It was a beautifully sunny day, and the forecast was for good weather all day. As in any average American town on any average American street, a barbecue had been lit up in the backyards of virtually every home on McKay's street. It was an all American day, and David Anders was in an all American mood. He whistled the National Anthem while he flipped burgers.
All in all, it was a good retirement. He'd spent a life time in service to the United States of America. He'd done things that were necessary, things that no-one else would have the stomach for. But he'd kept his focus on what was important. Nothing was more important than keeping his nation at the top.
He'd worked for the Trust, as a double agent, throughout his entire career with the CIA, and then later the Military. Even as a retired man, a way had been provided for him to serve his country. His face wrinkled into a smile.
He had to admit, he'd been a bit concerned when the boy had escaped from the project. He'd left reeked havoc in a way he hadn't thought possible. So much so that at the time the there was a split in the Trust, leaving fractures rogue elements of the NID on one end, and the Committee on the other. But they'd united again, eventually. And it had renewed David's faith that the American spirit would prevail.
It had been almost too good to be true when the Secretary of Defence had put him right across the street from McKay because he'd worked with the boy when he was in the CIA. All he had to do was keep out of sight while the boy was around, watch from a distance, and make sure he was ok. Little did the Secretary know that it was the perfect position for him to continue informing the Trust of McKay's movements.
Things had been so quiet at McKay's place for so long that David had begun to feel a bit useless. But all that feeling had fled when that O'Neill fellow had dropped off that decoy McKay. But David hadn't been fooled. No sir. And he'd told the Trust as much.
He wished he could have seen the look on the fake McKay's face when he'd suddenly been beamed into and left in an abandoned facility, and without so much as a tug at his fake face too. David chuckled lightly to himself.
The Trust had said they were completely confident in David's information. They hadn't even checked to confirm that he was a fake. Thanks to David, they'd known. Yup, trust. That's what the Trust was all about.
Those were his last thoughts before he vanished in flash of light.
After a moment's disorientation David was able to focus. He was in a strange metal room, and standing only a few feet from him, holding a pizza, was that O'Neill fellow.
A satisfied smile was frozen on O'Neill's face, "Hi! It's kind of unpleasant being snatched out of the blue. Isn't it?"
David tried to take a step towards O'Neill but was shocked backwards by the force-field, "W-what's the meaning of this?"
"Well, Mr. Anders. You and I are going to have a little talk. And this time I'm not sharing any of my pizza!" As if to prove the point, O'Neill took out a slight and took a big bite.
In a room near-bye, SG-1 stood watching the two men on a monitor. The elderly prisoner was making a show defiance, but it was easy to see that he was pretty shaken up.
"Have we sunk to new low?" Mitchell suddenly asked as he watched to view screen.
Sam looked from the screen to Mitchell curiously. When he didn't elaborate she asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well," Mitchell drawled, "We've abducted a senior citizen from his home with the intention of applying psychological pressure to break him into talking…"
Daniel's brows furrowed as he considered that. After a few moments deliberation he and Sam chorused, "Nah."
"I'll never tell you anything!" An elderly voice declared through the speakers. "You can't make me betray my country!"
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Several hours later, David was slouching in a seat across from O'Neill, with a slice of pizza on a plate in front of him. All the mirth of the sunny day he'd been enjoying was gone, and replaced with the doleful look of a St. Bernard. "You're right. I was the one who informed the Trust that I'd found what they'd been looking for. And, I was later made his neighbour to keep an eye on him. Not that it's done much good. He hasn't been back to his house in two years! I'd sure like to know what they're holding in Area 51 that's held his interest for this long without a break. The boy never had much of an attention span."
O'Neill wrinkled his nose distastefully. Sitting here with this guy and listening him speak so reminiscently about McKay was too normal. Knowing what he knew, Jack found it damned creepy. "So, you know that what you're responsible for doing to him wasn't right, right?"
"Right? I'll tell you what isn't right. No-one is meant to be that intelligent, especially not a child. He was dangerous." David Anders laughed darkly. "Make no mistake. That mind of his was and still is a weapon. The best thing I could have done for this country is make certain that weapon was under control. The CIA wasn't going to do what was necessary."
"What was necessary?" O'Neill stared at him in disbelief. "Do you have any idea what they did to him?"
