Disclaimer: would I be sat in this office if I owned Stargate or Quantum Leap? I don't think so...
Reviewers: murky buckets! Thanks again, and here is your treat of the day (the first non-food item) – a motorcycle ride through the gorgeous Dorset countryside on a sunny September afternoon... Mmmmm... ultimate pleasure... That's where most of my mind is anyway, though as mentioned above I'm actually stuck in a very boring little office!
P.S. It will eventually be revealed that Jack is actually Sam B, but not yet!! The seeds have been planted, please allow them a chance to germinate – SG1 are brainy all right, but Sam is a smart cookie too and he's been a human chameleon for a fair while now. Give the man a gold star :)
Stargate Command – 20th September 1998
Sam looked at the paper in Daniel's hands with a sinking feeling in his gut. What an idiot he'd been! There in front of two of 'his' closest colleagues was proof positive that all was not right in the SGC – Sam's keywords to Gooshie, written in his own handwriting, there in bold marker pen for all to see. Crinkled up, since he'd thrown it in the bin when Daniel had woken up, but he'd forgotten one of the primary rules of research: nothing is ever really thrown away. The archaeologist had probably remembered a making scribble during his brainstorming session last night, and dipped into the bin to take another look at it.
STARGATE
NAQUADAH
DR DANIEL JACKSON
SAMANTHA CARTER, DR?
"What do you think Jack?" Daniel asked, worriedly. "Have we got an intruder?"
Oh yeh, and you're looking right at him... "Um, I really don't know – do either of you recognise the handwriting?" Sam suggested, knowing that there was no chance that either he or Teal'c would. What an idiot he'd been.
"No O'Neill, I do not."
"If I did, I'd have told you by now."
"Ok then, neither do I – but then almost everyone here types everything on a computer these days, right?" It was lame, but most likely true. Biding time till he had a mind-blowingly genius idea was all he could think of right now.
"Yeh, but the MPs should have handwriting records somewhere," Daniel chipped in. "I remember having to write out 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' a few times when I started working here. That and signatures – lots of signatures."
Teal'c concurred. "Indeed. I too was required to give such a sample when I had gained proficiency in using your alphabet."
"You're right," Sam agreed, feigning knowledge. It made sense, and was only a little more than normal banking security. Speaking of which, if anyone asked him his date of birth, home address, mother's maiden name, social security number or anything like that he was screwed. Oh boy, he thought suddenly, do the military have writing samples from me on record? His memory was swiss-cheesed, but it wasn't impossible. This mess was getting bigger by the minute.
"Right, so we could check that out. Any more ideas? Like, could it have been one of the cleaners maybe?" Sam replied, casting around his mind for another plausible explanation. He'd been Leaping far too long to make this kind of mistake – or so he had thought.
"No chance – Janey knows better than to touch my things. She only cleans where she can see a bare surface... and yes, I know there's not much of that so quit smirking Jack! I'm really worried here!"
Actually Sam had been smiling because he loved the fact that Daniel knew the cleaner's name. Chances were that most personnel ignored the poor girl, but Daniel was the kind of man who would go out of his way to make her feel welcome... with the added bonus that a friendly cleaner would protect his filing system rather than tidy it, of course!
"Sorry, Danny – " The nickname didn't seem to phase the scientist, so Sam decided to stick with it. "– so that rules out the cleaner. Janey. I don't suppose anyone else has been in here today?"
Daniel shook his head. "I don't think so. I've been in here for most of the day, and the only other person who came to see me was you Jack, when you woke me up."
"Have you communicated your concerns to the Marine guards in this sector, DanielJackson?" Teal'c intoned. He gave Sam a slight case of the creeps, but then it wasn't every day that you met your first real life alien. Conflicting emotions and interests were warring inside him, yelling that he needed to study everything he could about this 'Jaffa' – preferably at a safe distance though, since he didn't think that his roundhouse kick would be much use against an angry warrior. That and he was in a wheelchair.
