STARGATE SG-1: Operation Checkmate
Summary: When General O'Neill is incapacitated, Carter finds herself in over her head as a helpless puppet to a mad man…
Season: 8
Pairing: Jack/Sam (suggested)
Spoilers: New Order, Lockdown
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in Stargate SG-1. Please don't sue me!
Author's Note: OK… Welcome to Chapter 8! Not much to say about this one. So, please R&R as always! Thanx. Enjoy!
Operation Checkmate: Chapter 8 – Queening
Midnight.
Time had a tendency to speed up when Sam was feeling like this. That is, numb. Completely bereft of feeling. She could barely feel her feet touching the floor as she walked along the hospital corridor.
It had been eight hours since she had killed Gibson for Simon – a man she thought was long gone. But she could have sworn it was only two hours since. In that time, she had had no correspondence, what so ever, with Simon.
Two days ago, she would have been glad of this fact. But not now. Now she knew who he was and she feared for both him and for Jack.
She had already been warned that if she tried anything, Jack would be killed. And the way he had hung up on her before made her worry that that was the end of the 'game' and she had lost.
She turned the last corner onto the long corridor where his room was.
As she approached the door, her heart rate began to quicken.
Her hand closed over the door handle and she entered.
He was still there. As were the machines he was hooked up to.
Sam's whole body relaxed a little at the sight of him. She made her way to the chair next to his bed, sat down and cried.
Eight Hours Earlier…
"Simon, I want to meet with you. Where are you?"
Without thinking, Simon slammed the phone down.
Meet?! What did she want to do that for? She was complicating things. Not playing by the rules.
And he'd warned her about it before!
Angered, he stood up and went to his computer. Seconds later, he was staring at the image being transmitted from General O'Neill's hospital room. There were two men in the room with him. One had mousy brown hair and glasses. The other was coloured and built like a WWF wrestler. He'd been watching this crowd for long enough to know that these were the General's old team mates, before his promotion.
And they had no idea what was going on.
In the bottom corner of his screen was an icon that simply said 'Activate'. All he had to do was press that and it was over. He was so angry now, that he could do it.
But he didn't.
Instead, he closed the surveillance window, opened a blank e-mail message and began to type.
The next morning, Sam was woken up by the cleaner coming into Jack's room.
"Gave you quite a scare the other day, didn't he?" she said cheerily.
Sam smiled as she sat up straight. Her head had been resting by Jack's IV-riddled hand on the side of the bed. Now, her neck was so stiff, she could barely move it.
"You been here all night?"
"Pretty much," Sam replied sleepily. "What time is it?"
The cleaning lady glanced at her watch.
"Just gone 7:30, dear." She carried on working.
Sam stared at the General's unmoving body for a moment. He was safe for now, she thought. If Simon was going to kill him for last night, he'd have done it already. She sighed as she stiffly stood up.
Taking one last look at Jack, she left.
The only thing capable of taking Sam's mind off Jack was her work. As soon as she got home, she booted up her computer ready to be completely submerged in test results and data analysis.
Instead, she was instantly alerted to a new e-mail message in her inbox. Still dazed and not fully awake, she opened it up.
It woke her up in seconds:
Sam, you want to know the truth?
Be at the old Buxton Factory off Interstate 32 at 0830 hours.
Don't be late.
Simon.
Sam glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly 8:10 already.
Without turning her computer off again, she made a beeline for the door, picking up her car keys and jacket as she went.
She didn't even stop to call Barrett. This wasn't the right place for the NID. They would want to shoot Simon on sight for what happened to Gibson.
She wanted answers.
The old Buxton factory was a shell of a building. One that should have been torn down eons ago. It had been shut down for nearly two decades now and in that time, had been gutted out by looters and law firms alike. Now, it was Simon's base.
The heavily rusted, corrugated-iron door groaned as Sam eased it open and stepped inside. The derelict building loomed for four storeys above her, completely hollow. Her foot falls echoed around it, shaking what was left of the old window panes.
"Simon!" she called into the empty space.
His name bounced around the factory, scaring a flock of resting pigeons in the rafters.
Nervously, Sam glanced at her watch. 8:28. at least he couldn't complain that she was late.
She continued her way across the factory floor, stepping over and round various broken pieces of machinery and debris left by whoever had owned the property last.
"Simon!" she called again, more impatiently.
"Hey Sam." A voice came from behind her. "Long time no see."
Sam spun round on her heels and stopped dead in her tracks, face to face with the man she never thought to see again.
"Surprised?" he quipped, reading her expression perfectly.
Simon stepped further into the dusty light, filtering through the windows. He looked old. Worn out by time and then dragged through a hedge backwards. But it was unmistakably him. Her co-pilot as he had been. And chief advice giver on her often tumultuous love life. It had been Simon she turned to when things got rough with Jonas. And Simon who was now making her life hell for reasons completely beyond her understanding.
