(Author's Note (15th April, 2006): Sorry this chapter took longer than the others. It's been a crazy week--between going to hear Noam Chomsky speak and then having my city sacked by tornadoes. I'm serious. Do a Google news search for "Iowa City tornadoes". Apparently it made the news in Canada, England and Australia.
ANYway, welcome to Chapter 3, in which O'Neill angsts, hallucinates a bit, and there is talk of monkeys. I hope you enjoy.
"...it's called a cascade ribbon," Daniel said. "It's like the hand device, but about a jillion times more powerful. It rips your mind apart. It was used to punish people."
Jack glanced over at his archaeologist. "Excuse me? Rips your mind apart?"
"Well... not literally," Daniel said. "Mentally, emotionally, cognitive-ly."
"Ookay," Jack said. "And we're really sure we want to be poking at it?"
"The Goa'uld in charge wouldn't just let anyone walk up and turn it on, Jack. I'm sure it's password-protected or something."
"You're sure."
"...pretty sure, yeah."
"And if we did?"
Daniel shrugged. "That would be bad."
"We probably wouldn't know what hit us, sir," Carter put in.
(...what?)
"That's reassuring?" he said.
Carter looked up from her instruments, tucking one under her arm to gesture at the rings. "The way it functions. It puts out an initialization wave that from what I can tell serves to incapacitate everyone it hits. After that comes a threshold distortion, which is just a byproduct of the major distortion--the actual point of the machine. That major distortion will--"
"Carter!"
She ground to a halt.
"I really don't need to know how it works. Can we just focus on not turning it on?"
"...yes, sir," she said.
He shook his head. (I have gotta be dreaming.)
Because it had to be a dream, right?
The things he kept hearing. The way he kept slipping in and out. It had to be a dream--some kind of recurrent delusion, stress or fatigue or undiscovered injury. That or he was going mad, control peeling away like bandages and leaving him to come undone. Either was possible.
This place... was unlike the cavern or the surface. Above the core sat the balcony, shadowed in impartial shade. Outside he could catch glimpses of a huge ruined city between the pillars, the sun shining down on crumbling walls and rampant greenery. Off in the distance he could see the Stargate, framed by a wide swath of desert...
(Wait a minute. Desert?)
He came awake all at once, one hand making the journey to his skull at reflex. (What the hell? Was that city--that city? All of this--does this have to do with that ribbon thing?)
He juggled the questions in his mind--but dismissed them. (No. The Stargate is still too far away from the city topside, and I don't imagine an overgrown hand device would be so specific. Gut wounds and caverns and dead snakes.)
(Damn.) It would have been such a nice, convenient answer--and it would have told him exactly where all his memories had gone. (Should have known it wouldn't be that easy.)
He shook his head, pulled himself up off the stone bench, checked his watch. 88:88:88. (Guess that's not working.)
He stood, staring dumbly at the darkness.
After a while, he went back into the pedestal room, his mind connecting pedestal with control console with DHD, figuring that dumb luck favored him on occasion and maybe a thousand monkeys with typewriters or one Jack O'Neill with busted Goa'uld technology could open a wormhole back to Earth. Then again, the monkeys were always supposed to be writing Hamlet, and he was pretty sure everyone died at the end of that.
...he seemed to have wandered off the original point.
Cracks webbed the pedestal's casing, a few deep enough to wedge a knife into. Prying them away revealed a net of wires and crystals, utterly inscrutable in function. Two cords, each as thick as his wrist, lead from the net down into the ground.
Digging at them with fingers and the knife revealed broad clamps buried in the ground, connected to absolutely nothing. It took time--too much time--to dig out around them, and extracting the net from its casing took even longer--by the end he was tearing at the pedestal chips, ignoring sharp edges as they bit into his skin. By the time he extracted the crystals his hands were a net of scratches and abrasions. But he had a something.
The clamps looked magnetic. It was possible they'd attach to the Stargate, and if they did they might do something. Even if it wasn't their original purpose. Carter had made all sorts of machines do things they weren't supposed to.
(Damn... Carter.) He hadn't checked in on anyone, this waking--then again, there was really no reason to. If their conditions worsened, it wasn't as if he'd be able to help. All his checkups did was take time--and now that he had a plan (though a poor one), he didn't want to waste it.
