---------------
Jack
This is not happening.
Forget that I can feel the thin Colorado mountain sun, smell a faint hint of burned hair, hear the rest of my team and no few of our MPs bringing up the rear as they scramble over the perimeter fence. Forget that I've already called in damage control teams to try and patch our missile doors, left General Hammond to deal with a shrieking flunky from NORAD, and had a few terse words with River - who seems to be under the sardonic impression that this is all my fault - on the do's and don't's of husband-hunting on Earth. This is just… not happening.
People don't turn into weird flying creatures. They just don't. People are like me, or General Hammond, or even Honored Grandmother River back in the 'Gateroom. We use tech to stab supper, we put one foot in front of the other to get around, and we need Daniel to translate when the wires get crossed. We don't levitate, tear through sheet steel with claws, or understand languages we've never heard before.
Aliens, now - aliens I will grant you could do all of the above. And Glimmer's from off-planet, she's got claws and fangs and probably other weirdness we can't see. Alien is pretty much a given.
But River believes Glimmer's kind of aliens are people. That the Ancients created them from her people, making monsters that only found their way back to being human part of the time through love and patience and sheer dumb luck. Monsters that River's declared are still part of her people, going back and forth between human and not like the rest of us change party outfits. Changeling, two-footed, every blend of genes in between - River's convinced they're all people.
And that I'm not.
Worse, River's convinced they're related to Daniel. And there is no way Daniel is a shape-shifting inhuman… thing.
Himura, I could believe. Looking at Himura now, with that weird shimmer around him when I glance sideways, and those amber-flecked eyes sending goose-bumps running up and down my spine, I can pretty much take it as fact.
How the hell did he get out here so quick?
More important, how the hell did he get our dragon… lady… whatever the hell she is to stop?
Backtrack, O'Neill. Enomouto you've got access to anytime. Himura and Kamiya - you know where they live. But who in the world is the longhaired joker in the trenchcoat?
And why is Sam looking like somebody zatted her one?
When in doubt, attack. "Damn it, Glimmer! I don't care how you get dates back home, you don't do it on official time!"
Glimmer went red, then wire-taut, clawed hands working on her spear-
Kaoru ran a knuckle under dragon-lady's jaw - say what? - and made a weird sort of chirruping rumble. Glimmer tensed a little; then drew a breath and seemed to relax back to moderately annoyed.
Damn. So much for trying to pass off whatever the bystanders had seen as too much mountain sun.
Okay. Damage control. I switched a nasty glare to Trenchcoat. "And who the hell are you?"
"King," Longhair said; almost mellow, if you weren't watching that wry glint of brown eyes behind the dark glasses. Midwest accent… Milwaukee? "Hannibal King." And then the bastard waved. "Hi, Sam. How's the day job?"
I blinked. Dust. Right. And then I shot a glance at Carter, not at all helped by overhearing Daniel's choked snrk of a laugh. "You know this guy?"
"Um…."
Okay, why is my 2IC looking anywhere but me? She couldn't have… he couldn't have… damn it, Teal'c will tear that grinning idiot into itty, bitty pieces. And I'll stomp on them. Nobody lays a hand on my major she doesn't want there. "You're trespassing on government property-"
"Not a chance," King said dryly. "Over there, is government property. Over here is - well, not much. Which is kind of a letdown. I was looking for the Garden of the Gods. You know, Siamese Twins, Balancing Rock, that whole schtick? What have people got against street signs around here? Last time I saw something with that many bullet holes in it, the SFPD were making origami out of used targets again."
"You're about twenty miles off course," I said flatly, sneaking a glance at the angle of the sun. 'Gate-lag blew time zones to little smithereens, but I was guessing it was about two in the afternoon. Right. Trenchcoat, casual suit, and shoes made for pounding the pavements. And he expected people to believe he was out for a day hike?
Hannibal shrugged. "So, you've never gotten lost?"
"Only about every third planet," Daniel muttered under his breath.
…Oh, I am so going to get him for that one.
Later. For now, I had a dragon-lady to chew out. "You." I nodded at Glimmer jerked a thumb back toward our escorts. "Inside. We're going to have a little talk."
Hawk-gold blinked, her jaw dropping. Good. Maybe a little of how serious this was had gotten through-
And she was snarling, flesh fluxing in a white shimmer that bled a bronze spear-point into tips of claws-
"No shooting. No shooting!" Daniel was yelling at our guys, putting himself in harm's way. Again.
Same time, Kenshin and Kaoru latched onto Glimmer, melting flesh or not, yammering in quick Japanese. Enomouto had jumped into the mess with Daniel, talking a mile a minute about misunderstanding, breach of customs, and not shooting treaties to hell. And King-
King dove out of the line of fire with Sam, putting himself between her and snarling thing. "Forget the gun! You'll just piss her off!"
"You don't understand!" Sam bit out, drawing and aiming like the rest of us sane people.
"I know!" King shot back; letting her go, no matter how much the look on his face said he wanted to put my major over his shoulder and beat feet out of here. "I get that! But a barking dog ain't biting, right?"
Hate to admit it, but the guy had a point. Not that any of us lowered our weapons. "Daniel!"
A muscle worked in my archaeologist's jaw. "Jack, shut up."
Okay, now that was too far-
"Right now, Kenshin's trying to talk her out of killing you."
Say what?
"Making good arguments, too," Enomouto said breathlessly. "Man, I just hope youkai and changeling ideas about what's proper aren't too far off. We've got who knows how many centuries of divergent cultural evolution working here…."
"Can he talk her out of it?" Daniel asked bluntly.
Enomouto waggled a hand back and forth. "If she were older, maybe not. But so far she's treating him as an elder, meaning she's probably got to listen to what he says. Don't know if that'll stop her, but-" He shook his head. "Longer we keep her talking, more likely it is she won't kill anyone."
"What is the nature of the misunderstanding?" Teal'c rumbled darkly.
Daniel raised an eyebrow. Enomouto winced. "Well, if my family stories are right, and given what I've seen around Uncle Kenshin they are, youkai and hanyou are a lot more… literal than regular people."
"Uncle Kenshin?" I echoed. Not happy. Not at all.
The linguist rubbed at what was probably the start of a massive headache. "Oh, I could've gone forever without bringing this up… long story short? Back in 1894, Kenshin needed to - um - borrow somebody who spoke Korean."
