"There's no time to explain everything. Try to erase all memory of us completely." - Sam Carter, Revisions
Author's note: Okay, I started another story. Turns out writing fanfic is a really good distraction from stress at work! If you don't remember, Revisions is the episode where they find a dome on a toxic planet that contains a village where everyone wears "links" that are data sources, but can also alter memory. I haven't seen any other fanfic around this episode, but I thought it had such great potential and I hope I do the story idea justice.
Full disclosure, I'm not going to be updating this story as quickly as I did the last two because I only have about 10k of it written and haven't fully mapped it out yet. I considered waiting to post until I was further along, but the feedback motivates me. :)
Sam watched the scrolling alien code move across the monitor in front of her and let out a sigh of relief. The system was updating, which hopefully meant that Jack and Teal'c were going to be safe.
She could only imagine what they'd been going through up on the surface as the computer system turned the brainwashed citizens of the village into dangerous enemies.
Sam hoped to god that her plan had worked. She and Pallan didn't have much time. It had taken her longer than she wanted to convince him to remove the link in the first place and then his confidence in working with the system in the control room had completely faltered when he was no longer in contact with the database.
Carter, now would be a good time.
Jack's voice had been tense over the radio and Sam wished she had the ability to do the coding herself.
There had been a slight delay while Pallan figured out what to do, but the re-programming was completed soon after and she hoped it had been completed in time.
"It should be done uploading now," Pallan said.
Sam nodded. "We should also let them know that it's safe to take off the link devices."
Even when she first learned about the links - curved devices placed on an individual's temple that allowed them to access a database full of information - she had a bad feeling about them. It wasn't her usual reaction. Normally she'd be happy to dive into learning about new tech and she had been for everything else on the planet. The holographic technology was beyond impressive and implications were immense for a dome that was permeable to people and objects, but blocked the toxic atmosphere outside. She hadn't even scratched the surface on what had to be great advances in sustainability and agriculture.
They had a lot of amazing technology here on P3X-289, but there had been something creepy about the way that people's faces went blank when they were getting an update from the system.
Now that they knew the computer system was altering memories, she was glad that she stopped Daniel from trying on Evalla's link.
Poor Evalla.
It didn't hit Sam just how bad things were until she discovered that Pallan didn't remember his own wife. He didn't remember being married at all.
They needed to get everyone to take the devices off before more people died.
"We need to tell everyone that it's safe to take off the links," Sam reiterated.
Pallan nodded, but looked reluctant.
Even now, his hand reached out towards the small, curved contraption.
She covered his hand with hers to stop the movement.
"That's a really bad idea. We haven't disabled the system. Another update could populate. We need to convince people that it's safe to take the links off and that they should."
Sam lifted her hand. Pallan continued to stare at the link before shaking his head and turning back to the screen.
"I don't know if I could do it. Adding information is different than deleting and even that, I'm not sure if I -"
"You can do it," Sam promised.
Pallan frowned and still didn't look like he believed her, but his hands started moving rapidly over the alien keyboard.
Sam stared at the monitor that displayed what must've been the computer's system code. She saw details changing as Pallan typed, but couldn't read it. Maybe later they could build an interface that would translate the code in addition to the raw output data.
"Major Carter."
Teal'c's voice came over the radio and at first she was still too focused on the machine in front of her to catch his tone of voice.
"Did it work?" Sam asked.
She watched the update process and knew it had been put into effect, but it was always good to get confirmation.
"Teal'c," she asked again, "did it work?"
"Major Carter, I require you and Daniel Jackson to join me immediately."
This time, she recognized his unyielding tone of voice. Sam also noticed that Teal'c didn't mention Jack. Something had gone wrong.
She remembered how the computer system liked to get rid of people by pushing them out of the dome. What if they were forced to the edge of the dome? What if…
Sam shut down that thought before it could gain purchase in her mind.
"What happened, Teal'c?" she asked, voice shaky.
"Major Carter. I need your immediate assistance. You may need to take command."
Something had happened to the Colonel.
Something was wrong with Jack.
Sam broke into a run.