Disclaimer: The little voices talk to me, but they talked to someone else first. Traitors...
Reviewers: Thanks loads! You all be stars! A savoury treat for you today: shepherds pie, yum yum...
P.S. The weird food-allergy pizza below is real, a colleague of mine used to eat it. Same goes for the 'why bother' coffee.
September 25th 1998 – Project Quantum Leap
Al's POVAdmiral Albert Calavicci looked at his watch and groaned. Senator Kinsey had left a full hour ago and Ziggy was still insisting that Jack be left alone. She wouldn't even let him speak to him, let alone allow him through the Waiting Room door. Al found this extremely frustrating - he could understand that Jack had reopened some old wounds on their behalf, and he was immensely grateful for it, but a deal was a deal and Sam was still out there. Time was wasting.
He looked at his watch and groaned again. It was nearly 6 o'clock! Ziggy had let the ancillary staff go at 1700 hours, after he'd made an announcement to say that the security drill was finally over and thanking them for their cooperation, but the day was nowhere near finished for he and Gooshie. Even Tina was keeping herself busy after-hours, having decided to leave the base in search of pizza for them all. She said she wanted to get away from that 'horrible man' for a while, but then asked to borrow his car because it was faster. Women! Lord help her if she crashed or pressed one of the whizzy 'experimental' buttons she was always asking about...
"Hey Ziggy," Al called out suddenly, struck by another thought. "Did you ever hear back from Dr Beeks?"
"I am afraid not, Admiral – however our earlier request for her attendance remains in place."
Dr Verbeena Beeks acted as the Project's psychiatrist, interviewing every Leapee for her own research (as well as Ziggy's records) and giving the team advice when they had a problem with a Leapee – or occasionally Sam – but she'd been working at some other complex today. This was normal enough: it was handy having her around, but Sam's Leaps could be long as well as short, most of the Leapees thought they were dreaming, and there could be gaps of several days when the Waiting Room was completely empty. With the Appropriations Committee gnashing at their heels, it hadn't been worth the expense of keeping her Stallions Gate full-time, but today's hostage situation had been an extreme example of how this could backfire. As usual she'd been notified last night when Jack had appeared, but she'd been so tightly booked that Tina and Gooshie's emergency signal this morning had taken a back seat to a prior emergency elsewhere. She'd apparently recommended a colleague named Mackenzie in case they got desperate, but that would have meant indoctrinating someone else into Project Quantum Leap – which only Al himself could authorise – and he had been otherwise engaged.
Al appreciated the effort, and was glad that the major crisis had cleared up even without Dr Beeks' help, but now he realised that their next challenge could be a repeat what had set Jack off in the first place: extracting classified information that would enable them to find, and help, Sam. He doubted that the Colonel would react violently, as he had before he'd accepted the situation, but Al knew that Jack would have been taught not to give away anything from day one of his military career. It was tough training to break, especially after nearly 30 years of service. Not only that, but Jack was now having something of a personal crisis – one that was directly related to a request made by Ziggy herself. Perhaps that explained why she was so insistent that he be left alone.
Al looked toward Gooshie and saw him working feverishly, his keyboard clattering like a high-speed train.
"What are you up to Goosh?"
The programmer's fingers didn't miss a beat as he answered. "Reading up on those clues that Sam managed to give me in the Imaging Chamber."
"I hate to break it to you but you're typing like a maniac, and that's not reading."
"That would be correct, Al," Gooshie replied distantly, his eyes never leaving his screen. "I'm searching for more information on Dr Daniel Jackson, who appears to have fallen off the Earth around the same time as Colonel O'Neill was reinstated in the USAF the first time, and who mysteriously reappears around the same time of Colonel O'Neill's second reinstatement."
"Is there any other connection?" Al asked, interested now.
"He's listed as a civilian consultant to the USAF, and works at Cheyenne Mountain."
"Really? And what's his speciality – weapons?"
"Archaeology and linguistics."
