Tag #29 – Hanging Around

It was like being underwater. Sounds, voices, all filtering down through a thick layer of molasses to reach his ears. He tried to reach up and unblock his ears, but his arms were heavy and refused to obey. He tried moving his legs, kicking when it accomplished nothing. His body was a total dead weight.

Giving up on moving for now, he listened to the muffled voices coming from somewhere behind him. "-going on? How'd...get like this?"

"...asking me?"

That sounds like Jack, Daniel decided muzzily. And who...? Major Davis?

More noises, not Jack or Davis this time. Much farther away and...below him? What the hell is goin' on?

The noises went on for a minute. At least he assumed it was a minute. His head seemed stuffed with cotton batting, blocking half his thoughts from ever making it out of his subconscious. Then struggling noises, coming from the same direction as the first voices.

If he'd been able to move, he would've jumped in surprise at the loud crash and "Ow!" coming from right below him. Wonder what Jack did this time, he thought. Come on Jack, help me out here.

He couldn't quite summon the energy to be indignant as Jack and Davis ignored him, talking amongst themselves. Daniel thought back, trying to puzzle out what exactly had happened. Last thing I remember is being in the infirmary, he remembered. The rest was a grey fog, but underlying it all was the feeling that someone had been trying to suck his brains out with a straw.

The sound of his own voice brought his attention back to the apparent drama going on beneath his feet. "It's good to see you. Oh my God, I figured...had to keep you alive...access your minds..."

"Whoa, hey! Who're you?"

"...sir?"

The other me is really lousy at being me, Daniel declared to anyone who would listen, though seeing as he couldn't get his mouth to work, the only audience was himself.

His muddled mind didn't feel any better when "his" voice suddenly warped into Sam's for awhile. And then they all left, and the room was totally silent.

Well, shit, Daniel managed to think. Now what?

He wasn't sure how long it was before anyone came back into the room. Gradually there were more voices, both beside and below him, and a few painful-sounding thuds. Without any warning whatsoever, full consciousness whooshed back, and he jerked his head up with a gasp. "Holy crap," he breathed, reaching up to pry a tight metal headband off his forehead.

"Hey, you okay?" Jack asked, and Daniel suddenly noticed that the floor was a good ten feet down. Jack was standing on a moveable set of stairs that put him level with Daniel's position. By twisting his neck up he could see that he was attached to the ceiling by some sort of pink rubbery strands, and his chest was encased in a hard harness of some kind.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Daniel replied, and Jack reached under a protrusion on the harness. With a snap, Daniel fell out of the enveloping material and onto the platform on top of the stairs. "Ow."

Jack helped him down to the ground floor, and Daniel shuddered when he saw the strange harnesses dangling above their heads. "What happened?" he asked, rubbing the side of his head.

"Foothold situation," Jack explained, scooting the stairs over to gain access to another harnessed person. "Bunch of aliens made themselves look like us and put us in these things to keep us out of the way. The nurses in the infirmary were already duplicated, they shot us full of sedative and then the next thing I knew, I woke up in one of those rubber slings."

"You don't remember anything between then?" Daniel asked in surprise, recalling his own struggle for coherent thought during those long hours.

"No, not a thing," Jack said absently as he freed an airman. "Why?"

"Uh, no reason. Just wondering."