The old man nodded grimly, "I know. He was the perfect candidate for the Phoenix project. And it worked for a while. That boy accomplished some good things for this country. Imagine if we never had to send soldiers to die in battle again. Those pansy liberals are always saying that it shouldn't be necessary, that we should somehow be able to accomplish everything we need without any of that. Well, that's what we tried to give them. Imagine if we could just make the enemy see things our way, make them surrender, without ever leaving our own soil. Imagine if we could locate and kill and enemy leader without having to alert or harm any of his guards or soldiers."
"A child is not a weapon." O'Neill practically hissed.
David let out a scoffing laugh, "Not a weapon? You sure about that are you? Never-mind that he was building nuclear bombs at the age of twelve. I'm sure you've learned about his attack on the very thing which holds our country together! Capitalism. He hacked into the Stock-market and made off with millions! It took us a year to figure out it was him and track him down! Do you have any idea what it would have done to this Nation's financial standing if that had gotten out."
Global Economics was really more Daniel's thing. "Um… No. Not really. But that's not the point. Besides, he was rehabilitated after that. That's why he went back to work for the CIA, right?"
"Ha!" The old man laughed out. "Rehabilitation my ass. You know he ran away again something like eight times? Bet his file doesn't say that. It would have made his baby-sitters look bad. He was a slippery little delinquent. A read bad egg. Mark my words, that boy was and is a bomb waiting to go off."
A fist slammed loudly on the table, making the old man jump. "Ok. That's enough. Stop right there. I had enough of that with the last old man I talked to about this. The bottom line is that a human being, American Citizen or not, is not to be used at a pawn in your sick war-games."
David shook his head sagely, "That's where you're wrong, my boy. All any of us are in this world are pieces on a chess board. I'm content to have played my part for this country. The Goa'uld understand that. They're the best ally's we could have hoped for. Not like those Asgard, sitting on high and with-holding information from us. If the time has come for me to be moved off the board, then so be it. I thought that McKay had outlived his usefulness in the game long ago. I guess I was wrong."
Shock rippled through the viewing room where SG1 was watching. Sam looked completely disgusted, "He knew he was helping the Goa'uld and he calls himself a patriot?!"
Daniel just shook his head, "No. I don't think so."
"He just confessed it, Daniel. The man officially has no redeeming qualities." Mitchell jabbed an accusing finger at the screen.
"He's been brain-washed by the Goa'uld," Daniel enunciated thoughtfully, "That's why he's talking so easily. He doesn't really want to keep it secret. Maybe he hasn't been pre-programmed with orders for this sort of situation."
"You really think so?" Mitchell scrutinized the screen more closely as though it could confirm or deny Daniel's suspicions.
"Yes," Daniel nodded, "Of course, that doesn't mean you weren't right about him not having any redeeming qualities."
Back in the meeting room, Jack had just told Mr. Anders exactly what he thought of people who worked for the Goa'uld.
Anders faced Jack proudly, with his shoulder back, "How dare you judge me? You have no idea! Men like me shaped this country! We did it by doing what was necessary. Men like me still do. Do you really think the cold war is over? Do you think it ever will be? We have to be prepared to do whatever it takes to keep this country strong."
Jack was sure he was going to throttle the old man, senior citizen or not. There was a knock and both their heads snapped towards the door. Jack turned back to Anders and spoke with clenched teeth, "Hold that thought."
It was Daniel who stood outside the door, hands in his pockets. Jack stared at him a moment before whispering forcefully, "I'm kind of BUSY here Daniel."
"Uh, ya. I know." Daniel answered dismissively before continuing, "There's just something I thought you should know before you throttle him. I think he's trying to give you as much information as he can but is under Goa'uld mind control."
O'Neill stared at Daniel for moment. "Oh." How many hours had he just spent trying to break a man who was already ready to talk? "Well yes. That's good to know. Thankyou."
"You're welcome." Daniel smiled politely. They looked at each other a moment longer before Daniel tilted back on his heels and pointed towards the viewing room, "I'll just uh go…"
"Ya." O'Neill agreed, and ducked his head back into the interrogation room. He regarded the old man, still standing with a proud, patriotic air. "Mr. Anders. Let's move on from that whole traitor thing. After-all, one person's traitor is another person's…" O'Neill searched for the right word. Fascist… no… monster… no… scum of the earth… "well, you get the idea."
It was time to see just how badly David Anders sub-conscious wanted to talk, "It's pretty clear that you've had access to McKay for a real long time. Why'd you let him stay free and stay alive if you thought he was such a danger?"