If it weren't for the snarling in front of us, that would have fixed every SGC eye on the guy. "Borrow?" Carter said cautiously.
"Family stories have always said it was pretty messy," Enomouto admitted. "Swords and guns and youki flying around all over the place. When the dust settled, Kenshin found out he'd kind of… accidentally adopted my family."
"You want to clear up how you can accidentally adopt somebody, Enomouto?" I said dryly.
"Maybe later," the linguist sighed. "Upshot is, I kind of grew up knowing about… strange things. And watching some pretty weird behavior. At least, weird by so-called 'normal' standards. To hanyou, it's just how they are."
"Which explains?" I nodded toward the quieter snarls. Glimmer was almost back to human shape, a kendo instructor hanging on each arm. And King hadn't so much as turned a hair. Who was this guy?
"Well…" Enomouto drew a deep breath, and glanced aside. "Outside of the bad temper and occasional claws? Ordinary social skills are kind of… not their best thing."
"But Kenshin-" Daniel spread empty hands.
"Kenshin's had a long, long, long long long, long time, to practice." Enomouto rubbed the back of his neck. "Colonel. I know what it looked like. But Glimmer didn't mean to hurt me, she did say she was sorry, and she thought you meant what you said, back in… where we were," he finished cautiously, gaze not quite flicking toward King. "For a youkai, she's being pretty calm and considerate."
"Hello? Claws? Fangs? Murder threats?" I pointed out.
"You breaking your word?" Enomouto shot back. "She asked you for permission to talk to my elders, Colonel. You gave it to her. Now you want to drag her away from them? That makes you a liar. And maybe I haven't met that many youkai, but hanyou forgive somebody trying to kill them before they forgive somebody lying to them."
"That's insane!"
"Actually, sir… that could make sense," Sam said reluctantly. "If their senses are such that they always have an accurate reading of other people's emotional states-"
"Between the ki sense, and a lot of them have much better noses than you and me - take that as a given," Enomouto stuck in.
"-Then the mismatch between spoken word and body language would be glaringly obvious," Sam went on, wincing.
Still watching and listening to the mess across the clearing, Daniel nodded. "And how do you feel when somebody like - oh, say, Maybourne? - lies to your face. And you know it."
How do I feel? That NID slime, how dumb does he think I am? I ought to-
…Kill him.
Oh, shit.
But I'm not like Maybourne. Maybourne is scum. The kind of guy who makes you ashamed to be a human being. A guy who'd dissect Teal'c just to see what made him tick, easy as he would a-
Lab rat.
NIMH rats. Experimental animals who - escaped….
No. I'm not like that. Even when I went undercover in the NID's happy little tech-stealing group, I was never like that.
Only… if the mission had called for it, if I'd had to, to bring them down and keep Earth in the Tok'ra-Asgaard alliance….
Forget it. I'm not like Maybourne. Never have been, never will be. But assuming Glimmer's young and - admit it, Jack - scared silly enough dealing with us weirdo off-worlders to think I am…. "What kind of arguments get through?"
Daniel cleared his throat. "That it's rude to kill in someone else's territory."
No way. This is military turf-
Only, no, it's not, isn't it? Oh, I could string Himura up by his toes for this one. Easy.
With one vicious word, Glimmer shook them off. Stalked away, still shaking-mad. Drew her fist back, and punched-
Empty air? Lady-
-Air that rippled and sparked at the point of impact, green and gold and every shade of fire, throwing flesh and bone back as hard as if she'd hit concrete. Glimmer winced, shaking out her hand.
"Barrier," Enomouto said to my dropped jaw. "It's what we ran into on the way out. Long as Kenshin's standing, she's not going anywhere." He gave me a look. "So could we please, please not have any shooting?"
"Bio-electric?" Sam pounced.
"Hey, I'm a linguist, not a biophysicist," Enomouto spread empty hands. "I know it works. I don't know how."
"Forget why it works. Why is it there?" I grumped.
"Youkai and hanyou know how to fight youkai and hanyou," he shrugged. "Don't ask me why they decided to throw a ward around this place to start with-"
"Gaki," Kenshin tossed into the conversation.
"Erk…?" Enomouto's eyes bugged, and he shuddered. "Um. Stomped gaki?"
"Oh yeah," Kaoru grinned.
And is it my imagination, or did King flinch a little too? Not to mention, for a guy I know has industrial-class snark ready and waiting to cut loose, he's being awful quiet.
Which is doing my nerves no good whatsoever.
Whatever my opinion of his lack of judgement in coming anywhere near my major, the fact remains that the annoying wonder that is snark is not indulged in by the dim of wit. I should know; I get Daniel, Sam, and even the occasional verbal jolt from Teal'c to prove it. It takes skill, smarts, and no little observation of human nature to sharpen sarcasm to a razor edge. And when anybody that smart and observant shuts up - Houston, it's time to double-check the oxygen and emergency eject, 'cause there is gonna be a Problem.
In this case, an observant civilian who looks like he's been around the block more times than most of the SGC has been through the 'Gate, who's listening to words like youkai and gaki and dragon with just a nod and a frown.
Like he's heard them before.
Like he's not only heard them, but walked right into the breathing, snarling examples. And walked back out alive.
Which means that the reason he's so quiet is, he's waiting for us to fill in the details….
I don't think so.
"Mr. King." I nodded, semi-civil. "You want to step over here and let them have their little family discussion in private?"
"Sure," Hannibal shrugged, moving our way. "Long as you think nobody's gonna turn up allergic all of a sudden."
"Um, allergic?" Daniel asked warily. I saw his hand twitch toward the pocket where he kept his Janet-issue antihistamines.
"Yeah. Itchy fingers," King deadpanned. "Real pain."
Itchy trigger fingers, that was. Uh-huh. "I take it you have a lead allergy," I quipped back.
"Doesn't everybody?" King glanced Sam's way, and ducked his head a little. "Sorry I don't have coffee. You look like you could use some."
"Actually, I think a caffeine jolt is the last thing my nerves need right now," my 2IC admitted. "Hannibal, why… I mean, you… I mean-" she waved a hand helplessly at the impossibility on the other side of the clearing. "She was a-"
"Dragon?" King filled in. "Yeah. Noticed. So?"
