Disclaimer: not mine, no money here – move along please…
A/N: Yay! Another chapter! One day I may even finish this story :)
Reviewers: Thank you all for your forgiveness! Treat of the day is a really nice bacon sarnie... I could kill for one right now… (spot the dieter).
September 21st, 1998 – P3X-984 (the Alpha site)Jack's POV
"Hello? Helloooooo? Come on guys, just say hi – anything."
Silence was the only response Jack received.
"Not even a game of rock, paper, scissors to pass the time? Deck of cards?"
Nothing.
"Some pie? I'm hungry…"
Nada. Baiting fellow humans wasn't nearly as much fun as baiting Jaffa.
"You guys suck, you know that?"
Lying back down on his pallet, Jack puffed his indignation and reflected on his inglorious situation. The Alpha site didn't really have a holding cell as such – it was more of a cage covered with an old tarpaulin – but it was certainly effective. There were guards outside, and being in the middle of the encampment would make life difficult if he tried to escape. That and everyone here knew everyone else by sight, and Colonel O'Neill wasn't exactly the least known face on this sparsely populated planet.
How had things come to this?
Ok, not how, because he'd pieced that together himself, but how? How did someone manage to fool his entire team – not to mention the rest of the SGC – for over a day? Apparently he, she or it had managed to gain a sprained ankle in the process, which should have been their first clue, but to be sucked in like that? It was bad, very bad – and made worse by the fact that none of them seemed to realise that the person they'd locked up was the real Jack O'Neill. Lord only knew where the impostor was now, or when – if! – they'd come round.
Not only that, but where the hell had he been for the last couple of days? Mars? Why couldn't he remember?
The sounds of the Alpha site swirled around and into Jack's tent. The wind in the trees seemed to be getting stronger, bringing in noises from all over the area – people walking, some marching, younger voices yelling. That must be Teal'c's training exercise, Jack decided – at least imprisonment had gotten him out of babysitting then. Overlying it all though was the distinctive sound of the Stargate dialling in, and troops manning the guns until an IDC was recognised.
Idly, Jack wondered why they bothered with P-90s when the fact was that any race that could bypass the iris – either here or on Earth – probably wouldn't be stopped by a few bullets. Made the campers feel better most likely.
The ka-whoosh was heard, and soon after the grating sound of a retracting iris – it was the SGC then, probably Janet come to torment him. With any luck she'd go see Dr Raste first, although on second thoughts that could be bad too. One petite doctor was bad enough, two was unimaginable. Or maybe it was Daniel and Carter come to ruffle his feathers and make him confess. For Carter, anything. Danny? He should be so lucky.
There was a rattle of safeties being taken off outside, and Jack realised he must be first on the visiting list. Peachy. For a moment he debated whether to stay lying down, as he would for your average, run-of-the-mill Goa'uld, but then decided that he may as well maintain a little dignity for his own people – even if they weren't exactly receptive to it right now. He rose to a stand-easy position and eyed up the fold in the canvas that denoted the entrance, doubting very much that they'd let him out any time soon.
Suddenly the tarp was drawn back across the top of his cage and bright light entered his eyes. After a few hours of green-filtered light it was a lot to take in, and Jack's eyes winced involuntarily, though he managed to stand his ground while his sight readjusted. A few blinks later, Dr Fraiser was before him – along with Dr Raste and four Marines.
"Door number one, then," he mumbled to himself, then waved to his visitors. "How's things, folks? Nice day ain't it?"
An amused twist of Janet's lips showed that he hadn't lost his touch just yet, but her eyes hardened soon afterwards. Ah, well – if it was that easy, getting out wouldn't be so much fun now would it?
"Good morning, sir," was all she offered as a table was hastily constructed outside the cage and equipment laid out in an orderly fashion.
Noting the fact that she'd called him sir, Jack withheld comment and instead took a look at Dr Fraiser's new toys. It was surprising to say the least.
"Uh, doctor – is that a lie detector?"
"Yes, it is."
"You do realise that I've had just a tiny bit of training in how to fool those things, right?"
The redhead smiled a little as she took a seat and got busy with a set of vials.
