== Chapter two ready for reading :) SG-1 arrive in Ankh-Morpork, and receive a typical welcome... Enjoy and please review!!
The Squid of Time and His Multi-Dimensional Trousers
Chapter Two: Unexpected Guests
Sam Vimes made his way back to the Watch House in Pseudopolis Yard, proceeding gently. He would attend an Unseen University lecture if that was his duty as a fine upstanding citizen, but nothing short of bodily paralysis would keep him around afterwards for the dinner.
Hah! Only a few years ago he'd have given his right arm for a meal at Unseen University. Or his right leg, possibly; he'd prefer to keep both his arms to shovel down all the food he could eat and then hide as much as possible for later. Fine cuisine had meant bacon without burnt black bits and coffee that didn't actually cling to the spoon. But now... Now he was aristocracy. Lord Vimes. A cynical, badly-dressed copper who got the best seat at state occasions and was sent as a diplomat to distant countries. Hah! Dress uniform and real leather boots...
And his son would grow up in a house with more than two rooms and a bed he didn't have to share with three siblings and real food and warm clothes and he would never, ever have to worry about where the next meal was coming from or when the bailiffs were going to turn up at the door. When he thought about it like that, it seemed like maybe, just maybe, it was worth it.
Whenever he saw his son, he knew that it was.
He crossed the Yard and entered the Watch House, and behind him the hubbub of traffic and dogs and people closed over the sounds of another arrival.
Colonel Jack O'Neill, US Air Force, gazed around him at the alleyway, the river, the Opera House and the Yard, taking in everything from gargoyles and gables to passing dwarves and street traders.
"Neat!" he said.
"It definitely looks Medieval," Daniel offered. Daniel Jackson was an archaeologist and an expert on ancient languages. It sometimes worried O'Neill that nearly everyone he knew well was some kind of geek.
Major Samantha Carter was also something of a geek, but in her case O'Neill was prepared to forgive a lot of things.
"Uh, sir, I think you should see this," she said.
He turned and looked behind him. The strange almost-illusion that had brought them there was fading and shrinking rapidly.
It looked like a patch of a completely different landscape superimposed over the world, slightly gauzy and unreal and torn around the edges. Except now it didn't. Now it looked like it wasn't there.
O'Neill waved his arm a few times. A magical doorway back home failed to materialise.
"Dang," he said.
"I do not believe it is possible for us to return to the planet by this means, O'Neill," said Teal'c. Teal'c was an alien, although these days it didn't show as much as it used to.
"Yep, T, I think you're right," O'Neill agreed. "Ok, folks, let's move --"
He thought he heard, in the darkness of the alley behind him, a muffled gasp, immediately cut off. He turned, and caught the image in the instant before he moved; of the man, knife poised, his other arm around Carter's throat.
Every world has its fair share of dangerously psychotic idiots, and most of them hang around in alleys with knives.
All policemen develop an unerring ability to distinguish, above the noise of the busiest crowd, those faint sounds that mean that some one, somewhere, has either committed a crime or fallen victim to one. If they are really good, they can even tell the difference. Sergeant Angua, on the other hand, could simply follow the smell of blood, because Angua was a werewolf.
She was halfway across the Yard when she caught the scent of it, heady and sharp even above the all-pervading stench of the river. She cleared the horse trough at a dead run, skidded to a halt by the wall and then peered cautiously around the alley mouth.
A young man, with the indefinable air of education about him - a tall, looming black man with a golden emblem on his forehead - and an older man with greying hair whose worn features and lean frame spelled 'Soldier' in large, easy-to-read letters. The younger man was on the ground, cradling a blonde woman who was steadily bleeding to death. One very-recently-ex man lay in a blood spattered heap in the dirt.
It was only three days until full moon, and the wolf was getting restless. Angua forced it under control and turned the corner, trying to ignore the smell of blood.
"What happened?" she demanded.
The older man looked up at her. "That's far enough," he said, threateningly. "Who are you?"
She halted. Something in his manner warned her to tread carefully. "I'm Sergeant Angua," she said calmly. "I'm with the Watch."
The Soldier was still staring at her with open suspicion and mistrust, but the younger man looked up at her hopefully.
"The Watch?" he questioned. She met his gaze. "Please, we need help," he went on. "Our team member's been injured."
"Daniel!" the Soldier snapped.
"Jack, she's a policewoman," the other man replied. "We're going to have to get help from somewhere or Sam's going to bleed to death."
"The Watch House is just across the Yard," Angua supplied. "You'll be safe there."
