Daniel
Either there's ringing in my ears, or Sam is humming.
I'm not sure which option is scarier.
I poked my head into her lab, glancing around for odd floating objects, inter-dimensional portals, or anything rumbling, glowing, or otherwise on that looks like it might have the word reactor attached. It's not that I don't trust Sam. I do. Always. But Sam Carter the friend sometimes gets buried under Major-Doctor Carter the astrophysicist, and then things can go boom in new and interesting ways.
No boom today. Looks like Sam just finished setting up some sort of computer search; she just stretched out her arms, rolled her shoulders, and looked up at me with a three-coffee-cup smile. "Daniel! Morning!"
Er. Hmm. Backtrack. After all, I'd come here to give my friend a shoulder to cry on, after that mess yesterday. Because she was my friend... and, admittedly, because along with Jacob, that idiot Tok'ra Sermane was still here, and I was sitting on a very non-'peaceful archaeologist' impulse to give him a practical lesson in applied cultural anthropology in reference to various human styles of self-defense. Which would be silly. A Tok'ra can out-strength me any day of the week. I know that.
Which was why I was also sitting on the impulse to talk Teal'c into it instead.
Not that I thought Teal'c would be easy to convince. On the one hand he didn't like Sam being upset; on the other, he was a soldier the same as Jack was, and if the Tok'ra had a valid tactical argument for wanting some way to call up what was left of Jolinar's memories on demand, he had to at least listen to it.
And Jack was doing one of the best neutral balancing acts on the subject I'd seen in a long time; sarcasm flying as he all but drew a line in the sand and said he'd rather be dead than snaked, yet almost in the same breath commiserating with Jacob on family and the kooky things they could get you into. And avoiding any hypothetical questions from Sermane about whether the Earth-Tok'ra treaty might ever be invoked to request the assistance of specific teams - or, say, individuals - with all the neatness of a tiger shredding carpet.
All in all, yesterday had not been the kind of day I'd expect humming after.
"You look... rested," I venture.
"Despite my neighbors, yeah." At my raised eyebrow, Sam went on, "They had some kind of loud party, or break-in, or something; by the time I was out of the shower, it was all over but the cops hauling somebody off." She gave me a wry look. "You look pretty rested yourself. Given you just let somebody new near the breakable artifacts..."
"He took down one bookshelf," I defended my hapless new assistant. Linguists with anthropological background are hard to come by; I don't know how the Air Force enticed Dr. Benkai Enomouto away from the University of Toronto, and I'm not sure I want to know. "You and Jack have both told me I had too much on it."
"One bookshelf, one pair of airmen carrying staff weapons, one just-boiling coffeepot..." Sam shook her head, grinning. "It's a good thing he has the cute lost scientist look down, or Janet's nurses would have him filleted."
"Cute lost scientist?" I managed, indignant. Hoping it covered the relief; evidently nobody else had noticed Ben had managed his bouts of clumsiness before he'd been threatened with shaking hands. So any suspicious minds in the SGC - and there were a lot - would have to face down that preconception of hapless clumsy four-eyed scientist before they could even consider the reality of kendo calluses.
I didn't know why Ben didn't want people to look past the obvious. But I would. Soon.
It could just be the obvious, after all; Japanese, even Japanese-Americans, can get touchy about people with Korean in their background. And Benkai had enough that even his Japanese had a little foreign flavor to it. Being underestimated could have been his way of getting by.
If it was, I'd have to talk him out of it. Just a little. We need academics, yes - but in an emergency, anyone might get thrown past the 'Gate, anytime. Everybody in the SGC would feel a lot better if they knew Ben could figure out which end of a gun was dangerous.
I knew he did. Sooner or later, they would too.
"Cute," Sam said firmly. "Like a big-pawed puppy. I don't remember Ph.D.s being that way when I was in school."
"He must have started young," I shrugged. Though I had my suspicions about that, too. I couldn't be sure, not exactly, but there was a familiar feel around him...
Easy, Daniel, I told myself. Give him a day to get settled in first. Then ask him if he's interested in borrowing the gym for a spar.
I was actually looking forward to that. Weird.
But then, I was looking forward to a lot more things these days. The situation with the NID had been bad. Was still bad. But after a certain attempted kidnapping had made the local TV news - well, General Hammond had apparently managed to burn up a few phone lines and win us some unofficial concessions. Including, among other things, the funds and official mandate to bring in more scientific staff. Hence the new trio of would-be exo-biologists now working under and around Janet, and Enomouto.
I had a wry feeling someone had meant that as a bribe.
Later. Worry about that later, I told myself. Right now, you've got off-world allies to deal with. "I thought I'd give you a heads-up," I sighed. "We're going to have a briefing in half an hour..."
"A briefing with Sermane."
Ouch. There went the smile. "Sorry, Sam."
"No, it's... thanks, Daniel, really. I just..." Sam took a deep breath. "Oh, the heck with it. Half an hour?" She grabbed her phone, and started dialing. Shook her head when I turned to leave; it's okay, she mouthed.
A phone call outside the Mountain? Curiosity, thy name is archaeologist.
Three rings. Four-
And Sam's face lit up like the first shafts of sun on a desert morning. "Hannibal? It's Sam. I just - wanted to make sure you got someplace to stay all right..." Listening, she blinked; then snickered.
I tilted my head at her, silently curious.
She held the receiver a bit away. "Mornings," Sam intoned, "were apparently invented by certain Dark Lords of the Abyss specifically to torment innocent PIs."
I choked on a laugh.
Sam turned back to the phone. "So you got the car- Oh, okay. Really? You are? But I thought you were just traveling- You didn't! Hannibal..."
I couldn't have left now if I'd wanted to. Oh, for Teal'c's ears. Sam met a PI? When?
"Just help with inquiries, huh?" Sam rolled her eyes. "So... you think you might still be somewhere in the area this Friday?" Her free hand played with a pen. "I mean, I know this bookstore, where people can go to get coffee... really? Oh. Ah. Well, my schedule's... a little weird sometimes. I should call you. Later. Bye." She hung up, and banged her head on the desk. "Oh, god... I am so screwed up."
"I like coffee, too," I offered. "Or maybe we could talk Teal'c into having some hot water and looming in the background. Just in case."
"I don't need backup for a coffee," Sam grumbled.
"Sam, sometimes I feel like I need backup for a grocery run." I pushed my glasses up, trying to find the right words. "It's been a really bad year. If you want to bring a sidearm - or a friend - just to have a cup of coffee... well, do it. You deserve that coffee." I looked away a little. "I think we all do."
"Maybe." A flicker of smile, before she checked her watch. "See you there."
"Right." I headed out, trying to plot out some way to undetectably stuff a Marine's sock down Sermane's throat. Harsh, I know. Downright sadistic, even. But probably not fatal. Darn.
And small enough payback, for how bad I knew this briefing would be...
---------
I was wrong. It was worse.
Oh, not the briefing - though that was bad enough, with Sermane's not-so-sly jabs about Jolinar's memories coming in handy, if we could get proper access to them. Not to mention the grim looks around the table when Jacob mentioned, just off-hand, that the Tok'ra had picked up some information that, hey, here was an address that Goa'uld didn't seem to have gone to in millennia, but one or two System Lords had recently expressed some furtive interest in, and would we mind checking it out in case there was something the Tok'ra could use?
Oh yeah. Forget risking their own rare little lives. Send the humans. There's plenty of them.
Not that I said that. I am our diplomat, after all. And it was always possible there really were more important missions that the available Tok'ra had to take. Maybe.
But the planet itself... that was creepy.
And I mean really creepy. Skin crawling on the neck creepy.
Which was gut-wrenching in and of itself, given the place was so normal.
Every probe we put through, and our own boots on the ground afterwards, said that P3X-459, as the SGC had designated it, was just an empty, quiet, pine-tree-laden wilderness of a planet. Only three things stood out: traces of naquadah in the ground, a bent magnetic field that Sam said was probably due to a millennia-old meteorite strike, and no sign of recent Goa'uld - or human - activity.
Weird. Very, very weird.
Heart in my throat, my team behind me, I headed past the carved diorite keep-away obelisks for the vaguely Mesopotamian ruins, wondering what I'd find.
Which was... more nothing.