"Oh no you don't, not more needles, not today – she promised," Jack glared at Dr Raste accusingly. "'Sides, I don't remember anything so a truth serum won't do much good either."
"I believe I told you that there would be no more needles from me, Colonel," Dr Raste replied sweetly as she took a seat opposite Janet, where she would evidently monitor the machine itself. "And the preparation that we will be using today is a combination sedative."
"Like that's going to work? No memories, hello?" Jack paced in his cage, hands on his head in frustration. "Look if I knew what was going on I'd tell you, but there's someone loose out there who shouldn't be. Go find him and deal with me later – how's that?"
"I'm afraid we can't do that, Colonel," Janet replied quietly, testing a syringe as she did so. "Our orders are clear."
Jack winced involuntarily, but figured that if both doctors were still using his rank there must be some hope. "Let's get on with then…"
Nodding to a couple of the Marines, Janet indicated that the cage door should be opened. Weapons were trained on the prisoner as she entered to give him the shot, slapping his arm to find a vein and sliding that cold metal into his skin. It gave him the heebie-jeebies, as always.
Heebie-jeebies? Jack suddenly thought. I use some funny words, but that's not me… so where the hell did I get 'heebie-jeebies' from?
"Colonel?"
"Huh?" Oops, must have missed something there.
"Your other arm?" Dr Fraiser repeated, holding out the band that would monitor his blood pressure and feed it to the lie detector. It and certain other instruments had been fed through the cage bars – something to monitor pulse rate, something else he recognise as testing for sweat. Obviously she wasn't intending to stay inside while they carried out the interrogation, and two of the Marines were busy turning the old tarp into a more serviceable tent.
"Y'know it would be so much nicer if we could do this under a nice warm mountain," Jack commented, eyeing up the cloudy sky outside. "Or Jamaica. I hear it's great this time of year."
"Just take a seat, Colonel," was Janet's wry response as she left the cage, but he could hear the smile in her voice. Slowly but surely, he was getting there. Maybe.
Focussing on the chair, Jack forgot to account for the sound of the cage closing – not that he'd have to under normal circumstances, but the echoing sound through his head and the unconscious swaying of his body showed that whatever drug the SGC had laid its hands on was doing the trick. Hands out, he grasped the back of the chair and gently lowered himself in.
"Go 'head, Janet," he suggested mildly, blinking and shaking his head a little. It did nothing to relieve the increasing fuzziness of his brain though, and despite the drug-induced feeling of calm he recognised that this was not a normal state of mind. "Won't fight too much, I pr'mise."
Nodding to Dr Raste, Janet began the interview with a series of standard questions – name, date of birth, schools attended, service number etc. – gauging 'normal' levels before heading into the main body of what they needed to know. The answers were certainly correct, but Jack threw in a lot more detail than necessary – just to make sure she knew it was him. Of course the 'normal' levels were useless if he lied at every question, so Janet also held up a blue piece of card and asked him to tell her it is was red.
"Ok, so i's red, but I'll bet the lil wiggle stick on that doohickey didn' wiggle mush more than before eh?" Jack slurred apologetically. "Tha's trainin' tha' is. Can' turn it off, y'know. 'S jus' there."
He felt as if he were drunk, but it was obvious that his body recognised the effect of the drug. Jack was hoping that the sedative would loosen up whatever was blocking his memories though.
From the sigh in Dr Fraiser's voice, she also realised that the combination drug wasn't working as well as they'd hoped, but she pressed on regardless. He knew that she wasn't certified to hypnotise anyone, so whatever came of this interview would have to do for now.
"I'm going to have to ask you to concentrate a little harder now sir – think back to the last day or so," Janet suggested softly. "Think about the day you came back from P3X-970. What do you remember?"
Frowning, Jack played out the scene in his mind. " I 'member shouting at Danny to dial the Stargate, and me n' Sam covered him. I got five o' them, Sam got three. Danny musta sent the code through, and he was carrying the popcorn machine thing, so then he… he ran through the Gate, then Sam, and I followed… and… and…"
"And what, Colonel?"
