Monday, April 5
Reality L583
Sam watched Colonel O'Neill leave the infirmary in shock. Turning to the general, she said, "Sir, I can't believe he'd ever hurt Daniel."
"I don't want to believe it myself, captain," Hammond said, shaking his head. He seemed very disturbed. "But I saw . . ." He paused to take a deep breath. "He went into the storeroom with Dr. Jackson, who was struggling to get away, and came out again alone. A bare forty-five minutes later, Dr. Jackson was found barely alive, and no one entered that room from the moment Colonel O'Neill left it till Major Takagashi went in."
Sam shook her head. It didn't make sense. Teal'c echoed her thoughts. "There must be some other explanation," he said.
"I wish I could see one," the general said, looking unhappy. He glanced toward the operating room. "Have you heard anything?"
"No sir," Sam said.
"Please call me if there's any news at all," Hammond said.
Sam watched as he started to leave, then said, "Sir, can I see this footage?"
"Not just yet, captain. Please, just wait here." He nodded at both of them and left.
"I don't understand," Sam said. "Colonel O'Neill would never hurt Daniel." Her mind was going over all the tricks that could be used to fake video images, trying to guess who might be trying to put both Daniel and the colonel out of commission.
Teal'c was silent for a long moment. "He has in the past," he said eventually.
Startled out of her thoughts, Sam refocused her eyes on his face. "What?"
The Jaffa looked very phlegmatic. "When he was infected by the illness on P3X-797, O'Neill became quite violent and attacked DanielJackson."
"That was the virus, not Colonel O'Neill," Sam said impatiently.
"Perhaps something similar has taken place. Perhaps O'Neill is not himself."
Sam considered this, but then shook her head regretfully. "He seemed pretty normal when we saw him earlier."
Teal'c nodded, looking thoughtful, and Sam tried to imagine what could have happened. SG-1 hadn't had any missions lately that suggested an obvious explanation for this behavior. She and Teal'c sat waiting in an uneasy silence that infected everyone in the infirmary. Hours passed. Sam was ready to scream, and she knew that the colonel had to be pacing anxiously inside whatever cell they'd put him in. How could anyone ever really think that he'd attack Daniel?
Finally, Janet emerged, her expression very closed and tense. The way she avoided glancing towards them made Sam certain that she knew they were there, but she headed straight into the bathroom next to her office without acknowledging them.
Sam stared at the door the doctor had exited, wondering what had happened. Surely if Daniel was dead, Janet would have said something to them. Surely . . .
A moment later, orderlies came out with Daniel on a gurney. Sam rushed over to him with Teal'c beside her. After a moment of hovering while the orderlies got the IV and monitoring equipment set up, she remembered General Hammond. She made a quick call and then walked back over to where Daniel lay, still and pathetic and be-tubed.
Fury filled her at whoever had done this to her friend and then tried to place the blame on their commanding officer.
Hammond showed up amazingly swiftly. "How's our boy?" he asked as Dr. Fraiser emerged from the bathroom. She didn't immediately reply, but checked a couple of things on Daniel then gestured them all away from the bed. "Where's Colonel O'Neill? He should hear this, too."
"He's in detention," Hammond said with a scowl. "There is very strong evidence leading to the conclusion that he attacked Dr. Jackson."
Janet's eyes widened. "Well, you might want to rethink that, sir," she said. "Because . . ." She looked over at Daniel on the bed. "That's not Daniel," she said.
"What?" Sam exclaimed.
"Well, let me rephrase. That's not the Daniel I examined five days ago after the trip to PN3-837. I can't explain it, but this man has injuries that are more than a week old that weren't present five days ago. And even more telling . . . this man doesn't have an appendix."
"I take it Dr. Jackson still has his appendix?" Hammond asked dryly.
"Yes," Janet said, looking over at the familiar stranger. "I've got someone testing his DNA, but the results may take a couple of hours."
"Right." Hammond turned to gaze at the injured man. "In the meantime, maybe I should put a guard on him."
Janet shrugged. "He's not going anywhere, general. Not with those injuries." Sam thought they were all missing a key point. She opened her mouth, but Janet started speaking before she could. "He was talking some before we put him out and he sounds like Daniel. It makes no sense. He has scars I can identify, from injuries that I treated a year ago, but that is not the man I examined five days ago."
Sam shook her head. "Fine. If that's not Daniel, then where is he?" she asked urgently.
They all stared at her, eyes wide. Fraiser looked at the figure on the bed and shook her head helplessly. Hammond opened his mouth and then closed it looking befuddled. Teal'c merely looked understatedly upset.