"So?" Sam sputtered.
"She's not trying to eat me, and she seems to be open to reason. I'll take it. Trust me, I've run into worse."
"Worse?" Sam said faintly.
King let out a slow breath. "Some years back, I wound up taking a case in Wisconsin, poking into cattle mutilations. Couldn't find any real suspects, but following the blood trail led me to a lodge where a writer was hanging out. Douglas Royce. Good guy. Didn't know that at the time, though; just knew I'd found a guy with a wall-full of Indian totems and research on similar messes… only those were over a century or so old. He seemed good for a possible perp. So the next night I hung around the pastures nearby, hoping to catch whoever it was in the act. Only it wasn't a who. It was a what." King gave me a look. "And Royce had been looking for it same as I was. Which was lucky for both of us. 'Cause when that pair showed up, wanting a taste of human instead of beef…." He shrugged. "Called themselves the children of the night. Shape-shifters. Vanished into shadow like that." He snapped his fingers. "And we only beat 'em 'cause they weren't expecting their meal to fight back."
Uh-huh. I can hear somebody glossing over the details a mile away. But King was talking, at least. Which sure beat him listening.
"Doug an' I tracked down their lair. Found out they'd cut and run, leaving all kinds of parchments and hoodoo stuff behind. Mutilations stopped, farmers were happy, sheriff was happy… me, I wasn't happy. But tracking down things that don't exist doesn't exactly keep a roof over your head, you know? I had to get back to work. Doug, though… he got hooked on the chase. We kept in touch, couple years later I got a cable saying he was onto something-" Hannibal's fists clenched. "An' before I could get back, he was dead. Burned to ashes on a street in Greenwich Village."
Ow. I gave Sam the eyebrow: Keep him talking, Carter.
"The children of the night?" Sam guessed.
"Oh yeah. Bigger and badder. I found 'em - or you could say, they found me - but lucky for me, I wasn't alone when I did. An' just 'cause they were supernatural, didn't make 'em smart. They'd wound up making a bargain with something even nastier than they were, and when it looked like they were going to break it, whatever was powering them burned them to ash. Just smoke and feathers." King shrugged, faking casual. "So between cases, I read up on this stuff. Wouldn't exactly call myself an expert, but by this time I think I've got a pretty good handle on what's safe, what's annoying, and what wants to pick its teeth with you." He nodded toward Glimmer. "Vibe I'm getting off her is, good kid with a temper."
"Oh yeah?" I stuck in. "And what kind of vibe do you get off Himura?"
"Don't piss him off," Hannibal said dryly.
"You believe he is more powerful than Glimmer?" Teal'c inquired, brow almost disappearing under the edge of his outside-the-Mountain black knit cap.
"More powerful, heck. He's meaner."
…Which was pretty much my take on the situation, darn it. Glimmer might wind my nerves up so they made violin strings look like bowls of jelly, but Enomouto was right: she hadn't actually hurt anybody. Whereas Kenshin-
Well. Even when you have experts like Carter strangling info out of the computer, historical records on legendary assassins aren't exactly what you'd call accurate. But general consensus seems to put Hitokiri Battousai's kills at over a thousand, and even a conservative estimate puts the number as somewhere in the hundreds over the course of five years. Put that in perspective? Carlos Hathcock, AKA White Feather, known as one of the best snipers of Vietnam or ever, had ninety-three confirmed kills.
And as somebody once quoted Ernest Hemingway to Hathcock, after the war, "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
Peaceful kendo instructor, my effin' mikta.
---------------
Janet
I leaned one hand on the briefing table as people finally got settled, watching Colonel O'Neill drum his fingers, Sam twist a pen as she considered her open laptop, and Daniel flipping through his notes with a frown of concentration. Dr. Enomouto and Teal'c were both quiet in their own ways; the younger linguist making a note here and there, Teal'c just patiently waiting. And General Hammond….
General Hammond looked like he didn't know who ordered this day, but if he ever found out, he'd rip off their insignia and make them eat it.
Ouch.
John Baird looks after a part of people I tend to steer clear of; give me physical blindness I might cure any day, instead of hysterical blindness where the circuits are running but the processor is having a nervous fit. But you can't cut the mind from the body, much as I might like to, so when I've got a patient with a physical complaint that might influence counseling, and it's not violating confidentiality, I tell him. And when Dr. Baird comes to me with info on the psychological aspects behind what might show up in my infirmary next, I listen.
Not to mention, the guy badly needed to vent at somebody, or he was going to have to turn himself in for counseling.
Military-civilian morale split. Damn. I hadn't even realized….
I'm trying not to beat myself up too badly. I may get called in as a biology pinch-hitter, but I'm a medical doctor first and foremost. Treating people is way ahead of papers in my list of priorities. And the kind of papers I write up can get through the classified-info filter. Sometimes. The fact that Daniel's can't… well, our archaeologist usually saves his complaints for the mean nasty weapon of the week he's been hit with. Zats. Staff weapons. Weird alien viruses. And so on.
I still think both sides of this mess share the blame. General Hammond's doing what he's supposed to do: lead and protect a military installation as it carries out its mission. That part of its mission has accumulated civilians over the years isn't his fault.
But it is his responsibility. And right now, John isn't sure the general even knows that responsibility exists.
I am sure. Not that I know how to explain it to Dr. Baird. The general is in command of the SGC. Whatever he may think or know about Colonel O'Neill's problems, he has to defend the actions of his subordinates, and he cannot act as if he has anything less than confidence in his 2IC. Not in front of people outside his chain of command.
…Which leads us right back to where we started.
Either the civilians are part of the SGC, or they aren't. Either General Hammond has authority over them, or he doesn't. We need some clarity here, people.
Only with the NID and Area 51 and various senators - no, Kinsey isn't our only problem, just the most vocal one - stirring up the pot, we're not going to get it.
Take a step back, Janet. SGC command messes are going to have to wait. Right now, we've got a shaky off-world alliance to trade notes on, hoping somebody will come up with a brainstorm on how to strengthen ties with the people we just sent back through the 'Gate, who may have piles of information we want but don't need anything from us. Well, outside of wanting Daniel and Benkai to come back and tell them about Earth legends. Hey, it's a start. And a lot better footing than I honestly thought we'd get, after that mess with Glimmer.