"No, not yet," Daniel sighed. "They'd make more mess in here than Jack on a bad day. That and I figured that most of our intruders are aliens who don't use the English language, let alone our alphabet. I mean it could be an invisible Furling for all I know, but it's highly unlikely – this thing looks more like a sign for an airport arrivals zone!"
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Your argument would not apply to any Tau'ri spies."
"Give the guy a break, T," Sam interrupted. He didn't want to Daniel to any flak for something that was his fault, though he couldn't for the life of him see how to avoid it in the long term. "Did you call us as soon as you found it, Daniel?"
The other man nodded. "It seemed like the best thing to do. Ok so maybe it wasn't the best thing to do, it was the easiest thing to do."
"Right, and we got down here as soon as we could. Now we have to figure out what to do next."
"The best course of action would be to alert base security and ascertain who has left this floor since this morning," Teal'c stated. "Handwriting tests could then be administered to any suspects."
Way to go for making a total hash of the situation! Sam chided himself. This could easily get out of hand...
"Whoa there partner!" He commented unceremoniously. "Do we need to go that far just yet?" Both pairs of eyes turned to him, Daniel looking amazed and Teal'c... looking like Teal'c. Not a normal Jack sort of comment then, he concluded. "Shouldn't we figure out how bad the threat is before we slam down the hatches?"
It was weak, and he knew it, but Daniel seemed to like the idea.
"I guess so, I mean I don't know why someone would write these words down in the first place. They're linked, of course, but not enough to give any real information." The archaeologist scratched the back of his head, probably a nervous habit. "Perhaps in the outside world, but no... there's a lot more valuable information in here that an intruder could take instead of a couple of mystery words and some names. Plus they left the words behind."
This was good, Sam decided, he could roll with this line of thinking. Maybe it could get them out of the need for a security sweep... because he wasn't likely to be able to mimic Jack's handwriting.
"Ok, so is there anything missing in here?" he asked innocently, thinking that it might take Daniel a fair while to check everything in this room.
Unfortunately Teal'c had the same thought. "O'Neill, by the time that DanielJackson has completed a search of his office, the thief may have escaped."
"No!" Daniel cut in hurriedly. "I mean, no, there's no need Teal'c – this place may look like a pigsty at times but I do know where everything is. We, erm, wouldn't want to worry General Hammond without having the right information now would we?"
Sam nodded sagely. "Good point Daniel. But how about you check with the guards anyhow, Teal'c? I came by at 11am, and you haven't left since then have you Daniel? I didn't think so... we're going to have to see who was on guard this morning, while we were in the briefing room – maybe even while Daniel was asleep."
This tactic was designed to make Teal'c feel needed and to get him out of the way at all costs – the guards would have changed at least once today, so Sam guessed that the big Jaffa would need at least 15 minutes to locate the roster and track down his target Marines. Hopefully that would be enough to downgrade the threat to 'miniscule', and hopefully Teal'c wouldn't realise that he was being sidelined. Then again, this base did have a bad (and warranted) case of paranoia.
"If that is what you believe is best, O'Neill," was Teal'c's answer. He didn't seem altogether convinced, but then Sam was having a lot of trouble reading him. He was very stoic... all the time... definitely one to be careful around.
"I do," he confirmed, wishing that he was as confident as he sounded. "We need as many facts as possible before we disrupt the base."
Sam couldn't remember a time when he'd been caught out yet, but then he'd never been in a place where people had already been exposed to strange phenomena before. When your job was to explore the galaxy and fight hostile aliens via a giant doughnut that controlled wormholes (need to see, need to see, need to see), time travel might not be such a huge leap of the imagination.
Teal'c – apparently satisfied, but maybe just following orders – bowed slightly and headed out of the room. "I will return shortly."
