Chapter 9: Into the Mountain
Jack's ride was waiting for him in the driveway when he came out of his house at 0700 the next morning. His driver was standing by the passenger side door. He snapped Jack a salute, that Jack returned smartly.
The airman handed Jack a manilla folder. "Captain Lewis sent this for you, Sir." He pulled the door open, and stood at attention beside it. It was well known that General O'Neill preferred to ride 'shotgun' when he wasn't driving himself.
"At ease, Airman," said Jack. "We may not be leaving right away. I'm expecting a couple of people to join us."
"Yes Sir!" The airman closed the door, and moved into a parade at-ease posture, only slightly less relaxed than standing at attention. He was from the Cheyenne Mountain motor pool, and not part of the SGC, and he was completely incapable of actually relaxing in the presence of a major general.
Jack wished that he could relax: slouch a bit, stick his hands in his pockets, maybe lean against the side of the car while he waited for Buffy and Willow to show up, but that was something that generals just didn't do while wearing their dress uniforms. Once he got into the base, and could take off the hat and the jacket, he'd be able to relax a bit, but until then, he had to put on a good show for the troops. He opened the folder to read its contents instead.
The car belonged to a Rona Harper, who lived in Denver. Jack wasn't the least bit surprised to see that Miss Harper worked for an organization called WCI. The same outfit that Buffy, Willow and their friends worked for, and had paid for Dr. Summers to go to Oxford. There was very little other information available about her, or her employer.
The car in question pulled up to the curb just as Jack was finishing reading the little bit of information that the security office had been able to dig up on its owner. Buffy and Willow got out of it. Buffy paused to say something to the driver, who looked like the photo of Miss Harper, before the car pulled away again.
Buffy and Willow came up his driveway. "Good morning, Jack," said Buffy. She really didn't sound very sincere as she said it.
Jack gave them his best smile. "Good morning Miss Summers, Miss Rosenberg. Shall we be on our way?" He indicated to the airman that he should open the back door of the car for them.
Willow got in first. Buffy waited for a moment, giving Jack a good look in the eyes. He forgot for a moment that he was nearly a foot taller than her. "You know, if you've got any thoughts about trying to make us disappear inside that mountain of yours, there are people on five continents who know where we are, and are prepared to raise a big stink if they don't hear from us soon."
"The thought had never crossed my mind, Miss Summers," said Jack. It really hadn't.
Buffy spent another second just looking at him, before she nodded, got into the car with Willow, and the airman closed the door behind her. Jack didn't give the airman a chance to reopen his door for him. He got into the car without his aid.
They were all pretty quiet as the car made its way toward Cheyenne Mountain. Normally Jack would talk to the driver about last night's hockey scores, or something like that, or use the time he knew would be free from interruptions to read some of the seemingly endless series of reports that people wanted his opinion on. But today he did neither. He sat quietly, not saying anything until they were nearly to the gate. Buffy and Willow weren't talking either.
"So, Miss Rosenberg," said Jack, eventually. "Will you be able to repeat that presentation you gave me last night, for Colonel Carter?"
"Yeah," said Willow. "No problem."
"Will you need any special equipment?"
"Nope. Just me."
Jack gave up trying to talk to them. There really wasn't much he could say in front of the driver anyway. They reached the gate, and the general's flag on the car let them bypass the line of cars waiting to be admitted. They were passed through the gate with only a cursory check by the guards, who had visitor passes ready and waiting for Buffy and Willow. The driver took them right to the tunnel entrance, where they got out to transfer to another car. Even general's cars weren't allowed to drive straight into the mountain.
It was 0745 when they had cleared the last security checkpoint, and entered the final elevator to take them down into the SGC. "Carter, Daniel and Teal'c are supposed to be here in fifteen minutes," said Jack. "And they'll be told to report to the conference room as soon as they arrive. At the moment, they're the only people on the base, who, to my knowledge, know anything about what happened six years ago. There are a couple of other people I'd like to invite to this meeting, but I'll understand if you want to keep it as small as possible."
"Who else do you want?" asked Buffy.
"Dr. Ramsey, our Chief Medical Officer," said Jack. "He noticed something unusual about Dawn's DNA, that we think might have some bearing on what happened to her. Lt Phillips, and Ry'ac were present when she…disappeared."
"So, seven people." Buffy looked at Willow. "That's not too many is it?"