I still wish I'd had a chance to examine her. A creature that can actually change shape… but I know when to squash my curiosity. We needed trust first. Medical data later. And given what I've heard happened, trust was going to be very tricky to pull off.
I'd considered showing up with a box of clean-wipes, but I doubted anyone would take the suggestion that they might have egg on their faces well. Which would ruin all the diplomatic work Daniel's managed to pull off so far. Bad idea.
At least Jacob and the other Tok'ra had been out watching the new Star Wars movie, and missed most of the chaos. Their MP escorts say they hedged like heck and blamed traffic for the delays in getting back. Probably fooled Sermane, may have fooled Jacob, likely didn't fool Judith. Oh well. Scuttlebutt says the missile doors are patched, and we might even have the 'Gateroom cleaned up by the time they leave. I hope.
Now, as long as none of them looks up….
"You say this… syllabary that you found, is a key factor, Dr. Jackson?"
I yanked my wandering attention back to the general's face, glanced away just enough to catch Daniel's frown. Not a frustrated frown, more a "I think I have something and I don't like it one little bit" kind of crinkle to his eyes. "The fact that it exists, and what it seems to be based on, goes a long way toward substantiating the Cerberans' story," Daniel said frankly. "If contact between the two groups had been on a voluntary basis, I'd expect to find it based on words like friend and name and where do you come from? Simple words. Simple concepts. The basics, from two intelligent associations trying to hammer out a compromise method of communications. But we haven't. Instead, there are things we think mean genetics, and control group, and-" he grimaced, "-test subject."
"And so far as we can determine, none of that lies within the villagers' current level of technology," Sam put in frankly.
"It'd be like Australian Aborigines trying to translate space shuttle diagrams," Daniel nodded. "General, there's just no way anyone in a subsistence society would expend that much energy just for fun. They believe their ancestors were experimented on by the Ancients. I think we should take that belief as fact."
"And their belief that Colonel O'Neill is an Ancient?" The general raised a skeptical brow.
"I asked Kenshin about that," Benkai spoke up. "No, not exactly like that," he added, shaking his head, as Jack shot him a deadly look. "I just told him something about the colonel was ticking Glimmer off - which he could see, thank you very much - and asked him if he knew anything about O'Neill that would upset a youkai." Benkai frowned. "He says your ki's… stiff, was the way he put it. Youkai and hanyou auras - they kind of flex. Dip into the energies around them. Glimmer's youki does that in a big way; when you go after her, you're not just fighting her, you're fighting all the energy around her. But your ki's not like that, Colonel. Your energies, everything that makes you you, are really tied to you." He shrugged. "Kenshin's met a few other people like that before. He says they kind of give him an uneasy feeling, and they can't be adopted, but outside of that, they seem to be just like everybody else."
"Adopted?" Jack said wryly.
"…Um."
"Dr. Enomouto," Hammond said levelly.
"Kenshin thinks of us as family," Benkai said matter-of-factly.
"And?" Jack asked.
"And what?" Benkai gave us a near Daniel-grade Innocent Look. "My family's been mixed up with a hanyou swordsman who's got all the curiosity of a nine-tailed kitsune for over a century, and you think there has to be an and? Isn't that enough?"
I didn't even have to trade a glance with Jack and Sam to hear their silent yeah, right. But Daniel wasn't poking at the subtly obvious evasion there, so Daniel must know something. And if it were important, Daniel would tell us. Since he hasn't, it's probably just embarrassing.
Which is all too plausible. I have no idea what it was like for Benkai to grow up with "Uncle Kenshin" in his life, but given how much havoc a certain redheaded ex-assassin has wreaked on SG-1 without even trying, I'm guessing it must be kind of like having a friendly tornado drop by for the holidays.
The same friendly tornado who - I suspect - is going to be critically involved in helping us maintain relations with the Cerberans. Because River is apparently only still willing to talk to us because Glimmer wants to talk to Benkai, and Daniel thinks their customs make it important for the whole family, elders and all, to get involved when two people start negotiating potential relationships….
Is there water in here? Because I have a sudden sinking feeling.
"And Hajime Saitou?" Teal'c asked.
Benkai blinked. Paled. "You, um, know about Saitou?"
"Our sparring was most… enlightening."
"Saitou's here?" Benkai turned a muddy shade of pale. "Ah… if anybody needs me, I'm going to be hiding in a closet somewhere…."
"Dr. Enomouto," Hammond said severely.
"General, do the words homicidal ex-samurai ring a bell?" Benkai said faintly. "Kenshin is nice. Polite. Mostly sane. Saitou Hajime is - not." He sank back in his chair, staring into what had to be a host of unpleasant future scenarios. "Oh, boy…."
"He gave us a prescription for Jack," Daniel said, brows drawing down with worry.
"Huh." Benkai mulled that, gaining a little color back. Shook his head. "It'll probably work. If he didn't want to help, he'd just tell you to go hang yourself."
"I suspect it will work," I said bluntly. "In fact, Colonel, I can all but guarantee it. The blood sample I took after you got back from Cerberus had a small but measurable drop in nucleated RBCs and other cells that responded to magnetic fields. Just what I'd expect from your spleen clearing out old blood cells. The two-week rest prescription ought to do it. I don't know about the cleansing ceremony, but I doubt it could hurt."
"Cleansing?" Benkai choked. "He's got what? How-"
"The colonel is AB negative," I said matter-of-factly.
Benkai's face thumped into his hands. He drew in a deep breath through his nose, let it sigh out. "Kenshin. Trouble. Magnet. Iron filings. Kami-sama…."
"So in essence, we have enough evidence to justify the theory that the Ancients may indeed have spliced their own DNA into some human populations," I went on, giving the poor young man a chance to recover his nerve. I'd had a hard enough time dealing with SG-1 inspired chaos during my own first few encounters with them - some near-disasters with the Touched virus sprang to mind, and if I'd only told Daniel to ignore the chaos enough to stay on his darn antihistamines… well. Add in a little touchy family history, and Benkai had to be wishing the floor would open up and swallow him. "Which would explain the colonel's… interesting encounters with certain Ancient technology." Interesting, as in old Chinese curse. I never, ever want to stand helplessly by again while one of my patients almost dies from a database downloaded into their brain.
