now, and he didn't even flinch.
"But we were all told in the briefing this morning."
Jack's anger subsided as he replayed the mornings activities, and found that he vaguely remembered a lot of science babble, the words 'visual illusions' coming up a couple of times, and, if he really concentrated, he could even remember (if extremely dimly) the SGC. "OK then, let's just assume for the moment that a certain officer just happened to...not hear a word of it."
He realised that he'd said something wrong when Sam's eyes glazed over, so he hurriedly mumbled "hypothetically", and moved his gaze, pleading Daniel to help him.
"Well, then this certain officer would have to know that this planet is extremely technologically advanced, I'd say at least..." Daniel started.
"Look, I was awake for that bit, and even if I wasn't I think I could have guessed that." He snapped as Daniel smiled at his sudden confession.
"Then you will also know that they have recently decided to...branch out, as it were." He fumbled with his glasses for a moment before continuing. "You see, for any civilisation to have improved their culture to such an extent that there are no longer any more improvements left to be made, well, things would get kinda dull."
"But dull is good," interrupted Jack "I happen to like it." He tried to ignore the coughs behind him that were trying, and failing, to hide their true purpose. "But what's with the crazy images? I'm pretty sure they don't have circuses here, aren't they too advanced for that?"
"Well they decided to see if random images could be produced from the human brain and be projected in a way that only the person in question could see them."
"Oh," Jack said, his rampage finally over, "Random images?" He was thrilled by this point: not real = no sword. No more words with Daniel after all.
"Yes sir." Sam was a little disappointed at not being allowed to do her science bit. "But it only works when you are within a certain radius of the grey room, and they're not even solid." It's not like you can pick any of the items up yet. They're still working on that."
"What do you mean 'they're not solid'? How come I was picking some of them up?"
"That's impossible." Sam's face showed honest confusion "It must have been real."
'Maybe that chat with Daniel isn't as unnecessary as I thought. But I think I'll just keep an eye on him. Just for the moment.'
Love it? Hate it? Wanna see more of it? (In a new story of course, coz I don't think I could cope with another one of these in this story) I PROMISE I'll have a normal chapter next week (I've already started it) but reviews will always speed me up!!!
RUpuzzled2?: Hope you don't hate this, but if you do please feel free to pretend it never happened. Thanks sooo much for all your support, I really appreciate it.
Icealina: Well I wasn't going to do it that way, and I did have a plan, but after thinking about it I came up with another idea...
adora-chillwind, Aviva Blumenthal: thanks, I hope I don't disappoint you.
The next week went by very quickly for Daniel, and he needn't have worried at all about a certain captain. The very next day SG1 were sent on a trade negotiations mission to try to acquire some new technology that could help in their fight against the Goa'uld. They had heard about the Meshes one week previously, and SG7 with which first contact had been made had said that they were an extremely friendly race (along with a load of other babble that Jack hadn't been listening to during the briefing) ad were quite willing to come to some agreement.
The full scale of their technological advances were first discovered by Jack when he first stepped onto the planet. He had barely got out his first "Hello Meshland" before their weapons were, in true Star Trek style as Jack liked to point out, 'beamed' off of them by some strange laser beam. Then they were escorted straight to the 'negotiations room', where they had no been sitting for the last four and a half hours. Jack had counted every second of it.
"Isn't it time we had a coffee break or something here?" Jack burst out suddenly, causing everyone to stare directly at him. Eventually he became uncomfortably with the attention, and so to fill the silence said "Well you've been going on for hours and..." failing to find a good argument, or even any at all, continued "But Daniel I'm bored!"
"Come on Jack, we've just got to a vital part of the negotiations" said Daniel with more than a hint of a smile. He knew all to well just how bored Jack was feeling, as he himself was feeling a little fed up himself with the amount of progress being made, if not to such extremes. But he knew that he couldn't stop yet, and that Jack would just hold things up. He would have to come up with a compromise.
"There isn't a kids' room here, is there?" he turned suddenly towards Lushep, the Mesh who was leading the meeting. At Lushep's blank look he went on "You know, where all your children are hanging out at the moment. Only I think my friend here" he gestured towards Jack "needs some people of his own mental age to play with." 'He he' he thought to himself 'that'll teach him not to drag me away from my rocks when I'm not ready. Oops, I mean artefacts of course. I really have been spending way too much time with Jack.' Lushep didn't seem to quite understand this request, but agreed to it anyway, and people soon came up to Jack.
"Well at least there aren't any trees" Daniel called over to Jack as he was escorted to the nearest 'kiddies' room'. Jack was really looking forward to find a room full of kids playing games that he could join in with, and maybe even teach them a few of his own (he had yet to find a planet where baseball was popular) and most of all where there were no trade negotiations taking place. But what he didn't expect to find was a huge square box. There were children in it, which could supposedly make this count as a 'kiddies room', but while there were too many to count or even make a rough estimate they were far from playing baseball. They were just sitting in no particular order that Jack could see, and they were all looking in totally different directions with no one even looking at anyone else. They didn't seem surprised that a man in a strange outfit had just walked into the room. The only reaction that he received at all was a middle-aged man, the only one in the room, who was stationed just inside the room.
