For once I'd seen him clearly, watching my progress as I raced down the back-alley. Our eyes had locked, his gaze hadn't wavered. I'd been angry — another pointless call to another frustrating and pointless bust. Go on... step out, you bastard, I'd wished. I saw the twitch at the corner of his mouth, his fist clench, his coat begin to billow out.
Bastard! I'd screamed. Two heartbeats and the adrenaline rush had kicked in. Two more, and my options had been reduced to laying down my bike, or really taking him out — and myself at the same time. My hand gripped the throttle tighter. I kicked down a gear, but as much as I wanted to, my own instinct for survival was too great. Two more and I chuckled as a third option flashed across my mind. Bracing myself, I braked hard. My back wheel balked and bounced as I leaned and let go.
I watched my bike cartwheel and Nottingham step out into its path. He was still watching me, moving so casually, still unsmiling. I bounced. Searing pain ripping into my leg, my shoulder. Another heartbeat and another. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my bike tumble toward him. He grinned then. The bike was on top of him. I blinked. He'd stepped lightly out of its path to stand still beside it twenty yards further down, the bike's engine no longer growling.
Disoriented, trying my hardest to dismiss the pain, I struggled to my feet. My right leg threatened to buckle beneath me; my right arm hung heavily. Deliberately, I limped toward him, my head complaining at the nausea, my stomach at the emptiness, but I was determined to regain my composure. My body would heal; my bike would be repaired; but the shock of so easily losing control would stay with me. Whatever his intentions were, I knew that this round belonged to him.
And still he watched me: not the arm hanging limp; not the rip in my pants going dark with my blood. His eyes never lost my own. He was the master of his world, equally seeing the truth in mine. And just as casually, he wheeled my bike to the hydrant at the corner, showing all the concern for it that, at times, he did for me.
With my good hand, I peeled off my helmet and shook my hair out. I winced at the spasm in my neck, but there were words that needed saying, and I wanted Nottingham to hear them clearly. I'd barely opened my mouth before he shook his head. For the first time he looked away, across the empty alley. A familiar chill ran the length of my spine. Dizziness threatened to overwhelm me, but I turned my head to follow his gaze.
All I saw was a fuzzy distortion through a plate-glass window, a shock of blonde hair, a dark suit turning quickly away, the echoing soft click of low heels receding as my observer disappeared from view. And when I looked back... Nottingham, too, was gone.
An inner trepidation made me lift my arm. The bracelet was still there, as it always was, but its color swirled deep red on black, pulsating, but not quite in tune with the strange shapes brimming just beyond the edge of my awareness.
I reached for the faucet to turn off the shower.
All that had been a week ago. My bike was out of the shop, and I would be fully healed, too, if I didn't keep scrubbing at my leg.
The itch served as a reminder — not that I needed another one. The bracelet had quickly settled down, but hadn't stayed inert. It pulsed when I woke in the morning, and I dreamed that it pulsed at night when I went to sleep. But a shadow remained, as if permanently cast into the stone.
Worse, I knew that I was still being watched — and badly. My phone had been tapped; the same nondescript truck had started parking nearby, always pulling away when I showed any interest in it. And I was paranoid enough to know when my rooms had been searched, but I'd found no bugs. Whoever they really were, I was happy for them to dig through my trash and all the roaches. They wouldn't find anything — not even in my dirty laundry.
Mistrust ran deep and in all directions — from the feds, to the squad, even to my partner who had his own secrets. Irregularities were cropping up far to frequently; too many people were starting to take an interest in me. It was bad enough that I half-expected Nottingham to be peering out at me from every shadow, that I had so many doubts about which cops weren't on some crooked pay-roll, that every stranger was becoming a half-familiar face.
Without thinking, I grabbed a towel and began scrubbing myself dry. The cold air only sucked the heat out of my body, adding another level of discomfort. At least the shower had eased my aching shoulder. So what was another towel spotted with blood? Pretty much all my towels had blood stains from one wound or another.