(Plan C. Good ol' plan C. Climb to the surface, stick the clamps on the 'Gate, and fiddle with the crystals. Then power the GDO with the battery and the paper clip and dial Earth. What could possibly go wrong? I mean aside from everything.)
Hauling the net--easily the size of his torso and at least fifty pounds--he made his way to the tunnel up and steeled himself. This would not be pleasant.
Looping the thick wires around his shoulders, he climbed.
Five metres up his shoulders ached. At thirteen, they burned. At twenty they felt as if they'd been replaced by pain stick heads, and he wasn't yet halfway up. The net caught and bumped along behind him, dragging and sticking--he had to yank it upward, untangle it from uneven patches and ease it through narrow bits. By forty metres he had run out of profanity and desperately wanted to sleep for a year or more.
When he reached the surface the net stuck again, adding insult to injury--as soon as the light his his eyes he stopped moving, tied down like a dog on a very uncomfortable chain.
(Dammit!)
Allowing himself a moment of pure spite, he disengaged one shoulder and tore the net upward in a spray of dirt--
--which shook the immediate area, collapsing the tunnel mouth and pouring down the passage.
(Oh no oh no ohnohellNO--!)
He yanked his leg out of the cave-in, scrambling up onto the surface. The tunnel groaned its protest, and the dirt came raining down.
Of course. It all made perfect sense. Because when whatever sick enemy had put them there ran out of ways to torment them, how didn't it make sense that the dirt would turn against them, too?
New anger flashed through him, augmenting the slow-boil frustration already pent up. If dirt wanted to be his enemy, dammit, it would be his enemy--there might not be anything he could do to Ba'al, but he desperately wanted to do violence to something.
With the sun hanging low at his back, he dove into the tunnel and dug. All the anger, all the pain, all the frustration and hatred and fear--he threw it into the soil, attacked it until his shoulders locked up and his hands screamed bruised injury. And when at last he broke through, mad strength failing, the scree gave way into darkness--and he fell.
-
Jack woke.
He kept his eyes closed. He was comfortable--at least, ignoring the way every part of him throbbed, ignoring his cracking throat and stabbing hands, ignoring the steel-wool knots that had replaced his shoulder muscles, he was comfortable. Nestled in a soft mattress, sprawled out across a cool bed--
--of dirt.
The illusion of comfort disappeared, and he heard himself groaning. (Dirt. Yeah, sure. Soft, loose dirt. I've been upgraded to the luxury suite of Hell.)
The errant notion struck him as more amusing than it should have, and he caught himself grinning. (What was I doing? ...oh, yeah. Plan C. 'C' for 'Cave in,' I guess. Fix the Stargate. And I think there was something about monkeys.)
Of course, the Stargate was on the surface, and he was decidedly not.
Another groan wiped all amusement from his face. The thought of moving made him want to vomit. The thought of climbing made him want to die. (Ba'al,) he thought again.
But, no--that didn't add up, either. What did? Even if it was Ba'al, even if he was complicit, it probably wasn't really him. It would be an underling, a slave, a lieutenant, whatever. This kind of torment... it was too menial. Ba'al savored his torment, enjoyed every moment of his victims' pain. And Jack hadn't found a hidden camera yet. And Ba'al would never wipe out three people in order to torment one--not when he could torture them all.
He pulled himself up without thinking of his injuries--and reeled, collapsing back into the surface tunnel. His team. Three people who didn't have the luxury of sleeping in and tending to aches and pains because they were going to die in here if he couldn't get them out. (Nap time's over. There'll be plenty of time to rest when I'm home--or I'm dead.)
Carefully, minding his light head and lingering fatigue, he pulled himself up against a wall. One more trip to the surface, he told himself. Then the Stargate would work and the GDO would work and he could crawl through the gate and Hammond would send him to the infirmary and give him a nice long vacation and send a S&R through to this planet and save Daniel and Carter and Teal'c and they'd all live happily ever after. ...the encouragement rang hollowly in his mind, but he hung onto it because there was nothing else to hang on to.
He climbed.
Slow going. He stopped frequently, his muscles rebelling--he thought he passed out a few times, but couldn't prove it. Inch by inch he crawled up, loose dirt falling in trickles onto his head, his back, down the collar of his shirt.
