A/N: I'm going to just have to stop apologising for waiting so long between posts. I honestly haven't had time for pretty much anything in the last couple of months. When I get really busy at work I get into this kind of 'manic' state and can't sit still long enough to read anything, let alone write fanfic! Also, for a while there I hadn't seen any Stargate because it wasn't on TV. We're now halfway through the 9th season in Australia and although it's not the show it once was, it's still my drug of choice!

So here's the next chap in 'Alter Ego'… in case you've forgotten, Sam and Jack have just ambushed a gas-infected Janet who 'strives to individuality' and could hold the key to their survival and victory over the Swarm!

Chapter 12 – Individual thinking

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"We will have to speak quickly," Janet hissed urgently. "There is little time before either we must give a signal to the swarm, return or my brethren will know that we are not as we seem."

"Well what are you then?" Jack snapped back, his weapon steadily pointed at Janet's diminutive frame. "Seemingly or otherwise?"

"You know that you are not like the others," Janet continued without paying heed to Jack's interruption. "The threat you pose should serve as a warning to the swarm but most do not see it."

"We know." Sam butted in. "We've got it covered - soon enough the same hormones that killed the gas in me will be coursing through the veins of every person in this base."

Janet shook her head quickly. "The key threat to my kind lies in fact in your beloved. He is not the only one who is resistant.

Jack rolled his eyes. This was nothing new. He swallowed his impatience, however, and listened.

"You represent part of a significant minority who have advanced beyond the average genetic composition." Janet had turned her attention to Jack. "Our brethren do not adequately understand – they do not understand that on the surface there are enough people capable of resistance to render their infiltration doomed from the start."

"And you do?" Sam asked warily, unsure of where this was going. She was, however, conscious of the time ticking away as they were talking. "If you are so perceptive then why are you talking to us?"

"You have studied our records," Janet persevered. "You know we were on the edge of complete annihilation and then extinction." She paused long enough to confirm that Sam in fact did know what she was talking about. "I do not wish this to happen again."

"Well sorry to find a point of disagreement so early in these, uh, negotiations," Jack growled dangerously, gripping his weapon a little more tightly, "but I for one wouldn't be losing any sleep if you were actually annihilated and made extinct."

"But if you wish to live long enough you see your offspring brought into this world," Janet's voice suddenly descended into a primal-sounding growl, "you will listen what we have to say – we are not like the rest of the swarm."

"Individuality…" Sam said quietly, glancing quickly at Jack. "You think you're different, you don't want to be part of the larger swarm… Teal'c was right."

Janet's eyes shimmered with more intensity at the sound of Teal'c's name. "The enemy vessel has proved to be a stronger-than-anticipated foe for us." Her mouth formed a thin line, and then the smallest of curls indicated a smile. "Usually those of his kind – with an incubation pouch - are easily neutralised."

"Yeah well he's tougher than most." Jack said triumphantly.

"Yes. But it is no matter." Janet said, tossing her hair with a confident ease. "Although the swarm seeks his destruction, we do not feel the same. In fact, he has been most useful in keeping me appraised of your progress – once I convinced him of my intentions, of course."

"And what do we feel?" Jack asked with more than a hint of irony. The way the gas in Janet was talking, it was as if she were some weird aristocratic matriarch dictating society protocols.

"We wish only to survive – and we do not think that will occur unless we leave this planet."

"Well!" Jack said, more brightly than before, "it is such a relief to finally meet an alien parasitic invasion force that decides to leave of its own free will!"

"My host's memories seem to indicate he is always like this," Janet said in an irritated voice, turning to Sam. "I do not know how you manage."

Sam quickly pushed the desire to grin at Janet and forced herself to remember the true nature of the alien gas they were in fact dealing with – not to mention the veritable army of compromised SGC members not far from their position, poised to attack and well capable of overrunning them all.

"Why are you talking to us?" Sam asked, suspicious of Janet's true motives. "If you wanted to go elsewhere you could just go through the gate and repopulate somewhere else while the swarm fights its battles on the surface – not that we would let it get that far."

"No… I think you're giving the gas too much credit." Jack's eyes narrowed as his honed military mind went to work. "They don't want to just separate from the swarm in order to survive – they consider themselves better than the swarm and want to wipe them out too, right?"

"They are weak." Janet's voice hissed with anger. "It was their folly that almost led to our permanent demise all that time ago – and it is their folly now that threatens to lead us all again to extinction!"

"You want revenge." Sam said quietly, realizing what Jack had been talking about. "You don't just want to survive – you want to be the only aspect of the swarm that survives."

Janet began to nod before her head suddenly snapped upwards slightly, her attention grabbed by something else. Her facial expression suddenly darkened and she seemed to be concentrating intently. Sensing danger, Jack backed up towards the door and looked through the small reinforced window to see Stacey's face popping into his field of vision. He waved her away quickly.

"It's just Stacey." He said quietly to Sam.

"For now," Janet said quickly, "but I have isolated my link from the general swarm for too long already. It will not be long before they come."

"We need more time," Sam said quickly, "We have a way to synthesize enough HcG for everyone in the base – but we need time for this to happen."

"You will not get enough time," Janet said simply, "this is why I have come."

"Either that or you're afraid of getting wiped out by the hormone thingy as well." Jack said cynically.

"I would not be here if I did not want to survive," Janet said coldly, "I do not hide that fact."

"So if we're not going to have time, how are we going to neutralize the rest of the gas?" Sam asked. "I assume if you have somehow been kept in the loop by Teal'c you're aware of the science involved?"

"More than you, Colonel Carter," Janet nodded, sensing that finally the humans were beginning to trust her. "Remember my host is your beloved doctor – I believe I know of a way for you to create the means with which to neutralize the gas in time."

