Author's Note: Thanks for the people who have read my fanfic, all two of you! Also, I am going to try and refer to Samantha Carter as Carter, not Sam, as the two, Sam Beckett and Samantha Carter, might get confusing. I hope you enjoy the next installment!
Jack opened his eyes and saw…white. White everywhere. He tried to clear the cloudiness of sleep that encompassed his brain. Closing his eyes, he tried to place together the last pieces of information he could remember. He was walking through the Idaho forest with his team towards some ancient pyramid that was just discovered. The last thing he remembered was stopping to make sure Daniel was still with them. Opening his eyes again, Jack became aware that in fact he was looking at the ceiling of a white room. Managing to sit up, more of the room became visible to him. It was unlike any regular Air Force issued room, with the walls colored white and padded, and apart from the steel table he was lying on and an adjourning room which looked like a bathroom, Jack saw no other furniture or room decorations. "Great, they finally stuck me in the loony bin. I'm surprised it took them this long." A new headache and the confusion of the situation did little for Jack's demur. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, determined to find out what indeed was going on. Several thoughts went through his head, including capture by the Goul'd, but that was quickly negated. The room looked nothing like a typical Goul'd cell and it bore such a striking resemblance to a hospital that that was the most likely call.
"Hello? Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Jack noticed a small window set high in the room. "I know someone is up there. Hello?" By this time Jack was not a happy camper. How in the world did he get from the forest to here? How long had he been out of it? Where was the rest of his team? Discovering another door to the left of him, Jack started banging on it with his fist. "Hello, anyone there. Lucy, I'm home! Let me outta here!"
"Admiral, our guest has awakened" a smooth soft female voice spoke through the intercom system. Admiral Al Calavicci looked up from his desk and sighed.
"Alright Ziggy, I'll be right there."
It had been a week since Sam's last Leap, and it was always good to know that he was still out there. It had been two years already since the first Leap, but no matter how many times it happened, Al silently hoped that this time, this time his long lost friend would return home. The repetitive experience of walking into the observation room and seeing his best friend's body occupied by a stranger had done more to Al than sometimes even he knew. Getting himself together, Al rose from his desk and headed for the door, uttering a not so silent prayer to God or Time or Fate or whatever was now ultimately in charge of the Project.
"Maybe this time our guest will be cooperative. Maybe."
"Jack, this is incredible. I mean, look at the hieroglyphics. They're definitely from the same time period as the ancient Egyptians. This section of the wall talks about a race of being that use to be here before the gods, and how this race left quickly. The style of the symbols indicate possibly a more archaic form of Egyptian that in most all of the pyramids in Egypt; it's almost a combination of Latin and Egyptian."
Sam stepped into the room that Daniel was currently examining. The outer door had led into this small room, and from their no apparent door or exit had yet been found to lead further into the structure. Sam tried to hide his excitement, but the scientists and linguist in him could not help but try and decipher the language himself. He realized that Daniel (by this time, the others had referred to each other by name) was an accomplished translator and archaeologist from his quick ability to decipher the text written on the walls. The room itself was bare, with no furniture or alter, which was a puzzle to Sam. Why have such a huge structure with only one small room inside?
"Another door or a secret passage to the rest of the pyramid has to be around here somewhere." Sam offered.
"Are you actually taking an interest in the pyramid, Jack? I though you came to babysit or something?"
Sam looked down and tried to think of something. "Well, I mean, if this was it, it would be an awful waste of space. Plus, if you have weapons or something secret, you would hide it, right?" From what Sam was gathering, Jack did not fill the position of a scientist on this mission.
"Well, the Egyptians did have secret passages in the pyramids in Egypt to gain access to the pharaoh's crypt without having its location known to grave robbers. I'm hoping that something like that is located here."
Carter walked through the entry door into the small room, focusing on the reading coming from a gadget she held in her hand. "Sir, I would like to run some scans of the room to see if I can pick up any energy reading to indicate Goul'd technology." She glanced at Sam, who was looking at the wall. "Sir?"
"Oh, um, affirmative Captian." Sam uttered. He was focused on the writings on the wall, not paying attention to the fact that both Daniel and Carter looked at each other in surprise.
"Sir, are you sure you're feeling okay?" Carter had a concerned tone that caused Sam to look up. The figure of Carter holding the scanning device and standing in the room with the natural light emanating from the open doorway surrounding her caught Sam off guard for a second. "She almost looks like Al standing in the Imaging Chamber door."
"I'm fine, Carter. Go ahead and run your scans." Sam knew that he had brought up suspicion again, and judging by the closeness of this group, he knew that the leeway that he usually held during Leaps was lacking in this one. He hoped that the discovery of whatever lay ahead would take some pressure off him. The similarities of the sight of Carter brought another factor into his thoughts. "Where the hell is Al, anyway? It would be nice if he could for once show up and tell me what was going on, especially in this Leap."
Focusing back on the room, Sam took a look at the opposite side of the wall where Daniel was working. His Swiss cheese memory, which was fickle sometimes, suddenly kicked into gear and Sam started to translate some of the text. "The old beings of Earth are gone, but their legacy still lingers all around us. Their secrets will be revealed when we are ready to receive them." Noticing a small sentence towards the undecorated bottom of the wall, Sam squatted to take a better look. "Jonah the worker smells like a camel." Laughing to himself, he thought "Well, even ancient workers wrote graffiti." As he stood up, an inconsistency in the writing caught his eye. A word was misspelled on the wall. "No way would the priests allow a word to be misspelled." He placed his fingers on the added letter, and the pressure from his fingers caused the letter to sink into the wall and pop out again.
Suddenly a light appeared in the middle of the room, emanating from a hole that opened in the ceiling. Carter, who was standing in the middle of the room, grabbed her gun and looked up. "Carter, get out of there!" was all Sam could think to say as he lunged for her, trying to move here away from the light. Daniel, watching in shock, tried to get up from his position at the base of the wall, but before he could stand on his feet, the light had disappeared, along with Sam and Carter.