"Tryin…" Jack put his hands to his temples and screwed his eyes up tight. "I dunno… i's fuzzy… real fuzzy…"
"His heart rate has gone up," Dr Raste's voice commented on the edge of his awareness.
Janet broke into his thoughts then. "Take a couple of deep breaths, Colonel. Open your eyes and try to relax."
He did as he was bid, fixing a wobbly gaze on his regular tormentor. "You try relaxing when you can' 'member the last couple days… lockered up by frien's in some freaky whi' room…"
"White room?" The doctor's surprise was evident to all. "Sir, you're in a tent. It's… uh… green."
Jack grimaced, suddenly uncertain of himself. Where was he getting this white room from? "Uh…"
"Think back to the white room, Colonel. What else do you remember about it?" Janet asked, a hint of anxiety in her voice. "Is there any furniture, anyone with you? How did you get there?"
Breathing deeply a couple more times, Jack tried to concentrate without concentrating too much. It was a difficult task because he was automatically compensating for the drug-induced haze – and while he knew that the haze might actually help him in this circumstance, getting it to work for him was harder than he'd hoped. Slowly an image formed, and he tried not to clutch at it. It was a tricky moment, wanting to remember but not wishing to chase the confused memory away.
"I… woke up in the whi' room… dunno how I go' ther'…"
"Woke up?"
"Well… guess so… I was on a bed… no' ver' comfortable though…"
There was a pause as he tried to expand his view.
"Was there anyone with you, Colonel?"
"Itchy n' Scratchy… 'member watching 'em… and… small guy… wier' clothes…"
There was a rustle of paper outside the cage.
"Uh, what was his name, Colonel?"
Jack stared at Janet as if she'd grown horns, though of course she hadn't. "Name?"
"Yes, his name. Do you remember it?"
He looked down at the muddy ground, clutching at the straws in his mind – it felt like grabbing air.
"No…"
The tent above them rustled in the wind, distracting Jack long enough for him to look upwards and see light flickering through the canvas, shadows of the tree leaves outside. It reminded him of something else.
"Ziggy."
"Sir?"
Jack brought his gaze back to the doctors beyond the cage. "Flashy lights… Ziggy."
"Is that the name of the man you saw?" Janet pressed.
"No," he replied, passing a hand across his eyes. "No… female voice… but… no' a woman…? Argh! Why? Why can' I remember?"
"Calm down sir, please. You're doing well, really."
The tone of Janet's voice wasn't quite as reassuring as the words, and Jack snickered to hear it. "No 'm not… useless…"
"Uh, Doctor Fraiser?" Dr Raste broke in.
"Yes?" Janet sounded irritated, while Jack quietly observed his bootlaces.
"The… uh… the batteries on the voice recorder have run out."
"Already?"
"We've had a little trouble with this before on this planet, something to do with local radiation – harmless to us, but –"
"Ok, ok – do you know where to find some more?"
"Yes –"
"Go get some then. Colonel, we'll be back in a moment." Janet paused, and Jack felt a light hand on his arm. "Sir?"
"Still 'ere…"
"Keep trying, sir. We'll be back shortly."
"Ok…"
Waving to the Marines, who naturally remained behind, Jack sat back in his chair and decided to let the muddle in his brain take him wherever it wanted to go. He was still mightily confused by the images he'd half-remembered, and they slipped out of his grasp almost as quickly as they came. Who was the man in the funny clothes? And who – or what – was Ziggy?
He tried to imagine a white room. He tried to imagine lying down in a white room. Maybe that would help, putting himself into a fuzzy place that he may have visited sometime… but after a while he drew the conclusion that all he was getting was a crick in the neck. Between the haziness and the 'lying down', Jack was getting very sleepy. So sleepy in fact, that he yawned.
Shaking himself, he looked out of the tent again. The patterns of light through the canvas continued all around him, and in his drugged state of mind it was almost hypnotic. He was finding it hard to keep his eyes open.
"Back yet?"
He heard someone shift position, their movements far sharper and surer than anything he was capable of right now.
"Uh, no… sir."