Later--he swore it was years later--he made it to the surface. The sun sat low on the horizon, swollen and red--and nothing marred the even ground save the Stargate and the distant city.
The net was gone.
He didn't have the energy to scream. He barely had the energy to roll onto his back and look upward, and his mind gave up--it had no more plans, no more snide remarks, no more bitter rages at the unfairness of the world. The only thing that occurred to him was to rest--recuperate as much as he was able, though it could do no possible good. All he could think, disconnected to anything, was that the sky seemed the color of dress blues--deepening to the color of caverns.
He swore he could hear Ba'al laughing.
-
"Ba'al," Daniel said from the console, and a shiver went down Jack's spine.
"Ba'al?"
"Ba'ael is Ba'al."
"Bail and Ball." Jack looked up at the ceiling. "This guy just thumbed through the 'B' section of the kiddie's picture dictionary, didn't he?"
"Actually," Daniel started, "both words are titles of respe--"
"Sh!"
He held up a hand, and his entire team looked at him. Silence surrounded them.
"Thought I heard something," he said.
"Do you believe we have been followed, Colonel O'Neill?" Teal'c's hand was ready on his staff weapon, his expression the minor variant of stoicism which denoted wary attentiveness.
"Who knows," O'Neill said, "but I'm not taking any chances." He shifted his grip on his P-90, starting up the ramp. "Stay here. Watch over the kids. I won't be gone long."
(Won't be gone.)
He could feel himself walking away, he could see the dirt cavern, and he didn't know which was which.
Teal'c raised an eyebrow and turned back to where Sam and Daniel stood.
Jack took the ramp up to the ring balcony, flipping on the P-90's light and scanning the dark hallway. He didn't hear anything, but--wait. (There!)
A low tapping, not patterned but not random. Typing. And where there was typing there would be a terminal and someone to use it--
He rounded a curve rifle ready, catching the intruder by surprise--just as he hit the final crystal and the machine screamed to life below them.
"Away!" Jack shouted, and the woman turned--and raised a hand device. Jack pulled the trigger without thinking, sending a spray of bullets tearing through her robe and throwing her back into the wall where her eyes glowed once before she crumpled to the ground.
"Uh, Jack--" Daniel yelled from the floor below.
Jack looked down to see the cascade ribbon's core spinning, the inner crystal glowing red like a small angry sun--and then it flashed, a concussive wave of force exploding in a ring outward, knocking down his team like dominos.
(Ohholyshit!)
Carter's technobabble came back to him in bursts--an incapacitating initial wave, a threshold distortion--and then the major distortion would spread out through the temple and cover the city, wreaking massive damage on any poor sap caught inside. He could see the threshold already--it hadn't progressed beyond the core, but it grew with alarming speed.
The Goa'uld was dead--not that she'd help if she wasn't. He sprinted to the control panel--
--no use. Typical Goa'uld design, none of the crystals had labels or identifiers he could read. He tried hitting a few at random, finally yanked them all out, but nothing stopped the buildup.
The first waves were already expanding toward the doors of the amp room when he ran down the ramp. By the time he reached the bottom the threshold had enveloped Daniel and Sam, and Teal'c's feet had disappeared into the shimmering air. He grabbed Daniel's collar--his arm went pins-and-needles where the distortion lapped over it--and hauled him out, but it wasn't going to be enough. (I can't get all three of them back to the gate before that thing--)
He had to destroy the core.
He had to destroy the core or his team would die in front of him.
He'd get an earful from Sam and Daniel, but at the moment he wasn't seeing any options. Of course, by now that entire area was under influence, and not just threshold--the major distortion field expanded so that the rotating rings were inside it and the rings themselves had sped up. (I don't think a grenade is gonna make it.)
Of course, it was remarkable what a P-90 at close range could do.
The threshold hit the wall of the chamber, enveloping him. (Well, Jack, if you're gonna do it, now would be a good time,) he thought--and ran for the core.
Pins and needles were nothing compared to the frozen stab he felt as soon as he hit the major distortion--it struck across his rifle, clenched up his hands and sent spasms along his forearms, ramming the gun back into his chest. Hard to breathe. Hard to think. Hard to take one step forward, burying himself in the field that shivered like freezing water, jamming the riflepoint between the rings and pulling the trigger--
And the last thing he thought before everything ended was (If we make it to that earful, I'll be the luckiest man alive.)