Jack could see Willow's jaw clench. She wasn't happy about something, but she slowly nodded. "Seven's okay."
"Alright, Jack," said Buffy. "You can have your seven, but whatever we tell you about Dawn can't go beyond those seven. I want your word on that."
"Hell," said Jack. "You guys are so classified that I'm not supposed to know anything about you. I'll make sure that it's clear to everyone in the meeting that nothing that happens in it leaves the room. I promise."
"I guess we'll have to trust you," said Buffy, but there was something in the look she exchanged with Willow that made Jack think that they had a contingency plan. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened.
Sergeant Harriman was waiting outside the elevator. "Good morning, Sir." He handed Jack his mug of coffee.
"Morning, Walter." They started down the hall toward his office. "This is Buffy Summers, Dr. Summer's sister, and Willow Rosenberg. Would you ladies like some coffee?"
"Can you make it tea?" asked Willow.
"Yes, Ma'am," said Sergeant Harriman. "It will take a few minutes though. And you, Ms. Summers?"
"Coffee will be fine," said Buffy.
"Bring the tea through into the conference room," Jack told Sergeant Harriman. "And tell SG-2, Teal'c, Daniel, and Dr. Ramsey that I want them there as soon as they get in."
"Yes, Sir," said Sergeant Harriman. "Uh, Colonel Davis is waiting in your office, Sir."
"Why am I not surprised?" asked Jack. He indicated that Buffy and Willow should follow him into his office. "Good morning Paul. What brings you to Colorado?" He went to the coffee machine on his credenza, and started to prepare a cup for Buffy. "Cream and sugar?" he asked her.
"Yes, please" said Buffy.
Colonel Davis rose from his seat. "Miss Summers, and Miss Rosenberg. I was going to warn you that they were in town, General, but I see it's too late for that." He held out his hand toward Buffy. "An honour to finally meet you, Ma'am. I've heard a lot about you. I only wish it was under better circumstances."
"So, you came all the way from Washington, to tell me that Buffy and Willow were here," said Jack. "You forget how to work your phone?"
"No Sir. I'm also here to inform you that Miss Summers, and Miss Rosenberg are cleared to be told whatever they need to know about the Stargate program, if it leads to learning what happened to Dr. Summers." He handed Jack a folder with a red border, and marked "Top Secret." Jack opened it, and quickly scanned the document inside, which granted full access to the Stargate program to Buffy Summers, and Willow Rosenberg. He recognized the signature, and seal, of the President at the bottom of the page.
"And am I cleared to be told anything about them?" asked Jack.
"As much as they're willing to tell you," said Colonel Davis.
Jack handed Buffy her coffee. "Can I have eight?"
Nearly everyone had arrived in the conference room by the time Sergeant Harriman had come back with Willow's tea. Sam was the last to arrive. She was looking a little better than she had been, but Jack could still see the strain on her face. She had her nose in a folder as she entered the conference room. "You wanted to see me, Sir?" she asked, without looking up. "I had an idea about—" She looked up, and froze. "Buffy."
Jack saw that Sam was starting to look guilty again. It didn't matter how many times he, or anyone else, told her otherwise: she still blamed herself for what happened to Dawn. "I see you remember our guests, Colonel. Why don't you take your seat, and we can make the introductions for everyone else."
"Yes, Sir." Sam worked to put on her professional face as she sat down. She still kept casting nervous looks in Buffy's direction.
"Before we begin, I want to make one thing very clear," said Jack. "Everything that we are about to discuss is classified. Some of the information that Miss Summers, and Miss Rosenberg are about to disclose is just as classified as the Stargate, if not more-so. No one outside of this room is cleared to know about it. Is everyone clear about that?"
Jack looked around the room, and saw the acknowledging nods, and people saying "Yes, Sir."
"Very well." He picked up the remote control off the table and pointed it at the security camera. "There is also going to be no record made of this meeting." He pressed a button, and the light on the camera went out.
"Uh…and what are they cleared to know, Jack?" asked Daniel.
"They are cleared know everything we know that may be relevant to Dr. Summers' disappearance. That includes all technical data on the Stargate." Jack could see that everyone picked up his emphasis on the "technical." Buffy and Willow weren't to be told about any of the political issues surrounding the gate. He could also see that they'd picked up on that too.