An awful lot of nothing, in fact. No bones, no left-behind little treasures; barely a few cracked pots and signs of old burials. Plenty of writing around; a purely amazing amount of writing, compared to a lot of planets we'd visited. Somehow these people had avoided the usual System Lord prohibition on extensive reading and writing, judging by the sheer number of baked clay tablets in evidence on various house shelves. Not to mention the same kind of writing carved into various shaped rocks, or even river-worn pebbles, by a type of very sharp tool I didn't recognize. Strange. I recorded all of it. Especially the rocks.
The kind of writing itself was just about unique, considering everything I'd run into off-world. Not hieroglyphs, though most people would probably take them for that at first glance. Instead, it was an incredibly ancient, or maybe evolved, variant of Hieroglyphic Hittite. Or more accurately, Hieroglyphic Luwian.
I traced the ox-turning rows of one cracked, sooty bit of baked clay with a finger, left to right, then right to left. It'd been left in a hearth, and from the way it had fragmented I kind of got the impression it'd been thrown in out of sheer frustration. How did you get here? I wondered. I've never seen you off-world before-
I stared at the last few lines, looking at symbols completely unlike everything else: squared-off, blocky, and dominated by right angles.
Ancient. My gods, it's Ancient.
Ancient characters, one at a time, with bits of Luwian under each. They didn't seem to make viable words-
I sounded them out in my head, the Luwian I vaguely remembered with the bits of Ancient I'd picked up from Jack and our brief jaunt to Ernest's planet and other places, and nearly choked. No, it didn't make words. It wasn't even wholly accurate, which might throw the whole idea off, but so many bits of it were so close-
Someone was trying to build a transcription!
I'm not sure exactly what I said to Jack; only that the entire hearth was important, and yes, I needed every last little bit of clay in it.
The end result was more like salvage archaeology than the neat job I wished I could have done... but we were leaving lots of other areas for that, later. This - this was important. Now.
I sealed the last bits into our sample containers, along with one of those odd little carved rocks, and sighed. I still hadn't found any sign of catastrophe. Nothing but the kind of orderly discarding of unwanted items that marked an organized migration, as if everyone who'd lived here had suddenly decided to leave, two or three hundred years ago.
Nothing but a really, really bad feeling.
Or... absence of feeling.
Chilled, I straightened as Sam sent the UAV off east - my best guess as to where the locals might have gone. That was it. I'd been handling artifacts, building stones, and trail markers all day - and I'd felt nothing.
I couldn't even feel my own team.
Ki sense. Something here is blocking ki sense-
Which was when Jack went down like a bag of anvils.
---------------
Jack
Swallowing as the infirmary ceiling did a kind of gray-tiled rumba, I let my head thunk back against the pillow. "This sucks."
Ensconced in SG-1's very own visitor chair, my very own goose-bumped archaeologist pushed his glasses up. "I know, Jack."
I glared at the glucose IV tapped into the back of my hand, the Jaffa standing silent and vaguely amused across the room, and the blonde and red heads bent over my medical charts with much medical-ese and waving of hands. And snorted. "This majorly sucks."
"Taking my rank in vain, sir?" Carter fitted the healing device over her hand, and braced herself. "We've tried everything else. Let's see if this helps."
Orange light played across me, and I paled, swallowing as my gut took up a samba counterpoint to the ceiling's dance-a-thon. "Carter - not good-"
Daniel shoved the wastebasket under my head just in time.
Wiping my mouth with a shaky hand, I just let my head hang there a minute. "God, this sucks."
"Huh." Frowning, Sam raised the healing device again.
"Major!" Janet said sharply.
"I'm just going to do a scan, Janet," Carter stated. "I'm not going to try to fix anything."
The doc frowned.
"Your call, Doc," I croaked. Which was clue number one I was in no shape to argue. Ugh.
"If he gets any worse, turn it off," Janet said bluntly. Yep, Major Doctor Fraiser is in the building.
"Right." The orange light shone again, quieter this time.
Don't throw up, I chanted silently. Don't throw up... at least not until she's finished, and Teal'c can zat you out of your misery...
The orange light switched off. I let out a slow breath, feeling way, way better. Which still left me feeling like something Siler had scraped off the inside of the iris, but hey. You take what you can get.
"It's not an infection," Sam said, surprised. "Not a toxin, not nanoprobes - there's nothing there that shouldn't be." She played the healing device over herself, then Daniel and Teal'c. "As far as I can tell, we're just as okay as we were before we went to P3X-459."
Great. "Daniel?"
"Jack?"
"Next time the Tok'ra come up with a good idea, let's toss 'em there."
A flicker of a grin vibrated in his voice. "Wouldn't be fair to the natives."
I cracked an eye open. "From which I'm guessing there are natives?"
"Of a most unusual size and demeanor, O'Neill," Teal'c recounted. "One appears to have... used the UAV as a chew-toy."
I gave him a look.
"Big, white, flying snake-dog sort of thing," Daniel said neutrally. "It kind of grinned at the remote. Before it started munching."
I gave them both a look. "How big?"
Teal'c looked even more inscrutable than usual. "Difficult to determine."
"But the video enhancement guys are guessing... fifteen, twenty feet," Daniel admitted.
"Flying?"
"Er... yeah."
One of these days, I'm going to find out who in charge of the universe hates my life. "Okay. So, assuming I haven't got the universe's biggest case of dog dander sniffles-"
"It's definitely not an allergen, sir," Carter said seriously. "I can pick up a few of those in Daniel's system, and the antihistamines he's taking to knock them out. There's - nothing."
"Nothing?" Janet groused. "Nothing doesn't knock out a perfectly healthy colonel two hours into an away mission."
She sounded personally offended. No surprise. If Janet says you're healthy, you're healthy - and any bugs that didn't get the word better run screaming for their germy little lives.
"Well..." Sam hesitated. "There is something. It's just, I don't know if it means anything, it really shouldn't..."
"Spit it out, Major," I growled.
"It's your blood, sir," she sighed. "Some of it feels... I don't know. Odd."
"Run another blood test," Janet muttered, moving in with sharp, bright and shiny.
"Not sure what you're going to find, Doc," I grumbled as the needle slid home. Chekov had it right. All doctors are vampires. I flexed a no-longer-sore shoulder, thinking of another time under the healing device less than a week ago, along with bags of blood and Dr. Warner's nimble surgeon's hands. "Half of it's not mine right now anyway."
"Two units is a lot less than half, Colonel. But good point," the doc noted, storing her sample. "Let me call Warner. You may have picked up something entirely Earth-native, for once. Blood from someone with undiagnosed sickle-cell, maybe. Or maybe just a usually innocuous virus that doesn't like the alien versions of pollen in your system. Who knows." Dialing, she frowned. "Besides, I've been meaning to talk to him anyway. I put a sample in storage, and now I can't find... Bill? Oh good. Look, can you send me the ID numbers on the units you used for the colonel's last surgery? No, I don't think there was anything wrong, he's still in the infirmary growling at me... should be up? Thanks. Just let me take a look..." Phone still in hand, she tapped away on her keyboard. "Good, I've got them-" Her fingers stopped tapping.
I glanced at Daniel. Trouble?
The archaeologist glanced at Janet, shrugged his shoulders slightly. Inclined his head.
"Bill." Janet's tone dropped a few degrees as she read off an ID number. "What was that doing in the... Yes, I know we were short of AB negative, we're always short of it, what does that- No, I was not saving that aside for Jack! There's... It's a long story, Bill, save us both a lot of grief and don't ask. No. The blood wasn't contaminated. Just - let me straighten this out." Face grim, she hung up. And banged her head on the desk. Twice.
"Doc?" I asked dryly.
"It doesn't matter how small," Janet sighed. "Breaches of medical ethics always come back to bite you."
Daniel stiffened. "Janet?"
"Blood donation is usually anonymous." Her voice was still muffled by the desk, but we all had a lot of practice making out Doc-under-stress. "I pulled a few strings and got that particular unit from a specific donor in the Carson Springs area. I meant to take a good look at it in the lab, since we haven't been able to get said donor into the SGC infirmary and he's one bundle of questions we want answered." Her shoulders slumped. "Warner got to it first."
Teal'c raised a brow.
Janet lifted her head. "Guess what local ib-seshatai is AB negative?"
Carter stared. Daniel muffled a groan. Teal'c nodded once, not surprised.
I fixed the doc with a glare. "You've got to be kidding."
---------------
Megumi
You know you're having a bad day when it starts with a heads-up call about a wandering, depressed, and probably anemic dhampire, and ends with throwing a military surgeon and his escorting MPs out of your clinic.
"And stay out!"