The infirmary door opened, and Lt. Malkin, one of the security men, came in and walked up to General Hammond. "Sir?" he said quietly.
"What?" Hammond asked curtly.
"Sir, we have a problem." Malkin paused, glancing at Sam and the others.
"Well, out with it, man!" Hammond snapped.
Malkin gulped nervously and glanced around again. "We have Colonel O'Neill in two places at the same time, sir. In the security footage."
There was silence for a moment, then Hammond cleared his throat. "Then which one do we have locked up?"
"As far as we can tell, sir," Lt. Malkin said. "We've traced both men, and it seems the one who is locked up is not the one who injured Dr. Jackson. That one seems to have vanished into a men's room around the corner from Dr. Jackson's office."
"Vanished?" Hammond asked incredulously.
"He never left the room," the lieutenant said. "We've been tracing his movements, and it's very odd. He appeared out of a men's room on the 21st level and went up to the storeroom where Dr. Jackson was found, opened the door and looked in for a moment, then left the door open and went into Dr. Jackson's office, attacked him, and dragged him to the storeroom."
"Right, I've seen that," Hammond said.
"Well, he stayed in there for about five minutes, and then –"
"Five minutes?" Fraiser asked, looking surprised. "Are you sure?"
Lt. Malkin nodded. "Five minutes, seventeen seconds to be exact."
"It's unlikely in the extreme that the recent injuries suffered by . . ." she glanced over at him, ". . . my patient could have been given to him in that short a time."
Sam shook her head, a totally bizarre idea occurring to her. "Did you say Level 21?" she asked Malkin.
"Yes, captain."
"Can you have them check the logs on the locks on all the labs down there?" she asked. "Specifically in the time frame just before the appearance of the second Colonel O'Neill and just after his disappearance."
Lt. Malkin glanced at Hammond who nodded. The security man left quickly, shutting the door behind him. Hammond pursed his lips, turning to Janet. "In the meantime, Dr. Fraiser, I want you give the Colonel O'Neill we have locked up a thorough examination. Check everything you can think of. Verify his identity as completely as you possibly can."
"Yes sir," Janet said.
"And keep me posted on . . . your patient's condition." Hammond looked over at the pathetic figure on the bed. "What exactly is his condition?"
Janet sighed. "He's got a pattern of repeated injuries," she said. "He's seen a lot of abuse over the past weeks, I'm not sure how long. Most of the older injuries aren't too serious. The worst are two cracked ribs and a broken foot. The ribs have largely healed now, and the foot is well on its way, but more recently . . ." She pulled out some x-rays and put them on a light box. "He's got three freshly broken ribs and both the bones of his right forearm are fractured." She pointed out the partially healed cracks in his ribs and the sharp breaks. Sam looked at the snapped bones in his forearm and felt sick to her stomach. It was disturbing to know that someone had done that on purpose. Janet kept talking. "His kidneys are badly bruised, it looks like someone kicked him repeatedly in the lower –" She broke off, her eyes filled with worry as she gazed over at him. Taking a deep breath, she said, "He should make a complete recovery, but it will take time."
Hammond had a very thoughtful look on his face. After a moment, he turned to her and said, "Captain, I want you to give serious consideration to the possibility of time travel being involved somehow."
She blinked. "Time travel? But sir –"
"I don't insist on it, but keep the possibility in mind," he said, and she nodded. He turned back towards the injured man. "If that's not Dr. Jackson, then where is Dr. Jackson and who is this?" Janet shook her head.
Sam hesitated briefly, and Teal'c tilted his head, obviously reading from her expression that she had an idea. Hammond noticed and raised his eyebrows. She bit her lip uncertainly, then plunged in. "If I'm right," she said, "then that is Daniel Jackson, just not our Daniel Jackson." All three of them looked at her with varying levels of incredulity, and she shrugged uncomfortably. "Level 21 is where the transdimensional mirror is stored," she said. "That would explain both a spare Colonel O'Neill and a spare Daniel."
"But what you're suggesting, captain –"
"I'm not suggesting anything, sir," she said quickly. "It's just a theory without any evidence at the moment, but . . ."
"But if that is so," Teal'c said, "then our DanielJackson may not even be in our reality."
Sam nodded and looked over at the figure on the bed. "And somewhere out there someone is missing their Daniel," she said.