Jack introduced Buffy and Willow to those people around the table that they hadn't met yet. He got a surprise when he came to Lieutenant Phillips. "It's good to see you again, Ma'am," he told Buffy.
"You've met Miss Summers before?" asked Jack. He shot an accusing glare in Colonel Davis's direction. He could also see that Buffy seemed to be just as surprised, and was trying to remember the Lieutenant.
"Yes, Sir," said Lieutenant Phillips. "She saved my ass, about five years ago, in Prague."
Buffy looked enlightened. "Ah, the golem. You were on Riley's team."
"That guy in Lord of the Rings?" asked Jack.
"No, that's 'Gollum,'" said Daniel. "A golem is a man, made of clay, and brought to life through magic."
"Magic?" asked several people around the table.
"Yes, magic," said Buffy. "Real magic exists, and probably has something to do with what happened to Dawn."
"Sir," said Dr. Ramsey. "That's ridiculous! Magic is just superstition, or someone using trickery, and advanced technology."
"There was a time I would have agreed with that, Doc," said Jack. "But I've seen a few things that don't fit that explanation."
"That still doesn't mean that you swallow superstitious nonse—"
Willow waved her hand dismissively. "Lepus." Dr. Ramsey vanished in a brilliant flash of light, and a rabbit hopped up onto the table. "I don't need a hat," she told the startled onlookers.
"Uh…Miss Rosenberg…could I have my Chief Medical Officer back, please," said Jack.
"Since you asked nicely." Willow waved her hand again. "Metti le cose a posto."
"—ense!" said Dr. Ramsey. He looked around the room. "How'd I get onto the table?"
"You annoyed Miss Rosenberg," said Jack. "Why don't you get back in your chair, and we can get on with this meeting."
"That was incredible!" said Colonel Carter, and Dr. Ramsey scrambled back to his seat. "How was that possible? Conservation of mass alone, wouldn't allow for something like that to happen, to say nothing about the cross species transformation!"
"The extra mass gets refolded into 10-space," said Willow. "To transform between species you have to—"
"Uh, Willow, you and Sam can exercise your inner science geeks, after we find out what happened to Dawn," said Buffy.
"And leaving the magic aside for a moment, Miss Rosenberg has something to show us." Jack nodded toward her. "Are you ready to show everyone what you showed me last night?"
"I think it's your turn first, Jack," said Buffy. "You still haven't told us anything about what happened to Dawn."
Jack looked at her for a moment. "Alright. As you thought, it involves the Stargate."
"And what's a Stargate?" asked Buffy.
Jack hit the button on his remote to open the shutters over the windows at the side of the conference room. He gestured toward them. "That's a Stargate."
Buffy and Willow got up from their seats, and moved to the windows. They looked down into the gate room. Buffy looked at the gate for a few seconds before she turned back toward Jack. "Okay, so what's a Stargate?"
"Have you read Dawn's doctoral dissertation?" asked Daniel.
"Yes," said Willow.
"Uh…just the Cliffs Notes version," said Buffy.
"She called it 'the Chap-pie.'" said Daniel.
"The Chap-pie?" asked Willow. "That was the Gould's inter-dimensional portal."
"Interplanetary, not inter-dimensional," said Carter.
"The Stargate was discovered on an archaeological dig near Giza, in 1928," said Daniel. "It came into the possession of the U.S. government, who attempted to discover—"
"Uh, I think they want the short version," said Jack. Daniel could take forever.
"The Stargate is an alien device that will open a stable wormhole between it, and another Stargate on another planet," said Sam, "Allowing nearly instantaneous travel across the galaxy."
"And Dawn went into your Stargate," said Buffy.
"Yes," said Jack. "We had discovered some ruins on another world, with inscriptions in Sumerian. Dr. Summers volunteered to accompany SG-2 through the Stargate in order to get a first-hand look at them."
"SG-2?" asked Buffy.
"Colonel Carter, Lieutenant Phillips, and Ry'ac," said Jack, nodding toward them.
"You couldn't just bring her pictures?" asked Buffy.
"She wanted to see for herself," said Daniel. "There's a lot you can miss if you've only got pictures."
"You know how much Dawn hated it whenever you tried to leave her behind," Willow told Buffy.
"Okay," said Buffy, "So you all went through your Stargate thingie."
"Yes," said Carter. "Lieutenant Phillips and Ry'ac went through first, and then I followed with Dr. Summers."