Times like this, I'm glade Kaoru insists I keep a bokken behind the counter. The young men and women in uniform muttered a few polite apologies, then moved off to the edge of the Ihara Clinic driveway with their sputtering charge. They just didn't go any further.
At least they had the decency to look sheepish about it.
At the moment, I didn't really care. I was all but shaking with rage... and fear.
They know. Somehow, they know.
What they knew, I wasn't sure of yet. But the questions this Warner had asked, the information he wanted-
If they find out about Kenshin, they can find out about any of us.
My children...
My fingers did the walking while my brain was still gibbering in panic; I almost missed Kaoru's cheery, "Kamiya Kasshin dojo!"
"Grab Rei," I said numbly. "Find my idiot of a husband. Find your idiot of a husband. Call everyone else, and be ready to pull a Shinomori."
As in, drop everything and vanish.
We've done it before, most notably when everyone official thought Kenshin was dying. He almost had died, the idiot; but once his own stubborn hanyou blood kicked off the death-curse and woke up, it woke up cranky. All things considered, it's just as well we had a bunch of Chinese villains to handle. I don't know what would have happened if we'd been forced to face down Meiji's troops.
Actually, I do know what would have happened. The scared bunch of idiots around our Emperor would have gotten stark proof of just what a half-demon hitokiri can do when his own family is at stake. Suddenly and violently and all over the place.
But that was then, and this was now, and I really, really didn't want to find out the hard way what these people would do if they realized they damn well ought to be scared of Kenshin. Visions of air-strikes were dancing through my head-
"-Megumi-dono!"
"Kenshin." I shivered, clutching the phone. "We're in trouble."
"What did they say?"
I swallowed dryly. "That one of their patients was sick, and they traced the donor number..."
I didn't have to say any more. For either of us.
Ever since the Red Cross started up, we've been careful. Most of our little clan doesn't donate at all, unless it's to family; hanyou blood carries its own magical charge, and though we can take precautions to make sure it doesn't drag some unsuspecting patient into the clan, it's just easier not to bother. Kenshin, bless his too-generous heart, does donate; we figured out a long time ago how to keep the kiryuu elements inactive, AB negative is rare, and if a recipient heals just a little faster than normal for a month or two, most doctors are glad to take the credit. But even under those circumstances, we're careful. Kenshin only gives blood once or twice a year, and we make sure it goes right to a local hospital. It never goes near the military. Ever.
For it to be in one of the people under the mountain, and for them to be sick...
Kenshin doesn't get sick. Not the way humans do. He can be injured, certainly; he can go too long without blood and hunting, and slide into magical starvation that starts out looking like low blood sugar and ends up looking like a degenerative illness from the lower hells. But he does not. Get. Sick.
"Megumi-dono. Breathe."
Good idea. Oh gods, my patients, my family - this wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair-
"So," an unfamiliar man's voice carried from the front desk. "Pentagon decide to outsource a few more things I haven't heard of, or do the local airmen just like your fortune cookies?"
And Kenshin laughed.
"Ken-san?" I muttered.
"Ask him for help, Megumi-dono." I could hear Kenshin's smile through the line. "After all, if Hannibal-san has done you a favor, he may be willing to accept one in return. And that would ease Ryan's mind considerably."
---------------
Hannibal
Okay, since when did I walk into World War III?
Not that anybody's shooting. Not yet. But there's military types outside the clinic, worried civilian types inside the clinic, and one damn scared Dr. Megumi Takani clutching a phone as if she expects to have to dial 911 in a split second. And anything that gets a fox like her worried is enough to get this PI checking for emergency exits.
I took another careful sniff, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Fox, definitely. Or as she'd probably put it, kitsune. Probably with a heap of human in the mix on top of that; everything I'd ever read says fox-spirits are a bit too flighty and powerful to want to do anything as legit as clinic work. But any way you slice it, likely at least half-youkai.
Figured. Detective O'Connell had given me her card, after all. And if you had wolf-demon in your background, would you go to a human doc? "What's up, Doc?"
If looks could kill, I'd have been a seared spot on the carpet.
I put up my hands to ward off that incendiary brown glare, gave her a shrug. "Sorry, it's been a bad week..." I took a step back from the worried blonde medical receptionist with the nametag of "Letitia" and slanted a serious look Dr. Takani's way. "They got a warrant?"
"Ha!" Long, delicate fingers clenched and unclenched, as if clutching a certain Air Force guy's throat. "They don't think they need one."
I tched. "Downright rude." Man, I would not want to be in that guy's shoes. That whole line about woman scorned? Double for fox-women. They can get downright creative.
But then again - she was a doc. Meaning she probably wanted to at least try to solve this without use of foxfire. I glanced at her phone. "You could get 'em hauled off for trespassing."
Other people might have mistaken Takani's flash of white teeth for a smile. "That could be difficult."
"Oh yeah?"
"They work under the mountain," Letitia put in, fake pink nails worrying at her paperwork. "Things kind of get... smoothed over."
I added two and two, and came up with aw, hell. Military guys with an unofficial license to break laws, trying to raid the records of a woman who seemed to be some kind of local doctor for those of us who go ka-thump, crash, ow, in the night? No way this could end well.
I don't like the supernatural. I'd be human in a heartbeat if I could. I didn't ask to be a damn bloodsucker.
But damn it all, I'm not Blade. I'm not gonna assume that everybody on the wrong side of the night is there by choice. Maybe they're good people, maybe they're not - but until I had evidence something was deliberately out to do harm, no matter how ugly it looked, I had to at least give it a shot at trying to be humane.
I took a look at the fading light out there, and breathed a little sigh of relief. At least it was almost sundown. Made things a lot easier to deal with. "Make you a deal. You tell me what he wants to know, an' what you think he should know, I'll go tell him to park himself somewhere that don't freeze over."
A black brow went up. "In return for?"
I faked a casual shrug. "You up for giving somebody just passing through a checkup?"
Takani smiled.
A couple minutes filling out paperwork, and I headed out to where Doc Bozo - ahem, Warner - was gesticulating on some kind of encrypted cell phone. Subtle, this guy wasn't. "Evening."
A few inches shorter than me, a little jowly and balding, frazzled, and obviously out of his league. I almost felt sorry for the guy. "And you are?" he snapped.
Yep, almost. "I'm the guy that's gonna save your sorry behind," I smirked back. "Unless you want the AMA to hear how you tried to get a fellow doctor to breach medical ethics? No? I didn't think so." I bundled my hands in my trenchcoat pockets, keeping the recognition off my face as I watched the kids in uniform tense up. Huh. How did people stationed under a mountain come up with firefight twitches? "Just as a friendly reminder, we got a little thing called doctor-patient confidentiality in this country. Dr. Takani's not just in her rights to tell you no, she's obligated to tell you hell no." I took out a finger to wave it when he tried to talk. "Now, just as a favor from one doc to another - and bear in mind this is a favor - she asked me to let you know she does run blood tests on her patients, and she advises anybody who shouldn't donate blood not to. We clear?"
"The circumstances are unusual," Warner blustered. "Mr. Himura's medical history may be crucial-"
Mr. Himura's official medical history probably was as plain-vanilla as Takani could make it. Assuming Mr. Himura was the guy Warner was indeed looking for; Takani had hedged with "my patient" and "the donor", but she for damn sure hadn't mentioned a name. Sheesh, and I didn't think my opinion of this guy could drop any lower. "You try asking Dr. Takani about these unusual circumstances?"
By the shift of his eyes, I could tell he hadn't.
"I'm going to give you some free legal advice, Dr. Warner. Get out of here," I jabbed a thumb toward the uniforms, "and take them with you."
"Just who do you think you are?"
The hell with this. I stood straight as that night years ago when I'd faced down the most fearsome vampire hunter on the planet, and let just a wisp of that oncoming darkness flow free. "The name's King," I stated. "Hannibal King."
---------------
Sam
"Warner did what, Sir?" I said in disbelief. I could have misheard, after all; Janet and I had been up to our ears in lab work, getting our brand-new exo-biology geeks up to speed hitting the colonel's blood samples with PCR, ELISA, and the whole rest of the alphabet. We'd poked and prodded at it with microscopes, centrifuges, energy fields, the healing device, and no few bits of other scavenged tech. If the kitchen sink would have helped, we'd have hit it with that, too.
"I would have thought you'd be more concerned with what he didn't do, Major." General Hammond frowned, keeping a reasonable distance from the colonel as we stood near the infirmary doors; just because we were fairly certain the cause was Earth-native, didn't mean we were sure. "I suspect I'll have to add Dr. Warner to Dr. Baird's treatment list; no one Earth-based should shake one of our people so badly. We'll just have to send someone else back there for Himura's records-"
"Sir, no," I said firmly.
