Chapter 2
A truck bounced through wet, rundown streets of Moscow. The driver waved pedestrians out of his way, occasionally leaning out the window to yell at them to hurry. He turned into an alley and drove through an open door. The truck stopped and the driver climbed out. He was dressed in Russian military fatigues and pulled his cap on before he walked away. He glanced at two men who ran to shut the door. He jogged up a set of stairs to an office above. Opening the door, he entered a different world from the rainy one outside. People worked at computers and the air hummed with conversation, some of the voices the resonating voices of goa'uld.
The man made his way to a desk at the back. Two men and a woman stood around another man with earphones on. The woman was taller than the men with red hair and green eyes. She was dressed in Russian fatigues too. The listener transcribed what he was hearing on a computer.
"Have we heard from our source?" the newcomer asked.
"Yes," the Russian woman answered. "They tell us that she has been taken to Cheyenne Mountain. The President ordered her taken off world and the Tok'ra will be there in an hour to take custody of her."
"Is she hurt?"
"Nothing beyond the accident. Her parents are worried. They keep calling the military contact, asking what's happening to their daughter."
The man shook his head. "What are your orders, ma'am?"
"We wait and find out where she's being taken, and then retriever her off world. I won't let her fall into the hands of the Tok'ra."
"She is strong, Natasha, and cunning. She has a key to a safe world; she may be able to escape."
"And then she may not be able to. The last time she was interrogated, Ra had her for three days and nearly broke her. I won't let my sister suffer like that again."
The man nodded, looking down at the screen.
O'Neill followed behind Rachel and the guards. She was silent again, staring at the floor. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying all night. O'Neill just couldn't shake the feeling he should have spent more time prying into her life, trying to dig out why she was so different.
They turned into the gate room where more guards were waiting. O'Neill stopped, sliding his hands in his pockets. This was as far as he was going. He sighed. He had considered requesting to escort her off world, but he had more Earthly concerns than to worry about a stray goa'uld who gotten itself caught. He'd sold his house in Colorado Springs and after closing, he had a week off to get settled into his new house – something that appealed more to him than traveling light years from Earth.
The gate began to dial. He heard Michelle say something to a guard. He glanced at her, watching her itch her chest over her right breast. He started to look away, when something glinted in her hand. He glanced back, seeing her cuffs falling away.
"WATCH OUT!" O'Neill yelled.
Michelle jerked her arms free from the guards and punched one in the throat and the other in the face. She charged into a marine nearby, pulling his service pistol away. O'Neill ran to stop her as she spun around. He froze with the cold metal of the barrel held against his forehead. Michelle's finger rested lightly on the trigger, a small piece of metal that could easily lead to his death. The room froze, weapons aimed at Michelle.
"Stop," Michelle quietly ordered. Her voice didn't resonate and her eyes weren't glowing. She sounded like any other human.
Why didn't she sound like a goa'uld? Why did he even care right now?
"Michelle, if you're in control, stop this," O'Neill said.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Order everyone to put down their weapons because if one of them shoots me, my finger jerks, I put a bullet in your head, we both die."
O'Neill didn't order anyone to do anything. He knew she was right, but it was Landry's decision to order weapons down.
"Put down your weapons," Landry ordered over the intercom.
Around them marines and Stargate personnel obeyed. Michelle reached into her bra and pulled out a device. She pressed it and the gate rumbled to life. O'Neill glanced at the gate room. The technicians were scrambling to stop it. He looked at the gate. It was spinning faster than he'd ever seen it, chevrons locking into place as it whipped around. Seven chevrons locked and the gate burst to life. He heard something hit the floor and looked down. Michelle stomped her foot on the device, shattering it into bits. She grabbed O'Neill's arm, moved behind him, and backed up the ramp with him held in front of her.
"They'll come after us, Koshare," O'Neill threatened.
Michelle didn't answer.