Anders seemed to relax at the return to questioning and sat back down. "Getting a kid's parents to hand him over is one thing. It's quick and clean. Nobody comes looking. Stealing him from under the nose of the CIA, and virtually ever intelligence covert agency this nation has, is quite another. He was being watched like a hawk. Retrieving him would have been too high profile."
O'Neill listened to how eager Anders seemed to be to answer. Daniel had been right. "What changed? Why is looking for him suddenly worth the risk?"
"What risk?" David Anders shrugged and smirked, "Nobody tried to abduct McKay. We just put the word out that we were looking for him. Then we sat back and let you do the rest."
O'Neill stared at him in confusion a moment, "Huh?"
Another knock came at the door.
Daniel stood outside with his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels. O'Neill half smiled, half grimaced at Daniel in greeting. "Daniel!"
"Hey Jack. Uh. I just thought…" Daniel began.
"Tchhht!" Jack cut him off. "Why don't you just come on in."
Daniel ducked into the room and waved at the prisoner, "Hey."
"Hi there," Anders nodded in greeting. "Aren't you that civilian that figured how to work the Star-Gate?"
Jack elbowed Daniel when he looked like he was going to answer the man, "Can we get on with the interrogation please?"
He turned back to Anders, "This man has something he'd like to ask you."
"Uh, yes." Daniel took a seat across from the old man and looked him in the eyes, "When you say that you wanted us to believe you were looking for McKay, it's because you wanted us to find out about the original project, right? You were hoping that we would revive the research for you, so that your operatives could steal it."
Anders looked back up at O'Neill, "Smart kid."
"Don't encourage him." O'Neill answered blandly. He was more than a little miffed at having been played for so long. The President had made the right decision in the end, but it felt like they'd come awfully close to giving the Trust exactly what they'd wanted.
The information they'd gotten out of this guy so far was more than enough to prove to the President and the Secretary of Defence that the Goa'uld were still a significant threat. Equally important, Ander's admission that the Goa'uld were planning to use operatives to steal the information proved that the Trust still had operatives in strategic positions for information gathering. The insistence on maintaining deniability until there was irrefutable evidence had been tying O'Neill's hands up until now. His job just got a lot easier.
One thing still nagged at him though. "How did you know that the guy we put in McKay's home wasn't the real McKay?"
"Simple," Anders grinned proudly at that. "Nobody sent for his cat."
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-Somewhere in Pegasus –
A comfortable chair, some take-a-way pizza, an old episode of Star Trek, and his cat curled up and purring on his lap. That's all Rodney really wanted right now. His calves burned from walking and walking and walking.
Ronon didn't even look winded. The Satedan's long strides were getting harder to keep up with.
"We've been walking for hours!" Rodney complained loudly as he stumbled over a jutting rock.
Ronon paused long enough for the scientist to catch up with him, "Mountains are big."
Rodney watched as Ronon looked up at the mountain as though gauging its height. "Thank you so much for that insight. Mountains are big. I hadn't realized."
"You're welcome," Ronon responded unflappably to the sarcasm, then nodded back towards the mountain.
Rodney followed Ronon's gaze up the steep, crag-ridden face of the mountain. "Yup. That's a big mountain. What if there's no way up? We could be trapped here."
Ronon let out a small sigh. For a scientist, he was surprised how unobservant McKay could be. Teyla would have understood immediately. He tapped his radio, "Teyla, Sheppard. We found the way up."
"What?!" McKay's eyes widened in horror and he looked back up at the steep slope. That's 'steep' as in neck-breakingly impossible. "What way?"
'We're on our way,' Sheppard's answer came through.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" McKay's voice grew high in exclamation. "How are we supposed to get up there?"
"We climb." Ronon answered simply.
McKay glowered at that, "Oh. I'm sorry. Maybe I should be more specific. How am I supposed to get up there?"
"That depends," Ronon narrowed his eyes at McKay. He didn't intend it to be intimidating. But the scientist still backed away a bit. "Would you tell us if you could fly?"
"Oh, har har," Rodney's trepidation was replaced with a sarcastic eye-roll.
It had been pretty obvious that Sheppard had sent McKay along with Ronon because he wanted them to talk. It would be a while before the other half of the team caught up with them, so Ronon figured that now was as good a time as any. "It's obvious that you aren't telling Teyla and I everything."
