Chapter 4: False Memory?
Jack was in a foul mood. He'd been forced into a gruelling session with the base psychologist, despite his very vocal protests. In the end, Hammond gave him a direct order. Jack had obeyed, but he'd gained some slight revenge on everyone by being as difficult as possible.
Summoned to the infirmary, Jack arrived to find Hammond, Janet and his team already there.
"OK, folks," he hailed. "So am I not crazy or am I not crazy?"
"As far as Dr. MacKenzie can tell, sirs, Colonel O'Neill is suffering from anxiety and stress from events over the last year or so. Recently, it can be attributed to Daniel's ascension. However, in light of this new information," Janet paused, to give Jack a disapproving look, "I'd say his past experience with Einar may be linked to his recent, troubled state."
"So… not crazy?" Jack folded his arms nonchalantly.
"Colonel, you and Einar shared all of your knowledge – are you sure he didn't know anything about what's happening?" Hammond asked.
"Well, maybe he did. Honestly, I can't be too sure," he shrugged wryly.
The others frowned at him. Hammond cleared his throat: "Maybe? Colonel, did he know or didn't he?"
"Erm…" Jack turned to Janet, "you know when you found out that the extra part of my brain was shutting back down? Well, over that time I kept finding it harder to remember Einar's knowledge. Now I can barely remember any of it – just bits and pieces."
"Wait," Sam interrupted, remember her previous talk with Jack, and recalling his uncertainty. "There's a chance he does know and you just can't remember that information, sir."
"Yeah, maybe…" Jack nodded once.
"It might even be affecting him too – nothing's saying you're the only one who would have side-effects because of this," Janet added. "If he does know anything about this, then asking Einar will probably give us much more information to work with."
As SG-1 stepped through the gate to Cimmera, Jack anxiously took the lead and wound his way through the terrain to Gairwyn's village. They met with the mistress of the village at her modest home. Greetings were exchanged among the old friends, and Jonas was introduced.
"I am saddened to hear about Daniel," Gariwyn bowed her head as a sign of mourning respect. "Yet, if you say he is still alive somehow, then perhaps such sadness is not in order."
"Indeed," Teal'c said. "To achieve enlightenment as DanielJackson has is seen as a great accomplishment among the Jaffa."
"It has been a mere year since you have visited us," Gairwyn reminded. "What brings you back to our world?"
"We need to talk to Einar," Jack stepped forward. "By the way, has he been acting weird lately?"
"Your wolf friend?" Gairwyn shifted uncomfortably. "I'm afraid he is no longer among us."
"He's dead?" Sam exclaimed.
"No, no, he was still among the living as best we know," she assured. "Yet, he claimed he never really felt welcomed here on Cimmera. Olaf and many who think like him are likely to blame. Your friend Einar left only two moons after arriving. I assured him that Olaf had no authority to exile him forcefully and that he could stay here with us. He could not be swayed – he left through the Great Ring and has not returned in all this time."
Teal'c sat cross-legged in his quarters, surrounded by candles. They had arrived back at the SGC, no further forward than before. His deep state of kel'noreem was disrupted by a succession of short, sharp knocks on his door. After a couple of seconds, the metal door swung open and Jack poked his head through. Teal'c nodded respectfully to his commander.
Jack fully entered the room, closing the door after him. It clanged heavily in the enclosed space. Wordlessly, Teal'c offered for him to sit, and Jack sat down beside the Jaffa, wincing as his knees protested.
"May I assist you, O'Neill," he asked.
"Just wanted to talk," Jack replied. "It hasn't exactly been my week."
"Do you wish to speak of what has been bothering you?"
"I guess."
Jack rubbed his weary eyes.
"I think… I think I'm having an identity crisis, T. I'm not sure how to deal with it."
"You are unsure of who you are," Teal'c stated. "You feel that this is linked to the change in your personality."
"Have all of you noticed that I'm different?" Jack quizzed dubiously. "I couldn't tell, but the rest of you give me that impression."