It was almost impossible for her to see him as both.
"It's good to see you… In person that is," he said, filling the silence.
Sam allowed herself a half smile.
"You been watching for long?" she asked, genuinely curious.
Simon nodded. "Always. Right from when you were let out of hospital in '91 to now."
"How?"
"Ah, you know me and machines," he said waving his hand dismissively. "You'd be amazed at how easy it is to use the internet to track people without the Government even knowing!"
"Why didn't you just… I don't know… let me know you were OK?"
Simon shrugged, annoying her a little at how nonchalant he was being about the whole matter.
"I was dead to you, Sam," he said, a slight hint of regret in his voice. "I couldn't argue with that."
"Then why now?"
Simon turned his gaze away from her. This was the part he hadn't been looking forward to at all. There was no way she was going to understand. She had been 'institutionalised' for too long.
"Technology," he said simply.
Sam furrowed her eyebrows at his answer.
"How else was I going to get your attention?" he continued. "Actually, it was you that sorted that conundrum out for me as it happens."
He began pacing as he explained.
"You remember Argos? The nano-bots that got into the General – Colonel as he was then?… How do you think I've been controlling him all this time?!"
Sam stared at him in disbelief. "You infected him with nano-bots? How?!"
"Well, nano-particles, this time. The 'bots would have shown up in a blood test. The particles in Jack are atomic sized. You'd be pretty impressed by them, you know. They work through distributed processing."
"What?!" Sam really couldn't believe what she was being told. It was like something out of a bad Sci-Fi novel.
"Yep. Each individual particle stores a tiny part of data that on its own is useless, but with other particles' information, they can function as one. Neat, huh?"
"So you've got them programmed to, what? Kill him?" For the first time since she had found out who her advisory was, Sam was beginning to feel just a little of the hate that she had felt for him before had.
"At the moment, they're just keeping him down. Making sure his main functions don't work properly. If I shut them off completely he'll wake up within about two days. But if I hit the other button, they collect in his Coronary Artery, restrict blood flow and send him into arrest, as you have seen."
There was almost a sense of pride in his explanation, like it had been some great achievement (which, scientifically, it had been). The boastful edge to his voice made Sam hate him even more.
"Really, Sam, I owe you a lot for this one. Without those nano-bots to use as prototypes, I never would have been able to engineer the particles."
Sam shook her head in disgust. "Simon, this is insane! What the hell do you think you're playing at here?!"
"I'm 'playing' at getting my life back!" he suddenly shouted, taking her off guard. She soon recovered, though.
"How does threatening the life of a man you've never even met before get your life back?!"
"Well, if I told you that, I'd have to kill you, Sam." His voice was suddenly the eerily calm tone he had used in his first phone call to her, and it enraged her.
"Cut the crap, Carnall! You brought me here to give me answers and I'm not leaving without them! What the hell is going on?!"
Simon was still for a moment.
"How did you get them into him, then?" she asked, breaking the silence.
"I snuck onto the base and managed to pose as one of the medics during a routine check up. That was the easy part. The hard part came in switching the needles for Fraiser to give him."
"Fraiser?"
"He's had those things in him for the last six months. I just needed the right moment to start all this off!"
"But why?! What's the point in all this?"
Simon looked at her. His face completely serious.
"Follow me," he said eventually.
He led the way into a small room at the back of the factory (what had been the Forman's office). Once inside, Sam was stunned by the sight that greeted her.
Every inch of wall was covered by maps and scribblings of tactical information. There were four computers and five TV screens, each showing various angles of the interior of her house, her lab at the SGC and of Jack's hospital room.
"What is all this?" she said in wonder.
"This is what I've worked for," he answered. He crossed the room to one of the computer screens and began typing various commands. Soon, a document flashed up on the screen. He beckoned Sam over to look at it.
"The debrief memo for Operation Checkmate," he told her as her eyes scanned over it. "You remember it?"
"The mission?"
Simon nodded.
"Yeah." She carried on reading it, lost slightly in the memories it kicked up.
"You may remember, then, that it didn't exactly go to plan. The problem was that Gibson and Frakes – the General in charge of the second wave – grossly under estimated just how many troops were at the Iraqi base. It had nothing to do with us not hitting the damn thing enough, there was just much more of it for us to hit."
Sam kept staring at the screen as he continued his story, not daring to look at him just yet.
"When the second team went in, the base was still operational and there were heavy casualties. Gibson and Frakes just figured it would be easier to use a scapegoat rather than own up to their own incompetence. Guess where I fitted into that little plan? I was dishonourably discharged and they got away with it."
"So, what? This is just revenge?" Sam asked, looking at him at last.
"Not just for me, Sam," he said. "This is for you and the General as well… I honestly can't believe they still let you under his command given your history with him."