At that, the scientist seemed to forget that he found Ronon intimidating as he rounded on the larger man. "And I know everything there is to know about you, do I? Can I not have SOME secrets?"
Ronon had to admit to himself that that was true. But he'd made a decision, after using Teyla to help kill his old Commander, that he'd never withhold information from his team that was going to affect him in the field. McKay hadn't made that decision yet. But could Ronon really hold that against him? Was it Ronon's place to put a time limit on when another man gave up his past? He decided then that it wasn't.
Rodney watched Ronon as the challenging look was replaced by a teasing smirk, "Do your secrets include laser vision?"
The tension in Rodney's soldiers eased, and he accepted the friendly shift in the direction of the subject, "Ok, who's been showing you earth comic books, Hm?"
"Sheppard," Ronon grunted the answer as he found a seat on a smooth stone.
"I might have known," Rodney responded sarcastically, but his gaze was drifting back up the mountain. "So…uh. How am I going to get up there?"
"I'll help you," Ronon stated, and made room for Rodney on the rock.
The answer seemed to satisfy Rodney, as he took a perch beside Ronon and dug a power-bar out of his pocket, "If you like comics, I've got some classic ones. X-men, Spiderman, …."
Ronon just leaned back comfortably and listened. It seemed to him that if McKay were reminded that he found the strangely powered heroes in comics entertaining, his own abilities might not frighten him so much.
When Sheppard and Teyla approached them, they found the Rodney animatedly listing the powers of each and every super-hero and super-villain in the Marvel universe. Did Ronon fail to get the message that he'd been hoping for a real heart to heart?
"Sheppard!" Rodney called and waved him over. "Hurry up. We should get started up the mountain."
John looked doubtfully up at the steep slope that Ronon and Rodney were sitting in front of. "THAT way? Are you sure?"
"I will help you," Teyla patted John reassuringly on the shoulder before heading forward to join the others.
Rodney already had a climbing rope and harness out of his pack. Rodney being eager to start a climb like that was just plain weird. "Uh. It will be dark soon. I think we should make camp down here for the night and head up in the morning."
McKay paused mid-buckle of his harness and stared wide eyed at Sheppard, "Are you nuts!?
"That is not wise." Teyla frowned reproachfully at Sheppard.
Aw crap. John realized he must have missed something during the briefing. He sometimes had a short attention span. "Ok… What am I missing?"
The reproachful look remained on Teyla's face, "You should pay attention at the briefings instead of poking Rodney with a pen under the table where you think we do not notice."
Ouch. She was scolding as badly as Elizabeth. Sheppard glanced at Ronon, man to man, for some support. Ronon turned and buckled his harness. His whole stance read 'I'm staying out of this.'
Sheppard fought the urge to pout, "He was doing it too."
"Yes." Rodney crowed smugly, "But, unlike you, I can focus on more than one thing at a time. Which is why, unlike you, I know that big scary bad monsters come out at night down here. That's why the villages are in the mountains."
Leave it to Rodney to rub it in. "Alright. Then we start climbing now."
"That would be wise," Teyla agreed with one last glare of reproach.
Ronon appeared to think that now was a safe time to rejoin the group. "We can find a place to make camp once we reach a safe height."
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-StarGate Command-
It was getting late. Most of the personnel at the SGC had either gone home for the night or were in their quarters. Only janitorial staff and security officers roamed the halls. In a very few labs a scientist or two was still burning the midnight oil. Sam was usually among those who got caught up in her work, so nobody thought it was unusual that the light was still on in her office.
Judging from the way the rest of SG1 hovered around her desk as she worked, she was probably working on something to do with the Ori. The details of which weren't something that was usually shared with the janitors or even the security guards.
They had no way of knowing that she was putting the finishing adjustments on a spy program that would watch every computer in every branch of the Government, including the SGC, for mention of the Trust.
'Sam?' Sam jumped in her seat when Dr. Lam's voice suddenly flared out of her radio.
Sam picked her ear-piece up off her desk and switched it on, "Carolyn. Hi. You're up late."
"Yes," The doctor answered in the bland tone she often did when responding to the obvious. "I've been going over the results for the DNA tests and found something interesting. Gary told me that you and the rest of SG1 are still. This probably relates to what you're doing."
"Gary?" Sam asked in mild confusion.
"One of the Janitors," Dr. Lam answered shortly.
Mitchell leaned forward and spoke into Sam's piece, "We'll be right there."