"It would be intriguing to learn if the Asgaard know of this," Teal'c mused.
Yes it would, I mused, trying to keep a sudden dark scowl off my own face. If they did, and if the Ancients really had been their allies….
It might explain why the Asgaard liked the colonel. Gave him leeway the rest of us humans couldn't get away with. Put him in charge of negotiating with the Goa'uld at that little Treaty conference of theirs, when they knew darn well the human leading the SGC was General Hammond. Asked him to investigate the off-world tech thefts - and didn't trust any of the rest of his team.
Especially Daniel.
Daniel, who - if everything we've put together is right - is just like one of Glimmer's people. Or Kenshin. Or - in a sideways kind of way - Benkai. A child of experiments made millennia ago, that mingled human and animal and who knows what else in experiments meant to-
To what? That was the kicker. What were the Ancients trying to do, that went so wrong it created people that have hated them ever since?
"What the heck were they up to?" Sam muttered, fingers clamped on her own notes like she'd like to shred something. "Daniel, did any of the Cerberans' stories have even a hint?"
"We haven't talked to them nearly enough to hear the good stories, yet," Daniel shrugged. "Whatever it was, I'd say it goofed."
"Yeah?" Jack stuck in. "We know that for sure? Call me paranoid, General, but the Ancients had tech that makes us green with envy. And maybe I'm no biologist, but even I know that for all these changelings to still be this much alive and kicking, there'd have to have been an awful lot of escapes." His arched eyebrow said how likely he thought that was.
"That's true, Colonel," I put my two cents in. "But then again, we've seen the Asgaard come up with some pretty odd blind spots as well." Replicator. Explosion. No more Replicator. Simple idea. So simple, an Asgaard couldn't think of it. It took a human's when-all-else-fails-throw-rocks-at-the-damn-thing attitude to try it. "We may speculate that you have some Ancient DNA, enough to trigger their devices, but that does not make you an Ancient. For all we know their mindset could have been as alien as the Goa'uld, or the Nox."
"Meaning the idea of Cerberus' altruistic sacrifice on behalf of another person may have just been too alien to anticipate," Daniel nodded. "Humans help each other, Jack. It's hardwired into us. Not many species can say that."
"The Asgaard-"
"We don't really know why the Asgaard do what they do," Daniel said carefully. "They're our allies, Jack, but I can count on both hands the number of days we've interacted with them, face to face. It's not enough time for me to make a good guess why a human culture we've never met before might do what it does." He raised a halting hand. "Yes, I know they've studied us for centuries. What we ran into on Cimmeria shows they still didn't anticipate that humans might someday have a reason to take a Jaffa as an ally - and that's human altruism, Jack."
"I thought it was enlightened self-interest," the colonel quipped back.
Daniel's eyes lit in a shy smile. "That, too."
"We'll consider the Asgaard question at a later date, people," Hammond said frankly. "For now, I have NORAD to deal with. The Joint Chiefs can order them quiet all they like, but the fact remains that we have some serious fence mending to do with our upstairs neighbors. You'd say the Cerberus situation is under control?"
A round of nods.
"And we have ample evidence that Himura and his associates, for their own reasons, aren't talking," the general reflected. "Which leaves us one loose end." He raised a fading red brow at the table in general. "Just who is Hannibal King?"
"Actually, Sir, I've been running a search on him for some time," Sam said briskly, tapping away on her laptop. "I, ah, sort of invited him to have coffee a while back, and I wanted to be sure that was a good idea, so…."
"Major?" Jack prompted, eyes narrowed.
Staring at her monitor, Sam swallowed dryly. "Um, General? We may have a problem…."
---------------
Hannibal
Okay, I smell a trap.
Actually, what I smell through the steaming coffee in my grip is a lot of gun oil, military-issue deodorant, and pure human fear, scattered around the coffee-shop inside the bookstore Sam invited me to tonight. And something else.
Something not human.
I feel the last shreds of twilight slip into true night, grab hold of the vampire and push it back, hard-
But I can't. Not all the way. Night is here. My time - is here.
Slow breaths, King. Try Megumi's advice; don't fight so much, just try and keep a rein on the worst of it….
My senses spin open wide, sound and smell and brightness scraping at me like a lover's nails over my skin. It hurts, and I want it so bad - and if that doesn't say how truly screwed I am in the head, I don't know what does.
And that alien tang of scent clicks in my head, suddenly, and I realize just a little of it was around Sam the first night we met, like a ghost of exotic perfume. I'd smelled it again that dragon-wrecked afternoon, a little stronger, but between running into Himura again, Glimmer, and talking my way out of trouble with O'Neill, I hadn't had time to pay attention. So what is it, and where is it?
What it is, I don't know. Where, though - based on how the air's moving through this place, most of it's coming from Big, Dark, and Silent in the knit cap, who Sam called Murray on the mountainside. And some more is coming from an older, balding pepper-haired guy who looks enough like Sam to be her father.
Uh-oh.
And… they're matched up with the other undercover military guys kind of scattered through the few other patrons in a loose semi-circle around Sam in the corner, just itching to unload heavy bits of lead in her general vicinity.
She's wearing an armor vest under her nice jacket. Good for her.
I don't smell any teak or ironwood in the area, though. So I doubt anybody got creative with his ammo. Meaning I'm probably the safest person in the room.
What the hell.
I stalked through the tables to Sam, stopped and gave her the nod. "This seat taken?"
"Hannibal…." She swallowed dryly, picked a laptop off the seat beside her, opened it and turned the monitor to face me.
I sat down, hard. Damn. How did… why did…?
Didn't matter. There in scanned-in microfiche were the records of one former Sergeant Hannibal King, Marine MP, Pacific campaign, temporary reassignment to code talker work - when did they declassify that? - honorable discharge, PI license, death….
Hoo, boy.
Vampirism's different in this universe. Generally speaking, the vampire has to intend to make a new "childe"; he can't just drain and walk away, like Frost did me, and have one of the corpses break out of the morgue later. If this universe's Deacon Frost got my alternate self - and from the records I found while I was making myself a new ID, something sure did - that Hannibal wouldn't have gotten up again.
Think. Think. Sam's buds are one itchy trigger finger away from filling me full of holes, and I hate to find new trenchcoats-
I swallowed. "You're an astrophysicist, right?"
