Crumpets Aren't My Style
By Marz
Sometimes It's Hard to be Polite
O'Neill tried not to tap his pen on the table. He was already struggling to keep his feet planted on the floor and his chair from turning. He didn't think the Prime Minister's representative would notice if he went for a few spins, but the representatives from the U.K.'s assorted military establishments were watching him carefully, as was the egomaniac M15 sent. He was sorely tempted to flick the paper football he'd made from the meeting's itinerary at Teal'c. He tried to indicate that the Jaffa should hold up his index fingers to make goalposts, but was ignored. Daniel sat looking attentive and alert. Carter was the only member of SG1 lucky enough to escape the briefing. Apparently the lab they'd been granted the use of was having difficulties figuring out the stick weapons O'Neill had managed to snatch from assorted cult members.
The Prime Minister's lackey finally sat down after acknowledging everyone on the entire island and repeating the purpose of the meeting no less then eight times. He waved at O'Neill as if generously granting him permission to speak. O'Neill tried not to sigh as he stood.
"Everybody got a copy of the initial reports correct?" O'Neill asked, pushing down the urge to fiddle with all the shiny things on dress uniform.
"What was left of it," commented the agent from M15.
O'Neill struggled to remember his name; Halfpence, Shilling, Euro? It was some kind of money. He looked to Daniel, who mouthed "Farthing" at him as unobtrusively as possible.
"Well Agent Farthing, for reasons of national security, some parts of the report had to be censored."
Farthing held up his copy of the report, which was half obscured by thick black lines.
"We have all been cleared by the United Nations, and have been granted full disclosure in all matters concerning the Stargate program," Farthing insisted, waving the report.
O'Neill tried not to gag as the man wafted his excessive cologne towards their end of the table.
"Not everything the Air Force does involves the Stargate," O'Neill pointed out. The information in question actually did, but he needed more practice at almost-lying.
Farthing looked as if he planed to push the issue, but an Admiral, whose name O'Neill had completely forgotten, shushed him. "What can you tell us about these aliens, General?" the Admiral asked.
"To start with, they aren't aliens. The kid and the cult member were using some sort of alien technology, but the doctors who treated them insisted they were both human."
"In fact," Daniel put in, "blood samples taken from both…detainees was compared with those taken from random English citizens as part of a study conducted by Oxford University last year. Not only are the cult members natives of earth, but they are natives of England as well. The genetic analysis also shows the boy and the man are related, third cousins, twice removed, which may indicate the alien technology was passed down through family lines, after it fell into human hands. The fact that the boy referred to his group as 'wizards', may indicate an ancient point of integration into European culture. Legends of wizards and witches controlling mystical forces actually predate most culture's belief in omnipotent god figures, which were either created or adopted by the Go'auld. These 'wizards' could be-"
"Have you made any progress with their technology?" interrupted Farthing.
"Nope," said O'Neill. He wished Daniel had gone on a bit longer. "I've got Colonel Carter working on it at the moment. She's the foremost expert on alien tech." He gave himself a few points for saying "foremost".
"Have you made any progress interrogating the prisoners?" Farthing demanded.
"Neither seems particularly talkative. The kid was still unconscious as of the beginning of this briefing, and the adult hasn't spoken a word since he woke up. He was sedated during medical treatment and seems to be holding it against us. He won't even give a name. He just glares. Very creepy."
"What pressures have you applied?" Farthing asked, with imaginary quotes around the word "pressures".
O'Neill made a face. "We threatened to shut off the cable in his room, but so far he hasn't cracked. If that doesn't work there's always bed without dessert. Why? Do you have suggestions?"
"I was just wondering what method of interrogation was being used. As far as I know, your group is not experienced in that particular discipline."
"And your point is?" O'Neill asked, not trying to hide his annoyance.
"Your military record is of course outstanding General, but matters would proceed more efficiently if the prisoners were in the hands of people who knew what to do with them," Farthing concluded smoothly.
O'Neill did not respond politely.
The meeting quickly dissolved into an international pissing contest. O'Neill sorely wished he'd stopped at 7 Eleven for a Big-Gulp before it started. Even Daniel couldn't smooth things over.