"What the hell does that mean?" Sam spat, hoping he wasn't referring to a certain regulation that the two of them had been skirting since day one.
"Don't worry, this has nothing to do with your personal life. Although I have to say, Sam, you sure as hell know how to pick 'em!"
Sam managed to hold back from hitting him. Just barely, though.
"No you two go further back than the SGC, my dear," he paused to make sure he had her full attention. He wanted to make absolutely sure she got the full picture on this one.
"I suppose he's told you he was captured in Iraq? A little parachuting accident during the Gulf? Don't suppose he told you what the mission was?"
He waited for some response from her. But Sam was completely frozen to the spot. 'It couldn't have been!' she thought. Simon smiled at her silence.
"Jack was in the second team of Operation Checkmate. He was captured and tortured because our part was botched from the start!"
Sam shut her eyes. His words echoed through her head just as they echoed around the empty factory.
"He never said," she muttered quietly.
"There's a lot of things he's never told you… Like I said, you really know how to pick 'em!"
She didn't even want to begin to think about what he meant by that. With all the revelations the day had already kicked up, finding out intimate details about Jack's not so pleasant past didn't feature high of he list of things to know at the moment.
"You said this was all revenge on our behalf as well as your own? How'd you figure that out?" she asked coldly.
"Because of what happened to you both! Sam! You were unconscious for three weeks because of that mission, and Jack had to fight for his life for nearly two weeks in the desert before being picked up by the enemy and tortured for another month! You don't think that deserves some sort of payment from the COs responsible?!"
"Not like this!" she shouted back. "Simon, how can nearly killing him and making me do your dirty work be helping either of us?! If you want to go after Gibson and Frakes, do it on your own time, not ours!"
"I couldn't do it on my own, though. Not since they went into hiding. I needed you to find them for me. And the only way to do that was to jeopardise the one thing you held dearest. The fact that that was Jack was just luck of the draw."
Luck of the draw?! Sam took an involuntary step back at his words, disgusted at how nonchalant her old friend was at playing dice with Jack's life and her own.
Simon could see the horror in her face. He knew she would react like this. But then, that's what you got with a strong sense of justice and too many years on the wrong side of the picket fence. But he wasn't finished with her just yet.
"You alright?" he asked with apparent sincerity.
Sam didn't reply. She shook her head, eyes glistening with tears.
"Oh well," he said, back to his tormenting tone. "Too bad. I kinda hoped you'd come around to my thinking, but it doesn't matter either way."
Sam's eyes suddenly shifted into his. She knew what he meant.
"No way!" she said flatly. "There is no way I'm helping you now!"
"Oh, but you were willing to kill Gibson when you had no idea as to what was going on?" he spat. "Face it, Sam, my dear. Our boy Jack's gonna be in just as much trouble until all this is over. Or he'll be dead if you walk away now."
Behind them both, Sam noticed the CCTV image of Jack's hospital room. Two nurses were changing his IV line and checking on the heart monitors. Her heart sank when she realised what she had to do.
Without taking her eyes of Simon, she moved around him to the computer screen.
"I'm sorry, Jack," she muttered as she keyed in the command.
On the screen, she saw the nurses' cool demeanour quickly turn to panic as the crash team invaded the small room. The sound of the heart monitor flat lining flooded through the factory office. Simon soon shoved her out of the way.
"What're you doing?!" he screamed at her, furiously hitting keys on the keyboard.
Without thinking, Sam hauled him away from the computer.
"I'm not gonna let you hold him over me like that!" she yelled. "I'm not helping you!"
Her eyes were hard and cold and a wash with tears as the crash team desperately attempted to resuscitate Jack.
Simon's face changed dramatically and quickly. In a split second, it went from shock to rage. She had just eliminated his last bargaining chip over her. There was no way he could get at Frakes. This fact made Sam smile wanly. A small consolation for Jack.
In utter rage, Simon lashed out at her, hitting her squarely across the jaw. She went stumbling to the floor, unable to keep her balance from the blow.
As she struggled to bring herself back up; caught in a tangle of grief and anger, she could hear him moving around the room.
Finally, she stood ready to fight him. Instead, she froze instantly once she had wheeled around to face him. She was face to face with the barrel of his gun.
Alarmed, she took a step backwards and soon collided with the wall. A jagged piece of shattered door frame and masonry dug uncomfortably into her left hip. But it was the least of her worries.
As she had stepped back, Simon had advanced and was now holding the gun squarely to the middle of her forehead.
"That was a very stupid thing to do, my dear," he sneered. All resemblance the man she once knew was now gone.
Aware of the inevitable, and with panic rising through her veins, Sam screwed her eyes tight shut. Waiting. Bracing herself.
As soon as her lids closed, there was a shot.
Author's Note: Right. One chapter left. Hope you can all hang on for it! In the mean time you can always review! Thanx.