Daniel looked warily at the scientist as she worked on her little contraption before tearing his gaze away to focus on Amery.

"Unless you expect me to finish the translation within a day, in which case you really should consider hiring a more competent linguist, how do you plan on explaining my absence to the SGC?" Daniel asked.

"Your death will be pretty self explanatory."

"Come again?"

"You'll be involved in an unfortunate accident on the drive to the airport tomorrow morning. Your body won't be recovered," Amery said.

"Oh." Daniel tried to take what little comfort he could in that he wouldn't be used against his friends.

"Don't think we didn't consider keeping you within the SGC. Unfortunately, we appear to be quite limited even with the advanced technologies we have at our disposal." Amery cast a disapproving look to his scientist.

She returned the look with an icy glare of her own. "The process of altering an existing memory is a lot more complex than to erase it completely and implant new ones. If it is at all possible. And the implants themselves will be vague at best."

Amery gave her an indulging smile as if he perfectly understood the obstacles and didn't fault her for it. She glared at him, then returned to her work without another word. "It comes down to this - you won't be returning to the SGC because you will have no memories of it or of your team."

Daniel tried to reign in the rising horror he was feeling since the mention of P3R-118. The thought of losing one's self again was alarming, but the knowledge of what he would become - a willing participant with the NID - dredged up a deep anger within him.

He tried his binds again though he knew the futility of it. He planned on finding a way out of this situation up until the very last moment. In which case he would implement plan B. He hoped Jack would figure out something was wrong when they grabbed his phone and hung up on him so abruptly; plan B relyed quite heavily on a certain colonel of the Air Force.

"Are we ready?" Amery's voice broke into Daniel's thoughts.

A sudden knock at the door froze everyone in their tracks. Daniel glanced at the clock on the bedside table. To his surprise only 30 minutes had gone by since his uninvited guests had showed up.

Amery looked at Daniel, anger briefly dominated his features at this interruption. "Were you expecting guests, Dr. Jackson?"

"Dinner arrangement, actually," Daniel answered.

"Send them away, if you please."

The woman looked nervous. They did not expect company.

"What's to keep me from calling out for help right now?" Daniel asked.

"Their lives, of course." His captor nodded to the other man who had been standing to the side so quietly that Daniel had almost forgotten his presence. The silent bystander slowly pulled out a knife as if in demonstration.

"You would risk murder in public?" Daniel asked incredulously.

"It really is no risk, Doctor. My friend is very good at his job, as you are apparently at yours."

Daniel's face was grim. "You don't expect me to yell at them to go away, do you?"

"That wouldn't be polite." Amery waved his silent partner to unbind Daniel. "We trust you to do the right thing."

Daniel stood up slowly, resisting the urge to rub his abused wrists. He passed the woman as he walked to the door. He briefly contemplated grabbing her as a hostage but dismissed it almost as quickly as the thought came; the thug was no more than a pace behind and it was doubtful it'd do any good.

He opened the door to his smiling colleagues. Their smiles became uncertain at the look on his face.

"Doctor Jackson?" one of them asked

"Um, I'm sorry, I'm afraid I have to cancel. Something came up," Daniel said vaguely.

"I hope it's nothing serious."

"Oh, no, no. Just some unexpected guests decided to drop by tonight." With that, Daniel opened the door fully and made a gesture indicating the thug and the woman. "So, see you all later. Have a good time. Oh, and, Mike, we'll have to continue our discussion on ancient Egypt some time. Your theories on their resurrection rituals are very intriguing." He shut the door on them before they could make any replies.

Amery was not happy to have two of his people exposed. "You do realize, Jackson, that you have just placed your new friends in very real danger?"

That thought didn't occur to Daniel until the moment he did it. There was nothing he could do about that now except perhaps convince Amery they were no threat to him or his people.

"They have no idea who you are or what you represent. After tonight, I doubt I'd ever see them again anyway, with the exception of maybe in a consultation capacity over the phone. They are no threat to you," Daniel said, with heavy emphasis on the last. "You'll only bring suspicion to my accident if anything were to happen to them!"

Amery gave no indication of having heard any of it. He gave instructions for Daniel to be seated again, but he began to struggle on instinct. Amery's associate clamped a hand painfully to Daniel's throat with his arm twisted up against his back until it threatened to pop out of it's socket. With oxygen cut off, it wasn't long before Daniel collapsed into a heaving heap.

"Enough of this. Sedate him for the remainder of the night."

The thug nodded, pulled out another syringe and plunged it into the unresisting body at his feet.

Before the darkness could take over, Daniel realized just how much he would be losing: the memories of his parents, Sha're, the SGC, his friends, all could be lost to him forever. The sudden panic and helplessness almost overwhelmed him then. He brushed aside those feelings and clung onto a single memory of his past. Nothing, no one, could take that away from him. If all else was to be lost, he would fight to keep this, always.