"Excuse me, Major?"
"It's illegal, Sir," I stated, trying not to shake inside. "Even if it weren't - we do not need the kind of attention the NID already drew down on themselves." Live and let live only goes so far, after all. Inside that nice quiet kendo instructor is a guy who had absolutely no qualms about filleting a car with agents still in it. An otherwise smart guy who nonetheless seems to delight in going nyah at the NID at every opportunity. And worse, doing so in what the colonel suspects is a Plan.
I did ask the colonel what kind of plan. Once. Jack grumbled something about the NID eventually getting Himura right where he wanted them, and wouldn't say anything else. I didn't push it. Officially, I'm a member of the armed forces, sworn to preserve and protect all American lives. Unofficially - well, if an innocent civilian within the bounds of the United States in reasonable fear for his own life decides to use deadly force, that's a matter for local law enforcement. Not me.
Janet added another slip of paper to the unruly pile on her clipboard. One of which was probably a note to check on Warner, now lightly sedated in his own on-base quarters with some very impressed airmen keeping an eye on him. As one of the guys had chuckled in passing, he hadn't seen anybody stared down that bad since the last time a grizzled staff sergeant lost his temper over a couple of green recruits, a slingshot, and a live grenade. "I doubt there would be any point, General. Regular medical tests wouldn't catch this." She waved us in toward our worried archaeologist, grumpy colonel, and intrigued Jaffa. "I don't know yet if the problem is alien, Sir, but it's definitely native. Or should I say, it definitely originated from this planet."
"Janet?" Daniel asked.
"Your statements would seem contradictory, Dr. Fraiser," Teal'c noted.
"Simplify, and explain," O'Neill ordered.
A fey grin crossed Janet's face. "You have a nasty case of cellular mimics, Colonel."
"...A little less simple," Jack muttered.
I nodded, wide-eyed. Granted, biology wasn't my field, but to put together the various tests we'd done and come up with that- whoa. Wait a minute...
I blinked, seeing Daniel's fingers waving in front of my face. "Earth to Sam?"
Damn, lost it. "Janet?"
"One thing I've learned working here," Janet observed. "Sometimes you have to treat the symptoms you find, even if what you think should cause those symptoms isn't there. In this case - immersion in frigid water."
She kept him warm, gave him IV glucose, tried to make sure his electrolytes were stable- "Hypothermia?" I blurted. "Cold-water drowning?"
"Deliberately instigated, I think," Janet nodded. "At least, insofar as biochemical prodding can be deliberate."
"I didn't even go near the water, Doc," the colonel pointed out.
"No," Janet agreed. "But outside of getting wet, the mimics seem to have caused a systemic reaction similar to that I'd see if somebody dumped you off an Antarctic icebreaker."
"...Ow."
"Definitely ow," Janet nodded. But I could tell her heart wasn't in it; it was too darn fascinating. How on earth cells inside the organism had provoked a reaction that should have only been caused by external conditions...
"There is a difference from drowning in warm water, Dr. Fraiser?" Teal'c asked, intrigued.
"For humans, a big one." Janet tapped her fingers on her clipboard. "I'll show you some of the technical details later, Teal'c. For now - if a human goes under in warm water, oxygen starvation sets in, and the brain dies. But if they go under in cold water, the whole system slows down, what blood flow there is gets diverted to the brain and internal organs, and there is a chance - not a good chance, but a chance - they can be revived with little or no trauma." She gave the colonel a level look. "Believe it or not, Colonel, you weren't the only casualty on this mission."
"But... I was just a little chilly," Daniel protested.
"Yes, you were," Janet acknowledged. "When both Teal'c and Sam didn't feel a thing. You were cold, Daniel - and I don't think external temperature had anything to do with it. I think your body knew it was in trouble, and was deliberately conserving energy. In essence, it was pulling off a controlled shutdown." She gave Colonel O'Neill a jaundiced look. "As opposed to an uncontrolled shutdown."
"You're saying the same thing that KO'd me just gave Daniel the shivers?" Jack arched a skeptical brow.
"I'm saying it KO'd you because you didn't have the shivers, Colonel." Janet held up a hand when the general would have jumped in. "Let me take this from the top, Sir. Some of it's based on the work of our new lab team, some of it's educated guesswork. But hopefully, it's testable. The UAV was able to tell us the distortion in the magnetic field had a measurable endpoint, less than half a mile away from where that creature munched it; I predict that if we send another, specially-equipped probe to the planet, we'll find that distortion has similar, yet more extreme, characteristics to that produced by an MRI. I further predict that any SGC personnel we send through that don't have adverse reactions to the MRI scans, won't suffer ill effects. At least, not in the short term."
"Major?" The general looked at me.
"That would follow," I nodded, thinking hard. "Hypothermia induced by lack of compatible energies?"
"With hypoglycemia following as the dependent cells got desperate for alternative sources of fuel," Janet agreed. "I even found some traces of ketosis as they broke into the colonel's fat stores. Determined little buggers."
Eyes were bouncing back and forth between us like first-time spectators at a tennis match. "Carter?" the colonel asked dryly.
"In a cellular sense?" I shrugged. "You got mugged, Sir."
"More like, they made you an offer you couldn't refuse," Janet said in perfect Godfather tones. "After all, all they were trying to do was survive. And their normal host system probably would've beat feet out of there even before Daniel did."
"Himura," the general stated.
"Is, by his own admission, even more sensitive to magnetic and so-called psychokinetic energy flows than Daniel, Sir. Apparently, to the cellular level." Janet pointed to one of her sample vials, where foil protected tender cells from light. "We were able to separate out donor cells from Colonel O'Neill's own blood cells by exposing a sample to a strong magnetic field. Regular blood cells don't care. Himura's, red, white, or otherwise, bolt for cover. To the point they crawl if they have to." She listened to our blank silence, and stifled a sigh. "Red blood cells are not supposed to act like amoebas, General. Trust me."
"Not to knock the science, Janet, but how can you be sure that's because they're Kenshin's, and not just something weird about Jack?" Daniel pointed out.
"Hey!"
"After the kinds of extraterrestrial chemicals and other weirdness we've run into?" Daniel gave him a pointed look.
"All right, all right..."
Janet grinned dryly. "Because human RBCs don't have nuclei, either."
Teal'c raised a brow.
"Humans and Jaffa have that in common," Janet said plainly. "Our mature red blood cells lose a lot of cellular machinery. We're always making new ones and recycling them, after all; there's no point in expending energy that could be used for the cell to just carry oxygen around. So mammals just don't. But not every vertebrate feels that way. Birds, reptiles, fish - they all have nucleated RBCs. And so does Kenshin." She hesitated. "Though I suspect that could also be because they're not exactly red blood cells. Only suspect, granted; if they're not, they're pulling off a damn good imitation. Good enough to fool anybody, even under a microscope, without high magnetics involved. But-" Her lab computer chimed. She held up a hand: wait.
I snooped over her shoulder, my jaw dropping as the exo-biology results came back. If this was solid, we owed the new guys a round of pizza.
Then again, if this was solid, I was going to be checking and re-checking our computer systems until my eyes dried out to make sure we'd destroyed all the snoops. No way could we let the NID get their hands on this.
"Forget suspect," Janet said colorlessly. "Those are not red blood cells." She gave the colonel a sober look. "Not human ones."
---------------
Daniel
Kenshin isn't human.
Kenshin... isn't human.
So what does that make me?
I was frozen in my chair as Sam and Janet tossed medical-ese back and forth, ears twitching at a few of the Latinate terms, automatically comparing them to their counterparts in Ancient; one or two of which had shown up on those rescued clay fragments. Ancient medical-ese... scary thought. If someone had been trying to transcribe Ancient into their own language, and I had the distinct impression they had, why would they start with words like that? It'd be like trying to learn how to write English from one of Sam's lab manuals. Crazy.
Focus. Kenshin. Not human... but he acts human... but he's over a century and a half old... but...
"Alien cellular mimics?" Jack asked pointedly. "Doc. If the Thing from Outer Space is alive and well and pretending to be a kendo instructor in Carson Springs while he donates blood to make more Things, I'm going to be very cranky."