Al stood straight and blinked rapidly, all thoughts of Jack's mental health vanishing in an instant. Gooshie was still clattering away, oblivious to his superior's confusion.
"Did you say archaeology?" He questioned eventually, certain that he can't have heard right.
"And linguistics."
"Uh-huh?" Ok, so he had heard right. "And what does this have to do with Jack O'Neill? Other than presumably working with him?"
"This is what I'm trying to find out, Al," Gooshie replied impatiently. "Like I said – it was as if he fell off the planet a couple of years ago, then reappeared a year or so later and is apparently now working for the Air Force."
Al laughed nervously, a shiver racing up his spine. "Nobody vanishes Gooshie – you should know that by now! Tell him, Ziggy!"
"Dr Fisichella is correct, Admiral," Ziggy chided him, sounding exactly like his third ex-wife when she had one over him. "Dr Jackson did effectively disappear from academia in early 1996 and reappeared as an Air Force consultant in 1997. There is also no record of his residence nor any form of employment during this period."
"There has to be something – come on!" Al protested. "Taxes? Credit cards? Library membership? We managed to track Jack better than that, and he was black ops – although I guess he was employed by the same people all the way through..."
"There's nothing Al, trust me – Ziggy's checked them all. Even his flat was rented out, and there's no record of him going on a dig someplace remote," Gooshie replied, finally turning around in his chair. "Come take a look at this."
Al obliged by walking over to Gooshie's terminal and taking a seat. "Ok, what do you have?"
Gooshie indicated his monitor, which had numerous windows open. "Here's the first thing – it's from an old University of Chicago website. Dr Jackson seems to have been quite the rising star around this time, with a couple of PhDs, short-term tenure at a prestigious university and even his own research assistants – pretty good for a 30 year old!"
"Yeh – a regular little Beckett..." Al mumbled, staring at the black-and-white photo. "So how old is this page?"
"Last updated 7th June 1994," Gooshie's finger traced the line at the bottom of the page. "Apparently he used to be a selling point for the university's archaeology department, who showcase some of their top staff and alumni to attract new students."
"There's nothing unusual in that, Gooshie. What's your point?"
"He's not on the current version of this website – this is an old page that was never deleted, but it's no longer linked in," the programmer explained. "I know – maybe he reached his sell-by date, but then I found this."
Gooshie maximised a second page and sat back in his chair, gesturing that Al should draw closer.
"'Golden Goose of Archaeology'... Last week Dr Daniel Jackson, once considered a visionary young scientist, was the astonishing architect of his own demise... Dr Jackson... yadda yadda yadda... cross-pollination of ancient cultures... what does that mean when it's at home? ... pyramids as landing platforms for UFOs?" Al turned to look at his friend. "What the?"
"That's what I thought, Al – so I kept looking," Gooshie replied, his bushy hair adding to the effect of his wild-eyed expression. "There's more of the same – basically he had a theory that ancient cultures like the Egyptians and Mayans were linked somehow, despite the distance and difference in time periods. He also suggested a link with extra-terrestrials."
The Admiral rolled his eyes. "Oh jeez..."
"This Dr Jackson was literally laughed out of academia," Gooshie continued, his tone sympathetic. "– and he hasn't published a single paper since. That doesn't explain how he vanished or why he's working for the Air Force though."
Al scratched his chin. This was weird. "Ok, you're a civilian consultant to the Navy, right?"
Gooshie nodded. "Yes, but I do still occasionally contribute to academic papers – you know that, since you sign it off. The same goes for Tina and even Donna. Sam was the same when he worked on the Star Bright project, it's one of those annoying facets of military employment –"
"I know, I know," Al interrupted, knowing that he was going to head this ongoing complaint before it reached normal proportions. "We give you the money to do your research and develop all the hi-tech gadgets you can think of, but we put up barriers of secrecy between you and the rest of the scientific community due to all our rules and regulations that go against the very ethos of discovery." He held up his hands in defeat, the words having tumbled out in a well-practised litany of apology. "I've heard it all before and you know I can't do anything about it. But why would Dr Jackson here be any different?"