But for once, I'd prefer it if at least one issue was resolved before another reared its ugly head. Throwing the towel into a corner I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Stretching, I pulled a baby-t over my head. Bending at the waist, I laid both palms flat on the floor before pulling on my pants. I was fitter now than I'd ever been. I was healthier now than I'd ever been. Even if my life expectancy was now considerably shorter than...
The firm knock at the door should have taken me by surprise, but I'd been expecting it for a while. At least they'd had the grace to wait for me to get dressed. I couldn't bring myself to smile or even feign anger, but if they wanted trouble, I'd let them know that I meant business.
Gun in hand I unbolted the door, opening it wide enough to see out, and for them to see the gun — not that I trust the USAF any less than I trust anyone else.
"Detective Pezzini?"
The Colonel frowned at the gun but didn't blink as I motioned her in. I closed the door and leaned against it, gun held across my stomach, a quiet stab of cold against my solar plexus. The way I see it, sometimes it is easier to ask questions first.
She nodded, understanding. "Unfortunately, security gets in the way of simple manners. It's not the way we prefer to operate, but..."
"But you need to be more careful. If I saw you, and Nottingham knows, who else does?"
"You were meant to see me." The Colonel smiled disarmingly. "Nottingham was different. Call it a shared interest," she said, glancing quickly at my wrist, "But for different reasons."
"Now wait a minute —" I wanted to protest.
"What you have..." she interrupted. "What you have is somewhat unique."
I covered the bracelet with my left hand — sometimes, it was easier on my sanity not to look at it. She'd left me more than bruised the first time; it was one thing to be caught by sleight of hand and trickery, but to sit and watch yet do nothing while that ugly little snake writhed in ice-fire was another. Sympathic resonance, she would call it. A million fiery pins using my hand for a cushion, while the weight of untold aeons of pain crushed my wrist into the table. All I knew was agony from my elbow to the tips of my fingers. Still, I'd managed to fumble for a cigarette; if you don't believe in acupuncture, no way in hell is it gonna work.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "This close, I can sense it," she said, quickly raising her arms as I raised my gun. "Don't worry, I don't want it. I'm... sensitive.
I'd also told her where she could take herself; I wanted nothing to do with the military — I had enough shit in my own mixed-up life back then, what with Jake and my sister and...
She didn't listen; not that I expected her to. She'd nodded slowly and started talking about – of all things – that weird meteor shower some months back. Not that I'd seen much of it, I was too busy saving the planet at the time. And I had to laugh — apparently, so was she and this other Colonel she was in love with. But now he was her C.O. and she wanted me to go meet him on account of what I had on my wrist.
"I'm just a cop," I'd said. "And this..." I'd had to struggle to lift my arm, "This is just a bracelet, whatever your toys may make you think it is." If in doubt, deny everything, "I mean, great story..." and hope for some mutual respect, "But this is my city, you understand. I can't leave it."
"Think it over," she'd said.
And I did. A lot. Too much. Oh, not because of that alien bullshit; it was what she said next that really got to me.
"You know this man?" she'd asked, shoving a dark photo of an even darker face in front of mine. "You know who he works for?" she'd added. "We've seen you together." Apart from answering her own questions, she'd have made an average cop. "These people, you think you know them, but they're involved in something bigger than you can imagine." She paused for effect, for what she was going to say next. "Bigger than the Mob; much more than drugs or industrial espionage." She'd stood then, not thinking for a moment that I'd be able to argue with her logic.
Perhaps I shouldn't have laughed in her face. Perhaps I shouldn't have got mad. Perhaps I shouldn't have stood shouting curses at her stupidity, my right arm hanging useless at my side. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried parking my bike on Nottingham's head at the first opportunity that came along.
I'd had a week to cool down. A week of nightmares and shadows I couldn't leave behind. I'd started seeing unfamiliar faces in the dark. Even now, with this Colonel standing so close, there were alien things I couldn't even begin to understand. And considering some of the things I'd seen...
"Her name is Jolinar," the Colonel said, and with such sudden sadness my heart ached to its core. "I have some of her memories; there are things I can feel, a resonance..."
