Disclaimer: I do not own stargate sg-1, it is the property of MGM and this story has been written purely for entertainment value. No money has or will exchange hands – however all original story lines and characters belong to me. Thanx

Continuing thankyou's should also go to all those who continue to read and review - lets me know that people are still interested in this story!

And so the plot thickens…

"Ah, please come in MR Amstrad." General Hammond commanded the man who stood outside of his office, the man who was, at least in some small part believed responsible for Major Carters clones kidnapping.

The man walked in looking calm and unphased by the now regular once a month meetings he had in the SGC. He set down his filed report, which the General then took and sat down in his usual seat.

"As you will see General there is really nothing to report, he seems to be getting on with his new life and his high school have no complaints. There also seems to be no sign of a security breach and he's keeping good company. I believe that the time will come very soon when the level of scrutiny he's under can be greatly reduced." And he sounded as official and truthful as he always had. A thought that worried all those listening to the conversation.

Colonel O'Neill especially, he wondered if maybe he'd been lying all along – after all he was the only one sent to check up on his clone. Liam could have been dead all along and none of them would be any the wiser… ok so that wasn't exactly true, there was always some sort of photographic proof required and Liam had been asked to sign his authentication when every report on him was made.

But the power that one man – who they thought they could trust and who had been approved by some of the highest military and civilian powers in the country caused even more of a problem. It meant that all of this went a lot higher than they had originally thought.

"What is this supposed to prove anyway?" Daniel asked from beside Jack, who then turned to the archaeologist.

"Aren't you supposed to be assisting Jonas on translating that message?" he countered, confused as to what his friend would be doing there.

"Ahh, well I was but we've finished translating all the information that we have and I was just on my way to see the decryption team… and you were kind of on the way."

Jack looked at his friend and nodded,

"Well it's not really supposed to prove anything, it's more of a way to plant a spying device on him so we can find out who – if anyone he's working with."

"Oh." Daniel commented, "well I thought it had to be something along those lines – I mean he's going to say the same thing whether he's lying or not isn't he."

And his friend agreed, either way he would say that Liam was fine and that there were no problems.

"We'll get her back Jack." He told him, knowing just how worried the leader of SG-1 was becoming over this matter. It was hitting a little too close to home. As it had only been a few weeks since Sam had been trapped on the Prometheus and presumed dead, in some ways Daniel suspected that it felt like the same thing was happening all over again. Only this time he was watching himself go through it all.

"Yeah."

He couldn't find her anywhere, he'd checked the briefing room, her lab, the commissary and even the current home of the decryption team, he'd have checked Daniels lab too if he didn't already know that she wasn't there. There didn't seem to be anywhere else that she could be hiding – at least that he knew about.

So with this in mind Jack had taken to wandering the corridors of the lower levels of the SGC. There was no real reason fro this, other than the fact that his instincts seemed to be leading the way. Something years in the military had taught him to do.

It seemed to be the best idea after all because he eventually found Sam in a storage room five levels below the gate room. He hadn't, at least until that moment, known that the place actually existed.

"Hey, do you mind if I join you?" he asked quietly.

Sam turned to him from where she was sat on a storage container looking at the object in front of her. She looked more that a little surprised to see him, but never the less she eventually smiled and nodded.

"Come on in sir." She didn't exactly sound like her normal self and he noticed that her eyes looked red and puffy, almost as if she'd been crying.

It wasn't really until he entered the room that he realized exactly what was stored in there and why it was so far away from the main part of the SGC.

"You know, I'm kinda glad that thing is impossible to destroy." He commented for a lack of anything better to say, but she didn't look at him, she seemed to be transfixed by what was in front of her.

A couple of feet away from Sam stood the large Naquada mirror, almost looming over her, it was turned off so the surface was dimmed and didn't reflect much from the room around it. But it seemed to have her full attention and he wondered what thoughts were going through her mind…

And if he was allowed to ask.

"Do you ever think what it would be like to live a different life sir?" her question answering Jacks own personal ones. "Or what other versions of our lives are out there?"

"Not really, no." he told her honestly, although he kept the reason to himself. There didn't seem to be anything that he could say to her, or at least that he could without crossing some sort of imaginary line that had grown between them over the years.

"Sir?" but she just left her question at that, not able to put into words what she really wanted to say.

He chose to sit besides her then, for once allowing himself to do so without running it past the regulations in his head.