"I don't know Al, maybe they're working on something even more classified than us?"
"Pull the other one, Gooshie – more classified than time travel?" Al scoffed. "More likely he doesn't get much worth talking about down there. We'll see." He grinned, remembering a different photo he'd caught a glance of earlier. "And what can you tell me about the beautiful Samantha Carter?"
Gooshie rolled his eyes, probably thinking yet again that Al didn't deserve Tina. Al himself took note of it and tried to forget their brief affair – he loved Tina, he really did, but they both had something of a commitment problem... and he'd never, ever understand why she'd picked the short guy with the bad breath...
"PhD in Astrophysics, career military. Came top in everything at the Academy and won plenty of awards," the other man replied with a smile that said 'way out of your league'. "Most of what we can access shows that most of her service history has been research-based, but she has been on active duty before – she flew F16s in the Gulf War."
"Another little Beckett then," Al smiled condescendingly. She was blonde and gorgeous, and she certainly wouldn't look twice at Halitosis Man either. "But at least she can actually fly. Any Jackson-like disappearances?"
"No, far from it – it looks as though she's been too much in demand for anything like that," Gooshie said flatly. "She's been promoted in her turn – rank of Captain, could be a Major as early as next year. Her current assignment is of course Cheyenne Mountain, deep space telemetry – just like Colonel O'Neill."
"Yeh, but it's a little more plausible for a scientist." Al shot Gooshie a sideways glance. "I still don't see how that could work from 28 floors below a mountain."
Gooshie shrugged. "Maybe they're tapped into several observatories, or one that's in space – I don't know. They could simply be developing new methods."
"Riiiiight... an ex-black ops Colonel, an astrophysicist and an archaeologist – not to mention a heck of a lot of weapons and a high-level emergency room – all deep underground. It doesn't sound like deep space telemetry to me, Gooshie." He tapped the desk rapidly and impatiently. "What about the other two words – stargate and... naquadah?"
"Nada. Not even a peep on Ziggy's systems, let alone the internet."
Sighing, Al turned his seat away from the monitor and pushed a hand through his thinning hair. This was a mystery all right, and he'd come right back to square one – Sam was out in Cheyenne Mountain somewhere, and he might die in a few days if they couldn't fix things and get Jack back in his own time before that happened... And the only way they were going to be able to piece this all together was to talk to Jack.
"Ziggy!"
"Yes, Admiral."
Oooh, she was all sweetness and light now. That was always subject to change of course.
"How far away is my car?"
"Dr Martinez-O'Farrell is approximately 15 minutes away."
"In my car?"
"Yes, Admiral."
"Good. Just checking. Um... do you think Jack would like to join us for food? She'll have enough for him, but I'd hate to see the poor guy eating in there alone."
"Do you not think that this decision should be up to Jack, Admiral?" Ziggy asked in return, clearly reading between the lines to see that Al was getting impatient.
Then again, at least she didn't say no, Al pointed out to himself. He ignored the amused shaking of Gooshie's head – that man allowed himself to be bossed around by a computer, whereas at least he put up some token resistance now and then.
"Well would you let me go in there and ask him?"
"I can convey your request to him for you."
"Ziggy, I'd really appreciate it if you'd let me go in there and talk to him. I promise not to prod or poke him, just to ask him if he'd like to join us for pizza," Al paused. "He can't stay in there forever."
The disembodied voice was silent for a couple of moments. "Very well, Admiral – however I must warn you to tread lightly."
"Why, has he been throwing things?" Gooshie asked, worriedly. He buried himself in his computers far too well to deal with real life, Al decided.
"No he has not, however I do not believe that Colonel O'Neill is 'all there', as Dr Martinez-O'Farrell would say." Even a computer could sound worried, it seemed.