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Stacey had hovered nervously in the corridor only briefly before she saw Colonel O'Neill's signal that everything was fine for the moment. She was acutely aware of the time that was passing. Almost twenty minutes had passed since Sam and Jack had gone to intercept Janet and it couldn't be long now until the rest of the swarm headed in their direction.

She returned to the lab and continued her work, praying that they would have the time they needed. The sheer enormity of the task, however, seemed too much for her. Again she thought how her life had changed in the past year. She had been intensely proud of her ability to step up to the plate and deal with all the new challenges posed. Not for the first time, however, she found herself afraid that this time her innate intelligence and cunning wasn't going to be enough.

A strange draught through the small room made her skin prickle as she bent over the microscope and Stacey froze. No one had entered the room, and from the corner of her eye she could see Teal'c still lay unconscious in the corner. Nonetheless, she was sure that someone was now standing behind her.

"I'm not a danger to you." The smooth, soft, male voice spoke soothingly. "I am unarmed and I only wish to help."

Stacey turned around to see a man of average height, dressed in white, with light brown hair, looking directly at her. There seemed to be a slight glow emanating from around him and Stacey found herself instantly at ease.

"You're a valuable addition to the SGC, Stacey," Daniel said warmly, confident that the young Australian was switched-on enough not to panic. "Jack will be lucky to have you in his team."

"Daniel." Stacey more breathed the word than say it. Her mind was reeling at the fact that she was face-to-face with an ascended being – whatever that meant.

"I don't have a lot of time." Daniel said, smiling apologetically. "You need to stop doing what you're doing now and instead find the medication in the cold store labeled 4ZX009. It's in liquid vial form – 10 vials of 1ml each. You need to put them through first the sonicator, and then the centrifuge – now. You're going to need them."

Stacey wanted so badly to trust the man in front of her, but her instincts wouldn't let her blindly abandon what she had thought was the only way for salvation against the Gas. Apart from anything else, her rough knowledge of science was telling her his instructions didn't make sense. A sonicator was a small water tub used to pass sound waves through samples in order to properly dissolve sedimentary particles. A centrifuge did pretty much the opposite – spinning samples around so fast that the sedimentary particles separated out from a liquid solution.

"I know this sounds odd," Daniel remained where he was, and kept his voice steady, so as not to appear threatening in any way. "But you won't have enough time unless you get started now. Sam is going to come back with Janet and ask you to do exactly the same thing – you need to have already started to make sure the gas doesn't infiltrate this part of the base before you're done – and to make sure you have a contingency plan."

Stacey had no idea what he was talking about in terms of contingencies, and only a vague idea otherwise. "Why don't you just help us – if you're so powerful?" She asked warily, still not making any sudden movements, part frozen on the spot, part unsure of the situation. "If you're really ascended or whatever, why not just use some of that mojo to suck the gas out of people and off into space or something?"

Daniel just smiled in response. "I'm sorry, but now I know you're definitely going to get on with Jack," he said good-humouredly. "He'll explain it to you – I've already done too much."

Stacey turned to get to work, making an instant decision to trust the man she had never met and still wasn't sure was actually real, nodding quickly.

"One more thing," Daniel said urgently, his voice lower as he moved closer to Stacey. "Leave one sample – only one – un-sonicated before you put it in the centrifuge and make sure you know which one it is. Do that one first. It will become apparent why."

Stacey whirled around to tell Daniel just exactly how ridiculous she thought he was being and how it was beyond stupid to be taking instructions from some ghost who was apparently too superior to actually help humankind fight against various manifestations of evil.

In the split second it took her to turn, however, he had gone and the door to the Biotech lab was opening to reveal Sam and Jack leading a petulant-looking Janet into the room, a newly hopeful gleam in Sam's eyes.

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The swarm bounced impatiently through the various host colonies surrounding the isolated area of the incompatible threat. The colony inside Dr Fraser had been cut off from the remainder following her ambush by the procreators. Such an occurrence was not unusual, but it was of great concern that the Gas had yet to re-connect and ascertain what was happening.

Suspicions had been circulating in the swarm of that particular colony's penchant for isolation; it was verging on individuality. From their comfortable position in the briefing room, the colony within General Hammond was growing increasingly impatient. They knew of the necessity to ensure the neutralization of the incompatible threat, but it was time and enough that the swarm broke from the confines of the military base to reach the 6 billion available incubatory hosts on the surface. The molecules of gas almost bubbled with the anticipatory excitement of this progression in this latest of dynasties for the swarm. Never before had they had such a rich source of hosts at their disposal. The concept of 6 billion vessels for proliferation, not to speak of the countless others throughout the galaxy now that the snake-god was in decline – or so the Earth records seemed to indicate – was too much for the swarm to sit and wait to hear of the fate of three incompatibles and a snake-slave who had effectively been neutralized in any case.

The gas tried once more to connect to the doctor's colony but decided the colony must have been compromised. Whether fallen into enemy hands, killed, or – worse – individual, Dr Fraser was from henceforth to be considered one of the incompatibles.

The order went out. The time was right to neutralize the one, annoying, buzzing, insect of an obstacle between the gas and rapid revival. Within a matter of minutes, the situation would be ripe for worldwide infiltration.

To be continued…

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A/N: Once again, I'm going to try and promise not to wait too long before updating again – for one I hope you don't all forget the bloody plot in between chapters! I'm really excited about what's happening next tho! Have I confused you all enough with the science talk?

Please tell me if you think I'm missing something in the plot. I read the whole fic again last night just to make sure I had everything covered, and I do have a story sketched out… but I dunno sometimes.