Here is the chapter in which you find out the answers to a lot of questions. It is kind of dark, because of the people I fashioned Ammontech after. It's also probably one of the longest chapters, so sit tight and enjoy.

Elizabeth looked around the conference table at the people seated there. Lieutenant Ford, acting military commander in Major Sheppard's absence; Dr. Zelenka filling in for McKay; and Doctor Beckett, pale and with murder in his eyes. It was the good doctor who had called the meeting, not giving any details. "Dr. Beckett, would you like to tell us what you found?"

The physician sighed. "I'm afraid I must begin with admitting that I broke several laws to find everything out." Every eyebrow around the table rose at the admission that the sweet Scot had done something wrong. "Before I left for Atlantis I had an American friend who was something of a conspiracy theorist. What made him unusual was that he was a skilled computer hacker and basically could prove everything he theorized about. He apparently hacked into the SGC and found out I was working for them and was about to leave on a top-secret mission. He sent me a stack of CDs filled with hacked files from just about every government agency in an attempt to keep me from becoming involved. Of course I never looked at them. Until now."

Ford sat up straighter in his chair, if that was possible. "You mean you found stuff about that Ammontech thing John talked about?"

Beckett nodded, the fire in his blue eyes deepening. "Aye. It turns out that there was a Goa'uld named Ammon who was captured by Ra and became one of his lieutenants. Apparently Ammon knew something of the existence of the Ancients and their descendents. He conducted secret studies aboard one of his ships. During a great battle several thousands of years ago between Ra and some of the other System Lords, Ammon was killed and his ship crashed into what is now the Hudson Bay."

"In the late sixties, a group of international scientists found the ship and began exploring its information. As well, one of the scientists had been a good friend of Dr. Langford and knew of the Stargate. It didn't take them long to find a linguist to translate the Goa'uld writings, and soon they were beginning their own experiments."

Weir interrupted, her tightly folded hands resting on the table. "What kind of experiments? On whom?"

Carson grimaced. "They figured out how to find the ATA gene in humans, which was quite advanced science for their time. They then placed spies of a sort in hospitals in Canada and the Northern United States, to test twins born in those hospitals for the gene." He sighed. "John and Rodney were born in North Dakota and had the strongest genes of all the 'subjects'."

Zelenka frowned. "Dr. McKay had the gene artificially applied here in Atlantis. Only Major Sheppard had the gene naturally."

"I'll get to that. Based on the files I have, children with the gene are actually more powerful than when they are adults. Ancient 'quirks', as you might call them, can manifest themselves from birth to adolescence. These Ammontech scientists took careful note of each 'subject's' abilities." He looked down at the notes he had pulled from the computer. "John seemed to show signs of being a 'healer', with abilities like those shown in General O'Neill the second time he had the Ancient database downloaded in his brain. Rodney, on the other hand, seemed more skilled in empathy."

Ford almost choked. "McKay? Empathic? Doesn't that mean he's sensitive to the feelings of others? Are you sure you have that right?"

Carson had been skeptical himself; until he found out the reason Rodney no longer seemed empathic. "My information is correct. To continue, the scientists, after a few years, hired a group of mercenaries to 'collect' the children they had marked for study." The doctor's face looked even more haggard and drawn than before. "They killed everyone in their way."

"Great catch Rodney!"

The boy grinned and threw it back to his father, Captain Derek Callaghan. "Thanks Dad."

John punched the pocket of his mitt. "Come on, throw it to me!"

Marie Callaghan smiled as she watched the three men in her life playing together. No matter how hard of a day Derek had at the police station, he always made time for the twins. The boys adored their father, and days like this, having dinner outside on the porch and playing in the backyard, seemed to make all cares slip away.

The middle-aged mother grinned as John dove into the dirt to catch a groundball. 'Always so dramatic,' she thought. As John's throw sailed over his father's head, she could only be thankful that they had no near neighbors with windows to be broken. Their small house was surrounded by trees, a secluded piece of land in a secluded state.