Jack kicked the ground in response, but his foot didn't want to play ball. It wasn't too surprising, given the sedative they'd administered, but the overall effect wasn't doing much for his self-esteem. Leaning backwards in his chair again, Jack pursed his lips and watched the play of light. As before it lulled him towards doziness, and without the barrage of questions to keep him alert Jack found himself falling towards a dreamless oblivion. Soon it was too hard to fight, and his eyelids shut of their own free will.
"Nigh' nigh'…"
He woke up again when a hand shook his shoulder roughly. One of his arms was attached to something (the blood pressure monitoring doohickey), but that still left the other arm free to grab the intruder's wrist and twist it backwards as he came to his feet, still wobbly, but feeling much better than he had.
"Release the doctor!" A rough male voice yelled, and more than one safety was released with a clatter.
Suddenly Jack realised whose arm he was twisting and jumped back with a shock, slowly letting her go as he did so. "Janet!"
"Glad to see you're awake, Colonel," she replied dryly, shaking her arm out. "Maybe we gave you too much sedative – or too little?"
"Bit of both?" Jack mumbled apologetically, putting a hand down on the back of the chair to steady himself. At least his reflexes were still ok, but the adrenaline obviously didn't extend to standing up. "Did I hurt you?"
The doctor patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, then turned to leave the cage again. "Nothing I can't recover from. Did you remember anything more while you were asleep?"
Sitting down with a bump, Jack crossed his arms and stretched his legs out while the Marines locked him in once more. "Remind me again where we were? It's all a bit fuzzy still."
"The drug seems to be wearing off though, isn't it?"
He nodded. "I don't think it was doing much good anyway."
"Agreed," Janet replied, turning to Dr Raste and receiving her concurrence also. "Meghna, could you please start the recorder up again?"
"Affirmative," the other doctor replied, pressing the appropriate button. "Interview with Colonel Jack O'Neill (presumed), part two. Drs Fraiser and Raste present."
After a nod from Dr Raste, Janet sat down and looked toward Jack. "Ok, Colonel. Do you remember anything more about the white room, the man in 'weird clothes', flashing lights or Ziggy?"
Jack opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again, searching his mind. What he found was… unexpected to say the least. "Oh."
Dr Fraiser cocked her head to one side. "Oh?"
"Yeh, oh." Jack frowned and stood up, then sat down again. He'd thought he was confused before, but this really took the biscuit. "I remember telling you about the white room, and Ziggy, and all that, but… how can I put this? There's nothing there any more."
"Nothing there?" Janet was incredulous.
"Yuh-huh – it's gone. Completely. Before there was an impression of, y'know, being in that place, even if it was fuzzy, but now there's nothing. It's like I was telling you about something I heard, not what I saw myself." Jack scrubbed his eyes with the free arm, then sat up very very straight. "This is freaking me out!"
"What is, Colonel?" Janet sounded worried now, and glanced at her colleague in concern.
Jack was muttering in his frustration. "Argh! This can't be real – it… doesn't make any sense… Janet, I think someone's been fiddling with my memories again."
"Again? You mean like Nem?" She referred to the Oannes who'd implanted false memories of Daniel's death into the three other members of SG1, just over a year ago now.
"Got it in one – I didn't remember anything, then I thought I did, and now I remember something completely different that makes no sense whatsoever!"
"Colonel – Jack – please, tell us what you remember," Janet stated calmly. "We can start from there, and work our way forward."
He looked up, his expression strained. "Tell you what I remember? I remember the whole of the last two days, but the memories from when we left Teaset's place to coming here do not add up!"
"Why not?"
"Because, Janet, my brain is now telling me that I spent the last day in a wheelchair. That my ankle was sprained so painfully that I couldn't stand up," Jack vented somewhat aggressively. "I've sprained my ankle before, and I know it doesn't heal this quickly. I mean look at this!" He stood up and hopped on the leg that his brain told him was seriously injured. "It doesn't fit!"
The two doctors looked on in amazement, and Jack nearly cringed under their intense scrutiny. If he hadn't sounded crazy before, he did now.
"Do you, uh, remember anything else… Colonel?" Janet asked after a moment, clearly as confused as he was – though maybe not for the same reasons.
Jack nodded wearily. "You'll probably find that I remember everything I'm 'supposed' to now." He mimicked the little quote signs with a sarcastic grin. "Doesn't change the fact that it's not real – it can't be real."