Farthing said the American Air Force had no right to interfere and no right to carry out police actions on British soil. O'Neill pointed out that the cult members had attacked him. Farthing insisted the prisoners be turned over to British authorities, since they had been proved, as Dr. Jackson pointed out, to be natives of England and not of some foreign planet. O'Neill said their alien technology put them under SGC jurisdiction. Farthing said to keep the technology and turn over the people. O'Neill said it's not going to happen. Farthing demanded an interview with the prisoners at M15 headquarters. O'Neill said the prisoners were being held in the U.S. embassy, and weren't going anywhere. Farthing made a derogatory comment about the U.S. Air Force. O'Neill made a derogatory comment about Farthing's mother.
"It could've gone worse," O'Neill said as the limo peeled out of the lot.
"How Jack?" asked Daniel, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with one hand and holding his glasses in the other.
"They could have thrown things at us?" O'Neill ventured.
"I believe there was an ulterior purpose to this meeting," Teal'c said solemnly.
O'Neill and Daniel both looked at him curiously. The driver was politely ignoring them, but O'Neill raised the divider anyway.
"The Prime Minister's aide seemed to have prior knowledge of the existence of the group, as did Agent Farthing. He reacted noticeably to the word "wizard" and seemed unusually guarded, as if he were under close observation. I became aware of an unseen presence in the room, but could not locate it definitely."
O'Neill had not noticed any of that, but nodded all the same, as Teal'c was usually right.
"Not just a hidden camera?" asked Daniel.
Teal'c nodded.
"They did seem unusually eager to get their hands on the prisoners," Daniel said. "Is it possible the British government has been compromised, or at least significant portions of it?"
"That would be most unfortunate," Teal'c said. "We could in that case be entirely surrounded by the enemy."
"Before we go announcing that the Queen's been abducted by aliens," O'Neill interrupted. "Maybe we should figure out whether anyone besides the Prime Minister's aide and Farthing are involved. Until then we'll keep an eye out for invisible people. Alright?"
They both nodded.
"Great," O'Neill mumbled. He pulled out the cell phone the embassy had provided him with. After a few minutes of cursing and button pushing and being forwarded, he got Agent Miller, from the NSA, the head of embassy security, on the line. It took several minutes of arguing and grand standing but O'Neill finally convinced the man that they needed to supply all security officers and guards with infrared detectors, without explaining exactly why.
They discussed the possible origins of the alien technology, or more accurately Daniel and Teal'c discussed possible origins. O'Neill interrupted them every few minutes with a sarcastic comment, but couldn't think of much productive to add. He hoped they were only dealing with another version of Seth. The cult that Go'auld had been running was hard enough to break up in the United States. He was already having nightmares about the paper work necessary to break into an armed compound on British soil, but it was better then having to worry about huge governmental conspiracies. Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad. They'd only found the one group after all.
Not that there weren't already other problems in that area. The enemy compound outside Little Hangleton seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Carter had managed to follow O'Neill to the compound using infrared satellite images and some kind of special Geiger-counter to track radiation from the zat. He'd asked her if it was bad radiation, since he'd carried the zat in the waist band of his pants for a considerable length of time. Her response had been very technical and confusing and not a clear yes or no.
He rubbed his eyes and then stretched. There was a lot of room to stretch in. The embassy had insisted they take the limo though O'Neill had wanted a cab. He was glad they convinced him. The windows of the limousine were reflective so no one outside could see in. He found it more then a little amusing to watch the people they passed on the crowded streets, and even those in the cars pinned on either side of them by the constant near gridlock traffic, try to peer in, squinting for all they were worth. He wondered what would happen if he rolled down the window and offered autographs.
They rolled to a stop at another red light, and some darting motion caught the corner of O'Neill's eye. He'd have sworn the stoup of the opposing flat was empty the previous instant, but now it was occupied by a man reading a paper. O'Neill might have been able to ignore it if…no he wouldn't have. Too many strange things had happened in the past two days.
