Sam went to Janet's office and had her draw the blood, telling her the
general would be calling with orders for in. once the blood was drawn Sam
headed to her lab without a backwards glance. Shutting the door she turned
to her laptop and started plugging away at a reoccurring glitch in the
system, her fingers flying across the keyboard in a blur. Smiling to
herself she glanced up at the corner where the camera used to be. She had
fried it so many times they quit replacing it. They thought they were
botched experiments but she had done it on purpose, to give her privacy to
be her self. Shortly after they told her no ore cameras would be 'wasted'
in her lab she went to work upgrading and modifying her computers so they
could handle her speed.
Sometime later Sam heard Janet moving down the hall, she didn't slow her typing when Janet entered, closing the door behind her. Janet paused when she saw what Sam was doing.
"Sam? You aren't wearing that arm band again are you?"
"No Janet. It never really worked on me. Not the same way it did on Daniel and the Colonel." Sam said as she continued her work.
"Sam please stop." Janet placed her hand on Sam's arm stilling her movement. "Look at me."
Sam stood and walked away from Janet, arms crossed, posture slightly slumped. Janet moved next to her friend and gently spun her around. She was surprised to fins Sam was crying.
"Oh Sam." Janet whispered gathering her fiend in a hug causing Sam to sob even harder. Janet just held her, angry at herself for the initial reaction she had to the test results. No matter what they said Samantha Carter was very much human, this just proved it.
"Oh god I'm sorry." Sam hiccupped and pulled away from Janet.
"You have nothing to be sorry about."
"I do. I am." Sam sniffed and turned away. "I understand if you hate me."
"Hate you?" Janet was somewhat taken back at how lost Sam sounded. She then realized, "This has happened before hasn't it? I mean, you've told someone, and they didn't take it well?"
"I was just a kid. My teacher had asked if we could be any animal what would we be. The other kids in my class seemed so excited at the idea, so animated in their answers. I thought they would, I mean I never really fit in and I thought they would think it was cool. So when it was my turn I preceded to tell them all the different animals I was. They teased me so badly for months. Called me a freak, I tried to brush it off, tell them I was joking, but it didn't work. One girl, Sara, believed me, she thought it was cool. We stayed friends after Dad pulled me out of school. We kept in touch over the years, it's actually her blood you've been testing all these years."
"He pulled you out of school?"
"Had to. By then all the other X2's had died. Manticore assumed I died too but they were still keeping an ear out."
"X2?"
"Second generation X series. The first group, they only really used one type of animal DNA and combined it with human. They came out looking more like animals then human. With my generation they thought if they used a little bit of a lot of different animals, just using the DNA for the traits they wanted, we would come out looking more human. I think that may have been what did in the X2's."
"Why did you. . ."
"Survive? Not sure. The only thing I can think of is Dad told me the kids were treated like miniature soldiers from the time they could walk. It was like a preschool boot camp. Maybe all that over exertion at that early of an age did it. He also told me they experiment on the kids to see what they could handle, maybe they pushed too hard. It's really hard to tell."
"Major Carter, Dr. Fraiser to the briefing room."
"Well that's us." Janet said. When Sam didn't move Janet turned to see the fear return to her eyes. Putting her arm around her Janet said in a soothing voice usually reserved for calming and reassuring patients, "Don't worry about it. They aren't going to think any differently of you."
"They already do. Janet I snapped the metal bracket of a camera like it was paper."
"Really? That's amazing." Janet's mind temporally lingered on the impossibility of it before moving on. "Come on. I'll be there. You won't be alone."
They made their way quickly to the briefing room, Sam heard her father clearly through the closed door.
"Look George, you don't know how bad this place was, is." Jacob stopped talking when Sam and Janet walked in, shutting the door behind them. He wanted nothing more then to gather her in his arms but he knew it was not the time for that. "They are trying to create the perfect solider. They created. . ."
"Me. They created me." Sam said when her father didn't seem to be able to say it.
"Right. Created Sam and others using the brightest minds and selected aspects of various animals." Jacob sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Sam's made from bear for muscle strength, cat for agility, bird for lightness of bone, shark allows her to stay under water for long periods of time. Now all this is tweaked allowing for the 'super solider' hearing is enhanced to ten times the human range. She can see better on her own then we could with binoculars. Healing ability is thirty percent more rapid and pain threshold is increased as well. There's also DNA from Einstein, Schrödinger, and Sun Tzu just to name a few. And that's just Sam, each kid was different."
"Sir, the DNA work up I did was like nothing I've ever seen before. What General Carter has said explains a lot of my findings."
"What's up with the barcode?" Jack asked.
"What barcode?"
"You know that bruise you asked about after the last mission?"