"And that's when she disappeared?"
"Yeah."
"She just vanished?"
"Right out of her clothes," said Carter.
"What?"
"It was the strangest thing," said Ry'ac. "This empty BDU, and backpack fell out of the Stargate, with Colonel Carter right behind it."
"And then what happened," asked Buffy.
"We returned immediately to the SGC, and we started to try to figure out what happened," said Carter. "So far, we haven't made any progress."
"I think it's time for Miss Rosenberg to give her presentation," said Jack.
"Uh…yeah," said Willow. "It would work best if you lowered the lights."
Jack used his remote control to turn down the lights. "Go ahead."
Jack tuned out Willow's voice as she began to talk. He gave very little attention to the display that appeared over the conference room table. He watched the faces of the people around it. Everyone was fascinated by what they were seeing. Even Teal'c's mask of indifference was showing some cracks. The only person who wasn't watching the display in rapt wonder was Buffy. She was doing the same thing as he was: watching the people.
The display ended with the twelve inter-linked galaxies floating over the conference table. Everyone was quiet for a few seconds. Colonel Carter broke the silence. "You're telling us that all that green is Dawn…spread over twelve galaxies."
"That's right," said Willow. "We were kinda hoping you could tell us how that happened."
"We knew about Pegasus, and the Asgard, but the others…"
"Jack mentioned them too," said Buffy. "He never really gave us any meaningful explanation for what he meant."
"They're the two galaxies outside of our own, that we knew had Stargates," said Jack.
"This looks like a map of the entire gate system," said Sam. "Um…could you back up the display, just show a ten parsec radius around the Earth?"
"Um…yeah…just a sec." Willow closed her eyes for a moment, and the display shifted. Now there were a few hundred stars spread through the conference room, and eight green nexuses.
Sam pointed to a pair of nexuses that were close together. "Abydos, and Ernest's Planet." She pointed out a couple more. "P3X-7309, and P4G-227." She waved her hand at the others. "We don't have coordinates for these. They're new."
"So, each of those clusters is a Stargate?" asked Buffy.
"That's right," said Carter.
"Is there any chance I could see it working?" asked Willow.
"You think you know what happened?" asked Jack.
"I've got a hunch," said Willow. "But I'll have to see it, to be sure."
"What are you thinking, Will?" asked Buffy.
"Portals are wormholes too," said Willow. "I want to see if the wormhole that's created by the Stargate feels like a portal."
"What has that got to do with why Dawn disappeared?" asked Jack.
Buffy's lips thinned for a moment. "Let's see your Stargate in action, before we answer that question," she said.
Jack considered for a couple of seconds. He pressed a button on the intercom. "Dial the Alpha Site," he ordered.
"Yes, Sir!" came over the intercom. A few seconds later the inner ring of the gate started to rotate. One of the triangles spaced around it lit up. "Chevron one encoded!" said the voice.
The gate kept spinning. The voice announced each chevron as it engaged. The voice finally announced "Chevron seven locked!" and the gate splashed open.
Jack picked up a microphone. "This is the SGC to the Alpha Site. We're just running a test here. If this had been a real emergency, you'd be being overrun by hordes of Jaffa right now."
"Uh, yessir," came through a speaker. "Can we expect anyone to arrive?"
Jack looked back at Buffy and Willow. "So, you wanna visit another planet?"
"Uh…not right now," said Buffy. He looked at Willow, who hadn't seemed to hear him. She was standing still, with her eyes closed. He didn't even know if she'd seen the gate open.
Jack keyed his mic. "Not this time. Maybe later. SGC out."
"Yes Sir!" came the voice. "Alpha site out!"
The event horizon in the wormhole winked out. Jack looked at Willow. "So, now you've seen the Stargate in action. What has that told you?"
Willow opened her eyes. "It felt like a portal," she said.
"So what does that have to do with Dawn?" asked Jack.
Buffy took a deep breath. "There were only five people in the world who know what I'm about to tell you. If anything happens to Dawn, because of what I'm about to tell you, I'll know who to hunt down and kill."
"I don't think that much worse can happen to her, than already has," said Jack.
"Okay." Buffy took another deep breath. "Dawn wasn't always human."
"Huh?" "What?" "What do you mean?" asked several people.
"Up until about ten years ago, Dawn didn't exist," said Buffy. "She was created from something called 'the Key.'"