Al stood up with a puff – no one else was going to step forward for the job, and Ziggy sounded like she wanted to molly-coddle the man. He was a Colonel, damn it! And if he'd managed to crawl out of the badlands once, he could do it again – the sooner the better.
He walked toward the Waiting Room door and paused a moment, gathering his thoughts, then after one last glance in the direction of the Control Room he pressed the switch and stepped inside.
"Hey Al." Jack's voice was flat, as was his body language – sat on the end of the bed, head hung, shoulders sagging, eyes closed – but Al thought he detected an undercurrent of anger. That wasn't bad – he knew how to deal with anger... self-pity was a hell of a lot harder. At least he'd changed out of the leotard though. "Can't you just leave a guy in peace for a while longer?"
Hmph. "'Fraid not, Jack. We need you out there."
"Yup. Use me and abuse me. That's the way it goes, eh?"
"That's crap and you know it, Colonel," Al near-yelled, his impatience suddenly bursting its dam. He didn't have time for misery-guts here to stop feeling sorry for himself.
Jack's head snapped round towards him, bloodshot eyes now wide open and glaring in a very effective statement of his anger. "You want me to pull myself together?"
"That's right!"
"Well you can rot in hell!"
"Do you want to stay in here forever?"
"Does it really matter?"
"Damned right it does – a good man is going to die in your place if you don't stop acting like a child!"
Oh boy... that was the wrong phrase to use. He'd been impatient, and he'd blown it. When he'd entered, Jack had been quiet and sombre in his grief – now the word 'child' had brought it all back to less manageable levels. Yelling only worked when it was reciprocated, or at least that was Al's experience of it, and the look in Jack's eyes was now stubborn and defiant – but not angry. That was one bad thing about the military – they taught you how to fight and how to hide, but never how to let it all out. Then again, Al realised, he'd also lost people he'd loved... more than once on occasion... and he'd gotten through it, somehow.
Al crossed over to one side of the bed and sat down, his back at right angles to Jack's. What was it that Dr Beeks always said? Never treat a patient like a kid or an idiot: treat them like an equal. He sighed, closed his eyes to focus, then tried a different tack.
"Jack, I know that you probably don't want to hear this – but I think I have to say something."
The other man didn't reply, but then Al hadn't really expected him to.
"Not so long ago, Sam was in a position to help his own family. He actually Leaped into himself at one point, if you can believe that – we had a boy genius scuttling round the place, poking everything, it was a nightmare," Al made a face. "Anyway, he succeeded and we were all very glad for him. Then there was another Leap where he was supposed to be doing one thing but I really – and I mean really really – wanted him to do something completely different." He sighed, wistful memories rising up in his mind. "I wanted him to visit my wife, Beth."
Al fell silent for a moment, and prayed that Jack was listening. He'd lost a wife too, also due to a divorce that wouldn't have happened without some external trauma, which made this story a little more relevant to the current situation than his other great loss – his sister Trudie.
"I told you before that I was MIA in Vietnam for a few years, right? And that Beth thought I was dead and remarried? I had a very, very hard time coping with that – and in fact that's probably why I have so much trouble with women even now."
"You don't have to tell me this, Al," Jack pointed out quietly, earning a concealed grin of victory from the Admiral. Maybe this was going to work after all. Point one for Verbeena.
"Yeh, yeh... I know, but I want to. I think it might help," Al asserted in a similar tone of voice. "Y'see, it always hurt that Beth gave up on me – anyone else but her, and I'd have been fine – so when there was this slight chance that Sam could visit her and tell her that I would come home, eventually, I... I really got my nose out of joint because he didn't. He stuck to his mission, and Beth still gave up on me. What I had to do was accept that things happen for a reason, and while Sam fixes some of them when they go wrong he also doesn't have a choice over where he Leaps."
Al heard Jack took a deep breath and held his own, hoping for another response. He glanced at his watch again, frowning at the realisation that it was now just after 1800.
"So Al, what are you saying? That I should just run with the knocks, because that's just the way life is?"