"Ignore the ignominious pig and continue" was all the man said without even looking up. Jack, quite obviously, thought that this was quite rude, and was about to automatically come back with one of his facetious remarks when something stopped him. He started to feel queasy, as if his stomach was trying to find its way to his head without a map, and he was just starting to wonder if he had suddenly gotten high on drugs when he saw a bright pink, polka-dotted cat appear right in front of him. He took a step back, and found himself pressed against the wall 'I don't remember the room being this green' he thought 'I knew I shouldn't have taken those sweets Collins gave me, he made me drunk!'
He somehow made his way to the door, and jumped out quickly for a breath of air, still feeling very confused and above all stressed – he really needed a holiday. But he wasn't free yet, as he felt a tickle at his feet only to find some strange ivy lining the floor and creeping towards him, however when he touched it, it was only to find that he could put his hand right through it as if it was a hologram. Making a mental not to kill Daniel for making him come out here on his own, he was about to leave when he saw out of the corner of his eye a weird old sword that looked exactly like something you saw in one of those old samurai films. He tried to kick a particularly devious looking cat out of the room with a move he'd learnt in Iraq, failing quite obviously, and walked up to the large weapon on the other side of the room. He fingered it gently, remembering when two of his old friends Ali and Becky had actually shown him one of these, years ago when he was still in college. He saddened as he remembered how little they'd kept in touch after the death of Joan, one of Becky's kin, and he had joined the air force.
However he was quickly pulled out of these miserable thoughts by a loud bang and the sound a car would make if it had just crashed into a marsh - squelch. It wasn't until he was sure that there was no danger, and it was just another 'hallucination', that he pulled himself off the floor, ignored the pounding in his head that he received for jumping head first onto the floor, and looked at the remaining items on the table – only three of which he realised with a shock he didn't recognise. The table was covered with their weapons which had been 'beamed' from them by the pink lights that looked as thought they had come from the laser park in Stevenage. The only things he didn't recognise were two small daggers arranged in a cross shape with XXXX engraved on the handles, and the large curved sword, a katana as he later found out: but why were these things in Daniel's pile?
A sudden crash brought his mind back to the stravaganza that was this planet as a giant daffodil broke through the door to the 'kiddies room'. He left his weapons on the table, waving his arms through a pencil case in the shape of a set of traffic lights just to make sure that they still weren't real, and added strangulation to the long list of deaths he was planning for Daniel when he saw him next. He tried to ignore it all, and block the world out, but the little puppy in a Sherlock Holmes outfit talking about how "orange squash is just gospel, darling" he couldn't take it any more. He ran into the next room as fast as he could, and then the next, and then the next, until he crashed straight into Daniel, who was grumbling about some gramatic treason that had just been committed.
"Ah Jack, we were just coming to get you" Daniel said, and as the last Big Mac filled with sweeties disappeared into oblivion, Jack pointed his finger accusingly at him.
"It was bad enough that you drew polka-dots all over my atlas so that I couldn't even see England, let alone Cornwall, but this as a practical joke is ridiculous!" Jack cried to his friend, who to his surprise just smiled.
"Oh, did you have the one of a circus on a cloud?" he said way too eagerly "I hear that one's very popular among young children.
"No, but I did have the one of a chicken wearing a cardigan." Jack was practically screaming by now. "So Daniel, tell me, what the hell is going on here!"
But now Daniel's look was not of excitement, but rather of puzzlement. "Didn't you know?"
"NO!" yelled Jack, but Daniel was too used to him by now, and he didn't even flinch.
"But we were all told in the briefing this morning."
Jack's anger subsided as he replayed the mornings activities, and found that he vaguely remembered a lot of science babble, the words 'visual illusions' coming up a couple of times, and, if he really concentrated, he could even remember (if extremely dimly) the SGC. "OK then, let's just assume for the moment that a certain officer just happened to...not hear a word of it."
He realised that he'd said something wrong when Sam's eyes glazed over, so he hurriedly mumbled "hypothetically", and moved his gaze, pleading Daniel to help him.
"Well, then this certain officer would have to know that this planet is extremely technologically advanced, I'd say at least..." Daniel started.
"Look, I was awake for that bit, and even if I wasn't I think I could have guessed that." He snapped as Daniel smiled at his sudden confession.
"Then you will also know that they have recently decided to...branch out, as it were." He fumbled with his glasses for a moment before continuing. "You see, for any civilisation to have improved their culture to such an extent that there are no longer any more improvements left to be made, well, things would get kinda dull."
"But dull is good," interrupted Jack "I happen to like it." He tried to ignore the coughs behind him that were trying, and failing, to hide their true purpose. "But what's with the crazy images? I'm pretty sure they don't have circuses here, aren't they too advanced for that?"
"Well they decided to see if random images could be produced from the human brain and be projected in a way that only the person in question could see them."
"Oh," Jack said, his rampage finally over, "Random images?" He was thrilled by this point: not real = no sword. No more words with Daniel after all.
"Yes sir." Sam was a little disappointed at not being allowed to do her science bit. "But it only works when you are within a certain radius of the grey room, and they're not even solid." It's not like you can pick any of the items up yet. They're still working on that."
"What do you mean 'they're not solid'? How come I was picking some of them up?"
"That's impossible." Sam's face showed honest confusion "It must have been real."
'Maybe that chat with Daniel isn't as unnecessary as I thought. But I think I'll just keep an eye on him. Just for the moment.'
Love it? Hate it? Wanna see more of it? (In a new story of course, coz I don't think I could cope with another one of these in this story) I PROMISE I'll have a normal chapter next week (I've already started it) but reviews will always speed me up!!!