Blue eyes full of hurt, Sam nodded.
"You ever hear about… alternate dimensions? Flip a coin, and in this universe it winds up heads, an' in some other it's tails, an' in others farther away you miss catching it, an' it rolls off and gets stuck under the sofa, and the minute you spend digging it out means you miss getting hit by a train?"
Sam stared at me. I could feel she wasn't the only one.
"'Bout a year ago, I fell through a hole into San Francisco. This universe's San Francisco. Didn't know that at the time, thought I'd just gotten spell-tossed cross-country. Sorcerers have a bad habit of doing that - hell, I wound up in the Arctic Circle, once - so when things seemed a little off, I just tried to phone home. Only home wasn't there." I turned my cup around in a slow circle on the table. "No Borderline Investigations. No Jessica Drew, ex-Spiderwoman, crawling walls around San Fran to snoop on bad guys. No Dr. Strange makin' mojo in Greenwich Village. No Avengers Mansion, even - an' I did call, even if the only people who'd remember me would be Captain Marvel, the Scarlet Witch, and the butler. Some of my old contacts on the occult scene were still active in Boston, but they swore up, down, and sideways that they didn't remember me. An' believe me, they would." I shook my head. "By then I'd figured out that my credit cards weren't valid, my checks ditto, and my driver's license was one quick cop away from landing me in a holding cell - hell, as far as this world was concerned, I didn't exist."
Sam blinked. Kept staring.
"But like I said. I have been tossed weird places before. So I was carrying… negotiables on me. You know? An' I know how to find the shady side of things. So. I found some people, and set myself up a valid ID - yeah, Hannibal is my real name, don't ask me why somebody back in WWII's got it - and went back to work, hoping to keep things together 'til Strange or somebody would come looking for me." I stared into my coffee. "Only nobody has. By this time, I figure nobody will." I let out a slow breath. "PI's hard enough life. Always getting mixed up with demons and sorcerers and Things that want to conquer the world… most of the friends I had ended up like Doug, sooner or later. If Blade's still killing vampires he's probably just as glad not to see me - I got this inconvenient thing called a conscience, y'see - and if Frank Drake's still in one piece, I hope like hell he's back with Marlene an' tryin' to raise kids in the sunshine."
"You hunted vampires," Sam said, stunned. "But you said somebody thought you were-"
"Occupational hazard," I said dryly, picking up my cup. "Sleep all day, chase things all night - and if you're a psycho stalking long-distance with night-vision goggles, kind of hard to tell which fighter just turned into mist."
"Gnrk."
"Which is why people like Glimmer an' Himura just don't faze me," I shrugged. "Been there, done that, put the stake in it. That enough for your buddies with the heavy artillery? 'Cause if it ain't, can we at least take this outside? I may have sidestepped more than one werewolf with my name tattooed on its arm, but most people don't know enough to hit the ground when the guns go off."
"No one's going to be shooting-" Sam rubbed her eyebrows with her fingertips, obviously trying to hit reset on her view of the world. "I'm sorry… I just have a hard time believing a guy I met used to chase things out of Dracula movies."
I stopped mid-sip, managed not to choke on it. "Yeah. They make movies out of it here, don't they."
"…You're not telling me there really is a Dracula."
"In this world? I don't know," I said frankly. "Where I came from? Oh yeah. Reason Frank got into things that go bump in the night? Drake was an Anglicized version of Dracula. Poor guy was the bloodsucker's last known human descendant. Drac used that against him, killed off the first lady he planned to marry, Rachel Van Helsing-"
"Van Helsing?"
"Ah… yeah," I said warily. "Let me guess. Fiction here?" The wide blink told me yes. "Well. Anyway. Dracula held title as King of Vampires for over five centuries; could've held it longer, but he got power-greedy and decided to go after a demon-haunted spellbook." Called the Darkhold, but that falls under Need to Know. Maybe I trust Sam, but I don't know just what her branch of the military's mixed up in besides dragons, and just in case the Darkhold really does exist here, I don't want anybody getting ideas. "Nasty thing; sucked the soul right out of anybody normal that touched it. Drac could've used it to conquer the world, only he'd riled up enough people - me, Frank, and Blade bein' a few of 'em - that we were able to track him down and stop him." For a few years, anyway. Which I guess is all the leeway anybody can expect when the mystical gets cranky.
But damnit, for that little while I'd thought I was human. Strange had told me I was human. He was a sorcerer and an M.D. Why shouldn't I have believed him?
'Cause he was the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, that's why. An' everybody else - me, Blade, Drake, the rest of the "Midnight Sons", just to name a few - were just pawns on his inter-dimensional chessboard, sacrificed for "the greater good" of everybody else.
One word. Just one word to Victoria Montesi, that her dad was really sterile and she wasn't a Montesi at all, and she'd never have picked up a Darkhold spell page. Which would have nipped all kinds of trouble in the bud. Don't know if it would have headed off the whole daughter-of-Cthon mess, but it for damn sure couldn't have hurt. If my biological dad had been the endlessly evil demon-slash-Elder-Power that created the Darkhold in the first place, I'd want to know. If only so I could tell Blade to go ahead and put that stake through my heart, burn what was left to ashes, seal that in concrete, and put the block in the strongest, holiest church he could find.
And Strange didn't tell her.
Sometimes, I could really hate that man.
"But you're not a vampire," Sam said slowly.
"Nope," I agreed.
"Or a sorcerer."
"No way."
"Or a demon."
"Definitely not," I said flatly. "Not a youkai or a hanyou either. And they aren't demons, just so you know. More like… well, fairies. Not the Tinkerbell kind, mind you. The old folktale variety. Daoine Sidhe. Formori. The Cherokee Nunnehi. Powers, that aren't really evil, but are dangerous as a hurricane to tangle with. And for a lot of the same reasons. Somebody like Kenshin, who's got human and youkai in his background - well, he's got to walk a tightrope." And some days, you just slip. Believe me, I know. Outside of Tatjana, none of my slips have been too bad….
And then I think back to one night in a graveyard, and the howl of maddened dogs. God forgive me.
I swallowed hard, and made to get up. "So. Unless you got more questions, I should probably be going. You got plans to make, a world to save…."
"Coffee to drink?" Sam gave me a shy smile.