That seclusion soon came to an end. One moment Derek was grinning and blowing Marie a kiss, the next his face froze, his eyes barely having time to look down at the bleeding hole in his chest before he fell down, clearly dead.

Rodney heard his mother scream before he actually realized what had happened. As his beloved father fell to the ground, he looked at the murderers who came ever near him. He didn't even have to stretch his abilities to 'feel' the evil in their souls.

With a mother's strength, Marie sprinted from the porch and positioned herself between her children and the murderers of her husband. "John, Rodney, run!" The boys didn't have to be told twice. They dashed towards the trees, Marie behind them.

They didn't get far. Rodney, never as fast a runner as his brother, was being pushed along by Marie. All of a sudden he felt blood splash on his face, chillingly warm. He couldn't help but scream as his mother's body fell, the weight forcing him to the ground. His mind was a whirlwind of emotion and he was unable to move, to push the body away so he could escape.

In only a moment John was there, trying to pull Rodney away. He wasn't strong enough, he couldn't free his brother. The dark men were soon on top of them, roughly throwing John to the ground beside his brother. The twins could only look at each other in horror before they felt pin-pricks on their arms and the world faded to darkness.

"John and Rodney were taken to a hidden laboratory on the border of the United States and Canada. The scientists decided to test John's healing abilities, since they were more obvious than Rodney's empathic abilities. To make the study 'scientific', they gave Rodney a gene-inhibiting shot that effectively turned off his ability to use the ATA gene. They then would injure Rodney, using mainly a knife, and leave John to heal him."

The boys huddled together in a corner of their tiny cell as the door opened. The room was windowless, with only two mattresses for furniture. It had been only a few days since they were put in the cell, since Rodney had been given the shot. They knew next to nothing about why they were here, only that they were being held at a place called Ammontech.

One of the scientists entered the room, followed by two large mercenaries. The scientist, a short man with wispy blonde hair and glasses, stared coldly at the children. "Proceed." One of the mercenaries grabbed John, the other, a broad-shouldered, dark-eyed man, held down Rodney. The dark-haired soldier unsheathed a knife, holding it near the boy's throat.

John started yelling first, trying to fight against the man holding him, desperate to get to his brother. Rodney just looked on with fearful eyes until the mercenary brought the knife down and sliced through his shoulder. Then he could only scream until he blacked out.

John scrambled over to Rodney's side as the three men left the cell, locking the door behind them. Whimpering slightly, John held his hands over his brother's wound and concentrated. He didn't even know that they were being watched by scientists behind a one-way mirror.

"This went on for about four months."

"Four months? They tortured those sweet boys for four months?" Weir, like the others in the room, looked sick at the thought.

Carson nodded. "Aye, they did. The only saving grace was that the scientists would give them some time in between to rest and heal."

"But they got out," they looked at Ford who had spoken up. "I mean, since they are here and not there, they obviously must have escaped somehow."

"You're right. Some people in both governments were getting suspicious and began investigating Ammontech. One of the scientists who had been uneasy about the tests turned the experiment in, and the Canadian and American governments sent in a combined Special Operations team to shut them down."

Captain Nathan Sheppard of the United States Marine Corps silently stepped through the dense brush around the intended target. He kept track of his team through his night vision goggles, watching as they quietly broke the security barrier around the complex.

He wasn't looking forward to what they might find inside. The mission briefing had been specific: there were children being held hostage, possibly tortured, by a group of mad scientists and their hired mercenaries. Their mission was to free the children and capture or kill those responsible. Sheppard's heart tightened. He and his wife had just lost their young son, Joshua, in a car accident. How anyone could hurt a child when all he wanted was his son back was beyond his comprehension.

His commanding officer gave the signal; they were going in.

"Unfortunately, Ammontech somehow got word of the mission. The mercenaries gathered all the children into a large room and…got rid of the evidence."