A reply!! An actual reply! And one that tried to bite – even better...
"Yes and no, Jack, yes and no," Al admitted partially. "Because Sam's also not done yet. We want him home, but something else doesn't – and there are a lot of wrongs out there that still need to be righted."
The sarcastic laugh from the other man was expected. "Right, so now you're trying to tell me that your time-travelling friend could be back at some other time to help... to stop Charlie from dying instead of me? Yeh right! Lightening never strikes twice, and I would never be that damned lucky."
"Now who told you that cock-and-bull story, Jack?" Al tried hard to keep his voice free and easy, showing none of the tension that was riling him up inside. "It's happened before and it can happen again – even with Sam. He Leaped into a Downs kid named Jimmy twice already." Ok so the second Leap was due to Alia and her evil sidekick Zoey... but O'Neill didn't need to know that.
"Hmph."
Al screwed his fists up in frustration. Was that all the response he was going to get? Maybe he should have left this to Dr Beeks... But Sam was still out there, and Lord only knew what was happening to him!
"Jack?"
Silence.
"Would you ever intentionally leave a man behind?"
Silence. But it felt like someone had shifted on the bed and it wasn't Al.
"Because it really sucks. You know the score, you've been there. Not knowing where you are, what you're doing there, how the hell you're going to get out... it sucks."
More silence. Great, Al thought, I really am back to square one – but this time he's not even going to react. I've dug us all into an even larger hole than we were already in!
He decided that it was time to leave before he made things even worse and stepped off the bed as gently as possible. The expert would be here in the morning, and she'd sort Jack out in no time... after tearing a few new strips off his own back...
Al pressed the door switch lightly and turned for one last glance at Jack before he left the room – he hadn't moved. He stepped outside the door and caught a whiff of pizza, his stomach growling involuntarily. Well at least that meant Tina and his car were all right.
He made as if to close the door again when Jack's voice stopped him.
"You should have said."
Spinning back to stick his head round the door, Al couldn't believe his ears. What should he have said? What shouldn't he have said? Please please please let this be a good sign!
"Erm, what should I have said Jack?" He asked, blinking when he saw the other man not only speaking, but approaching the door. Jack wasn't smiling, but at least he wasn't a statue any more.
"That you got pizza."
15 minutes and three pizzas later, the four people in the Control Room realised how hungry they'd been all day – but the meal had been quiet, even for those as intent on their bellies as these for.
"I'm sorry guys," Jack piped up eventually, having swiped the last slice of BBQ Meatfeast.
From the way Jack had attacked that particular pizza, Al had gathered that it was a favourite, so he and the others had left him to it. Tina and he were sharing a Vegerama (with pepperoni – Tina's choice) and a Jalapeno Hotpot (Al's), while Gooshie was eating his usual. This was a pizza that Al always called 'seafood cardboard' – a thin-crust base with prawns, ground pepper, lemon juice... and nothing else. No cheese, no tomato, no sauce of any kind. Even Jack had been taken aback when he saw it, asking if they were going to complain, but the little man didn't just have bad breath – he had the food allergies from hell. He even drag 'soy decaf latte' coffee, which had been dubbed the 'why bother?' coffee by everyone else.
"Sorry for what?" Al asked when it became apparent that no one else would.
"The lockdown, being an ass, you know... being myself," The Colonel shrugged apologetically, if that were possible, and glanced around the table with a wry grin. "Good pizza by the way."
"Luigi's, San Antonio," Tina offered. Maybe she'd gotten over her Jack-phobia. "In case you're ever in the area again."
"Mm-hm," Jack answered, his tone masking by more chewing. "Thanks."
Silence fell over the Control Room yet again, interrupted only by Ziggy's flashing monitors and the pizza-chomping. Al knew that Ziggy would have preferred them to use the break room, but then she had imposed the rule that Jack shouldn't leave the Control Room herself – and Al still thought it was a good idea. He hadn't done everything they needed him to do yet, but he'd learnt his lessons and wasn't about to rush things a second time. Thankfully the rest of the crew seemed to be following his lead.