Jack was ready to jump out of his skin. He had no way of knowing if Daniel was still in surgery, if he was dying, if he was dead already . . . he kicked the door angrily. How could there be video footage of him doing something he hadn't done? Had someone doctored the footage? Could someone be impersonating him? Well enough to fool the general?
Hours had passed while he'd paced. Jack had a pretty good time sense even without his watch, and he knew that a lot of time had gone by since he'd been brought here. No one had spoken to him since Makepeace had locked the door. Feretti had peered in looking unhappy, but he hadn't said anything.
In his mind's eye he could see Daniel's battered body . . . he wanted information and he wanted it now!
He started towards the door, to yell for someone to find out what was going on with Daniel, but before he'd done more than take a deep breath, Makepeace appeared in the window. "If you yell in my ear, I'm going to be annoyed, colonel," he said.
Jack let out the breath explosively and stepped back from the door a pace. "What's going on?"
"That seems to be getting complicated," Makepeace said, looking discomfitted. Jack blinked. For it to disturb the iron soldier mask the marine colonel habitually wore, things must have gotten extremely complicated. "We've been ordered to take you back to the infirmary to be checked out."
"Checked for what?" Jack asked.
The mask came down again as Jack spoke and Makepeace gazed solemnly at him. "Colonel O'Neill, please turn around and place your hands on the back wall of the cell."
"How's Daniel?" he demanded, not moving.
Makepeace ignored the question. "Please turn around and –" he started, but Jack didn't let him finish.
"I'm not doing anything until you tell me how Daniel is!"
Makepeace stared at him inflexibly. Feretti wasn't visible but Jack could hear him. "He's out of danger, sir."
Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Out of danger. Good. That was good. He turned around and followed the instructions he'd been given. He heard the door open behind him and waited. They'd already taken everything he had on him besides his clothes. Makepeace patted him down nonetheless, then pulled his arms down and cuffed him, all completely by the book. Jack closed his eyes and controlled his temper. "That really isn't necessary."
"Maybe not," Makepeace said, "but we're not taking any chances. If you aren't the one who beat Dr. Jackson half to death, we'll apologize later."
"Right," Jack said, grimacing. Feretti took his arm almost apologetically, but Makepeace was all business. They headed through the halls, getting some pretty odd looks from the staff. Jack ignored the looks, focused on the fact that he would soon be where Daniel was. He had questions, but he didn't want to ask them in so public a forum.
When they reached the elevator, Makepeace looked at the people who were waiting. "We'll be taking the next car alone, people. You'll have to wait."
Looking uneasy, they drew back from Jack and his escort. Jack looked at the elevator door and paid no outward attention. This was going to be fun to recover from.
The elevator arrived and they got on. Once the doors shut, he swallowed. Without looking at either man, he cleared his throat. "So, do you know what actually happened to Daniel?"
Makepeace shook his head as Feretti started to respond. "I don't think we should tell you that, sir," he said. "It might be important later." Feretti closed his mouth without speaking.
"Right," Jack said, and glowered at no on in particular. That pretty much meant that Makepeace wasn't going to answer any questions, and Feretti was following the lead of the senior officer, which was only appropriate. Damn.
Fortunately, the infirmary was close to the elevator, so they didn't have far to go once they reached the right level. Carter was nowhere to be seen, but Teal'c stood by the bed where the limp form of Daniel lay. There was a cast on his arm, and tubes in his nose, and he was hooked up to several monitors. Jack had seen Daniel in similar condition more than once in the past, but he'd never been accused of doing it to him.
"This way, colonel," Fraiser said, drawing his attention away from Daniel. She gestured towards one of the private exam rooms in the back. Jack headed towards it, Makepeace and Feretti beside him. The other colonel gave him a sidelong look as he took control of his own movement despite the cuffs.
With Feretti and Makepeace standing by on watch, Jack suffered through the process of a complete check up, as if he'd just come back from offworld. Fraiser offered no explanations, and he kept his questions behind his teeth despite his frustration.
Finally, after all the normal hurdles, after an MRI and a CAT scan, Jack looked up at Dr. Fraiser and said, "Can you please tell me what's going on?"
Fraiser bit her lip and shook her head. "Please wait here, colonel," she said, taking her samples and leaving. Jack pulled his legs up onto the exam bed and thumped down onto his back. His frustration was growing, but there was nothing he could do. If he had done what they thought he'd done, they were behaving exactly right.
He listened to the sound of the clock ticking, railing internally that they were still so focused on him that they were going to let whoever really did this get away. He knew they had to have people looking hard, Hammond wouldn't just stop with the notion that Jack had attacked Daniel. They would continue to investigate. But he was immobilized, and he couldn't help thinking that was the intention of the person who had done this.