"I don't have anything to indicate these cells are infectious, or even reproducing," Janet said soberly. "Which is actually odd, the white blood cells should divide a few times if we give them a proper media. Only they haven't. The cellular machinery's there, it's just not inducing division. They're performing the right bloodstream functions. Otherwise, they're inert." She sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't swear they'll stay that way. Right now our new bio geeks are having tremendous fun watching some red blood cells turn into white blood cells, and vice-versa."
"Say what?"
"Started happening when they fractionated a sample to try a DNA analysis," Janet shrugged. "After all, ordinarily we'd need white blood cells for that. But Robertson took a look at his vial of RBCs after they started the first run, and voila: white blood cells in the mix. Back to regular blood again."
"Cells don't just turn into other cells," Sam objected.
"Technically, stem cells do just that," Janet corrected her. "But if the protein analyses are right, they aren't just turning into other cells. They're turning into cells that look like Colonel O'Neill's. Down to the antigen coat. Only the DNA is different. Very different." She frowned. "The antigens are actually a hopeful sign; his spleen might just be able to clear these cells out in a month or two. Assuming they let it - we're going to have to see if they react to biochemical lysis differently from energy starvation..."
Shape-shifting cells, no less. Gods, it's like something out of a fairytale-
"Hengeyokai."
"Daniel?" Jack gave me a sidelong look.
Oops. Did I say that out loud?
Deep breath. They're already suspecting the worst, after all.
But how are they going to take it when I tell them Kenshin's not an alien?
Only one way to find out. "Hengeyokai. The Changing Phantoms. That's the Japanese term for them, but we find them in legends all over the world, just like the legends of gods..."
Blank looks. Backtrack, Daniel. "Battousai was called the youkai of Kyoto. Demon. Phantom. Supernatural creature. The same... type of creature as other shape-shifters, even if legend didn't say he shifted shape."
"Shape-shifters?" Sam gave me a you've-got-to-be-kidding look. "Like werewolves?"
"Totally different." I shook my head. "Werewolves are humans who change into something else. Hengeyokai... well, they're a something else that turns into a human. Foxes and tanuki are the common ones, but youkai could be any kind of natural force. Animals, rivers, storms, dragons... actually, dragons and rivers are kind of interchangeable, though there's also supposed to be wind and fire dragons..."
Dead silence.
"Fine. You know what? Forget it. I told people about cross-pollination of cultures and that the pyramids were built way before we thought they were, and no one wanted to believe me until they could tie it in to something they knew had to have been built by aliens. Nobody modern, anyway - ancient people knew the gods did it. And guess what? Ancient people also had this silly idea that there were creatures on earth that didn't have fixed forms; that they could be humans if they wanted, or animals if they wanted, or something else in-between. Not only that, but that some of these creatures loved humans; loved them enough to have children with them. And that for generations afterward, these children would be special. Different." I was shaking, I was so mad. Gods, why was I so mad?
Because - I was still cold. Inside. And yet everything was so clear. Like going for hours with ear protectors on, then suddenly taking them off; the least little sound ached like thunder. I could feel what was happening here, how the general and Jack and anyone else down the chain of command would look at this and see threat.
"If you think Kenshin's not human - if you think he did this on purpose, that he's dangerous - then you might as well put me in Area 51 right with him." I stared at the general, trying to will my hands not to shake. "Because whatever his DNA says, whatever makes him different - Janet's going to find it in me, too."
"Danny-"
"No, Jack, I'm not sure," I headed his question off at the pass. "But I'd bet on it. I would."
"Odds are he's right, General," Janet observed neutrally. "Similar sensory capability would tend to indicate similar biological systems behind it."
"For your sake, I hope not, Dr. Jackson," Hammond frowned. "Damage control, Doctor. Is there any way to get these cells out of Colonel O'Neill?"
"Actually, I think so," Janet nodded. "It won't be pleasant, but if we can combine blood filtration with some magnetic fiddling, we should be able to sieve the little buggers out. Though I would suggest a few units of whole blood on hand to replace what we're going to be taking out; the colonel's had enough system shocks for one day."
"Shock or not, Doctor, you'll have to start on that ASAP," he ordered. "I cannot allow my second in command to be compromised by alien influence-"
"Kenshin is not an alien."
Conversation lurched to a halt. "Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c ventured.
"He lives here," I managed, through a throat tight with... something I didn't want to look at too closely. "He has a family. Children. Friends. He holds down a job. He lets the cops take him in for vandalism when he cuts down a light-pole. He has a goddamn Social Security Number!"
"Illegal Social Security Number," Jack pointed out. "So he's got a good cover. So what?" He jabbed a thumb toward Janet's damning computer screen. "Doesn't change what he is."
"Yeah," I said softly. "I guess not."
And walked out.
Because if I didn't, I-
I didn't know what I'd do. I was just so angry, so cold, so...
A hand appeared in my line of sight, just long enough to get me to glance down to a certain ex-Toronto dweller's startled brown gaze. "Dr. Jackson?" Dr. Enomouto looked me up and down, shook his head. "You look terrible."
A bitter ha escaped my lips. "D-doesn't surprise me." Damn. Stuttering. I hate it when that happens, hate it...
"Can you talk about it?" Behind glass, brown eyes narrowed, worried. "I haven't been here long enough to really get into the local informal informational networks-"
Ah, yes; the rumor mill. Gods, I'd missed having someone around who knew anthropological jargon.
"-But I've heard some of the organizational support personnel saying SG-1 ran into some real trouble off-world, and some of the subordinate-status tribal warriors are also saying Warner got sent after something on-world here, and it seems to me like there's a communal consensus that it would not be overreacting to be worried that something got loose from the base..."
A lift of his brow said worried was an understatement.
Gossip. Faster than 'Gate travel. And possibly more deadly. "Nothing got loose," I said firmly. "Janet just wanted some information that I don't think we're going to find in medical journals." I passed the elevator and headed for the stairs, hoping to burn off some of the frustration. "We did find a little... well, writing on the walls. I was thinking of seeing what you made of it."
Enomouto shrugged as we made our way up a few floors toward my office. "Hittite, right? My Egyptian hieroglyphs are okay, Dr. Jackson, but my cuneiform? Not so good."
I stopped dead.
A few steps below me, Benkai slapped a hand to his forehead. "Kuso."
"How did you know?" I said levelly. Because he shouldn't know. There was no way anyone who knew we'd found Mesopotamian-style ruins - meaning the general, Janet, and the 'Gateroom personnel, anybody else should only know SG-1 came home in pieces, again - would have talked to a new scientist. Details on off-world missions don't get spread around until after we make our official report. Especially details on places we're checking out because the Tok'ra asked us to take a look.
Suspicious of our allies? Who, us?
And if they had talked, they would have looked at the tablet pics we sent back, and said hieroglyphs. I've done my best, but the fine distinctions of the variety of different ancient writing systems are pretty much lost on most people here. They're doing better than the average guy on the street just to recognize that hieroglyphs, cuneiform, and runes are all different systems. Try telling them there's a purely Proto-Indo-European system of hieroglyphs out there, for a kingdom we still haven't be able to pin down geographically besides "somewhere on the edge of the Hittite Empire", and I'm sure I'd get a resounding, "Say what?"
Benkai wouldn't meet my eyes. No - he was looking at my hands. "What's your style?"
"Kamiya Kasshin, and whatever Colonel O'Neill comes up with for SGC hand-to-hand," I said neutrally. "And you?"
"I thought you looked like one of Kaoru's!" The grin lit up a plain face; turned it warm, almost handsome. "Well, if you've been there a few months, you know part of her training is meditation? Sometimes even-" he hesitated, almost unnoticeably, "-hunches?"
I lifted a skeptical brow. How did he jump from Kamiya Kasshin, straight to Kaoru? There's got to be other masters of the style. Doesn't there? "You had a hunch?"
Dark eyes rolled. "If I had a nickel for every time somebody brought up the whole 'disturbance in the Force' line... Spooky Benkai, that's me. Ask anybody in the anthro department back at U of T. Which is kind of why I was a little surprised at the job offer; I never put anything in a paper we can't back up with hard evidence, but..."
"We have a little experience here, running with hunches," I said dryly. Though to be honest, it's usually only SG-1's hunches that get official attention. I don't know whether to be grateful General Hammond trusts us that much, or frustrated that he might be ignoring perfectly valid lines of inquiry just because they don't come from his flagship team.
Though at the moment, I was working on a very fine-slivered case of mad. I knew it. I knew our new help was too good to be true.
Not that I thought Benkai was a plant. Oh no. The NID, or whoever was behind this particular yank on our chain, was too clever for that.