They reached the edge of the platform and she suddenly shoved O'Neill forward. He spun, grabbing her arm as she started through the gate. She swung her arm out, hitting him across the cheek with the pistol. O'Neill stumbled back, seeing her turn to lunge into the gate. He lunged, wrapping his arms around her as he flew past her, yanking her back against his body. She dropped the gun when she tried to push away from O'Neill.
'Ah crap!' went through his mind as his momentum threw them into the gate.
As soon as their feet cleared the event horizon, the gate shut.
"DIAL THAT ADDRESS!" Landry screamed at the gate technician.
"I can't, General," the technician replied.
"WHY NOT?"
"She didn't use the computer to dial the gate, sir. It was never recorded. I don't know where they went."
Landry looked back at the gate, staring at it in disbelief.
"Recall SG-1. Apprise them of the situation."
The technician started the dialing sequence of the planet they were on.
O'Neill and Michelle hit the gate platform and rolled down three steps in a tangle of legs and arms. They hit the ground in a brawl and O'Neill quickly realized he was no match for her. It was more than a matter of strength, she was far more skilled than he was in hand to hand combat and used moves he had never even seen before. She ended the fight with a powerful hit to O'Neill's temple that rendered him unconscious.
Michelle pulled away, staring at O'Neill. A warm, fragrant breeze blew across her cheek, playing with O'Neill's graying hair. She looked up. A red hued dusk was settling over the land, slowly enveloping them in darkness. In the towering pines around them, birds sang incessantly. Michelle walked to the DHD, laying her hand on the edge. It was covered with dirt, pine needles, pinecones, and bird droppings. She brushed her hand across a key, clearing it and gasped. She turned away, looking around her, shaking her head -- the action was an attempt to wrap her mind around the situation, rather than deny it. She looked down at a stick and reached a trembling hand out for it. She turned, staring at O'Neill. Michelle fell to her knees by the DHD and began digging beside it. Tears started falling, and the harder they fell, the harder she dug.
Landry walked into the control room, watching Carter and a gate technician. The two were hunched over keyboards, typing away and talking in code to his ears.
"Any luck?" Landry asked.
"Maybe. We've found something that may be an address in the dump file," the gate technician said.
Landry nodded, pretending he knew what a dump file was and why it was important.
"It's fragmented, though," Carter told him, "and we're not sure if it really is a gate address."
Mitchell and Daniel came in, standing on either side of Landry.
"Any luck?" Mitchell asked.
"The dump file has fragments," Landry answered.
Carter and the tech both looked up at him.
"Right?" Landry asked.
Carter smiled, turning back to her work. "Sure, sir."
"And that's good?" Mitchell asked.
"Yes, sir," the gate technician told him.
The three men were silent, watching the screens display lines and lines of code that was completely meaningless to them.
"We have a gate address," the tech said.
"Start dialing it," Carter ordered.
The tech moved to the dialing computer and began inputting the symbols. The gate came to life, rotating around as it locked one chevron in at a time.
"You know, sir," Daniel started. "Mitchell, Teal'c, and I watched the video tape of the interrogation and the surveillance footage in the gate room." Daniel looked at Landry. "You said Jack was kidnapped?"
"He was."
Mitchell raised an eyebrow. "Did it look like that from up here? Because those tapes showed something a lot different, sir."
Landry frowned. He knew this was going to happen when the three reviewed the videotape.
"No. It looked like... Like Jack tried to grab her and fell in."
Mitchell risked a faint smile. Daniel wasn't as amused.
"Sir, I don't think she's a goa'uld."
"She had a goa'uld in her head, her eyes lit up and she had that voice. That really, really annoying voice."
"Yes, but she didn't have it all the time. Michelle seemed to be in control."
Landry looked at him. "If the human was in control, why would she try to run? Why would she have used a goa'uld device to try and use it? And why not just tell us she had control in the first place?"
Daniel tried to answer, but no answers were actually coming to mind. Landry had very good points.