"You're wondering what it was like for Amy and Liam aren't you." She nodded in answer, her eyes never leaving the mirror.

"I know that it does no good to dwell on it sir but I can't help but think about it. We – I gave them a chance at a life together and now I can only see what a mess it has caused. I mean I know that without Amy then Liam would have been the one who was taken and we would have been none the wiser…"

"But somehow all you seen to end up doing is blaming yourself." He finished for her and she looked at him, chancing their precarious positions by allowing him to see past the boundaries that she normally clung to and into her heart.

She allowed him to see the fear there, the longing and the self-torture; sadness seemed to be the route of all of it. She could only imagine what it would be like to be separated from Jack in the way that her clone had. A thought that seemed to bring tears back to her eyes.

Jack couldn't control his actions any longer and he moved the few inches between them before he was even aware of what he was doing, and placing his arms around her he felt her give in to the sadness as she clung onto him in response, her head resting on his shoulder as she cried.

He would have spoken, had he known what to say, but he knew that nothing he could say would have been any comfort to her at that moment. Nothing would make either of them – or their clones feel any better until this entire thing was resolved.

"I … why… why is this so damn hard?" Sam asked, staying where she was and speaking loud enough for only him to hear. Not that there was anyone within three floors of them.

He sighed, both knowing the answer and not. He knew why on the surface this was such a difficult situation but the knowledge of why it was that way seemed to escape him. Right then he couldn't understand why he hadn't given up his job in the military for her years ago. Right then he didn't care about any of the wars he had fought in or any of the problems he'd faced in the SGC. All he cared about was being there with her.

But the sad fact was that they probably wouldn't be alive to enjoy a life together if he hadn't faced all of those problems – with her at his side. He also knew that living a life together through their clones wasn't enough.

He loved her and the knowledge that his heart had longed harbored seemed to hit him over and over again. He couldn't live without her, which now meant more than ever that he could no longer to his job as her commanding officer. He needed to be her equal.

"It won't always be." He told her, both to comfort her and confirm his decision, when this was all over, no matter what the outcome with regard to his job, he would make sure that he could be with her, if she wanted him.

Kinsey stormed through the offices, fury meeting anyone who happened to catch his eye, no one had any idea why he was so angry, and no one was brave enough to question what was going on.

"This better be good, do you have any idea what sort of emergency situation I had to invent to get all the way back here – do you want this operation to be discovered???" he shouted, finally reaching the medical laboratory at the back of the complex.

The scientist in charge of it, Dr maizuri didn't flinch though, he'd know the senator long enough to know that he didn't have to stand for it – there was no one better in his particular field of medicine and so Kinsey had no choice but to keep him on the project.

"I wouldn't have called you here if it wasn't of the up most importance, I needed to speak with you regarding Major Carters clone's test results." This got the full attention of the senator, and the small graying doctor smiled at this.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked, fire still blazing behind his eyes but he seemed to hold back – scared that he might not get the information that he needed if he didn't.

"There is a small anomaly occurring in all the samples of her DNA that we tested, I know that we have already brought this to your attention but this is a little different." But Kinsey looked at him as if there wasn't a problem with it at all.

"So? Wasn't there a problem with O'Neill's clone as well – it was in the report Dr Fraiser filed with the SGC." However DR. maizuri was shaking his head.

"No Sir, I'm afraid not. This is something else. The anomaly in the O'Neill clone's DNA was repaired by Thor, the one we're dealing with now seems to appear in a different form."

Unsure of what he meant Kinsey prodded him to give a proper answer.

"What exactly are you talking about?"

"She won't stay submissive to the drug that she is on for very much longer sir – her body is becoming immune to its effects." Kinsey just shook his head and looked to the floor.

"Damn it." He muttered, knowing this was going to affect his own personal plans for her. He wanted to interrogate her himself before she was sent away and before now she'd been too confused to answer any questions. The process was supposed to end that afternoon, leaving him that night and the following day to carry out his plan. Now though it seemed that her mind would recover before that point.

"Either we try something stronger sir… or I suggest you try and get whatever information out of her that you need before you associate comes for her, but as I warned you last time, she might not make any sense at all and will lie without even realizing it."

"Well we'll just have to try won't we, I'm sure my associate won't mind if she's a little 'damaged', I didn't approve of drugging her in the first place…so if worst comes to worst we'll just have to get he information out of her the old fashioned way."