He wasn't exactly an expert on London fashion, but he was fairly certain bowler hats had gone out of style shortly after Charles Dickens died. He watched the man, whose newspaper obscured his face. He could clearly see the man's mangled scarred hands supporting the document, and the lower half of his old fashion suit. The man had a wooden prosthetic foot with clawed toes. O'Neill pointed and both Daniel and Teal'c leaned over to peer out the window with him. Even with the paper in the way, O'Neill felt as if the man was watching him. The light changed and the limo crawled forward. An instant later the man with the paper disappeared from view.
"Did that freak anybody else out?" O'Neill asked, rubbing at the back of his neck in an attempt to get his hair to lie flat again.
"Something was definitely off," Daniel conceded.
The rest of the trip they spent looking out the windows. Several other odd people caught their attention, but none of them gave off the same disturbing aura of focus as the man with the newspaper did. Things seemed almost normal again until they pulled up to the embassy gates.
"Are not those nocturnal birds?" Teal'c asked, leaning against the window.
O'Neill just nodded. The entire gate and the fence on either side was covered in owls. As the driver sent in the security code the gates rolled open and hundreds of startled birds took flight. Hooting echoed around the vehicle and Daniel winced as there was a splattering sound on the roof and windshield. The driver stopped just inside the gate so the limo could be searched, but the guards seemed reluctant to leave their shed and pass under the flock of disgruntled owls. The day only got longer from there.
O'Neill stepped out of the elevator and was immediately confronted by Doctor Gaster, the Embassy's head physician. The doctor's flabby face and shaved head seemed almost to glow in the flickering blue-tinted fluorescent light. The sun had set over six hours ago, but the General had yet to even contemplate sleep.
"He's awake?" O'Neill asked, covering his mouth with his hand as a yawn followed the question.
The doctor nodded. "He's completely uncooperative. Honestly! I liked him better when he was unconscious. He threw a bed pan at me just after I called you."
"Any particular reason?" O'Neill asked, trying not to look amused.
"We aren't letting him walk around until his legs and back are more fully healed. A trip to the bathroom is out of the question, but he apparently found the bed pan a distasteful solution," Gaster said.
"Aside from temper-tantrums, how is he?" O'Neill asked.
"His blood pressure is still low, and he suffers from intermittent muscle tremors, which we haven't found the cause of as yet. He's responding well to antibiotics, so he should stay free of infection. The cranial x-rays you asked for showed nothing abnormal. The only thing we're having trouble with is the skull and snake carved into his chest."
"Snake?" O'Neill asked. He hadn't noticed that before.
"It's coming out of the skull's mouth, like a tongue. Whatever it is I've got no idea how it got there. It's not a tattoo, it isn't carved in. As far as I can tell it isn't a burn of any kind. Whatever the source of the tissue damage, the mark still oozes blood every once in a while. Scabs won't form, even though his platelet count is high. I can't explain it."
"Anything else?" O'Neill prompted as the doctor became lost in thought.
"He hasn't eaten well lately, probably not for the past three weeks. We started an I.V. so that shouldn't pose too many other problems. Where'd you find him?" the doctor asked.
"Classified," O'Neill said. "As is everything he says, no matter how weird, got that?"
The doctor nodded. "See if you can get him to fill out the patient questionnaire at least."
"I'll do my best," O'Neill said.
The doctor directed him to room 423. O'Neill nodded to the guards on either side of the door, and knocked.
"Go 'way," a voice said weakly.
O'Neill pushed through the door. The hospital smell was almost overwhelming. The kid lay on his side, since his back and chest were both too injured to put weight on. He had dark circles under his eyes and his face was disturbingly pale. The I.V. and the wires connecting him to the monitors were stretched across his shoulders and his light blue hospital blanket. He seemed to be tied down by them. He didn't look up as O'Neill entered.
"Hey," O'Neill said, settling into the creaky plastic visitor's chair.
Apparently recognizing his voice, the kid raised his head and gave a small, pained smile.
"Hi," the kid said. His voice was dry and slightly crackly.
"Do you want some water?" O'Neill asked.