On the way to the infirmary, Sam noticed that Mitchell was constantly looking over his shoulder at any staff they happened to pass. She decided not to ask.
"Y'know." Mitchell spoke quietly once they'd stopped passing other people in the halls, "I just hate this feeling that virtually anyone here could be a spy for the Trust. We have no way of knowing who the informants are, or where they are."
Mitchell hushed when another janitor walked by, and he turned his head to watch the other man's retreating back.
"Mitchell. Thinking that way is going to drive you crazy, or give you whip lash." Sam watched as Mitchell's head swung back around to face here. "Would you stop that?"
"Sorry," Mitchell turned back around to face Sam again. "It just easier said than done."
"There might be nobody here who's an operative." Sam put on an encouraging smile. "For all we know the spy's are all in the Pentagon or the Whitehouse or…"
"That's not comforting me," Mitchell interrupted.
"Sorry," Sam winced apologetically. "It kind of makes you think though. Doesn't it?"
"Yes," Daniel piped in. As usual, he was already on the same wave-length as Sam. "Like maybe Dr. McKay isn't so paranoid after-all. Or at least, maybe his paranoia is justified."
Mitchell just rolled his eyes between the two and threw a doubtful look, "Right."
"Well, just think about it." Sam insisted as they stopped outside the elevator. She wasn't sure she liked Mitchell's sudden decision to see only the bad in McKay. "What would have happened if he'd agreed to all of the information that Dr. Beckett has, whatever that is, to being shared with Dr. Lam. The Trust would probably already have it."
Whatever Mitchell had to say about that was interrupted by the angry stream of mutters that came out the opening doors of the elevator, "…Damned bureaucrats!" Jack looked up just as the last part had rolled off his tongue. "Uh. You didn't hear me say that."
"No sir." Mitchell answered with a lop-sided grin.
"Hear what sir?" Sam shrugged interestingly.
The team filed into the elevator, gathering around Jack. They all knew that he'd been sharing the information they'd gotten out of McKay's neighbour with the decision makers.
When Jack didn't immediately tell them what had happened, Teal'c was the first to prod. "I sense that something is vexing you."
Jack pulled a face, "Vexing?" The poor alien must have been reading some of Daniel's books again. Nobody talked that way, even on television.
"It means bothering," Daniel offered helpfully.
"I know what it means!" Jack snapped. "And what's vexing me is red tape. Apparently, two pieces of absolute proof that the 'snaky you know what's' are behind this are not enough to constitute admitting that the 'you know what's' are still a real threat! We have to have at least three."
"Three?" Sam rolled her eyes and scowled. Denial could only go so far before denial became just plain stupidity.
Teal'c put a sympathetic hand on Jack's shoulder, "That does indeed suck."
"Ya. Suck pretty much covers it." Jack agreed. "So, where are you guys headed? You do know that home isn't this way, right?"
"Dr. Lam called. She says she found something we might like to see." Sam explained as the doors slid open and they turned down the hall towards the med lab.
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Dr. Lam was putting the final touches the report for her father when SG-1 entered, with General O'Neill trailing behind.
"Ah, General." She greeted O'Neill. "This one is for you. I was going to bring it to your office the morning." She picked up an un-marked file from her desk and handed it to Jack.
"Thanks," Jack took the plain looking file and looked it over. When he opened it the front page of the file had a red stamp on it that read 'Top Secret'. Understated but effected. Though he still liked his sticker coated folders. "What's in it?"
Dr. Lam smiled reproachfully, as though reading his mind about the stickers, "That's actually the same thing I called Sg1 down about. I've been reviewing the results of the DNA tests on the ashes that Daniel noticed at the abandoned research site's around the world. There was so much of it that finding surviving DNA samples really wasn't hard. What's interesting is that every single sample we collected shows that the deceased was a clone."
O'Neill turned back to the file she'd given him and skimmed it. "Clones? Clones line Anubis' clones? Asgard cloning technology kind of clones?"
Dr. Lam considered that for a moment, "The findings are consistent with that technology, yes."
An ecstatic grin spread across O'Neill's face. That was it! This was the third piece of evidence! "I could kiss you!"
Dr. Lam took a step back and gave O'Neill a wide-eyed look.
"But I won't." He quickly amended on his way to the door. "Excuse me boys a girls. I have to go call back the President."