John sat hopelessly next to his brother. After once more being injured, this time with a knife in his side, Rodney had refused his help. He refused to let John heal him, knowing what it was doing to his dark-haired twin. All John could do now was watch his brother slowly fade away.

The door to their cell opened and John tensed up. Surely they wouldn't hurt Rodney again, not when he wasn't healed first! The two soldiers grabbed the boys and dragged them into a large room. Rodney was in too much pain to notice much, using all his strength to stand upright, but John was surprised to see other children there. They were around his age, and all in the same straights and John and Rodney.

Suddenly all the doors to the room slammed shut and warning bells went off in John's head. He looked up at the metal balcony above them, seeing the blank faces of the mercenaries training their guns right at the confused children below. In that moment John knew what was going to happen, but there was nothing he could do.

Captain Sheppard's head came up at the sound of gunfire. He and his team raced toward the sound, taking care of any mercenary in their way, as well as several unlucky scientists. They reached the room where the shooting seemed to come from, but the door was locked. The soldiers heard screams from behind the door and they hurried to set the explosives.

As an explosion rocked the door off its hinges, Sheppard noticed that the screams and the gunshots had stopped. 'Please don't let that mean what I think it means,' he prayed. He and the other soldiers burst into the doorway, picking off the mercenaries set up around the large room. As the smoke cleared they saw what had happened in that room.

Nathan Sheppard stared at the scene. It was a moment that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Quickly stepping out of the room, Sheppard fell to his knees and retched up the contents of his stomach, dimly aware of several others who were doing the exact same thing.

"Got rid of…the evidence?"

Beckett couldn't look anyone in the eye. "The leaders of Ammontech decided to get rid of incriminating evidence. However, the mission had been moved up and they couldn't destroy the paper trail in time. Unfortunately, the Special Ops team was too late to save the children."

Weir tried to swallow, the lump in her throat making it nearly impossible. "How many…?"

"There were 50 sets of twins used in the experiments. Only two children survived."

The statement sent a horrible shock through the room. Elizabeth slumped down in her chair. "Two children. Two, out of a hundred." She blinked. "That means that John and Rodney were the only survivors. And they don't remember any of it?"

"No."

It was one of the worst moments of Nathan Sheppard's life, second only to his son's death. After finding the room full of dead children, the team had spread out and eliminated every Ammontech employee they could find. It was ruthless, brutal, immoral, and none of the soldiers had cared. The scientists and mercenaries they didn't find had taken their own lives rather than face the wrath of the American and Canadian soldiers.

Then came the task of dealing with the bodies. For the moment, they left the bodies of the Ammontech employees to rot where they lay, but they couldn't do that to the limp remains of the children. Eventually they set up a system where each child was photographed, then gently placed in a mass grave dug by the soldiers. It was a heartbreaking task, but they did it with a determination to treat the bodies with what dignity they could.

They were only halfway finished when it happened. A shrill scream broke the solemn silence of the room, a scream coming from beneath the pile of corpses still waiting for burial. Captain Sheppard sprinted to the sound, digging beneath the small bodies until he found a flailing arm. With amazing speed, he lifted up a raven-haired boy whose hazel eyes were wide with fear and horror.

Gathering the screaming child in his arms, Sheppard ran from the room of death and from the complex itself, stopping beneath a large oak tree. Slowly kneeling, the captain began gently rocking the boy, who had not stopped screaming though his voice was becoming hoarse.

After awhile, the screams turned to whimpers. Sheppard couldn't imagine what the boy was going through, waking up beneath dead bodies after being held hostage for who knows how long. 'He's the same age as my Joshua was. Dear Lord, what do I do?'

Captain Sheppard softly rubbed the boy's back. "What's your name son?"

Not expecting a reply, Nathan was surprised to get one. "John," whispered the boy, his voice harsh. "John Drexel…Drexel…I don't…I don't know." With that, the boy fell unconscious. A cursory glance told Nathan that he had only fainted from the emotional trauma of his ordeal. They would need to get him checked out at a hospital, but the boy was in no immediate danger.