The kid nodded, and O'Neill handed him the pink plastic cup from the bedside table. It exactly matched the pink plastic pitcher and the pink plastic barf bowl. The kid half way sat up and emptied the cup in one prolonged gulp. O'Neill could hear the bandages crackle as the kid moved. The kid's entire torso was coated in disinfectant, gauze, and tape.
"More?" O'Neill asked.
The kid nodded.
"You know you can hit the call button if you need something," O'Neill said as he refilled the cup and returned it. He leaned past the kid and picked up the call button which lay on the other side of the bed, completely ignored. "It's a great button really. You just press it and a nurse comes running, then you can demand magazines and Jello and a foot massage."
The kid snorted into his water.
"You can demand a foot massage?"
O'Neill nodded. "They probably won't give you one, but you can demand it."
The kid smiled faintly again. "Where am I?"
"The U.S. embassy hospital," O'Neill replied.
"How'd I get here?" he asked.
"What's the last thing you remember?" O'Neill asked.
The kid's mouth opened and he started to say something but cut himself off. He gave O'Neill a long look, and then turned his attention to the hospital room around him. It was an interior room, with no windows. He took another sip of water.
"I was in London. I think somebody shot me in the back. I remember crawling into a dumpster, and then somebody grabbing me. After that it's a blur," he said finally.
"Really?" O'Neill said, sounding not at all convinced.
The kid nodded, trying to maintain eye-contact, and squinting a lot. They were still trying to scrounge up some glasses for him.
"So you don't remember the giant snake?" O'Neill asked.
The kid shook his head. He looked very guilty.
"You don't remember the crazy woman in the skull mask, or the tall jerk with the red eyes?"
The kid shook his head again but he clenched his jaw and fists as well. O'Neill could tell the boy was lying, but he dropped the topic for the moment.
"So," O'Neill said, "Where're you from?"
"Little Whinging," the kid said sullenly.
It sounded a little too English to be another planet, but you could always hope for simplicity, couldn't you?
"Where's that?" O'Neill asked.
"Surrey."
"Dang," O'Neill muttered. "Do you have parent's we should be calling or something?"
The kid gave him a slightly puzzled look, before frowning again. "My parent's are dead. I live with my aunt and uncle. It would really be better if we didn't call them though. They'd be rather upset."
"About what?" O'Neill asked, slightly afraid that he was about to step into a steaming pile of issues.
"About anything that involves me. I don't exactly have their phone number either. They changed it to keep my friends from calling their house. I don't have the new one."
"If we had names and addresses we could track them down."
"Oh, alright I guess. The address is 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. You're looking for Petunia and Vernon Dursley."
"Vernon and Petunia Dursley, right, so that would make you…?"
"Harry Potter," the kid said, almost grimacing.
Not quite sure how to react, O'Neill held out his hand. "I'm Jack O'Neill, nice to meet you."
The kid shook it weakly. "Nice to meet you too, sir."
"Thanks for saving my life on Friday, by the way," O'Neill said.
"Er…you're welcome," the kid said looking away in embarrassment. "Like wise I suppose."
"So you do remember me?" O'Neill pointed out smugly.
The kid made a face. O'Neill scooted his chair a little closer to the bed. "What's really going on here kid?"
"I…I can't tell you," he said rather nervously.
"Why not?"
"I'm not allowed."
"Who's gonna' stop you?" O'Neill asked curiously.
"I'll stop me," the kid said.
"I'll find out eventually," O'Neill said. "This is important. Millions of lives could be at stake. I understand if you're worried, after what happened to you, but we can protect you."
The kid's hands were starting to shake. "You don't understand. When they find out I told you, they'll come after you."
"How are 'They' going to know?"
"They always know," the kid said. "They'll probably come anyway, just because I was here, but if I don't say anything then they won't know that you know anything, because you won't, so they'll leave you alone, because you don't know…" As he spoke he sank back against his pillows, his eyelids drooping.
"So what will they do if they know that I know something?" O'Neill asked the kid, who was rapidly departing from consciousness.
"You won't remember, that's all. But if you don't remember…"
"What'll happen if I don't remember?"