"Um…" Stall, Hannibal, stall; they're coming up behind you and a human wouldn't hear them. "You believe me?" I didn't have to force that note of disbelief. I've run into heavy-duty supernaturals who wouldn't have bought my story, much less an Air Force Major.
"Let's just say, we have our reasons," a gravelly voice said behind me.
And I did jump. Managed not to twitch toward fangs or claws. Though brother, I wanted to. Ordinary human wouldn't have heard it… but there was something strange about Balding Guy's voice.
Strange voice. Strange scent. Strange feeling, from the vampire instincts wrapped around the PI's; not evil, not good, just creepy. Kind of a scratch this guy off the menu, it's not worth it. The hell?
"Well, Sam? Going to introduce us?"
"Dad-"
Dad? Oh, I am in so much trouble-
"-This is Hannibal King, private investigator. Hannibal, this is my father, General Jacob Carter-"
"Retired," Dad stuck in, strangeness almost dropping out of his voice.
"-My CO, Colonel Jack O'Neill-"
Snarky and Annoyed gave me a nod that all but shouted I still don't trust you, but I'm calling off the air strike. For now.
"-My coworker, Dr. Daniel Jackson-"
The glasses-wearing blond gave me a smile I'd seen on a few Borderline clients; aware there were weird things out there, but willing to believe we were the good guys. Huh.
"-And our friend, Murray."
Knit Cap inclined his head in a sober nod, weighing my every move. I kept my face straight with a definite effort; not only did he carry a stronger stink of whatever was in Jacob, but I could've sworn I heard something squirm and squeal under his shirt, near his gut.
One spell from the Darkhold turned a really bad guy into an immortal - but not unsquishable - walking mass of worms, that fed on human flesh and warmth. Did we have something that nasty going on here?
Keep it together, Hannibal. Sam said they've seen strange things. And Himura's been keeping an eye on these people a while. Any hanyou that much in touch with his demon side would probably know if something else lethal were in town.
Probably.
At least it sounds like there's only one of it, whatever it is. Not that that makes me feel much better. But ripping something out of a guy's gut and stomping on it is a little harsh for a first cup of coffee together. So I restrained myself to a simple "Hi," with an added mental note to keep an ear on them all. If that wriggling thing decided to move house, I wanted to know about it.
"So," Jacob smiled, with just a little bit of warning edge, "just how did you meet my daughter?"
"Had a flat tire," I said truthfully. When in doubt, tell the truth - especially when it'll confuse 'em. "Walked to the nearest place to find a phone, got into an interesting discussion with her an' a few other customers, and ended up finding a place to grab dinner."
O'Neill gave me a Look, then turned a slightly less acid version of it on Sam. "You were in a bar fight? And you didn't invite me?"
"Um…."
"You were what?" Jacob all but yelped.
"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation," Daniel tried to subtly pry Jacob away from our table. No joy.
"You were victorious, Samantha Carter?" Murray rumbled.
A shy smile broke out on her face. "Yeah." Sam gave me a slightly sheepish look. "Ah… I don't think I said I'm sorry I hit you."
"Hey, how could you have known?" I shrugged, absently rubbing my head. Doesn't ache, of course. Just feels like it should ache. The biker idiots are probably still nursing cracked skulls. "I'd've smacked somebody who came up behind me, too."
"You got my daughter involved in a bar fight?" Jacob's breathing fire, here.
"I got?" I echoed, stunned. "Hey, she was doing just fine on her own, until they started pulling-" Oops.
"Jacob, just- not here, okay?" O'Neill let Daniel and Murray half-drag Jacob off to another corner, then his face went from friendly to serious. "How bad was it?"
Sam sighed, then launched into a blow-by-blow of that night that would make Sherlock Holmes proud. Whoof. Glad I didn't pull out any tricks besides a little strength, toughness, and speed. And the whammy on the bartender-
Which she mentions, though she calls it just a glare. Eep.
O'Neill gave me a raised eyebrow.
Okay. Time to bluff. "I know what buttons to push on guys like that. Give 'em the eye the right way, 'specially after you've just put ten or so guys on the floor, they'll sell out their own grandmothers. Keys are nothing."
The brow was still up, but he shrugged a little; okay, I'll buy that. For now. "Don't try it on Himura."
No friggin' kidding. Not that youkai are any more immune to vampire hypnotism than anybody else. But Kenshin isn't like most people - demon or not. He's got focus. Based on that fight of his with Saitou, the kind of focus that looks at mountains in the way and says, move before I make you move.
Still, pointing any of that out would be a bad idea. "Why not?"
"Oh, a couple of reasons…."
And out come the crime scene photos from an attempted kidnapping. Whoa. Way to trash a perfectly good undercover sedan.
…Wait a minute.
I took the side-view photo from O'Neill, looking past the sword-slices to the make and model. Looked familiar. And not 'cause it was a common type of car around here. The military is not a place to make oodles of money; and while this wasn't an expensive car, it sure as heck wasn't cheap.
The same type of car as-
That's why my nerves were on edge. Damn.
I gave O'Neill a sober look. "Who's your best sneaky guy here?"
"Murray." The colonel didn't raise his voice, but the dark guy headed over to us at a casual glide. "Why?"
I nodded at the photo. "Take a look outside. I got a bad feeling." Actually, what I got is a case of vampire ears, and a pretty good memory for engine sounds. Same thing.
Minute later, Murray's back. "We are under surveillance, O'Neill."
He gave me the raised eyebrow.
I sighed. Looked at Sam. "Guy in a car like this was following you the other night."
Ghost-pale. And believe me, I'd know. "What?" she whispered.
"Didn't want to say anything until I had a chance to figure out what the heck was going on," I admitted. "ID said Harry Thompson. He said he was Homeland Security, and that you were maybe dirty. I figured he was lying through his teeth both times. Cops sure seemed to think so."
"The police? What-" She squinted a little, and I saw her connect the dots at warp speed. "That was your 'little help with inquiries with the cops'?"
"Guilty," I admitted. "They slammed him with trespassing, peeping, illegal parking - every little nuisance thing they could think of. But he's probably made bail by this time. Your local detectives couldn't charge him with anything related to the bug on your transmission without admitting they knew there was a bug there… and they figured that might hurt you more than it helped." I shrugged a little. "Part of why I was hanging around town was to get coffee with you, so I could try and get your side of it. They didn't feel like dirty cops, but I had to be sure."