The burial went quickly after that. They found only one more survivor, a brown-haired boy who had been hit in the head by a ricocheted bullet. He was rushed to a nearby military hospital in Canada where his head wound would be treated, as well as the knife wound in his side.

John Drexel woke only once more, as the brown-haired boy was carted away. Nathan noticed how the boy's eyes never left the injured child. "Do you know who that is?"

John shook his head. "No. No, I don't," was all he could say before he passed out again.

"After getting rid of the remaining Ammontech scientists and mercenaries, the Special Ops team buried the children, but not before they found John and Rodney. Miraculously John hadn't been hit at all, but passed out when he was knocked to the ground. However," Beckett paused. "However, when the soldiers were removing the bodies for burial, he woke up beneath a pile of the dead." Elizabeth gasped, Zelenka fell pale, and Ford let out a curse. "One Captain Nathan Sheppard pulled him out, but the trauma was too much for him. Later at the hospital he was diagnosed with global amnesia, unable to remember anything except his first and supposedly last name, John Drexel. Captain Sheppard and his wife adopted John, and apparently gave him false memories so that he would believe he really was their son."

Weir managed to compose herself, despite what she was hearing. "And Rodney?"

"Rodney had been hit in the head by a ricochet. He was taken to a Canadian military hospital and operated on. This, I would like to point out, was written in his medical records as a knock in the head from falling out of a tree, and a simultaneous appendectomy was recorded instead of a knife wound. When he woke up, he too couldn't remember anything, was diagnosed with traumatic amnesia, and adopted by a Canadian couple. While Rodney would have eventually remembered his life before his head injury, and did remember his first and middle name, it appears that his subconscious kept it buried beneath the fabricated memories his adoptive parents helped create."

The room was silent for a moment before Dr. Weir spoke again. "You said that Rodney was given a gene-inhibiting shot. Is that why he's sick?"

Carson shifted the papers in his hands. "Yes and no. After reading about the shot, I took a closer look at the blood-work and I found blue, microscopic and inorganic particles in both Rodney and John's blood. I compared the particles to Dr. Zelenka's report on the anti-aging machine and have concluded that they came from those empty cylinders found next to John and Rodney's shoes."

Zelenka nodded in confirmation. "That does make sense. From what I have found, the blue fluid is injected into the person through their hand. I have some of the chemists figuring out the chemical makeup of the fluid. They are having little luck as of now."

"But John has the blue stuff in him as well. Why isn't he sick?" asked Ford.

"While weakened from lack of food and his attempts at healing Rodney, John is strong enough to not be affected by the physical changes he went through when becoming younger. Rodney's body, on the other hand, was just acclimating itself to having the ATA gene turned off. Combined with having his cells de-age at such speeds, he just can't handle it."

Zelenka's face looked thoughtful. "What of the gene therapy Rodney had to get the ATA gene when we first arrived in Atlantis? Is that affecting him as well?"

Beckett shook his head. "As far as I can tell, no. Because he essentially went back in time, the gene therapy hasn't technically happened yet. Actually, it's quite interesting that the therapy in our time didn't un-do the effects of the gene-inhibitor. Instead, it just added a weaker version of the gene into Rodney's DNA." Pulling himself from doctor-mode, Beckett sighed. "Regardless, Rodney's body is just not handling the stress put on its genetic structure."

Weir rubbed her forehead. All this information was giving her a slight headache. "Is there anything you can do, Carson?"

The doctor hesitated before answering. "The report on Ammontech has the ingredients of the gene-inhibitor. I may be able to reverse the inhibitor, negating the effects it has on his cells." At the unsure looks around the table, Beckett hastened to continue. "Right now he is dying. It can't make the situation worse than it already is. Baring Dr. Zelenka and his team figuring out how to make them adults again, this is our best hope."

Weir nodded. "Do it."

In case you haven't guessed, I fashioned the people of Ammontech after the Nazis.