Another hour passed. Makepeace and Feretti had to be as bored and as frustrated as he was. Someone had attacked a member of the SGC on base, and unless they really believed it had been him, they had to be as antsy to find out who it really was as he was.
When the door opened, Jack sat up like a shot. Hammond walked in and Makepeace stepped forward as if to protect the general, but Hammond waved him back. "We have established that you did not attack Dr. Jackson."
Jack came to his feet. "Good, then maybe we can get onto figuring out who did!"
"Actually, we know that, too." Hammond looked at him uneasily. "Come with me to the briefing room."
More than a little puzzled, Jack followed him out, but made a detour to stop by Daniel's bed. "How is he?" he asked. He looked up and met Teal'c's eyes, but the Jaffa's expression seemed odd somehow. He started to ask him what was wrong, but Hammond spoke before he could.
"He will recover," the general said. "Fraiser said it may take months, but we'll go into the details during the briefing."
Jack tore himself away from Daniel's side and followed Hammond to the briefing room. He hated thinking of Daniel stuck in bed for months because some bastard had beaten him so badly. More odd looks greeted him as he headed back through the halls, but he remained calculatedly oblivious to it. When they reached the briefing room, he found Sam and several of the security guys waiting there with Dr. Fraiser. There were two A/V carts at one end of the table, both with TV and VCR. The TVS were on, showing blank blue screens.
"All right, let's start over," Hammond said. Jack slipped into the seat next to Carter. "Once I was assured that you were not the one who attacked Dr. Jackson, I stopped the meeting," Hammond went on. "We have quite a little situation on our hands."
Jack took a deep breath and was quite proud of his quiet tone. "What is going on?"
Lt. Malkin cleared his throat. He had the remote controls beside him. "First, sir, I think you should see why we thought it was you in the first place." He paused, glancing nervously at the general. "When Dr. Jackson was found, we naturally started searching through the security footage for the area around his office to see if we could identify his attacker. This is what we found." He glanced down, selected a remote and directed it at the cart on the left. Jack looked at that screen to see the hallway outside Daniel's office. One could see that Daniel's office door was open, but could not see inside the room. The storeroom door was about ten feet closer to the camera. After a moment, a man that was unmistakably him walked up to the storeroom, opened the door and left it open as he headed on into Daniel's office.
"What time is that?" Jack asked.
Malkin paused the video tape and said, "12:31."
"I was in my office at that time," Jack protested. "Ears deep in reports."
"We know that, colonel," Hammond said. "Go ahead, Malkin."
The video started up again and Jack watched this man, who was totally indistinguishable from him, wrestle Daniel out of his office and down the hall and through the open storeroom door, then kick it shut behind them. Malkin started fast forwarding the tape, then paused it. "Five minutes and seventeen seconds pass between the time the door closes and when it opens again." Jack nodded and Malkin pressed play again. The storeroom door opened. The fake Jack stepped out and, oddly, held the door open for several seconds, then closed it and headed down the hall and out of sight.
"So you see, colonel," said General Hammond, "why we thought it was you?"
Jack nodded again. "So, exactly what cleared me?"
Malkin cleared his throat. "Well, sir, we appear to have had two Colonel O'Neills on base for about the space of an hour."
"Two of me?" Jack repeated. "How . . . what . . ." He turned away from the security officer. "Carter?"
She looked extremely uncomfortable. "You remember the transdimensional mirror?" she asked.
Jack shook his head in denial. "No!" he said emphatically. "Not that thing again."
Carter looked down at the sheet of paper in front of her. "From the camera in the lab where it's been stored, we know it was activated at 11:56 a.m. Nothing visible happened in the room, but the door opened on its own at 11:58 a.m. and closed at 12:01 p.m."
"Someone snuck out," Jack said.
Carter nodded. "That was our surmise, sir. But since the intruder or intruders were not visible –"
"I'm sure there was only one, captain," Lt. Malkin interjected.
"Well, I'm not," Carter replied firmly.
"Wait a minute," Jack said. "Are you saying that a me from an alternate reality came on base for the sole purpose of beating up on the local Daniel?"
"No, sir," Carter said uneasily. Her eyes flicked to Dr. Fraiser and Hammond. "That isn't our Daniel."
It felt like there was an explosion going off in Jack's head. He rose to his feet with the force of his emotions. "Son of a bitch!"