"So what do you know?" Jack asked a few minutes later, throwing his last crust back into the box.
"About what?" Al replied, hoping that he didn't sound too hopeful.
Jack's face wore a sarcastic expression. "About Barney the dinosaur, what do you think?" He shook his head. "About me, dummy. About where I work. About what your man Sam is doing there."
"Oh," Al said, not sure if he was going to put another foot wrong. He still held his last slice of pizza, which gave him an idea. "Ziggy?" Yeh, she could do it – a man couldn't blame a computer for being frank and generally blasé could he? Al hoped not...
"Of course, Admiral. If you would like to keep that jalapeno away from my sensors, I will fill Colonel O'Neill in."
Al shared a look with Jack, who shrugged nonchalantly – though Al had a feeling that he was tense at the thought of finding out just what a super-intelligent computer could find out about him and his work. That was understandable, but he still hoped that the other man wouldn't flip his lid.
"Hit me with all you've got Z."
Ziggy began with her recitation of Jack's personal history, education and career, which he listened to without apparent interest until she reached the present day.
"We have meagre resources regarding your current employment, Colonel. The USAF personnel database lists you as second-in-command of a research facility within the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, studying deep space telemetry 28 floors below ground, however requisition logs show an extremely well stocked infirmary on that level, as well as extensive weaponry. This does not 'make sense', as Admiral Calavicci describes it."
Al caught a small smile on Jack's face. "That's not bad going – anything else?"
"Yes, Colonel." Ziggy herself, of course, was almost casual in her presentation of their hard-won information. Al figured that she was probably annoyed that she hadn't found out more, but then she'd said herself that hacking into the Cheyenne Mountain mainframe would be a bad idea. "Dr Fisichella made an attempt to visit Dr Beckett as a hologram, however there was a great deal of interference. Four key phrases were obtained however, and we have been researching them."
"Uh-huh?"
"Stargate. Dr Daniel Jackson. Samantha Carter. Naquadah."
Whatever those words meant to Jack, Al wasn't sure – but his recognition was pretty obvious. Al got the feeling that this was the equivalent of someone sticking his name with Sam's and Gooshie's, plus the quantum leap accelerator and maybe 'parallel hybrid computer'. Maybe they were about to get some answers.
"We have established that Dr Jackson is a specialist in archaeology and linguistics," Ziggy continued. "– who now works for the Air Force in a consulting capacity. Background regarding his theories published up to and including 1996 have also been discovered, however little else is available – particularly regarding his whereabouts from early 1996 until early 1997."
Jack coughed. Al couldn't tell whether this was in surprise or relief. "Ok..."
"Samantha Carter is a Captain in the US Air Force and holds a doctorate in Astrophysics. Her presence within a deep space telemetry project would not be considered anomalous were it not for the association with yourself and Dr Jackson, neither of whom would otherwise appear to be normal choices for such an operation."
The Colonel was silent for a moment, looking at the screen showing Capt. Carter's photo before moving his gaze around the table. All eyes were on him.
When the silence dragged on, Al took a deep breath and plunged in. "Jack – you know what we know now, and it's not enough. Admittedly I haven't tried to reach Sam myself yet, and that would probably work a little better than it did with Gooshie, but we'd still be clueless. Ziggy needs information before she can plot a way for Sam to Leap, but we can't squeeze anything else out of our normal sources. This is too close to the present day, it's too classified... and I think you know that."
Jack snorted softly. "Yeh – and I think you've done pretty well with what you've got. Did you try getting into our computer systems?"
His near-smirk said that he assumed that they had – and that they had failed. Al decided to let Gooshie field that one.
"No, we didn't," the little man replied, satisfaction in his voice. "Not yet. Ziggy is certain that she could gain access, but is less sure that she'd be undetected. We may still try, if necessary."
"Sweet." The word's meaning didn't match his tone - evidently Jack wasn't best pleased with that news. "Good luck if you try."