The older man still looked uncertain - and protective, she realised. She could smell the panic, carefully controlled. He doesn't want to have to trust me, Angua thought, but she could tell that he was caving. Even the toughest of soldiers has a weakness. Angua made an educated guess.
"She doesn't have much time," she said, glancing at the woman still lying on the ground.
The Soldier hesitated, but only for a second.
"Alright - Teal'c, you take Carter; Daniel, go on ahead with Sergeant... Angua. I'll get your six. Let's go!"
Ah-hah, Angua thought as she led the way out of the alley and across the square to the Watch House. So: Teal'c, Carter, Daniel and Jack. Everything about them was outlandish, from their clothes and bizarre accoutrements to the way they spoke and moved. She wasn't sure exactly what to do with them, but getting them off the streets and out of harms way would be a definite start.
They clattered up the steps of the Watch House and across the busy room inside, Watchmen on and off duty scattering as they passed.
"Reg!" Angua called. The zombie on desk duty looked up.
"I need the keys to the cells. Is Igor down there?"
Reg Shoe threw the bundle of keys across the room. "Yes. What's --?" he began.
"There's a dead body in the alley across the Yard," Angua said, catching the keys without slowing down. "Bring it in. And don't try and talk to it!" she called back as she headed on down the steps. Reg liked to share with any recently dead bodies all the new possibilities open to them now that they had joined the happy ranks of the deceased. Vimes did not approve.
"Igor!" Angua yelled on her way down into the cellar. She turned to the black man. "Bring her in here and leave her on the bed," she instructed. The man complied.
"Now the rest of you go and sit in the cells for the time being."
"What?" the Soldier demanded. Angua sighed. The smell of blood was making her temper fray.
"They're quiet and comfortable and you won't be in anyone's way," she explained testily. "I won't lock the doors. Please? Just - sit in there until Igor's seen to your friend. Call it protective custody if it makes you feel better."
When the strangers had been ushered, grumbling, into one of the cells, Angua made her way back to Igor's cellar, where strange, sub-aquatic potatoes skulled gently around their tanks and free-ranging noses bounced against the sides of their glass jars. Igor was working intently on the bleeding woman. Angua stopped in the doorway and tried not to think wolf thoughts.
"Its not ath bad ath it looks," Igor said, without looking up. "The man mutht have stabbed her in the lower belly and then tried to drag the knife upwardth."
"Tried?"
"Thee wath wearing that," Igor said, indicating something now lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Angua picked it up. It was a sleeveless vest, reinforced inside with something solid. She rapped it with her knuckles. It was hard.
"It stopped the knife?" she asked.
"Probably thaved her life."
Angua placed the vest on one of Igor's benches, next to a wire mesh cage containing a mutated lizard. The dead body had been laid out in a little alcove kept cool by blocks of ice.
"What about this one?" Angua asked, trying not to get too close.
Igor glanced over briefly. "He'th really mangled up," he said. "Thome kind of projectile, pothibly. I haven't really had a chance to look at him yet."
"Well, he'll keep," Angua said, turning away. "It's not like he's going anywhere in a hurry. And now I think I'd better go and ask our guests how he got like that."
Another street; another dingy alley. I am used to alleyways, and dark backstreets that lead nowhere. I have seen plenty in my time. But this one has the taste of the unfamiliar about it.
Nine days ago, I started to hear rumours. Something - or some one - had arrived in Gotham. Some one who could instil fear even in the hardened, cynical hearts of Gotham's most dangerous. The identity of this mysterious visitor has so far eluded me, but I have my suspicions, and I intend to find out if they are correct.
Today, I was close. I had followed the trail to a penthouse in uptown Gotham, where I expected to find this guest, and discover why their business had brought them to my city.
Instead, I found a doorway.
I have served with the Justice League. The uncanny no longer disturbs me. The supernatural has ceased to be extraordinary. Even so, finding a portal that leads into another world was disquieting.
As Dorothy would have it, I am no longer in Kansas.
This is not Gotham, although it might share a common ancestor. It looks different, it feels different. There are different smells and movements in the air. But it has a sense of familiarity to it.
These three thugs, for example, might be found on the corner of any Gotham street.
This is not Gotham, but already it feels like a home away from home.
It may be Bruce Wayne who wears the mask, but it is Batman who goes to work. It is time for the Dark Knight to make his presence known.
Next up: Back to school, and Susan the Gothic Governess is in charge!
== Disclaimer: Discworld characters and places the property of Terry Pratchett. Stargate SG-1 is owned by MGM. Batman is owned by DC Comics. Original story is copyright to Gen the Mighty, July 2004