Janet stood and moved behind Sam, tilting her head down to see what they were talking about.
"Doctor?"
"Sir. I've never seen this before, but there was some discoloration here that I noticed after the last mission. I assumed it was bruising."
"It's encoded in the kid's DNA. It's how Manticore keeps track of them. They have no names, just their numbers."
"My designation is X2-361237921774, 774 for short."
"Why haven't I seen this before?"
"I'm very careful and remove it almost as soon as it reappears. Since we were on down time I was letting it go until we were due back. It is easily hidden by the BDU collar so I wasn't too worried when I had to come back early."
"Remove? How?"
"I've got a laser now, but I've tried almost everything. Used sandpaper once in boot camp. Talk about pain." Sam shivered at the memory. "It sort of grows back though."
"I'm amazed they could successfully combine DNA like that, all that tampering." Janet said, running her fingers over Sam's barcode.
"They weren't all that successful. Sam's had a chemical imbalance in her brain since she was seven. Her serotonin levels would drop causing her to seize. We figured that tryptophen would help bring the levels up, and that's how we've managed those."
"There were some other problems we couldn't figure out how to fix. I just had to ride them out. That's until Jolinar. She managed to correct the errors Manticore made. She actually commented on what a mess I was in. The sad thing is she died because she had already weakened herself fixing me."
"So let me get this straight." Jack finally spoke up. "You're part bear, bird, shark, and cat?"
"Right."
"Shouldn't Daniel be allergic to you?"
"Colonel!" Janet, General Hammond, and Jacob all shouted at the same time.
"What?" Jack was preparing to get the chewing out of a life time when he heard laughing.
All eyes turned to Sam who was sitting there laughing like there was no tomorrow.
"Sam, you alright?" Jacob asked.
"He's still the same. Nothing's changed." Sam said as she tried to control her laughter.
"Major what have I told you about giggling?"
"Sorry sir."
"Sam, why would anything change?" Daniel asked. "You don't treat me differently because I'm adopted."
"Nor I for not being human." Teal'c said.
"You're still the same person we've gotten to know over the past couple of years." Jack smiled. "And it's not like I can fault you for keeping secrets. I can't even talk about half of my career."
"See I told you things would get better when you got older." Jacob said.
"Yeah, but I never expected this."
"Carter we go through a huge honkin' piece of alien metal on a regular basis. This doesn't even compare to the weird ass things we've seen. It's different, and it may take some time for me to wrap my head around it, but it's no big deal."
"He's right." Daniel piped up again. "The only difference will be instead of him asking about wormholes Jack will be walking around asking 'can you hear me now'?"
sgcsgcsgcsgc
Sometime later Sam heard Janet moving down the hall, she didn't slow her typing when Janet entered, closing the door behind her. Janet paused when she saw what Sam was doing.
"Sam? You aren't wearing that arm band again are you?"
"No Janet. It never really worked on me. Not the same way it did on Daniel and the Colonel." Sam said as she continued her work.
"Sam please stop." Janet placed her hand on Sam's arm stilling her movement. "Look at me."
Sam stood and walked away from Janet, arms crossed, posture slightly slumped. Janet moved next to her friend and gently spun her around. She was surprised to fins Sam was crying.
"Oh Sam." Janet whispered gathering her fiend in a hug causing Sam to sob even harder. Janet just held her, angry at herself for the initial reaction she had to the test results. No matter what they said Samantha Carter was very much human, this just proved it.
"Oh god I'm sorry." Sam hiccupped and pulled away from Janet.
"You have nothing to be sorry about."
"I do. I am." Sam sniffed and turned away. "I understand if you hate me."
"Hate you?" Janet was somewhat taken back at how lost Sam sounded. She then realized, "This has happened before hasn't it? I mean, you've told someone, and they didn't take it well?"
"I was just a kid. My teacher had asked if we could be any animal what would we be. The other kids in my class seemed so excited at the idea, so animated in their answers. I thought they would, I mean I never really fit in and I thought they would think it was cool. So when it was my turn I preceded to tell them all the different animals I was. They teased me so badly for months. Called me a freak, I tried to brush it off, tell them I was joking, but it didn't work. One girl, Sara, believed me, she thought it was cool. We stayed friends after Dad pulled me out of school. We kept in touch over the years, it's actually her blood you've been testing all these years."
"He pulled you out of school?"
"Had to. By then all the other X2's had died. Manticore assumed I died too but they were still keeping an ear out."
"X2?"
"Second generation X series. The first group, they only really used one type of animal DNA and combined it with human. They came out looking more like animals then human. With my generation they thought if they used a little bit of a lot of different animals, just using the DNA for the traits they wanted, we would come out looking more human. I think that may have been what did in the X2's."