And Kinsey left the room; walking as calmly as he could in the direction of the room Amy was being held in. the doctor simply sat down and shook his head, this seemed to be going a little too far – he'd agreed to be involved in the first place because he believed it was worth the sacrifice of one life to get control of the SGC and the technology to save earth….

But now he was fast changing his mind. Kinsey had done nothing so far to alert the proper authorities as to what was going on like he had always said he would and there were no clear signs as to what the deal Kinsey had made with the goa'uld was.

In short he now believed he was seeing the corruption of a man before his eyes and he knew that for all involved – whether this whole thing went to plan or not… that it would not end well.

"Do we have a lock on him yet?" Jack asked, standing a makeshift control room in the SGC with some of the smartest people in the country – all of them apparently trying to locate Mr. Amstrad. It seemed as though where ever he was hiding, there were scramblers located all around it and it was proving to be a difficult task.

"Not yet sir, but we can tell you that he's within thirty miles of this complex. We are narrowing it down as far as we can – we're even managing to pick up an audio signal and we will let you know whether he's the man your after or not very shortly sir. Although I would advise that you gather your troops – if this man really was who we originally though he was and not a traitor then there would be no need for any of the scrambling the signal is being subjected to." The man in charge told him, and colonel O'Neill nodded.

"As soon as you find out." He instructed, pointing at them before leaving the room.

He got half way down the corridor before someone shouted after him.

"Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter says that you are needed in the main control room, there's been another transmission send through from colonna and she says it's important sir." Jack didn't need to hear anymore and with a brief nod in the mans direction he ran in the direction of the lift.

"What's going on Carter?" he asked as soon as he reached the room, Sam answered him, giving him a brief smile of thanks to acknowledge events earlier that morning.

"The colonan's have picked up another transmission sir, believed to have been sent sometime yesterday and the rest of the transmissions have been decoded and translated." She sounded both relieved and anxious but she looked like he felt. Her normally wide and inquisitive eyes now gave a more solemn appearance and her face was paler. He was beginning to think that she had spent all night looking at that mirror and he wished that he could have found her sooner.

"Yeah… so do we know who the human arranging all of this is yet?" Jack leaned against the banister leading to the briefing room as he spoke, wanting very much to be on the move and after them.

"Not yet sir, but we will have shortly. You see the goa'uld is the same in both the transmission to earth and the one to someone we presume to be his ally in all of this, so we can account for the discrepancy or the distortion of the mans voice." And for once Jack didn't look as though his eyes had just glazed over and he nodded at her.

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know sir, but it shouldn't be more than a couple of hours, by that time we should know whether Mr. Amstrad had anything to do with this and where he is and if Amy is there too-"

"And we'll know what the last transmission means… and if it's anything like the last two then I'd say you have to more fast or you might not reach her in time…. And we know who the voice belongs to." Jonas paused, now having all eyes in the room on him as he caught his breath.

"Jonas?" Jack asked him and the former SG-1 member knew he shouldn't really hold this sort of information back.

"It's Senator Kinsey sir, without a doubt." And Jack felt his heart drop, because he knew then that this had been planned all along, he was the person far up in politics to have approved Mr. Amstrad…. All the pieces were in place now.

After muttering something inaudible under his breath he looked back to the other inhabitants of the room, his eyes resting on Sams for a moment before he spoke.

"Right, call General Hammond and tell him what's going on, we'll need Liam and Naomi too – they deserve to know what's going on. Jonas, how long will it take to decode and translate the last transmission?"

The younger man scratched his head, "I don't know sir – about an hour or so to decrypt it and then translation time… the only reason we discovered it was Kinsey was because his name was mentioned in the other transmissions and we ran a voice print match once the message had been restored."

Realizing he had to give the guy some credit for all that he had done so far, Jack nodded. "Ok, well I'll ask General Hammond to hold the meeting in two hours, the tracking team should be done by then too, so I suggest you get on it and report back to me ASAP."

"Yes sir." Jonas responded, before running back in the direction he had come from.

"Carter you're with me, General Hammond needs to be informed about what our little friend has been up to…" she nodded and followed him, the internal fear seemed to be getting more and more potent, if he had her clone there was no telling what exactly he had in store for her – not least the planet… she knew he would try and give her to the gou'ald, but in exchange for what?