-
(...where am I?)
His head hurt as he opened his eyes to... darkness. Familiar darkness. The kind of darkness that brooded around him, cool and still and absolute.
(Where am I? What happened? What--)
He came awake all at once, fueled by a jolt of panic. Oh, no. He'd fallen asleep again--who knew for how long, who knew if it was too long, if--
He stumbled to his feet, hand flailing until it came into contact with a wall, and all he wanted to do was vomit. (Dammit. I'm definitely not all right. I'm hallucinating and nauseous and sleeping too much, but I know I'm not concussed.)
He would have liked to dream about Frasier. Daniel's dream lines had sounded like Daniel-speak; maybe Frasier could help him out of this--
(What the hell am I thinking? Snap out of it, Jack--it isn't real. None of that is real. This is real.)
"Colonel O'Neill."
His head shot up, every sense straining. Was that--had he just heard--
"Teal'c?"
The voice came down the long hallway, steady and indistinct. It couldn't be Teal'c. Teal'c was dying. His entire team was dying, and his head hurt--
He hauled himself up, nearly crashed to the floor. "T'. Buddy. Say something?"
The voice stopped.
He stumbled to the grille and collapsed into it, face hard against the bars. "T'!"
Behind the bars Teal'c sat dying.
He rolled away, back against the dirt. He felt cold--his head felt trapped in a vise, as if the world was closing down around him to crush him. He brought a hand to his forehead--sweat slicked the skin, cold under his fingertips.
(This can't be real.)
Absently, he wondered if he was going into shock.
That would be the crowning irony. He had to stop himself from laughing. (For shock position the victim's on his back with his legs elevated by a small log, field pack, or other stable object. Loosen any binding clothing. Reassure the casualty. Be confident in your ability to help.)
(Who the HELL do I think I'm going to be able to fool?)
He took a deep breath, clapped his hands over his ears. (Assess the situation. C'mon, O'Neill. They're your responsibility. All you have to do is come up with some genius plan to get them home without a radio, working GDO, DHD, ship, weapon, stretcher, med kit, clue...)
His next breath shuddered. (Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit! Hold it together!)
"This absolutely can not be real," he heard himself say, and heard himself laugh. Laughter seemed horribly funny. (Now I'm going hysterical! Funny how these things always happen when you really don't need them to. Me, hysterical! Whodathunkit?)
So this was what it felt like to go mad.
He squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his teeth, and caught his breath and held it in. (Keep it together. Gotta keep it together. Gotta think of a way out. C'mon, Jack, Carter would have us out of here in no time. Just figure out what she would do.)
Nothing came to mind.
(All right. What do I have? I have a Swiss Army knife and a watch. A note about something I don't understand. A paper clip. An injured archaeologist with all the trimmings. A comatose second in command with the same. Some C batteries. A Jaffa behind bars with a dead snake. Break it down futher--we've all got the clothes on our backs, in varying degrees of repair. That means cloth, buttons, zippers, bootlaces, rubber soles, leather, steel toes.)
It was like one of those damnable brainteasers they passed around in Basic. He half expected the answer to be a pun. Looked in the mirror to see what he saw, took the saw and cut the mirror in two, two halves made a whole so he crawled out the hole...
(This is ridiculous. I'd have to be effing MacGuyver.)
The thought struck him as absurdly funny, and he began to laugh again. (I do have the knife.)
(Dammit. Jack! Your team is in trouble. You're up and walking and no one else is going to save them for you. You can not lose it right now. You have to figure out some brilliant scheme using a paper clip and Daniel's notes to save the day! Then, possibly cake. And dancing. And parades in your honor down Pennsylvania Avenue.)
He was laughing too hard to see, now. (...damn, am I bad at this.) He should probably stop considering himself a great motivational speaker in times of need.
If Hammond was going to send help he'd have sent it. Maybe he didn't know where they were. Maybe other SG teams had been and gone. Maybe--maybe--maybe--
Speculation was useless. There were two facts. One: he had no idea how to get his team out on his own.
Two: there was no one in the world who could help him.