"Why did you. . ."
"Survive? Not sure. The only thing I can think of is Dad told me the kids were treated like miniature soldiers from the time they could walk. It was like a preschool boot camp. Maybe all that over exertion at that early of an age did it. He also told me they experiment on the kids to see what they could handle, maybe they pushed too hard. It's really hard to tell."
"Major Carter, Dr. Fraiser to the briefing room."
"Well that's us." Janet said. When Sam didn't move Janet turned to see the fear return to her eyes. Putting her arm around her Janet said in a soothing voice usually reserved for calming and reassuring patients, "Don't worry about it. They aren't going to think any differently of you."
"They already do. Janet I snapped the metal bracket of a camera like it was paper."
"Really? That's amazing." Janet's mind temporally lingered on the impossibility of it before moving on. "Come on. I'll be there. You won't be alone."
They made their way quickly to the briefing room, Sam heard her father clearly through the closed door.
"Look George, you don't know how bad this place was, is." Jacob stopped talking when Sam and Janet walked in, shutting the door behind them. He wanted nothing more then to gather her in his arms but he knew it was not the time for that. "They are trying to create the perfect solider. They created. . ."
"Me. They created me." Sam said when her father didn't seem to be able to say it.
"Right. Created Sam and others using the brightest minds and selected aspects of various animals." Jacob sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Sam's made from bear for muscle strength, cat for agility, bird for lightness of bone, shark allows her to stay under water for long periods of time. Now all this is tweaked allowing for the 'super solider' hearing is enhanced to ten times the human range. She can see better on her own then we could with binoculars. Healing ability is thirty percent more rapid and pain threshold is increased as well. There's also DNA from Einstein, Schrödinger, and Sun Tzu just to name a few. And that's just Sam, each kid was different."
"Sir, the DNA work up I did was like nothing I've ever seen before. What General Carter has said explains a lot of my findings."
"What's up with the barcode?" Jack asked.
"What barcode?"
"You know that bruise you asked about after the last mission?"
Janet stood and moved behind Sam, tilting her head down to see what they were talking about.
"Doctor?"
"Sir. I've never seen this before, but there was some discoloration here that I noticed after the last mission. I assumed it was bruising."
"It's encoded in the kid's DNA. It's how Manticore keeps track of them. They have no names, just their numbers."
"My designation is X2-361237921774, 774 for short."
"Why haven't I seen this before?"
"I'm very careful and remove it almost as soon as it reappears. Since we were on down time I was letting it go until we were due back. It is easily hidden by the BDU collar so I wasn't too worried when I had to come back early."
"Remove? How?"
"I've got a laser now, but I've tried almost everything. Used sandpaper once in boot camp. Talk about pain." Sam shivered at the memory. "It sort of grows back though."
"I'm amazed they could successfully combine DNA like that, all that tampering." Janet said, running her fingers over Sam's barcode.
"They weren't all that successful. Sam's had a chemical imbalance in her brain since she was seven. Her serotonin levels would drop causing her to seize. We figured that tryptophen would help bring the levels up, and that's how we've managed those."
"There were some other problems we couldn't figure out how to fix. I just had to ride them out. That's until Jolinar. She managed to correct the errors Manticore made. She actually commented on what a mess I was in. The sad thing is she died because she had already weakened herself fixing me."
"So let me get this straight." Jack finally spoke up. "You're part bear, bird, shark, and cat?"
"Right."
"Shouldn't Daniel be allergic to you?"
"Colonel!" Janet, General Hammond, and Jacob all shouted at the same time.
"What?" Jack was preparing to get the chewing out of a life time when he heard laughing.
All eyes turned to Sam who was sitting there laughing like there was no tomorrow.
"Sam, you alright?" Jacob asked.
"He's still the same. Nothing's changed." Sam said as she tried to control her laughter.
"Major what have I told you about giggling?"
"Sorry sir."
"Sam, why would anything change?" Daniel asked. "You don't treat me differently because I'm adopted."
"Nor I for not being human." Teal'c said.
"You're still the same person we've gotten to know over the past couple of years." Jack smiled. "And it's not like I can fault you for keeping secrets. I can't even talk about half of my career."
"See I told you things would get better when you got older." Jacob said.
"Yeah, but I never expected this."
"Carter we go through a huge honkin' piece of alien metal on a regular basis. This doesn't even compare to the weird ass things we've seen. It's different, and it may take some time for me to wrap my head around it, but it's no big deal."
"He's right." Daniel piped up again. "The only difference will be instead of him asking about wormholes Jack will be walking around asking 'can you hear me now'?"
sgcsgcsgcsgc