"My car is bugged?"
"GPS locator," I said bluntly. "Didn't see anything else. Didn't have a bug stomper with me, though, so I can't swear that's all."
"But why me?" Not quite a wail.
I think I beat O'Neill's raised eyebrow, but not by much. "I may be slow, but I'm guessing - classified?"
O'Neill gave me another Look, this one of the dragon with knight and can opener variety. "You have a case in town, King?"
"Umm…." As a matter of fact, once Takani clued him in on my usual job, Himura had sideways hinted at getting in touch with some organization connected to the lady in the kidnapping case. Project Wives and Dependents, I think the name was. And if the guys who'd tried to snatch a little girl really were tied into my little pal from "Homeland Security" - well, I was curious.
And if curiosity led to thumping of bad guys' heads? Hey, that was a bonus.
"Find one."
"Sir," Sam protested.
"Ah!" The colonel gave her a hard look, harder when it fell on me. "Just because we know about alternate universes, guy, doesn't mean we believe that's your story."
"An' you want me to stay put while you check," I said levelly. Know, huh? As in, not just theory? Yow. "Lucky for both of us, the local cops seem to think I'm one of the good guys. They shouldn't hassle me too much about asking to hang up a shingle for a while."
"Asking?" Another look.
Great. Another wise guy who gets his know-how of PI work from late-night TV. "Every state's got different regs on what you need to do to have an investigator's license," I shrugged. "I've chased leads through most of them in my life," and more of them in the near-fifty years of my undeath, but I'm not mentioning that, "so when I got dropped in San Fran and had to start over, I made sure I covered as many licenses as I could, too. Think I've got Colorado. I'm gonna have to check my paperwork t' be sure, though." And make nice with the cops in a major way. Nobody likes getting the impression somebody's trying to muscle in on their job. I never do - they can have the garden-variety muggers and killers and purse-snatchers. With pepper on top. But just saying PI can get the hackles raised on cops who've run into sloppy investigators.
Detectives O'Connell and Cameron were already inclined to be in my corner. A good thing. Still, assuming I had the right to take work here could get me in a world of hurt. Better to make nice first, before I started attracting trouble.
"You do that," O'Neill muttered, then went off to have a serious hissing discussion with Murray. I tried not to listen too hard. If whoever was out there was about to run into payback in a dark alley, I didn't want to be mixed up in it. Yet.
Sam stared into her coffee.
"I like garlic bread."
She blinked. Looked up.
"I have a bad habit of wandering through local cemeteries. I've been known to get into places I don't have keys to, when a case calls for it. And I can limp by in Latin and Ancient Greek." Not to mention a few other tongues that are older, or even downright not human. I have a vested interest in knowing which artifacts have do not touch - demon prison scribed right on them. "Reading, leastwise. Don't ask me to talk it. Japanese I can speak, a little, but don't ask me to read it." We'd never run into Japanese creepy-crawlies while the Nightstalkers were up and running. Thank goodness. If we had, I might've been the only one who could talk to 'em, which would have led Blade and Frank to ask when did I learn Japanese? And if I'd told them… well, that would've blown I've only been a vampire five years right out of the water.
I hated living with that lie. But I'd taken one look at Blade, first time we met, and knew he'd never believe I'd been able to keep from killing for almost half a century. So I fudged. And kept fudging, even when I met Doc Strange. 'Cause good as he seemed, I just… couldn't trust him all the way. He and his pals had been leery enough of tryin' to help me when they thought I'd only been walking the night five years. What would they have done if they'd known I'd literally been a vampire decades longer than I'd been alive? The whole world had changed around me; from Big Band and V-J Day to rock and roll, rap, and a mess in the Middle East that just wouldn't quit. Would they even have believed me if I'd told 'em the names and costumes don't matter - well, they do, it hurt watching the present I knew fade into the past everybody else read about - but people keep living and murdering and covering up the same no matter what year it is?
I don't know for sure, but I can make a guess. So. Zipped lips it was.
"I used to have a cat," Sam offered. "I gave Schrodinger to… a friend. Which was probably a good idea anyway, my work in the lab keeps me away sometimes…."
Ooof. This is one lonely lady. Tight co-workers or not. "I've never had a cat. Too busy moving around on cases, for a while. Then when I was staying put in Boston for a few years, well… the agency took up a lot of my time." I shrugged. "Been re-thinking that. If I end up staying put somewhere."
"Not a dog person?"
Translation, so you think you might stay put?
"Nah," I shook my head. "Run up against too many pit bulls, y'know? If I end up sharing my living quarters with something furry, it's got to have the right to tell me to go to hell without either of us getting hurt." Maybe some vampires can mess with cat brains, but I can't. Thank God.
Setting that thought aside, I deliberately cleared my throat. "So… leaving out the parts of your work you can't talk about, which I'm guessing is most of it, how was your day?"
"I've had worse," Sam admits. "Really worse, to be honest; no one got hurt, which makes this a good day… ah, what parts of your work can't you talk about?"
So we're both laying out ground rules, so neither of us gets surprised later. I like this lady. "Sources, mostly. An' client confidentiality. And sometimes - just sometimes, mind you - if I run into something really sticky supernatural-wise, I don't like to spread all the details out. Somebody who knows just a little on demon-summoning is scarier than a kid with a gun, y'know?"
"No, not yet," Sam muttered. There was still that dazed sound in her voice, but her eyes had bounced back. One tough cookie. "Just what did you do to Warner, anyway?"
"You know Doc Warner?" Now, why am I not surprised? "Glared at him."
She snickered.
"He going to lay off Dr. Takani?"
"Yes… why were you seeing her?"
I raised an eyebrow, jabbed a thumb at my chest. "Hello? Spell-tossed? Alternate dimension? I been puttin' it off and puttin' it off, but I hit the ground hard in San Fran and after that mess with Tatjana… well, I figured anybody who looks after a guy like Himura would know if I'm a real mess."
"And?" she pressed.
I rolled my eyes. "Would you believe, low iron?"
Sam burst into laughter.
I think this could be the best cup of coffee I've ever had.
End.
---------------
Translations and info:
Kami-sama - "Lord god".