"What are you, some kinda psychic?"
"That would depend," she smiled. "Because there are forces other than our own. It's a matter of trust. I've shown you what we have. There's more than a simple connection between us. Just saying it's complicated doesn't begin to explain how far it goes, but we can help each other and now it's up to you to decide if you want to help us."
"You want me to go work for the Air Force? I can't. I'm a cop. I've got my own life to sort out and..."
And then she told me about the ugly little snake, and who they were fighting, and...
And this thing I'd worn on my wrist for, I dunno, but it pretty much seemed like my whole adult life, was apparently an Ancient – yeah, Ancient with a capital A – weapon forged thousands – if not millions – of years ago as a defense against these aforementioned snakes. And even worse, according to this know-it-all Lieutenant Colonel, there was also this bunch of former government-sanctioned, clandestine super-criminals who, if they ever found out, would stop at nothing to separate me from not only the bracelet, but also my life.
And isn't it wonderful to know that we're not alone in the universe? Isn't it great to know that there really are little gray aliens who look out for us? Don't we all sleep much better for not knowing that it's only the United States Air Force, some interfering Russians, and a privileged few other foreigners that defend us against complete and total annihilation by a race of parasitic snakes?
And, I mean, just who did she think I was? Some plucky, thrill-seeker who wouldn't say no to the chance of adventure with her band of elite marines defending the planet against... what? A plague of alien, snake-controlled zombies?
And, five hours later, I was sitting in the back of a black sedan passing through a checkpoint, looking out the window at this mountain like some rubber-necking tourist.
"What have you got to lose?" she'd asked.
Where do I start? My career? What's left of my sanity? My life? It wasn't as if I could just leave my city — not leave it safe in the hands of New York's finest, anyway. And when my Captain found out that I'd run off again, I could kiss my pension goodbye — not that I ever really expected to collect it, but as pain-filled as it was, my life was mine to lose, and on my own terms. Fuck knows I'd risked it often enough.
After all, I'm just a cop from New York. What do I know?
Well, for a start, there's Good and Evil, not just on this world, but on others, too. You see, I already knew that we weren't alone. I know that I am not unique; there are perhaps a few others with my potential on this planet — but on other worlds? On worlds where there's life, where Good and Evil battle for supremacy, then there'll be people, or beings, with the power, the ability, to make a difference.
Not that I told her any of that.
The whole trip – the drive to the airport, the flight down, and the drive to NORAD – passed in a protracted lecture to encourage my participation in their grand scheming — until we got inside the mountain, that is, and it finally dawned on me that NORAD wasn't our destination when the elevator kept on going deeper and deeper and I began to feel the weight of all that rock above my head.
Eventually the elevator stopped, and then it was a brisk march through a small maze of corridors, up a flight of stairs past the weirdest looking radar, or satellite receiver, or telescope I'd ever seen, and up more stairs to a conference room. There'd been nods of recognition on the way, but no time for chat.
Two of the chairs were already taken, and a beleaguered looking sergeant stood hovering until an even more flustered man strode into the room.
The effect was stunning.
I mean, there's me and my partner, Jake, and how we sometimes get along; and there's me and the Captain, and how he likes to shout; and there's me and the whole squad, and how we fail to interact — but then these people...
Carter had already told me about Doctor Jackson and the alien, Teal'c. But she remained standing to make a more personal introduction.
"Detective Pezzini", Carter said, "General O'Neill."
General O'Neill glanced at a sheet of paper the sergeant handed him, then at Carter who simply nodded, then he gave my wrist a curious frown before he looked uncertainly at me.
"Welcome to the SGC," General O'Neill said, pausing briefly to look at his notes. "Sara, isn't it?" He nodded without waiting for me to answer. "Good, then." He smiled. "Now... You're a guest here, but this isn't exactly, ah, Trump Tower, so I'm afraid it'll be quite spartan compared with what you're used to. Oh, and you can leave any time you want," he smiled again. "If you can escape their clutches." He glanced at Carter and Doctor Jackson before looking up at the sergeant. "I think that covers the formalities, doesn't it, Walter?"