I'm the head archaeologist and anthropologist on this base. I'm one of the people who got final review over Benkai's records. And there was not one hint, not one, in anything I saw, that he was anything but a more flexible than average anthro-linguist.
Made me wonder what Janet's exo-bio geeks had in their background.
Whatever it was, I was betting it was something like Benkai's little... lapses of professional sanity. Some smoky taint on their skills or reputation that would let whoever's making decisions upstairs point to their conclusions and say, well, that might be right... but these scientists, they're a little, you know...
Which would be all the more reason to turn over the SGC to people a little more... conventional. A little more... in touch with the party line.
I'm not a violent person. Really. But I had a sudden, sharp impulse to hunt up a couple of NID agents and introduce them to practical archaeology. Such as, say, exactly how you perform the execution the ancient Norse knew as the blood eagle.
It's a particularly nasty way to die, and from everything I can determine, Gairwyn's people still practice it on oath-breakers. Which tells me more than I want to know about the Asgaard.
Am I grateful to the Asgaard for protecting Earth? Oh yes. As far as that goes - which is not too far, given the conditions of the Protected Planets Treaty say Earth is a glowing ball of rock any time the System Lords decide our technology's advanced to a level to be a threat to them. Note that clause: they decide. No input from us, none from the Asgaard, just a majority of powerful Goa'uld coming to the conclusion that we're too advanced to fulfill our "rightful" position of hosts - or slaves.
Do I trust the Asgaard? Not as far as I could throw ten of Thor put together.
Not because I deliberately think they'd betray us. Not exactly. But I don't think they understand us. What's worse, I think they think they understand us - when that whole Hall of Thor's Might mess shows they don't.
I doubt Sam has thought about it. I know I didn't at the time; I was just grateful we were still in one piece, Heru'ur's forces were getting their snaky tails yanked off the planet, and the Asgaard were going to fix what we'd broken. Not that that would return the lives the Cimmerians had lost, but at least nobody else was going to die because we screwed up.
But later... later I thought about it. A lot. Old Norse runes as code for pi? Relying on number meanings over a thousand years old? When the whole Futhark system changed at least half a dozen times on Earth as we know it before it was pretty much dropped in favor of Romanized lettering? And that doesn't even take into account the human tendency to stray from base-ten counting every once in a while, into base-eight or base-twelve or even base-sixteen. All of which would give a different series of numbers for the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius.
If the Asgaard thought the Cimmerians would keep that much of their written language and number systems static that long, they didn't know humans at all.
And... whatever hunches Benkai might get about anthropology, he looked like he was getting a nerve-wracking one about me. "It's just, I've been around artifacts from that area before," he shrugged, trying to put a few more inches between us. "They feel different from Egypt. Kind of... bloodier."
"I'm not holding any artifacts," I said flatly. Let him sweat that a second. "But I was there. In someplace that had spiritually potent and potentially maleficent invocations to local powers as keep-away signs."
Or as laymen would put it, curses.
"Oh." Benkai swallowed dryly. "Well..."
"And you knew it."
"Um..."
"And I'm not throwing you out of the SGC here and now for being completely unscientific why?"
He straightened to his full five-foot-five-and-zip, all the puppy-charm set aside. "Because if you know Kaoru, you know Kenshin," Benkai said frankly. "And if you know Kenshin, you know there are things out there current science doesn't have a handle on."
"Yeah, well, you can tell the hengeyokai current science just caught up with him," I muttered.
Benkai paled. "How? He's careful, damn it - he doesn't go near weirdoes in labcoats-"
I felt a little faint myself. "He... really is hengeyokai?"
"Um - no?"
I dropped down a few steps, and gave my sweating subordinate a level look. "Dr. Enomouto... you and I need to talk."
---------------
Benkai
I swear, Kenshin can attract more trouble than a barrel-full of snow monkeys.
"This-" clack "just-" clatter "-arrgh!"
Parry, parry, twist, dodge. Let him work out the mad - and boy, does this young man have a lot of mad to work out.
Bokken in hand, I took a quick glance toward the rest of the base gym, relieved nobody else seemed to be interested in this corner of it at the moment. Not that there were too many people here at this hour, outside of a few technical types tearing up imaginary roads on exercise bikes and one glowering Marine with an arm cast doing routines at the weights. But I'd found out a long time ago it only took one person suspicious of exactly how you managed a tricky move to make life very uncomfortable.
Only from the sound of what Dr. Jackson had let slip, somebody had found a way to pick hanyou out of the crowd without even having to see them.
Nightmare. It's a kami-damn-it nightmare.
Breathe, and be. Kaoru's old instructions came back like yesterday; I flowed through the paired forms like water. Okay - maybe like worried, terrified water. But I couldn't get answers if he knocked my skull in.
I could almost hear my sensei's chuckle. That's right, Benkai. He'll tell you. In his own time.
"I mean-" clash "-what am I supposed to tell them?" Dr. Jackson panted. "Oh gee, Jack, Janet, everybody - I'm sorry? Because, damn it, I'm not." Smack. "You stole a supernatural creature's gift of hospitality, abused it for your own purposes to search out and potentially exploit the donor's weaknesses, tried to break the sacred oath of a healer in the process, and then repudiated the gift?" He stepped back, hands wringing the wooden grip. "Damn it, they're all screwed!"
"Maybe," I admitted, breathing a little heavily myself. "Maybe not. What happened?" I lowered my weapon and my voice, stepping close enough that the cranky Marine couldn't hear. "How is Kenshin in trouble?" How are we all?
Behind glass, blue eyes closed in a wince. "Jack's AB negative."
"Colonel O'Neill is-" Erk. Oh. But- "How - how'd he even notice? Kenshin's careful..." Whoa. "Just what did those curses say?"
"Loose translation? 'The power of the stars shall desert you, and the power of earth not bear you upon it'-"
I cut him off right there with a sharp wave of hand. Dr. Jackson's ki didn't feel like he could cast a curse by accident, but I've been surprised before. "Let me guess. It went down the list of fire, water, air, night, and so on?"
"You've met them before." Blue studied me with the kind of calculation onmitsu used before throwing down poisoned caltrops. "It stifled ki perception?"
"Close," I admitted. "I'm not sure, but it sounds like your typical ban-every-power-but-human ward. Nasty." Not as nasty as a straight-out purification, but plenty mean enough to put a hanyou down for the count. "I'm going to guess, and say there wasn't a lot of animal life in the area?"
"...No."
"They don't like that kind of thing either. Like having a permanent eclipse of the sun." I muttered a few of Grandma Cho's better curses under my breath. "Somebody put out one hell of an unwelcome mat." Which leads me to wonder about why. For someone to put that kind of ward up, and get it to stick through at least a couple centuries untouched - they have to have poured in one hell of a lot of energy. As in, possible voluntary sacrifice amount of energy.
Two ways that usually goes down. Either you hate the enemy, hate them down to your dying breath and beyond, to the point you're willing to give everything you were or might ever be to see them suffer...
Or you love someone they mean to harm.
Take my body for your shield; my soul for your sword. So long as my love endures, I swear I will protect you.
And love is eternal...
We've never been pushed that far. With luck, we'll never be pushed that far. But every adult in the clan knows how it's done.
"I've never run into hengeyokai legends off Earth."
I blinked, dragged back to the guy now lowering his sword in thought. "Huh?" Reran that last bit in my head. "Never? But - the Goa'uld took humans off of Earth-"
"They should have taken the stories, too," Daniel nodded. "But stories only last if there's some reason to keep telling them. Stories of the gods hung on, the Goa'uld were right there..."
"But youkai weren't?" That would make sense. Sort of. Youkai and hanyou, even hanyou who don't know what they are, tend to have a pretty tight grip on what is and isn't a threat in the local environment. Given what I've picked up just walking into the same base with Teal'c, a Jaffa raiding party heading in to round up slaves would blaze in ki sense of bad things coming - run like hell.
And from what I've picked up meeting Teal'c, any youkai or hanyou that didn't run fast enough would probably have tried to slaughter that feeling of alien before they could think twice. Meaning one side or the other would have ended up very dead. "But if it's a ward against hengeyokai..."
"Is it?" Daniel was almost looking through me, thoughts visibly racing. "'The power of the stars shall desert you'. And the Tok'ra won't go there..."
"They won't?" Very interesting. "But - Kenshin-"
Behind glass, blue gleamed. "I have an idea."
Why do I not like the sound of that?
"I just need a little help."