"Exactly," Landry looked back at the gate. "She's a goa'uld. We just don't know what kind."
"She's not Tok'ra. Jacob said they'd never seen her," Mitchell said.
"And haven't you ever denied knowing someone undercover before?" Landry came back.
"Chevron seven locked," the gate tech told them.
The gate burst open and filled with sparkling blue light. From the gate came a squeal. It wasn't so high pitched it hurt their ears, but it was like someone scratching nails across a chalkboard.
"What is that?" Landry asked.
Light and sound suddenly burst from the gate. In the sound were a few words in a familiar language, and then the gate closed.
The room was silent.
"That was different," Daniel said. "And in Russian."
Landry, Mitchell and Carter looked at him.
"In Russian?"
"Yes. That was Russian. It said..." Daniel looked at him, his cheeks blushing slightly. "The number you've dialed has been disconnected. Please hang up and try the number again."
"We reached a wrong number in Russia?" Mitchell asked.
Carter turned to the computer, looking over the data of the dial. "According to this, it was a gate. But there's no data on how far away it was."
"Dial it again."
The gate technician entered the chevrons again. But when he got to the seventh chevron, it wouldn't lock.
"Why?" Landry asked.
Carter leaned in, looking over the technicians shoulder. She sat back slowly.
"The address we dialed," Carter said, turning to him, "is refusing to connect to ours."
"Refusing? How can a gate refuse to connect to ours?"
Carter shrugged. She'd never come across a gate that refused a connection. "It's sending a message back to our dialing computer. It says connection is refused until correct validation is transmitted."
"And what's the correct validation?" Mitchell asked.
"I have no idea."
"So we can't go after Jack?" Daniel asked.
Carter looked back at him. "No."
"I'm contacting the Russians," Landry said, turning to leave.
"The Russians?" Daniel asked.
"You said the message was in Russian. They may know something."
Daniel looked at Carter. He wasn't sure that the Russians would know anything about this, nor would any human on Earth. His gut was telling him that Michelle wasn't anything like any goa'uld they'd ever met, and he wasn't sure if that meant she was good or bad.
O'Neill opened his eyes, staring at the rock overhead lit by a dim florescent green light. He turned his head, finding the source of the green glow. Glo Sticks were laid around the cave he was in. Crates sat along one wall of the cave; Michelle knelt over a pile of small sticks, pine needles and pinecones. She was using an electric lighter, trying to light the tinder, and muttering curses under her breath. O'Neill moved, trying to adjust his body onto new pressure points.
"Stupid fire! How the hell do you start a fire?" Michelle bellowed. She swiped her hand through the tinder, scattering it and tossed the lighter on the ground. "I hate you, do you know that?" Michelle glared at him. "If it hadn't been for you trying to stop me, I would be back on Earth, enjoying a cup of chai at Starbucks, trying to figure out if Clark and Lana were going to stay an item or break up. Again. But noooooo. You have to be the damn war hero and try to stop me!" Michelle stood up, storming up to him. "I let you go for Pete's sake! I mean... It has to take a complete moron not to see I was letting you go!" She crouched, wagging her finger in his face. "And now my people won't come for about a week because you came through with me. They won't risk Carter getting a genius moment and detecting our gate dialing. And it's all your fault!"
O'Neill was stunned. Knowing who Carter was, was only mildly surprised him. Her emotional outburst was a jaw dropper. He had never seen a goa'uld go off like she was.
The only thing that came to mind was a plaintive, hardly worth speaking remark of, "You tried to escape."
She gaped. "And you wouldn't have done the same?"
O'Neill grimaced. She had a point.
"Exactly." She walked back to where she was trying to build the fire and started piling the tinder again. "And for your information, I love Earth. I love everything about Earth. From apple pie to those little bread sticks dipped in chocolate in Japan to the surf in Australia. I love it." She started crying, gasping on every other syllable. "I love everything about it. My goals in life are to live peacefully, get married and have a couple kids -- again. Is that so damn impossible to believe? So difficult to understand?" She looked back at the tinder, striking the electric lighter. It didn't light. "And how the fuck do you start a damn camp fire?" She put her face in her hands, bawling.