"Your next meeting is thirty minutes ago, Sir," the sergeant answered, resigned to the General being late and being waved away.
Like I said, the effect was stunning. You see, I notice things. It's my job to be observant, to spot the tiny details that solve the murder. And I know people, how they think and how they work. It was obvious that these people were close – the casual way they sat, the openness, the mutual respect was clear, and the trust self-evident – and these people were a battle-hardened team — not just pen-pushers or researchers. Oh, Carter was a scientist; Doctor Jackson was a, well, a Doctor; and the alien was a... a gladiator for crying out loud... but there was also a friction – their body language gave that away – and these people...
I looked about the room.
There was The Flag, and the computers, the weird looking map, and the even stranger badge, but the symbol meant nothing to me. There was an air of fatigue in the General, a look of sadness to Doctor Jackson, and impatience and determination in Carter's eyes. Teal'c sat in quiet contemplation of I couldn't imagine what. The war they were fighting? Just how long had it been going on?
General O'Neill cut to the chase. "Carter tells me that doohickey on your wrist is a weapon, and Daniel says it's an Ancient artifact. And since they're both usually right, they can argue over which it is between themselves."
Carter quickly recapped what she'd told me to bring the General up to speed, and added a few more choice details — not the least of which was my own history: my disruptive childhood, the loss of my Father, the ease with which I handled weapons of any caliber. Not for the first time was there surprise that I'd become a cop instead of a spook, or even a special-ops soldier.
They'd researched me as best as they could. Fortunately, there wasn't the slightest hint of the supernatural. As a homicide detective, my record wasn't spotless; there were the usual conflicts with authority, and sometimes my actions and attitude were questionable, but I did get results — even if some of them didn't make as much sense as they should.
Still, it was enough that they trusted me this far.
And what they trusted me with? More aliens and their technology; crystals for computers; spaceships and even excursions to other worlds; enemies not only on other planets, but also within The Pentagon, quite possibly The White House, and even their own administration.
The worst thing was, it all made perfect sense. Between them, they told me more than even I could have imagined about the forces at play, not only on this world, but on other planets, too.
But they didn't have the peculiar understanding that only comes with being a tool stuck in the middle.
They really were quite convinced that I had some sort of alien weapon on my wrist, and that it was safer to bring me into the fold, rather than just appropriate it for themselves — that was, after all, the ethical thing to do. But if the General thought that I'd fight for them, then he would be disappointed. If Carter thought she could open it up to look inside it, I could only guess she'd be dead within seconds. Or what Daniel hoped to learn by studying me... I was quite happily mulling over the idea when he just had to say...
"Of course, the Romans were aware of it. In Latin, it was called the Digitabulum Magae. And even before that, it wasn't unknown to the Babylonians, and its documented history can be traced back to early Mesopotamia."
... and my idle thoughts of getting to know his bedside manner all but evaporated. I guess I wasn't the first one to make that mistake because Carter smiled and explained that Daniel was an archeologist, and that he spoke more dead languages than living ones.
"Almost every early culture," Daniel continued the history lesson with an awkward smile, "can be associated with at least one of the Goa'uld System Lords. In terms of power, though, Mesopotamia isn't represented. For cities the size of Unug, for example, there was a rich written history, where the legends speak in terms which today we can interpret as belonging to an alien, space-faring civilization. Of course, if it did originate there, then..."
"That's what we hope to find out," Carter interrupted. "We found it – and you – because of a very unique signature. We can only assume that because of certain events, that you know how to use it." She smiled at the apparent thoroughness of their research.
"There are three key components that we've hypothesized," she continued. "First, naquadah provides the energy. Second, the red gemstone is a living crystal equivalent. Third, a Goa'uld symbiote is the mind behind it." Carter paused. "Completely impossible, of course, but it's a start," she laughed to herself. "We know that the bracelet is naquadah-sensitive. In the past, we've encountered crystalline life-forms. And I'm sorry about hurting your arm, but the bracelet itself projected the image of the young symbiote," Carter explained.