Because he sounds like Misao, that's why, I realized, thinking of our clan's bouncy little ninja-lady. The same one who likes to turn her daughters' suitors into kunai pincushions, leap into people's arms to hug them, and can actually get stone-sober Aoshi to laugh. Oh, I'm doomed...
---------------
Jack
One unmarked tile, two unmarked tiles, three... wait. Was that a shadow, or a smudge from the last time something in here caught on fire?
I craned my head around as much as I could, trying not to hear the slow whine as Janet's improvised blood filter did its magnetic grabby thing. Noise or blood loss, I wasn't sure, but I had a headache you could use to crack the iris with. Damn, this hurt.
No painkillers, either. The doc now sacked out on an infirmary cot in her office had offered; I'd turned her down. We didn't know what even aspirin might do to the little nucleated buggers. Better to run the procedure clean, and get it done with once and for all. No matter how much it hurt.
Hmm... shadow. Next tile over was smudged, though. So that made something like twenty-odd clear tiles, three stained, and a lot more to go.
Not to mention one tired, achy, cranky colonel who didn't want to think.
I was, though. Little bits of ideas bouncing around like hyperactive super-balls, set off by one particular archaeologist losing his temper big-time.
Daniel thinks this was an accident.
I'm not trained to believe in accidents. I've survived way too many years in Black Ops and then the SGC by blatantly assuming there are no accidents; that if something bad goes down, the only appropriate response is to determine the proper application of high explosives necessary to deal with the enemy that did it.
But. Daniel is our alien negotiations expert. And if I think Himura's an alien, then I have to at least consider the fact that Daniel might have a better grip on what makes him tick than I do. Which means it could be an accident. Maybe. Along the lines of Jolinar taking over Sam level of accident...
No, no, that wasn't quite fair. That Tok'ra knew damn well what she was doing when she jumped an unwilling host and didn't 'fess up. And maybe she saved Sam later - but damn it, if it weren't for her, Sam wouldn't have needed saving from the Ashrak assassin in the first place.
All Himura did was donate blood. The rest of it was our screw-up.
Not that that let him off the hook, in my book. He knew he wasn't normal; you don't live as long as he has and think it's normal. Which means he should've known better than to give blood.
Damn it, my head was killing me. And there was this weird prickle along my arms and neck, as if... nah, that was crazy. But still... "Who's there?"
"Damn," grumbled from the other side of the privacy curtain. "Dr. Jackson told me to be sneaky..."
I raised one intrigued brow, wondering just where Daniel had taken off after that little blow-up. "Enomouto?"
"Um - yeah. Hang on." Dr. Enomouto parted the curtain to look in on me, huge metal coffee mug dangling off his thumb. Glanced at the whining machinery and the red IV line leading in and out, and winced. "Ouch. That looks like it hurts."
"Ya think?" I quipped. "Daniel told you to be sneaky?" I gave the empty mug a jaundiced once-over. "What happened to his coffeepot?"
"He thinks the new exo-bio guys might have borrowed it," Enomouto shrugged. "Don't know why... he's tracking them down now."
"God help the poor bastards," I breathed.
Dark brows climbed. "He's that bad?"
"Multiply whatever you're thinking by a hundred. At least." I shook my head in pure disbelief. Probably was the exo-bio guys, at that; nobody else in the Mountain would have dared get between Daniel and the worship of the sacred bean. "So he told you to be sneaky? Wouldn't do you that much good; Janet might be sacked out right now, but she's got a sixth sense when it comes to Daniel stealing her coffee. Probably extends to you by proxy."
"That wouldn't surprise me," the linguist admitted with a wry grin. "But he said I'd probably need to be sneaky off-world sometime, and I might as well practice somewhere it won't get me shot."
What do you know. Space monkey actually listened once in a while.
I grimaced, and slapped that thought down. Fact was, Daniel listened a lot. He just didn't always match listening to acting. "You have to be anywhere for a half-hour or so?" Given it'd probably take Daniel at least that long to try politeness on the geeks, before hauling out the ear-savaging Ancient Egyptian curses.
Brown eyes blinked behind glass. "Not really..."
I jerked a thumb toward a stray chair. "Got a hypothetical I need to run by somebody." And I didn't want to try it on Sam or Teal'c; they were too close to the idea. Not to mention, they were tied up at the moment, hopefully throttling details out of a certain three-member - or was that six-member? - Tok'ra information-gathering party who'd just, oh, casually dropped by to drop off a few leads on various System Lords' troop movements, and by the way, had we found anything on that last planet?
Hmph. And a resounding hah.
Whatever info they were bringing to trade wasn't nearly as interesting as who had brought it. Sermane, Jacob - and Judith Williams. How had our little ex-Firm agent managed to talk the Council into letting her back to Earth so soon, when Jacob had needed to fake a mission to find Seth to do it?
I wanted to be up there. But letting the Tok'ra in on the whole ib-seshatai still exist and instinctively hate your guts situation fell into the category of Really Bad Idea. So, here I sat.
Damn it, nothing better happen to Sam's tape of the meeting. If I couldn't be there, I could at least kibbitz afterward.
Enomouto pulled up a chair as far from the whining machine as he could, twitching nervously. "Hypothetical?"
"I was thinking." I gave him a second to clear any I thought I smelled something burning remarks out of his head. "Hypothetically, if we ran into an alien here on Earth - even a friendly alien, even one of our allied Tok'ra who'd come here for a new host but just didn't want to tell us about it - people at the top wouldn't like it much. Worse, they'd probably do something about it."
Some of the twitches faded, as the linguist gave me a sober look. "Worse?"
"You think getting locked in Area 51's a way to win friends and influence people?"
"Definitely worse," Enomouto agreed. "So what are you going to do about it?"
Pleasant. Keep it pleasant. "I said hypothetical."
"Well, yeah." Enomouto ducked his head, reddening a little. "But sometimes - just sometimes, mind you, but my family's a little crazy and it's always better to count on that - sometimes hypotheticals bite you in the... ankle, before you really expect them to. And if just a little of what I've picked up out of the local informal informational networks about what happened to Major Carter is right... I mean, if I got jumped accidentally-on-purpose, I'd really like to know what would happen to me in advance. Right?"
I arched a brow. "You interested in hosting an ally, Dr. Enomouto?"
"Kuso, no!" Enomouto looked a little pale. Couldn't blame him. "But just because I think you'd have to be raving insane to want to do that, doesn't mean somebody else might not. Ever been to a college science fiction club, Colonel? I bet a Tok'ra could find people there who'd want to be intergalactic spies. Who might even have a pretty decent idea what they'd be getting themselves into. At least as much as any of us who haven't had them in our heads. Somebody ought to at least think about what we should do if that happens. Right?"
Yeah. Yeah, somebody should. And given that somebody ought to be pretty high up on the SGC food chain, somebody looked like it ought to start with me. "Notepad."
"What? Oh, okay..." Enomouto wandered over to where Janet kept pens and papers, fumbled around for a minute, came back into view with a ballpoint and a handful of scratch paper for notes. "This do?"
"Thanks." I scribbled down a few ideas, some of the top of which included talk to Hammond and sic Dr. Baird on it. Hey, I'm a Colonel. I wouldn't have got this far if I didn't know when to delegate. Especially when I'm feeling... really... lousy...
"Colonel?" The voice was thin and far away. "Colonel, are you okay?"
Faint. But loud. Because a sound was missing. A heartbeat.
My heartbeat.
"Dr. Fraiser, help!"
Dark slammed down.
---------------
Hannibal
"And when I do this?"
"Ow." I scowled a little at Dr. Takani as she took the little stick-you-with away from my finger. Kept my voice down, though; this was the doc's kitchen, and there was a cute little four-year-old girl in the living room next door over, being lulled to sleep with moon-rabbit stories by her somewhat less cute and probably lethal martial artist of a daddy. "Come on, Doc. We did this all already at the clinic-"
"We did this at sunset," Megumi said matter-of-factly, sniffing her sample before she stored it in her medical bag. "If you are a true dhampire, you probably cycle through the day; vampire uppermost at night, human during the daylight. I'll want to look you over near dawn and again in full day to be sure, but so far, you do seem to fit the pattern."
Pattern? For a second, I couldn't breathe. "You mean... there are other people like me?"
"You're not common, Mr. King - but yes. There are a few." She picked up a few of her notes, read them over silently. "Though from what I've heard, most of them don't manifest the extreme vampire traits you do. Your vampiric parent must have been very powerful, or exerted a profound influence on your development. Or both." Megumi gave me a dead-sober look. "Usually only male vampires sire offspring, but given this... was it your mother who walked the night?"