"Colonel, please sit down," General Hammond said. Jack took a deep breath and got himself under control. He sat down. Hammond gave him a sympathetic look, then added, "Go ahead, people."
"That's not Daniel?" he asked in quieter tones.
Carter cleared her throat. "He's not our Daniel, but he is Daniel Jackson." She looked over at Dr. Fraiser who nodded.
"I've tested his DNA and the match is exact," she said.
"But we're sure he's not ours?" Jack was having trouble wrapping his mind around this concept. He looked like Daniel. He seemed like Daniel.
Fraiser nodded. "Either that or time travel is somehow involved. The man in the infirmary has been enduring physical abuse for the past several weeks, possibly as much as two months, injury on injury, and then today he suffered a brutal attack which . . . if he had been found an hour later, might have resulted in his death."
Jack sat for a moment, staring at her. "And the theory, I take it, is that our Daniel is with the people who damaged this Daniel?"
Carter opened her mouth, took a deep breath and nodded unhappily. "Yes sir."
"And how are we going to get him back?"
She raised her chin, eyes bleak, and he could read in her expression what her answer was going to be. "I don't know."
Reality A001
Daniel stared into those cold eyes for a long second, then he ducked out from under the other man's hand and thrust his shoulder into Jack's chest, shoving him aside. The mirror was still active. If he could just touch it with some part of his body he'd have a fighting chance of getting away.
The mirror deactivated just before he reached it, and he barely caught himself before he barked his cheek on the stone frame. He heard laughter behind him and then Jack seized his hair and pulled him back. "Leaving so soon, Dr. Jackson?" he asked, eyes narrowing.
"It was worth a try," Daniel said, glaring.
Jack shoved him away roughly, and Daniel stumbled backwards into a table but managed somehow to keep his feet. The other men were standing at their ease, leaning casually against the tables. "Not bad," Jack said with a grin. Kowalski snorted. "But you need to understand something, Daniel."
He raised his chin, glowering at this alternate reality Jack. "What, exactly?" he demanded.
The grin fell off the colonel's face at Daniel's tone. He straightened his spine and started towards Daniel, looming up over him. Absurdly, Daniel found himself wondering if this Jack was taller than his Jack, because he'd never felt the height difference between them so acutely before. He didn't back up, didn't give way to the attempt at intimidation, because he didn't want the jackass to know he'd succeeded. A slow smile spread across Jack's face, as if he sensed the fear beneath the surface. "You are here to do the kind of work you're used to doing already. All you have to do is translate stuff, help Carter figure out how things work, that kind of thing."
"What makes you think I'll work for you?" Daniel asked, shaking his head to get his hair out of his eyes.
Jack leaned very close to his face. "Because, Dr. Jackson," he said, placing special emphasis on the title, "if you don't, I'll smash your head so hard it will turn your brains to mush, then send you home to live out your life as an imbecile." Daniel didn't break eye contact, though he desperately wanted to as the sincerity behind that threat came home to him. "You're an amazingly brilliant man," he added, "but when all's said and done, you're a dime a dozen. I'll break you and go get myself another one." After a moment more of staring into Daniel's eyes, Jack turned away and walked towards the door. "Take him to his room, let Carter know he's here. I need a shower."
Daniel watched him walk out of the room feeling utterly stunned. There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that Jack meant every word of what he'd said. Kowalski came up beside him and took his arm. "Come on, kid, let's get you –"
"Send me home!" Daniel said, resisting the pull, looking up at Kowalski's face. "Charlie, please, send me home."
Kowalski shook his head. "We need you, Daniel."
"They need me back there, too."
Shrugging, the major said, "Ah, they've got a Daniel. They'll be fine."
This attitude silenced him, and he went along with Kowalski without speaking further. The halls here were as busy as they were at home, and he saw many of the same people, but the mood was entirely different. The lighting was no different, but the place felt darker, less open somehow.
He couldn't help noticing the various reactions people had to him. Looks of sympathy from some, snickers from others, and a few just looked away. None of this reassured him in the slightest. He didn't try to get away, because there seemed to be no point. He couldn't get home by getting away from Kowalski now, and if he made them feel the need to guard him too closely, he'd never get away later.
They reached the elevator, and Kowalski swiped his card. No one seemed to want to join them in the elevator, so they got one to themselves. He looked up at Charlie Kowalski. "This is very odd."
"What is?"
"You've been dead for nearly two years in my reality."
Kowalski raised his eyebrows. "Really? Was I heroic?"
"It wasn't pretty," Daniel said, looking away, remembering the dreadful events that had followed their first trip to Chulak. "He got taken over by an immature Goa'uld. It was . . . it was bad."