Amy was in a state of confusion, lying on the floor and holding onto her left arm. She could move more freely now… not that it mattered when she was being held in a closed off room about the size of her lab in the SGC, well at least what used to be my lab… he'd come in and started to ask her questions about an hour before and had only just left.

He'd yelled at her about not having enough time and seemed to have been speaking to himself about some sort of deadline… and that it was her fault that his plans were being screwed Kinsey had asked her questions but none that she could actually answer…

All the codes had been changed since she left and she had little idea as to what everything else he was asking her about had to do with anything. But then again he could have asked her name and she still wouldn't be able to answer. Her thoughts may have started to become clearer but she still didn't seem to be able to communicate, and after the final blow he'd dealt to her she didn't seem to be able to move.

But what scared her most was what he had continually told her, 'I don't have much time left to do this before they come for you in two days'. Amy didn't know where she was supposed to be going – was she just some bargaining tool for the NID? Or did this go higher up than that?

She just hoped against hope that Liam would come and find her soon – or that she could somehow escape, but as she seemed to be discovering over and over again was that her younger body wasn't as strong or as trained as her original one… rescue was her only option.

"When will he be ready for collection?"

"Ah, there has been a slight change of plans regarding 'him'."

"WHAT CHANGE?!"

"Oh don't worry, you will still be receiving a clone of SG-1, just not the one you expected."

"I do not understand, I was told that there was only one clone made, that of Colonel O'Neill."

"So was I, but I assure you that there is another, one with far higher intelligence than that of O'Neill."

"Please go on, you have my full attention."

"We have Major Carter, or at least her younger clone. Which I'm sure you'll agree will be a much greater asset."

"Indeed, although she is not what we were expecting, details can be changed to accommodate her. We will arrive in three days."

"That's son of a bitch." Jack and Liam muttered at the same time, but no one saw any amusement in it… all they could think about was how to get her back.

"The message was sent sometime yesterday which means we have the rest of today and tomorrow to find her, because as you all heard in the last transmission is that Kinsey intents to move her and have them all meet at a mutual location… on earth." Daniel explained, two hours later when all the information had been gathered together and the main plan was being worked out.

"And we know from the tracking team that they've been holding her in their base on the out skirts of Colorado Springs, apparently they thought that the military and the Government would discredit us… Shows how much faith they have." The archaeologist continued, sending an appreciative look in General Hammond's direction, he knew that the military had plans to deal with Jack and Sam at a later date, but he was thankful that they at least had a chance to prove how vital they were first.

"What DR Jackson is saying is that we know where they are, we have audio proof of who's behind it and that they have Amy, sir I'd like to request SG's three and ten as back up and that we make a move ASAP." Jack said, putting forward his plan and waiting to be given a go.

"Very well, you leave as soon as possible. I'll talk to the president straight away, he seems to be the only person we can trust at the moment… at least when it comes to politics." And he stood as if to leave the table.

"Hold on a second, I would like to request that I join SG-1, I'm just as capable as everyone else here who's going and…"

"I'm afraid that might not be such a good idea son." General Hammond told him. "You're too personally involved with this mission."

"With all due respect sir, this entire situation only started because of me, they only have Amy because of me and I want to be involved in her rescue. I owe it to her sir." Liam argued his case calmly and without backing down.

"I would prefer that you and Naomi stay at the base son, you're still physically a teenager and with all due respect, you're out of training." Liam shook his head at this and looked to Naomi, who had always seemed to give him support before.

"General Hammond might be right Liam, they'll do their best to save her." She told him and he saw for the first time that she was actually scared, he knew then that this had something to do with her past.

"Sir, I'm asking you to let me do this – no one knows her as well as I do and we don't know what sort of state we're going to find her in… I have to be there to see that she's safe sir."

The General considered this very carefully for a moment, and looked at colonel O'Neill. He knew how hard this was for them all and that in some way every one of the people he was going to send on this mission were going to have some personal incentive to save Major Carters clone. And he couldn't deny the truth of the young mans words. So he really only had one logical choice.

"Very well, you may accompany them – I need not remind you to follow orders and be careful. You have a Go and may leave when ready."

Ok, well as always let me know what you think, positive feedback and constructive criticism would be much appreciated. I actually had enough free time to make this chapter longer, I hope it paid off! The next one will be up as soon as possible.