He stood up again and began pacing, sorting through his brand new memories, then looked up at the sky and made a growl of annoyance.
"Here's a good one – I even seem to remember watching Star Wars! Janet, I remember buying the tickets last week, but the images I get when I think about the movie, it's like one of those pirate movies where someone's been sat in the audience with a camcorder. Not me. I would've been watching the explosions and the pod race – whatever the hell that is – this guy was checking out the graphics!"
Suddenly he wobbled a little and sat down hard. The sedative wasn't completely gone from his system yet.
"Did anyone else come in here while we were away, Lieutenant?" Janet asked one of the Marines sharply.
"No ma'am, not even a leaf," was the disciplined reply.
"And we were only gone a few minutes anyway," she mumbled to herself. "How do the instruments look, Meghna?"
"Well his heart rate is elevated, as is blood pressure and sweat – but given the Colonel's, uh, emotional state that's to be expected," the other doctor replied. "I'm afraid I can't say much more than that, especially considering his training."
"Understood – but if he's telling the truth, he's right about the fact that none of this fits. Strange things happen around here, but I'm afraid of what this might mean," Janet replied softly. "I need to contact the General ASAP."
"Janet?" Jack asked, his expression clearly begging to know what she'd concluded.
She looked him up and down, seeming to weigh her options. "Sir, I'm relatively convinced that you are who you say you are based on the strength of the blood tests Dr Raste performed, your fingerprints and so on. Your interview responses are confusing to say the least –"
"You're telling me…"
"– but somewhat consistent with the possibility that you were replaced for a period of approximately 38 hours, specifically the period that you – or someone mimicking you – was at the SGC."
"And at my house," Jack added, glad that Dr Fraiser seemed to be on his side, but worried about the implications. "I don't 'remember' doing anything out of the ordinary last night… but then if the memories are fake –"
"We have no way of telling what the impostor did, sir," Janet finished his thought. "But if I can get the General to agree that you should come back to the SGC we can do an MRI and see if there's any underlying evidence that your memories have been modified."
"Great, it's prod your local Colonel week…" he muttered, then raised his hands in surrender as Janet glared at him. "Fine, just go do what you have to do. I'll cooperate. I'll even wear restraints if it gets me out of here more quickly, and that's a once in a lifetime offer!"
"As you wish, sir." Janet gathered up her papers, gesturing that the instruments and table should be packed away. "You can remove the armband now and pass it to Dr Raste."
Nodding, Jack peeled off the blood pressure doohickey whose name he would never see fit to memorise, and handed it through the bars to petite doctor number 2. "Is there anything else you want to ask me before you go?"
Janet paused, then lifted her head and regarded him carefully. "Actually, there is."
"Shoot."
"Do you remember anything about a note found in Daniel's office? A note that he didn't write?"
The appropriate mental image appeared immediately, surprising Jack with its clarity. "Uh, yeh – I remember the shit hitting the fan, to put it bluntly. Weird. So you think it was whoever was being me at the time?"
Dr Fraiser nodded. "I know the memories are most likely false, and I doubt that whoever implanted them left anything incriminating in there, but if there are any clues I'm sure that Major Castleman would be glad to hear them."
Jack's mind raced through the incident, but came up with nothing. "Sorry, Janet – like you said, it seems to have been edited. Though I don't think I would have taken quite so long to call security, if you know what I mean."
The doctor nodded and picked up the last of her things. "I shouldn't be more than a few minutes, sir. In the meantime I will have to request that you stay under guard."
"Fine, fine," he grumbled tokenly, though of course he understood the logic and protocol behind her decision. He had offered, after all. "And hey, Janet?"
"Yes sir?" she replied from the other end of the tent.
"You might want to get everyone at the SGC to parade in front of Major Castleman and his goon squad. I mean everyone – civilians included. The impostor could still be there, 'being' someone else, and if he is he'll have a limp."
"Agreed. I'll suggest that they begin right away."
Janet snapped him a salute as she left, which Jack returned gratefully. He might still be locked up, but headway was a wonderful thing.