Sam tried not to breathe a sigh of relief, then turned to Daniel. "Let's get looking!" Daniel, on the other hand, was staring at him quizzically. Oh no, maybe he'd been un-Jack-like enough to confuse both of them. Damage control required. "Come on, we need to find out if you've had anything stolen, remember? Have a good look around, but don't shift anything around too much ok – I only want to make sure that if we're going to have a base-wide emergency, it's going to be justified. We have to leave as much in tact as possible though, because if something has been taken though we'll need all the fingerprints we can get."
Daniel replied, but Sam didn't catch a word of it. He had realised that fingerprints might catch him out too – this was not good...
"Jack?"
Huh? "Oh, sorry Daniel – I was, erm, just mapping out a possible course of action. What's up?"
The archaeologist looked through his glasses steadily, giving Sam the impression that he was a bug on a microscope slide. He really hoped he wasn't about to get dissected. This mission was really getting to him – but maybe that was partly because he still hadn't heard anything from Al, and Gooshie's transmission had been all but useless to him.
"Are you ok, Jack?" Daniel asked, presumably discarding his previous line and getting straight to the point.
"Who me?" Sam laughed sarcastically, gesturing toward the wheelchair he was in. Maybe that would knock his new friend off the track. "I've been better!"
"Hmmm..." came the reply. "Well you just sit tight. No Jack, please, just stay where you are – it's not like you know what order I have things in anyway, so you poking around would just make things worse."
Sam raised his hands in surrender. This was perfect – no more Beckett fingerprints to pollute the room. "Maybe I should take another look at that paper for you?" Daniel nodded absently.
"Yeh sure Jack, whatever you think might be helpful, just don't mess up my desk!"
The man in the wheelchair smiled. Daniel's voice had already taken on the preoccupied air of a scientist with a project, and since he thought that someone might have taken something that was his the 'trance' would be all the more intense. Strictly speaking it would have been US Government property, but that was a mere technicality!
Picking up the offending paper by the edges, Sam fought the urge to rip it into tiny pieces. That would just make things worse, he told himself, and they were bad enough as it was. He decided to wipe the whole sheet with his sleeve instead, checking that Daniel wasn't looking first. At least that should smudge the sample...
How could he be so stupid? If there was one place that he was going to get caught, this would be it – why did he have to go and make it worse? But he knew why: usually Al tipped him off before he got round to making stupid mistakes, and this time he was flying blind. He had been frantic to get a message across to Gooshie, but he hadn't gotten any clues in return and the fact that he hadn't seen a hologram since that one faltering attempt told him that something was seriously wrong back at Stallions Gate. There couldn't have been a worse time for a communications breakdown. With any luck the team would have a better chance of 'tuning in' to him tonight when SG1 visited the cinema, Sam hoped, desperately praying that the consequences of his monumental slip would not get in the way of a trip to the surface.
"Hey Jack," Daniel called out. "How about you look at my computer and see if anyone accessed files between say 7am and 11am? They might have printed something and taken it away with them."
A good idea, but more chance for Beckett fingerprints... "Are you sure that's a good idea from here, Daniel? I might wreck any evidence on the keyboard."
"Don't be daft Jack, I've already been using the computer since they would have come in. There won't be any evidence to save other than the electronic record."
The man had a point, but how to get out of this hole? "Well it would be better to track it from your login, right?"
"I suppose so, and?"
"You've been away from the computer for so long that it's logged you out." A short-term ploy – Daniel looked like he was in the middle of a pile of papers, so it might take him a while to extract himself. Maybe he'd have time to...
"Ok, my password is –"
"Hold it right there!" Sam cried out. "I do not want to know your password, Daniel. Security and IT would have my guts for garters. Come over here and type it in yourself."
A bundle of what could only be alien curses drifted from the bookcases to the desk.
"What language is that?" Sam asked, curious.
"Abydonian, you should recognise it by now," Daniel muttered as he stomped back to the desk, automatically brushing his fingers about the frame of Sha're's photo. She might not be here, but Daniel certainly kept her memory alive, Sam realised.