O'Neill worked himself up into sitting position, leaning back against the cave wall. He watched her for several minutes, not even sure what the right reaction was. His heart went out to her, but his mind was so accustomed to goa'uld betraying him, that it was quick to squelch the feeling.
"Is everything you're using dry?" O'Neill asked.
She dropped her hands, sniffling. "I don't know."
"It will never light if it isn't dry."
"I pulled this off the trees outside."
"Get some off the ground."
"Okay." She picked up a Glo Stick, and walked into the brush covering the opening.
O'Neill stared at the entrance, shocked that she just left him alone. O'Neill turned his hands behind him, feeling the rope binding his wrists together. He started working his hands back and forth, trying to pull them free. The left side gave a little, just as she came crashing back into the cave. He stopped moving, watching her. She didn't have the Glo Stick anymore, but did have an armful of pine needles, pinecones and twigs. She stared wide-eyed at the entrance.
"What's wrong?" O'Neill asked.
"Something's out there." Michelle backed away. "It growled."
"I didn't think your kind was afraid of anything," O'Neill goaded. "Too perfect to think something could kill you."
She knelt back down, where she was trying to start the fire. "You know, not every goa'uld has it out for humanity."
"I don't believe that."
"What about the Tok'ra?"
"I tolerate them. How do you know so much about me, SGC, the Tok'ra?"
"I only know a little." With the tinder pile remade, she leaned over and struck the electric lighter. A small flame licked up from the pile.
"Add a little at a time. Don't put on anything bigger than the flames," O'Neill instructed.
Slowly she began building the fire as instructed.
"Tolerate, huh? How does that work?"
She was calmer than she had been. Perhaps the fire calmed her, but that was a human reaction. Perhaps she'd vented enough frustration she was thinking clearly. But wasn't that also a human, not goa'uld, reaction.
"You know, my arm is falling asleep. Could you loosen these ropes?" O'Neill asked.
"You think I was born yesterday?"
"That would be no?"
"Yes."
O'Neill sighed, moving to adjust his position. She hugged her knees, staring at the fire.
"We need some Green Day."
"What is Green Day?"
She laughed, laying her cheek on her knees as she watched him. "I'm older than you and even I know who Green Day is?"
"Part of Green Peace?"
She started laughing so hard she started crying and laid back. O'Neill was compelled to smile. He was surprised at how alive she was, how even her laughter set her apart from Tok'ra and system lords.
"No." She sat up cross-legged, smiling at the fire. "Green Day is a band, General. You don't have teenagers, do you?"
"You should know that."
Her humor vanished. She stood, walking over to the crates and began rummaging through them. She pulled out two wool blankets and dropped one on the floor. She walked over to O'Neill, spreading the blanket over him and tucking it in around him. She stopped moving suddenly, staring at the ground. She looked up into his eyes.
"I don't know that much about you. I don't know if you have kids or not."
O'Neill didn't answer. Her eyes looked like they were brown stained glass with a light sat behind them -- they glowed warmly, pulsing with the heartbeat that controlled Michelle. For something so sinister, it was also very beautiful -- and something else he'd never noticed about any goa'uld he'd ever met.
"I can sense you had a goa'uld in you once."
"It was Tok'ra." O'Neill's defense suddenly flew up. Somehow she was throwing him off balance again and he had to stop this. "The worm almost got me killed, which is why I'm not too fond of Tok'ra goa'ulds either. I'm sure your kind would have done the same to me, given the opportunity."
She looked away. She got up and went back to the fire, curling up in the blanket. O'Neill realized he'd hurt her feelings much deeper than her face had let on. He laid his head back against the cave wall, wishing he weren't alone with his mixed up emotions, trying to figure out this very strange goa'uld holding him prisoner.