"He'll come after you anyway. Voldemort never lets anybody go," the kid mumbled a moment before his eyes closed for good. "You have to remember to run."
"Who's Voldemort?" O'Neill asked.
The only response was soft snoring.
O'Neill was busy scalding himself with coffee when the call came in. He'd had a whole four hours of sleep though, so his mood, to start out with, was much improved. By the end of the conversation with the Secretary of State however, it was back in its dark place. Farthing had pulled some strings and convinced a few key higher ups that he could succeed where SG1 had not. He was coming to the embassy at noon to interview Greasy and the kid.
A moment after he hung up there was a knock at the door of his temporary office. Without waiting for a response Daniel poked his head threw the door, then came in all the way. O'Neill wasn't sure why he even bothered to knock.
"I just got off the phone with Vernon Dursley," Daniel said with the airs of a martyred saint.
"And?"
"It took me twenty minutes to get him to admit that he even had a nephew named Harry Potter. When I asked him if he knew something unusual was going on with his nephew, he called me a freak, threatened to call the police on me and then hung up. I called him back. After another twenty minutes of incoherent threats and denials, I asked him when he saw his nephew last, and told him that he was in the custody of the United States Air Force. Dursley asked if the kid had been flying."
"Flying?" O'Neill asked with interest.
"I said 'no, does he have a pilot's license.' Dursley said he did not, and tried to change the subject. He claimed the kid was trouble maker, and that he only took the boy in because there was nowhere else to put him after his parents were killed in a drunken car crash. I asked him if had reported his nephew missing. He said no. I asked him why and he told me the kid is always running off to his friends' houses. After another twenty minutes of ranting about the boy's trouble making friends he finally asked what he'd been arrested for. I told him his nephew had been abducted by a cult and later rescued in a raid. He hung up and no one has answered the phone since."
O'Neill was trying to decide whether or not he should assign somebody to tail the Dursleys when there was another knock on the door. Colonel Carter came in without waiting for an answer either. She had some of the confiscated stick weapons with her, in sealed evidence bags. She passed them over.
O'Neill raised a questioning eyebrow.
"They're just wood, sir," Carter said. She looked slightly frustrated. "We spent the entire night running tests, but as far as we can tell, they're just carved wood. We bisected one and found a strand of horse hair inside, but other then that there was nothing unusual about them. They don't emit any sort of radiation. They don't conduct electricity. They don't seem to have any unique properties to differentiate them from a piece of wood you'd find lying around in a park. They aren't even off world species. They're maple, yew, redwood, and oak," she finished, rubbing at her eyes.
"But everyone else saw the guys in skull masks using them to shoot blasts of energy at us right?" O'Neill asked.
Daniel nodded. Carter shrugged. Teal'c burst through the door without bothering to knock at all.
"I believe an intruder had entered the embassy," he announced.
They stood in the cramped security office, squinting at the tiny image on the monitor. The infrared perimeter cameras had captured the image of someone appearing suddenly in the center of the embassy lawn. In one frame the lawn was empty, in the next a figure stood regally on the recently mowed grass. The yellow and red figure crossed the lawn and disappeared behind the cold black-purple of a shed. The visual systems hadn't registered a thing.
Security teams had swept the area, but found nothing. Later Teal'c found a trail of footprints in the grass, and determined that the intruder was an older woman, with a slight limp. The foot prints had stopped behind the shed as well. They were fairly certain the invisible woman hadn't entered any secure buildings, since no motion sensors had been set off. They put a few more guards around the kid and Greasy, just incase. When that situation had been dealt with to the best of his ability, O'Neill went to the dinning hall, for a pleasant 45 seconds of lunch. His cell phone rang.
"Sir, Agent Farthing has arrived for his interview," the receptionist said cheerfully.
"I'll be right there, thanks." He hung up, choked down three quick bites of his sandwich, and jogged out of the hall, towards the elevators. He got all of three steps before he tripped over the cat. The tabby let out a pained yowl and streaked up the hallway, and around the corner. He groaned and got to his feet. He was pretty sure pets were not allowed in that building. With another groan he resumed his journey to the front gates.