Sam reversed away from the desk so that his 'colleague' could reach the keyboard and thought hard. He still couldn't see a way out of this mess and was he running out of ideas. Apart from the paper no one was going to find any evidence, but from what he could tell the guys in charge of this place weren't going to let that stand in the way of a minor manhunt. It was a security breach after all, so he might be better off letting the Marines go over the place with a fine-toothed comb and standing back from the action. That was what a Colonel would do, wasn't it? He wasn't sure. All he knew was that if he stayed in here any longer he was might give them more to go on, and he was in enough trouble as it was.
"I can't see that any files have been opened from this terminal while I was out or asleep, Jack," Daniel commented disappointedly. He looked toward the man he thought was his Colonel and shook his head. "Not unless they know more about computers than I do – IT would be able to check it more thoroughly though.
Sam nodded sympathetically. "Can you tell if anything's missing yet?"
"I haven't searched the whole place yet, obviously, but at a glance there's nothing out of place at all."
"Maybe we should bring in the big guns after all, Danny. Someone's been here, and it's going to take another kind of expert to find out who," Sam pointed out, hoping that there wasn't one within a few hundred miles. "Archaeology is one thing, forensics is another, and neither of us looks like Starsky & Hutch."
"They were on TV, Jack."
Daniel sounded reluctant, and Sam could understand why. An investigation team would take forever to make their way through this office, and he wouldn't be able to take a shred of work with him other than what was on the base's servers. No books, no notes, no nothing. It would be one hell of an inconvenience, and Sam hated the idea of putting a fellow scientist through that sort of disruption.
"My point exactly! Our only experience of police work is from TV, so we'd better let them get on with it. Besides, it's procedure."
The other man sighed heavily. "Y'know for a minute there I thought you were on my side for once." His face became hard and he looked away. "But no, Jack O'Neill always goes back to his beloved procedure. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here, following rules and regulations all the time. Tenure wouldn't be this... this... restrictive!"
"Hold up there, Danny," Sam soothed quickly. He'd obviously put a step wrong there, yet again. "It's a pain, I know it is, but do you really want someone wandering around out there with some of your research? With proof that the Stargate exists? Not to mention aliens, because that in itself would vindicate the National Inquirer overnight..." he ended, trying to catch Daniel's eye.
"Yeh yeh, national security..." Daniel muttered. "Don't worry, I've heard it all before. I'll dial the Major Castleman right now, may as well get it over with."
Within moments a security team had arrived, saluting Sam on their way in. So much for downgrading the threat, he lamented. Teal'c returned with them looking a lot happier once they got to work, and there was also had a geneticist from one of the labs. Apparently she doubled as a forensic investigator and did a lot of the infirmary's blood tests, having worked with a CSI team sometime in her professional past.
Just my luck, thought Sam, watching her direct the Marines quickly and efficiently. I really hope she doesn't find anything.
"Dr Jackson?" Major Castleman demanded. "Is this the sheet of paper you mentioned?" He was holding it up, his hands gloved. Daniel nodded. "Thank you sir," the Marine officer continued brusquely as he placed it carefully into an evidence bag. "We'll be taking it away for evidence. Can you tell me who has touched it that you know of?"
"That'd be Jack, Teal'c and myself, though we all held it pretty much by the edges," Daniel replied. He seemed resigned to the fact that he was going to be expelled from his own little corner of the world for now. "The other people you might find in this room are Captain Carter, Jane Fleischmann – the cleaner – and of course other anthropological staff like Drs Rothman and Balinsky. I suppose you want us to give samples?"
"No sir, that won't be necessary. We'll be running any data through our records to eliminate the fingerprints we know, although that may not be enough to clear everyone of suspicion." The Major from Daniel to Sam and back again. "And neither of you saw anything unusual this morning, Dr Jackson, sir?"
"Me? No nothing at all," Sam assured him. Nothing other than a fuzzy hologram of a man from the future that is...
"Me neither, Major, unless you count Jack here in a wheelchair."