Not only did he have the third piece of evidence that the Goa'uld were involved. The list of suspects had just been narrowed down to any Goa'uld who had worked closely enough with Anubis to steal the cloning technology which he had stolen from the Asgard.
Once the Asgard learned that their technology was being misused on earth, they would pretty certainly want to take a more active role in helping earth to deal with the problem.
"I'm glad I could help." Lam replied to O'Neill's retreated back.
"So," Mitchell yawned, "There's really nothing else we can do now except wait and see what happens. Right?"
"Pretty much." Daniel confirmed.
"Good," Mitchell stretched. Then I'm heading to some much needed sleep.
Sam was still looking through Dr. Lam's information. "You guys go ahead. I'm going to finish looking this over."
She waited until the rest of they were gone before thanking Dr. Lam and heading back to her office. Sam hadn't wanted to keep them up when she could finish up on her own. She'd tell them what she had done in the morning.
The new information that Dr. Lam had given them was useful in more ways than one.
The Goa'uld would almost certainly want to know that the secrecy of their cloning operations had been compromised, whether they were still doing it or not. When Sam reached her office she reopened her new interface to the spy program and quickly added words connected with cloning to the programs criteria. If and when any Trust operatives began discussing that, Sam would be ready.
Mitchell was right about one thing. It was disturbing to suddenly be so confident that this information would be accessed and leaked. McKay's paranoia might actually be a good thing. Thanks to that, any truly sensitive information was safe on Atlantis. At least, she hoped it was safe. Just to be sure she made a mental note to add Atlantis to the spy program's list.
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-Atlantis –
Dr. Sally Parker walked the halls of Atlantis unseen. She just had one of those faces that tended to blend into the back ground. The way she always wore her dull black hair pulled back in a plain pony-tail really didn't help.
Half the time even when she spoke, no-one seemed to notice or care. She was the invisible woman. She'd figured that most people probably wouldn't even have noticed when she returned to earth for a short vacation. And she was right. Nobody on Atlantis had noticed.
She used to think it was a curse. That was, until she'd met Him. She didn't remember much about the return trip to Earth, or her time there. But that wasn't important. What was important was that now she had a purpose. She'd been noticed by a God. Because of her invisibility she'd been chosen to serve Him. How could that be a curse?
Small tool-kit and lap-top in hand, Sally walked into the Atlantis Med-lab.
"Can I help you?" One of Dr. Beckett's pretty nurses smiled warmly. There was nothing plane about the way she looked. Come to think of it, Dr. Beckett had an awful lot of pretty women on his staff.
Sally smiled lightly, "There was a small power spike in that console over there. I'm just checking for damage."
"Certainly, help yourself dear." The nurse waved Sally over the council and returned to whatever it was she'd been doing before.
Sally was invisible again.
The motions were mechanical. It required no feeling, and little thought to simply open one of the consoles in the med-lab and plug her laptop into the interface that Dr. McKay had designed. It would have been so much easier to install an interface on the outside of the unit, but McKay steadfastly refused to allow what he termed damage to the structures of the units. Anyone who tried to argue the point had been called a destructive cave-man and sent to their labs to think about it until they agreed with him.
Strangely, something inside her felt lifted by the memory. But no. That couldn't right. It was surely the service she was doing now for her God that was creating that feeling.
She turned her mind from these thoughts and back to her work. The lap-top now displayed the Atlantis interface. In seconds she was hacked into Dr. Beckett's files. Locating the files he was building on Dr. McKay was a simple task.
Sally quickly scanned over the files. She was dimly aware of a surge of emotion somewhere deep inside her, but it was muted by her programming.
Apparently Dr. McKay was indeed much more than he appeared. Once they'd gotten past their initial fear of causing another migraine, Beckett and McKay had begun to experiment with small bits of telekinesis. What the brain scans had yielded during these episodes had been most informative.
Most important though, was the note that the ETA gene was responsible for McKay's relapses. It had been a good thing she'd taken the time to scan the information.
Quickly and quietly, Sally downloaded all of Dr. Beckett's information on the ATA therapy. It was a shame she couldn't get a sample of the treatment. But her instructions had been explicit. Leave not trace. Take only electronic data.
Sally unhooked her lap top and put the console back together. The pretty nurse that had greeted her when she entered looked over in surprise, "Done already?"
"It turned out to be nothing. I'll get out of your hair." Sally smiled unblinkingly and strolled out the way she'd come.
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