"Can you help us?" This was from Tina, and Al shot her an irritated look. "What? We have to ask sometime, don't we?"
Al shook his head, imagining it all falling down around his ears, yet again, with Sam out in some godforsaken secret lab swimming for dear life...
"I guess so."
...and succeeding?
"Huh?" The look on his face must have been hilarious, because everyone laughed – even Gooshie. "I mean, um, you will?"
"Yeh..." Jack nodded. "But only as much as I have to. And I won't give you any passwords, ok Ziggy? Just the information I can remember, though I can't say that it will always make sense – that's Carter's field."
"Right," Al accepted, praying that it would be enough. "Fire away."
To his surprise, Jack coughed again and looked a little sheepish.
"What's the matter? Would you like some water?" That was Tina again, trying to be helpful presumably.
"Um, no. I... I, erm, just never had to tell anyone this before – not without approval, or without some sort of primer material. It's a bit... weird."
"We can take it, Jack – just look where we work," Al commented sarcastically. "If you can believe this, you can believe anything."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course! Come on, get on with it will you?"
"Ok, you asked for it," Jack sighed. "You remember that mummy you told me about?"
"Hey, you don't have to go bringing him into this – and besides these guys don't know anything about it..." Al mumbled, feeling embarrassed and betrayed, ignoring the looks he was getting from Tina and Gooshie.
"He has everything to do with this, Al," Jack continued, undeterred. "Al saw a mummy come alive during some Leap when Sam was what? An archaeologist?" Gooshie nodded, evidently remembering the time. "Ok, well he was... um... an alien."
"A what?!" Al laughed, glad to steer the attention away from himself and praying that Jack was joking. He really didn't want to think about the consequences if this was the truth. "That was a mummy for crying out loud, he'd been buried for centuries – you have got to be kidding me."
Jack looked pissed now. "He was an alien, a Gould. Evil creatures who really do body snatch, in a way. They're parasites, snakes, that attach themselves to your brain stem and take over." Al was incredulous, and so were the others – he could tell. So could Jack, who looked mad now. "Look, you wanted me to believe in time travel right? I'm asking you to believe that aliens are out there and some of them really are trying to take the Earth back."
"Take the Earth back?" Gooshie asked, eyes wide.
"Yes back... They like to pose as gods, and most of them have names like Ra and Osiris – like the ones in the old stories," Jack sounded impatient himself now. "Their weapons and technology are enough to convince most planets to worship them, or at least fear them, especially when they start using a ribbon device like your friend the mummy, Al. And I can tell you from personal experience that it hurts like nothing else." He spread his hands. "You'll either believe me or you won't, but I am telling you the truth. The Gould used to harvest slaves from Earth, but 5000 years ago we kicked them off the planet."
"So your friend Dr Jackson was right?"
"Yes!" Jack stared Gooshie right in the eye, while Al struggled against what he believed was an impossible idea. "Yes, you said you'd researched Daniel's work – he lost his job for even suggesting it, but now he knows he was right and the poor guy can't tell anyone, because it's a matter of national security."
"So where was he for that year that he vanished, Jack," Al asked, finally coming up with a coherent question but unsure that he'd enjoy the answer.
"A planet called Abydos," Jack replied, his expression totally sincere. "Look, I know you're having trouble with this but you're going to have to believe me. That was the suicide mission they needed me for: going to another planet to see what was there. We took Daniel because the technology had hieroglyphics all over it, we found out about Ra and killed him, then came home – but Danny decided to stay."
"Ok, assuming you're telling the truth," Al couldn't admit the possibility just yet. What he needed was a cigar. "– how did you get to this planet? I've been to the moon and that was a loooong trip – I also know that it would take even longer to get to Mars, let alone a planet near a different star."