"Um." I scratched the back of my neck. "About that..."
She gave me a minute, sighed when I couldn't find the words. "Tell me later if you can, Mr. King. For now, just know that your system is biased enough toward the vampiric that - forgive me - I would be failing you as a doctor if I didn't warn you about risky behavior."
"Huh?"
"Be careful when you bite," Megumi said precisely. "Especially if, and forgive me again for being blunt, your partner has willingly or unwillingly cheated on you with a full vampire. Which happens all too often; historically, vampires seem to take a sadistic glee in stealing willing lovers from half-blooded offspring... Anyway. Instead of forming the mating bond that should occur, the combined magical exposure could be enough to pull someone still alive but with the vampiric curse in their system over into true undeath."
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. Everything just... whited out.
Tatjana.
My fault.
"Head down. Slow and easy, guy... damn, Megitsune, what'd you tell him?"
"The truth," the doc said softly. "Careful, Sano. He could probably take Saitou putting him through a wall and walk away afterward."
"Heck, Kenshin can do that... um. Yeah. About Saitou... you've got bandages around here, right?"
"Of course I do!" Long dark hair shook over her shoulders, exasperated. "Why... oh no."
"Oh yeah," Sano said wryly, watching me as I blinked my way back to reality. "We ought to sell tickets."
"Tickets? To watch Saitou- you- you rooster-head!"
"Ooo, I love it when you talk dirty, fox-woman." The martial artist gave her a lecherous grin.
Marital romping aside, I was more worried about the sounds filtering in from outside the house. Growls, hisses, steel on steel-
"Don't go out there!"
"Why-"
Megumi caught me at the back door, worry and exasperation warring in her eyes. "They're not always careful-"
"Especially when they're having fun," Sano put in behind me.
"Fun?" Megumi growled.
Her husband gave her a skeptical eyebrow right back. "And just how many people are there who can give Kenshin a good workout, huh?"
Heck. This I had to see.
I opened the door to a steel whirlwind.
Not literally, thank goodness; just two guys with swords dancing up, down, and over anything in the doc's backyard sturdy enough to hold a person's weight for half a second.
Just. Blade would have a fit. If he weren't right in there swinging.
'Cause sure as the sun rose, my ex-partner would have smelled magic.
The taller guy's scent hit me first; human and wolf, mingled together. Like Detective O'Connell's, but stronger. He stalked his prey like a two-legged demon, eyes wolf-yellow in the night, fist striking whenever he spied an opening, blade a silver-blue weave of slices and parries and thrusts that would have killed anything a heartbeat slower.
Only the redhead never slowed down; a blue shadow in night's darker blue, sheath smashing an elbow before the fist could reach him, blade too fast to see, gaze an amber flicker of dark delight.
I took in the show for a few amazed seconds, watching hands, feet, and blades move like an avalanche against the soul of fire. And stifled a yelp as Megumi thwacked me on the shoulder. Okay, obviously humming "Everybody was kung fu fighting," wasn't the way to get on her good side...
No scent? There's got to be a scent.
Hadn't had to do this in a while, but... I let my mouth open to moisten the air coming in, to pick up just a little more scent than normal. The redhead was there; I could see him - barely - and hear him - again, barely. Faint or not, he was solid. And solid ought to smell like something...
Feathers. No... furry scales. And human.
Furry scales? What the heck was that? Outside of dangerous enough to get even Blade to tackle him from a distance.
A shift in stances, and they both paused, gazes part on me, part on each other. Sheathed their blades, and bowed. "Next time, Battousai," the wolf-guy smirked through his split lip.
"In your dreams, Saitou." The redhead touched the edge of what was going to be a heck of a shiner, grin just as toothy as his opponent. Despite the blood. No wonder Sano had asked about bandages; good as these two obviously were at dodging, they both looked like they'd gone two out of three with a paper shredder.
Megumi gave a kind of strangled growl, slipping into a pair of the sandals by the back door to march out there like the Doc o' Doom. "Did you have to do that in my backyard?"
"Oro?" The redhead blinked, amber fading to innocent violet. "But Megumi-dono... here, we will not trouble anyone who might call far more medical attention than is truly needed..."
"Would call," Megumi bit out, plucking up a half-shredded blue gi to get a look at the damage. "And don't be so sure you won't need it, Ken-san!"
Behind me, Sano was stifling what sounded like a cavalry charge of cackling laughter.
"Would you rather we did it on top of the police station?" Saitou's grin was all wolf fangs. "They could use the stimulation."
"They'd probably shoot you both," Megumi grumbled, nimble fingers moving past cuts and slashes with disbelieving shake of her head. "And I'd cheer them on. Grown men, ha! Do you see Tokio and Kaoru trying to kill each other every time they're in the same zip code?"
Saitou chuckled darkly. The redhead sighed.
Megumi groaned. "Oh, tell me they're not..."
"Bokken and padded staff," the redhead said hastily. "Kaoru wished us not to hover."
"Is that what she told you, Battousai?" Saitou stepped slightly away, glancing over the wreck of what had been his dark blue shirt. "Tokio told me to 'go play'."
I leaned against the doorway, taking mental bets on just who was going to take another swing at who first. And who might come out on top if they decided to play dirty, instead of just serious. At the moment, I was leaning toward Saitou - but that was only 'cause these two were good enough it'd come down to who had the faster swing, and Megumi had a grip on the redhead like grim death, even though she didn't look like she expected him to try to go anywhere.
Not getting a rise out of his sparring partner, Saitou decided to turn a lazy glint of teeth my way. "Well. You're definitely not him."
And the whole yard seemed to relax a little.
"Him?" I asked dryly.
"Or her," Saitou answered, just as dry. "The scent was too degraded by undeath to be certain. But you - you are alive."
Alive. God, I only wish. My fists clenched. "Sorry to disappoint."
"No?" Wolf-yellow slid a glance Kenshin's way. "You, of any of us, know the quick from the dead."
The redhead looked me over - which is kind of like saying the bomb dropped and went off. I felt that glance, head to toe, like a lick of flame sheeting down my bones.
And then he smiled, amber glints vanishing from violet like they'd never existed. Walked over, and touched the back of my hand, right where the pulse fed into my fingers. "Death has held you in the past, Hannibal-san. And one day it may take you again, as it comes for all that live. But for now, you are alive, as any of us."
"That's-" Impossible stuck in my throat. I knew liars. And he wasn't lying.
"I may have exaggerated the severity of your condition."
Doc Strange's words, best as I could remember, before we went up against Varnae and I died. Again. Only to wind up as some kind of hybrid vampire creature with Frank, and once we got separated again... well, I figured it was back to square one. Not vampire, not human, not anything for certain except stuck with one foot in the grave.
And if I'd felt alive for sure, once I'd dropped through the portal into this world's San Francisco, alive enough to fall hard for a lady despite the ever-nagging urge to taste her blood - well. Hope springs eternal, right?
Sano cleared his throat. "So... you don't think you're a dhampire?"
"It's a long story." But first things first. "What scent?"
"There have been eyes on Tokio and I since we left Hawaii." Saitou's eyes glittered. "Whether it was tracking us, or simply coming here, I do not know. We seem to have lost it near Colorado Springs. But the scent was undead, and sorcery... and a hint of the items you and the rooster-head found in 1924, Battousai."
Kenshin stiffened slightly. "La Llorona's items?"
"What else?"
"The Wailing Woman?" I put in fast. Hell, damn, no - we did not need a life-sucking specter that drowned people in Carson Springs-
"One who used the legend, hai." Violet twinkled with amusement. "Once upon a time, in Mexico..."
Oh god, a hanyou who makes bad puns, I thought incoherently. What did I do to tick You off?
Oh yeah. Flipped off the sky. Figured.
Sano was waving his hand in front of my face; let out a breath of relief when I blinked. "You gotta take these guys in small doses," he said practically. "Come on. You and I can get some coffee, and the kitsune will slap these idiots with bandages, and we'll all talk."
---------------
Translations and info:
Hanyou - half-demon.
Kami - spirits, deities.
Ki - energy, spirit.
Kiryuu - fire dragon, spirit dragon.
Kitsune - fox, fox-spirit.
Kunai - small throwing daggers; sometimes effectively very large, sharpened nails.
Kuso - "damn it".
Onmitsu - spies, ninja.
Tanuki - "raccoon dog", native to Asia.
Youkai - demon, phantom, supernatural creature.