Daniel removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He'd been up all night, and he was still trying to make heads or tails of this artifact SG-13 had brought back. Satterfield had said something about the message appearing coded. She'd sent the artifact and all the accompanying material to Daniel after a few days though video had been made available to him immediately since they'd suspected Vala was the one who'd left it—if the audio recording the alpha site had received beforehand could be believed.
Mitchell walked into the lab. "You get any sleep, Jackson?"
Daniel groaned and rested his forehead on his arms. "What's that?"
"Well, Lam wants you in the infirmary."
Daniel frowned at his friend. "Infirmary? That's a bit of an overreaction to an all-nighter, don't you think?"
Mitchell pointed to his arm. "Remember? COVID vaccine?"
Daniel closed his eyes. "Right."
Mitchell studied him. "Look, Jackson, nobody's going to fault you if you are having second thoughts—"
Daniel shook his head. "It's not about the vaccine. I just forgot. That's all."
"It's only natural. You haven't taken a break since we heard from Vala." Mitchell rested his hands on the lab table. "Even your brain can't go twenty-four hours a day. Have you even slept lately?"
Daniel raised a cup of coffee. "I think this is the only thing running through my veins these days."
"Jackson, I get that you want to find her. We all do, but you're not gonna be any good to any of us if you don't at least pretend to take care of yourself, okay?"
Daniel bobbed his head once. "Fine."
"Now, after you go get your first shot of the vaccine, I want you taking a nap before you have another go at translating."
Daniel opened his mouth to protest, but Mitchell raised a finger. "I don't wanna hear it. Vaccine. Sleep. Then, translation. In that order. Or I tell Landry, and you're off the essential personnel list."
Daniel frowned. "Fine."
Mitchell took a step out of the lab, and Daniel poked his head out into the hallway. "But I'm not going to be happy about it."
Mitchell's voice floated back to him as the Air Force colonel turned back to face the archaeologist.
"Never asked you to be happy. Just asked you to do it."
"I thought the vaccine wasn't ready for distribution yet."
Dr. Lam measured out a dose of the vaccine. "It's not available to the public yet. And frankly, this isn't even the two-dose vaccine that they'll get in a few days."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "It's not?"
She shook her head. "The FDA and the Pentagon have authorized select SG teams to test the single dose vaccine that won't be available to the public for another few months."
Daniel blinked. "Test?"
Dr. Lam chuckled. "You don't need to worry, Dr. Jackson. One of the reasons we've been able to work so quickly on this vaccine is because of the alien technology that we've brought back through the gate. In fact, we've been able to video conference with several Tok'ra scientists who have assisted us as well."
"And the FDA isn't suspicious of all the assistance we've gotten?"
Dr. Lam just shrugged. "All I know is that the Pentagon has vaccines they want dispersed to all the interested SG personnel. If you don't want—"
Daniel shook his head. "No. It's not that. It just seems like it's all a blur."
They lapsed into silence as Dr. Lam administered the vaccine. As she started the process of cleaning up after herself, she cleared her throat. "You miss her."
"Who?"
Dr. Lam crossed her arms, a clear indication that she didn't buy his supposed ignorance.
Daniel flexed his arm, the injection site a little sore as he'd been warned. "That obvious, huh?"
The doctor put a hand on his arm and offered him a small smile. "Just make sure you don't end up in my infirmary because you're not taking care of yourself, okay?"
The action reminded him so much of Janet Fraiser that there was a pang of melancholy in his chest as he got off of the cot. "Worried about me, Doc?"
Lam shoved her hands in the pockets of her white lab coat. "Oh, no. I just have too much to do if we're going to get ahead of this coronavirus."
Daniel snickered, appreciating the laugh more than he might have otherwise.
The doctor appeared pleased at his appreciation.
"Seriously, get some rest, Daniel."
He nodded. "That's my next stop."
Daniel frowned as he looked back at the items Vala had left behind. The scroll. The jar. The messages.
"Did you forget the thing about calling Landry if I caught you in here?"
Daniel caught sight of Mitchell behind him, and reaffixed his mask to his face so he would be in compliance with the base directives. "Yeah, no. I just came by to get some light reading before bed."
Mitchell frowned at him. Then looked at his watch. "I'm calling Landry in one minute."
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Haha. Really funny."
Mitchell didn't lift his gaze from his watch. "Fifty seconds."
Daniel gathered up the still photos Satterfield had apparently gotten off the MALP before she collected the artifacts. "Don't you have anything better to do than babysit me?"
Mitchell just shrugged. "At the moment, no. Thirty-five seconds."
The photos slipped out of Daniel's hand, and something caught his eye about one of them. "No, wait."
"Thirty seconds."
Daniel leaned into the picture. Then, picked up the singular photo. "What does that look like to you?"
"I don't know. Wheat? Grain?" Mitchell glanced at his watch again. "Fifteen seconds."
Daniel shook his head. "Corn."
Mitchell gave up counting. "Corn?"
Daniel nodded and tapped the photo. "She's infiltrated the Lucian Alliance. She wants to warn us about corn."