"The million dollar question, and you already know the word: Stargate. It's a device made by a race of aliens called the, um... Ancients. Network of big metal circle thingies made of – you've guessed it – naquadah, their favourite metal. There're lots of them on all kinds of different planets, though a vast number of them are covered in trees which gets annoying after a while..." He caught himself. "I'm rambling like Daniel now, aren't I? Anyway, you dial up where you want to go and it creates a wormhole that looks like a giant puddle. Step through and you're there." Jack paused, taking in the looks around him. "I told you that this was Carter's specialty, not mine."
"And these Ancients are another bunch of aliens?" Al asked, clinging to the first point that he'd gotten stuck at in case the second washed him away someplace. Jack nodded. "So we have the Gould? And the Ancients?"
"Yes, though they actually evolved here on Earth..." Jack must have caught Al's extra-speedy confusion vibes because he caught himself and moved on. "– and there's the Asgard, like my buddy Thor. They're little grey men, like the ones at Roswell – I shouldn't say this but Area 51 is real, it's the Groom Lake Facility at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada."
"Uh... huh... any more?"
"Nox, Furlings, Tollans, others... A lot of them are just humans who got shifted around by the Gould. You don't need to know about all of them though, right?"
"...right..."
Spots were now swimming in front of Al's eyes, and Tina was clutching his hand tightly enough to make the joints crunch together – she probably thought the good Colonel had gone loopy again. He certainly appeared to believe what he was saying... and Ziggy wasn't contradicting a thing.
"Ziggy?!" Al was sad to hear that his voice had taken on a tone of panic.
"Yes, Admiral," she replied, calm as ever. It was at times like this that he wanted to ask whether she had an 'emotion' chip like Data on Star Trek. "If you wish to know whether I can corroborate Colonel O'Neill's claims now that we have further information, I am afraid that the answer is negative. The only thing that I can confirm is that the project on Level –28 of Cheyenne Mountain –"
"The SGC. Stargate Command," Jack interrupted.
"Thank you Colonel." So much for calm, she sounded a little irritated now – maybe because here was a nut she couldn't crack. "As I was saying, the SGC is a highly classified project that reaches to the highest levels."
Jack raised a hand like a kid in a classroom, presumably mindful of not annoying the supercomputer any further.
"Yeh, Jack?" Al asked, praying that he'd laugh and tell them it was all a big joke.
"Kinsey – our good friend Bob?" Jack waited, and Al eventually nodded. "Not that he'd admit it to you, but the President put a gagging order on him when he found out about the Stargate. He wanted to close us down, but the good old Commander in Chief agreed with General Hammond that this would be a bad idea – which was great because otherwise we'd all be space dust by now. That's a major reason why he can't stand me, my team, or my base."
A cough. "Sam."
Al turned to look at Gooshie, who looked strangely normal... though on the other hand, his normal was other people's weird. "Yes Goosh?" At least he himself didn't sound quite so panicked now – he hoped.
"Sam's there, Al – wherever there is. He's been there for 24 hours. If we can reach him, he'll be able to confirm or deny... this."
The programmer grinned weakly – and Al sighed with mixed relief (at the common sense of Gooshie's words) and despair (at the utter joy on Gooshie's eyes when Tina landed him a big sloppy kiss).
"Ok, let's do this thing," he announced, taking control of his project once again. "Jack, you stay here with the others while I go to the Imaging Chamber – hopefully he'll be easier to reach this time."
"I live off-base," Jack pointed out. "But then they've probably caught him out by now, so he might be in an isolation chamber while they decide whether or not I've been taken over by a Gould."
"Right," Al glared at Jack, taking out his anxiety on the Leapee. They were moving, but Jack's habit of pointing out potential disasters in a sarcastic-casual kind of way was definitely going to get on his nerves. "Well you'd better hope that that isn't the case Colonel, because it'll make all our lives that extra bit harder. We'll just lock in on Sam and hope that he's on the surface then. Ok Ziggy?"
"You have a go, Admiral."
Al took a last bite of pizza and stared at Jack, almost hoping that he'd see a flicker of laughter in his eyes – but he didn't.