"Wow." He stood silently for a minute. "So, was I an idiot or something?"
Daniel closed his eyes and shuddered slightly. The alternate reality he'd encountered when he discovered the transdimensional mirror had been different from his own, but the people had seemed, on a basic level, to be very much the same kind of people as the ones in his own. These people were disconcertingly different.
The elevator doors opened and Kowalski pulled him forward. Daniel walked resignedly with him, but they didn't have much further to go. He tugged Daniel to a stop in front of a door that had an airman standing watch by it. Kowalski nodded to the airman, who swiped his card through the reader and opened the door.
They went inside and Daniel looked around. It was an office very like his own, but clearly designed also as a prison. Bookshelves lined the walls, very neatly organized, and there was a narrow cot wedged in between a pair of them against a wall. "Is there a toilet?" he asked.
"There's a little bathroom in the back there," Kowalski said, pointing.
Daniel walked a little away from him, looking around. The desk was a lot like his own, it might have been this reality's Daniel . . . He turned and looked at the major. "What happened to your Daniel?"
Kowalski shrugged. "He got a bit unmanageable, and the colonel killed him." The casual way he said it chilled Daniel to the marrow. "Here, let me get those cuffs off you."
He held still while Kowalski freed his wrists, then turned so that he didn't have his back to the man. "So, what now?"
"Now?" Kowalski grinned. "Now you wait here." He went to the door, knocked and was let out, leaving Daniel alone in the space. The door shut with a dull click and Daniel stared at it for a moment. Then he went to the bathroom and washed his face. He had a rising lump on the right side of his face, and a trickle of blood had started itching down his chin. When he was done, he turned and leaned against the sink. This wasn't a little bathroom. There was a decent-sized bathtub with a shower. Assuming that food came from outside – and Daniel declined to consider the corollary to that – this space was entirely self-contained. It would be extremely hard to get away if they never let him out of the room.
Of course where he would get away to was the next question. The mirror was deactivated, and he had no idea how to be sure he was getting home to the right reality. There might not be an easy way, and that thought was less than comforting.
The outer door opened and he stepped out into the room again to see who had come in. The slender figure with her green fatigues and short blond hair was immediately recognizable. "Sam!" he exclaimed. Surely she would be the same, surely she wouldn't have become . . .
She turned to face him, her blue eyes as cold as winter. "That's Lt. Carter to you, Dr. Jackson. You may know your Samantha Carter, but you don't know me, and I'll thank you to remember that."
Daniel felt as if he'd been doused in ice water, but he nodded. "Of course, lieutenant," he said. "It's odd, the Samantha Carter in my reality is a captain."
"Is she?" asked Lt. Carter. "I'm thrilled to hear it." Her voice told him clearly that she was anything but. "Let me be straight with you. Your reality is not important anymore. You have to focus on where you are and what's expected of you. I don't care who is dead there, I don't care who's alive there, and I particularly don't care what your life was like there. And if I'm married to Colonel O'Neill there, I really don't want to know about it."
"Um . . . no," Daniel said.
"No what?" she asked.
"No, you're not married to Jack."
"Great." She rolled her eyes. In her hands she held a sheaf of papers. "Here's your first task. We uncovered this stuff on P3N-351 and need a translation."
"And if I say no?" he asked.
Her expression grew grim. "If you say no, I have orders to call Colonel O'Neill, and since he's eating his lunch right now, he'd be in an unpleasant mood when he got here."
"An unpleasant mood," Daniel repeated thoughtfully. "I suppose that would be . . . worse . . . than he was when he fetched me from home?"
She smiled tightly. "I'd say so."
"Right," Daniel said. He walked over to her and took the papers. "Can you tell me anything about where they were found? What sort of culture we're looking at?"
"The report is there," she said. "I'll be back in a few hours to see how you're progressing." She turned towards the door, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I should mention, everything you do is monitored, so don't bother trying to get out. Spend too much time away from work and Colonel O'Neill will come."
"Thanks," he said, and she left.
He walked over to the desk and started to put the papers down, but noticed something that drew his attention. Bending close, he realized that there was a massive bloodstain across the top of the desktop. It had sunk deeply, ineradicably into the wood. He stared at it for a long moment, then took a deep breath and looked around. There really wasn't another good place to work. He should be practical about this.
Wondering what the monitors were making of his hesitation, he bit his lip. Then he walked over to the cot and sat down, putting the papers down and pulling out the report to read it.