Major Castleman, like any good Marine, showed no sign of having a sense of humour. "I'm afraid that I will have to ask you to leave now. We'll contact you if we need any further assistance, or if we find anything. Where will you be?"
"Oh... well I'll probably be in Captain Carter's lab, Major, or maybe the library. Or Colonel O'Neill's office." Daniel faltered. "Don't... don't touch or move anything you don't have to, ok?" Major Castleman's expression didn't change. "Ok then, just don't break anything. Jack?"
Sam clapped Daniel on the back in sympathy. "Don't worry champ, it'll all be over soon." I wish... he added mentally. "Maybe seeing 'Return of the Jedi' later on will take your mind off it."
"We're going out tonight? I thought we were all meeting up for dinner?" Daniel looked confused.
"O'Neill purchased tickets some days ago and forgot, DanielJackson," Teal'c announced, rejoining them after being asked politely to stop interrogating the Marines about their investigation techniques. "It would appear that O'Malleys would be an ideal location for our evening meal."
Sam nodded dumbly. Whatever they said, it would follow a far better pattern than if he came up with one himself.
"Oh," Daniel blinked. "Well it sounds ok I guess – it's not like I can carry on working in here like I would normally, and Sam's been ordered to go home tonight... but will General Hammond still be ok with, um, 'Murray' here going out when we've had a potential security breach?"
Both Daniel and Teal'c looked askance at Sam, who suddenly twigged that 'Murray' must mean Teal'c. A strange choice of name, but better than using his real name in public he supposed.
"I'll, um... I'll check with him," Sam offered. "We deserve an outing though, don't you think?" The other two shrugged. "It's a date then. Where are you headed now, Daniel?"
"To Sam's lab, I think – I should be able to call up most of my files on her computer and carrying translating that weird phrase over there. It's 3 o'clock now so her next report is due to General Hammond in a couple of hours, it'd be nice to have something new to report," Daniel said. "Actually would you mind coming with me, Teal'c? We found this strange artefact on P3X-970 and neither Sam nor I can figure out what it's for. It belonged to a Goa'uld named Hemuset – do you know of her?"
"Only a little, DanielJackson, however I would be pleased to assist you in any way," Teal'c bowed slightly. "O'Neill, would you mind continuing with the lesson plan alone for a short while?"
"Oh! Sorry Jack!" Daniel apologised. "I completely forgot that you guys were heading to the Alpha site. And that's tomorrow morning isn't it? But –"
"Don't sweat it, Danny," Sam had to laugh. He was being handed a chance at isolation – however short-lived – on a plate, and there was no way that he was going to give that up. After the last half-hour that was a gift from the gods as far as he was concerned. Maybe he'd have a chance to write his will before being thrown in the brig, or whatever the Air Force equivalent was. "I'll be fine. Plus the best-laid plans are always wasted so we'll probably end up ripping the curriculum to shreds within an hour. All I really need to do is come up with some good shock tactics, whether it's from reports or practical exercises against Teal'c the nasty Jaffa."
Teal'c the nasty Jaffa raised an eyebrow, while Daniel smothered a grin.
"So," Sam ploughed on, avoiding Teal'c's stoic gaze – he really wished he could read that guy. "We've lost enough time already this afternoon, so it's time to get back to work people. Move out!"
"Do you want a hand to your office, Jack?" Daniel asked, ever helpful.
"Nope, just an open door if you would be so kind. See you in my office at half five?" Both nodded. "Don't forget to tell Carter as well, ok? See you soon, Teal'c, just whenever you're ready."
Out the door he rolled, praying for all that he was worth that God, time, fate or whatever would get him out of this mess. If Al or Gooshie managed to give him some pointers while they were above ground tonight he might last a bit longer, but unless he could complete his mission – whatever the hell that was – by tomorrow morning he had a feeling that he could be in even worse trouble. After all, Ziggy was designed to project neurological holograms through time and space on Earth – the Alpha site was on a completely different planet.
NB. No there will not be any crossover with CSI... it was just a useful phrase, nothing more :)