"That is true, O'Neill. You have changed. Once, you would not wish to talk of such matters to anyone. However, small changes often go unnoticed by the one in question, due to their nature of subtlety."
"T, you're starting to sound like MacKenzie," Jack grumbled.
Teal'c gave a slight smile, and closed his eyes. "I did not intend to discomfort you, O'Neill."
"Never mind."
"Perhaps it would interest you to know that despite my conviction that the Goa'uld must be defeated, I too suffered from self-doubt when I first joined the Tauri. I questioned the wisdom of opposing the overwhelming power of the Goa'uld, and that of leaving Drey'ac and Ry'ac behind."
"How did you cope?" Jack frowned at his noble friend.
"I think back to that moment on Chulak, and I ask myself: if I had the chance, would I really have chosen differently?"
Teal'c opened his eyes.
"Perhaps you should do the same, my friend. If you could go back, would you have chosen differently?"
Jack sighed, thanked his friend, and left with a short farewell.
He was in the control room, but this time everything was silent save for the hum of the dialling computers. The lack of activity, or even people, didn't seem strange to him. Yet, this time, the gate was not spinning. As if guided by some other force, he found himself entering an address into the console.
It was an address he'd never seen before, and yet it seemed so simple, so easy, to bring it to mind. It was as if he always had known it.
Casting those thoughts aside, he let the gate dial. And as in each time before, he felt himself drawn towards the gate while simultaneously feeling that nagging urgency as he stepped ever closer to the event horizon…
Sam was enjoying the silence of her lab to work on the various projects, when Colonel O'Neill came charging in, almost tripping over a technician passing in the hallway outside.
"There's an address!" he blurted out, uncharacteristically excited. "Th… the dream… it has an address!"
"Can we be sure that this is a valid address?" Hammond quizzed, scanning the symbols scrawled hurriedly on a scrap of notepaper. "It seems to be very flimsy evidence… you say it's from this recurring dream, Colonel?"
"General, I think it may be worth investigating," Sam interrupted. "We know from past experience that memories can be created and planted for a specific purpose. For example, when we were lead to believe Daniel had been killed in action via a false memory of his death."
"You think that this is the same – a false memory?"
"No, sir," she said. "All I'm saying is that these dreams might be engineered, as a way of passing on information that only the recipient knows about. It is possible, from what we've seen before."
"So I'm meant to have this address?" Jack piped in.
"It could've been given to Einar without, or even with, his consent. Since you can't remember his knowledge anymore, Colonel, we can't know for sure which. In fact, we can't know if it is actually to do with Einar."
"Do we know if it's a real gate address?" Hammond asked the personnel sitting at the briefing table.
"Well, I've already run it through the SGC database – it's not on the Abydos cartouche, but it does appear on the list from the Ancient depository. So far it's an unexplored planet, not even MALP recon."
"So, we don't know it'll work for sure."
"True, there is the chance that the gate is buried, or has been destroyed…"
"… but there's one way to find out," Jack finished, pointing to the stairs down to the control room.
Within half an hour, after a brief check that there was no team scheduled to return at that moment and a MALP had been prepared, the address had been dialled. When it connected, Jack felt a slight sense of relief – at least this all meant something, and was not just him going mad. As protocol demanded, the MALP was sent through first.
"Receiving telemetry."
SG-1 gathered around the monitor. The other side of the gate was a cavern, a round room cut into the rock. Embedded into the ceiling, and now glowing due to light energy given off from the Stargate event horizon, were kurstallis crystals. A single corridor, directly ahead of the MALP, lead out of the cavern and into the semi-darkness.
"Well, it looks Hakonan," Sam stated. "Atmosphere and temperate stable, normal background radiation. It looks safe too."
"Now to go and see what this," Jack tapped the side of his head, "is trying to lead us to. Right, sir?"
Hammond looked reluctant, but eventually nodded his approval.
Thanks again to the reviewers. It's encouraging to see people interested so early in the story. I'll try to keep up the pace with updates, but sadly no promises. For now, I hope you enjoyed this latest installment!