"Occam's razor," Daniel offered.
Yeah, well, when you put it like that... Say, huh? Apparently, if there's two possible answers, and one's obviously wrong, and the other makes some kind of sense, then... is how Daniel explained it to me later. And, The essence of a Goa'uld larva was captured in the crystal which draws power from the naquadah was their theory.
At least I understood what the old General had said about escaping their clutches. They were both as driven and committed to their cause as I was — sometimes. It wasn't easy to imagine these two fighting aliens, but if they did, were the rewards – the insights into ancient history, the chance to explore alien technology – were the rewards enough? At some stage, when we're thrown into a fight that isn't of our own making, we all look for answers, yet...
Yet Carter's razor hypothesis was right — but only in the sense that she couldn't have been more wrong if she'd tried. With all the available evidence, that was the only possible conclusion she could come to. And at the risk of sounding like a nerd: the truth was out there — she was just looking in the wrong place.
And since they were all sat back now, looking at me expectantly, it was only fair to let them know one thing, too. Well, actually, a couple of things.
"I dunno anything about what Colonel Carter said," I began, "I'm only a cop, not a rocket scientist. But if she thinks that her demonstration proves it, then I can't really argue with her," I conceded. "Doctor Jackson is right, too." I gave him my best smile; after all, you never know. "And it's been a while since I heard it called by its old name, but yeah, it goes back a few years. Unfortunately..."
It was my turn to pause for dramatic effect. I stood to remove my jacket – just to be on the safe side – and position myself so the security cameras wouldn't see.
"Yes, I know how it works. I know how it thinks and how it feels. Yes, it is alive but not, I believe, how you imagine it. And, yes, it really is a powerful weapon — but not one that any of you could use," I said. "You see, it belongs to me and only me," I paused. "Or, I belong to it. It doesn't seem to care much, as long as..." I didn't want to give too much away, but, "It's as unique as I am. And trust me..." They needed a demonstration, so I gave them just enough to raise a few...
It really is quite overwhelming when a statuesque, stunningly beautiful woman points at you. When metallic tendrils come alive and snake out from the bracelet on her wrist. When they wrap themselves vein-like about her forearm. When they form a shimmering gauntlet about her hand. When her hair appears to grow and floats out as the air charges with electricity. When the halo of Eldritch energy crackling about her clenched fist send shivers racing up and down your spine.
I stood with my feet braced, my arm outstretched, and shook my head so meaningfully my hair tumbled across my shoulders the very picture of alien and ancient menace. The bracelet, of course, sat on my wrist as quiet as ever.
Laugh? Me? You betcha.
For all of about 2 seconds, then that Sergeant Walter guy's voice came through over the intercom:
"Unscheduled off-world..."
Everyone jumped up with hardly a glance at me, and turned to look out the big glass window. And just as quickly, General O'Neill had punched a button, shouted something about a flower, and a metal shield had covered the huge circle-thing.
But by then it was already too late.
All four turned in unison, obviously to head for the stairs, but I kinda stopped them in their tracks. Well, all but Carter, who gave me the most withering look before rushing past, leaving two jaws hitting the floor and one... curiously raised eyebrow.
Then I heard Sergeant Walter again. "We have an unscheduled off-world activation," he almost shouted for Carter's benefit, but it brought the General back to this reality. "Daniel, Teal'c, stay," he commanded. "I'd better..." he did his best to find my eyes, shrugged and wandered off after Carter.
It was way too late.
Like I said, I really can be quite overwhelming. At the barest hint of blue, eerily-cold light the blade had reacted on its own, and I was left standing there in all my near-naked glory.
Of course, I was used to the looks – astonishment, admiration... down-right jealousy – but my attention was drawn to the shielded circle on the other side of the plate glass. I blinked once, but instead of seeing the circle, I found myself staring at my reflection.
The woman looking back really was beautiful...
But she wasn't me.
A/N : I honestly don't know about this chapter. This is rewrite number eight, I've lost count of the number of revisions, and I was tempted to ditch this one, too, but I really want to try to tell the whole story.