Jack's Fangtastic Adventure – Part Sixteen
The cry was loud, and caught the attention of everyone in the room.
"Sir?" The duty nurse moved to her patient's side, and Daniel pushed his chair back to give her room. "Colonel O'Neill?"
She bent forward, only to jump back, startled when Jack sat up in bed, his eyes open wide and staring.
"Jack?" Daniel watched as his friend extended his arm, holding it straight out as if reaching for something, his fingers moving, tracing a shape in the air.
Then Jack did something even more unexpected – he lifted his other arm, twisting it so that the inside of his forearm faced upwards as if offering it for examination. Slowly, the monitors ceased the frantic sounds they had begun when he first stirred and levelled off, calming.
Daniel looked over at the nurse, questioning. She responded by lifting the intercom's handset and requesting Doctor Fraiser's presence.
Jack's eyes were open, staring vacantly into the distance, while his lips were turned up in a small smile. Whatever Jack was experiencing wasn't unpleasant.
Daniel couldn't think what to do. Surely the movement must be excruciatingly painful, given his injury, but Jack didn't seem to be in any discomfort, in fact, quite the opposite.
"Colonel?"
Daniel registered Janet's presence as she moved to his side. The doctor glanced quickly up at the monitors before taking Jack's outstretched arm and gently lowing it.
"He doesn't seem to know we're here, Janet. What's he doing?" Daniel asked, unable to look into Jack's unfocused eyes any more.
Janet shook her head. "I don't know." She motioned to the watching nurse, and together the two women eased Jack back down in bed. Janet picked up the chart, giving it a puzzled frown. "The medication I've prescribed shouldn't have this effect."
"What effect?"
She took her penlight from her pocket and shone it into Jack's eyes as she answered. "It's as if he was under the influence of a narcotic."
"You mean he's stoned?" Daniel couldn't help raising his voice in startled reaction to her statement.
"I don't know, Daniel. He shouldn't be able to lift his arm…. and his heart rate has slowed considerably." She began drawing a blood sample, explaining as she worked. "I'll have this analysed as soon as possible. The previous tests showed the presence of a foreign substance the lab was unable to identify, perhaps a comparison will show if the levels have changed and give us more information to work with."
She handed the sample over to the nurse, and Daniel watched as the other woman left the room.
"Crap!"
Daniel's eyes snapped back to his friend. Jack was holding a hand to his eyes, a low, desperate moan rising slowly in volume as he pressed the palm hard into an eye socket.
"What is it, sir?" Janet took the hand firmly in hers, pulling it from his face.
Jack stared up at her, confused. His words were almost too low to hear.
"It didn't work. Too quick."
"What didn't work?" Daniel asked. Jack turned his gaze towards him, as if only just aware of his presence, then his focus seemed to drift once more, his gaze leaving Daniel's face and turning towards his bandaged arm.
"They can't feed." His hand came across, his long fingers pulling at the dressings. "I have to let them."
Daniel grabbed at his friend's hand, feeling a chill as his fingers sunk through Jack's wrist to land on the bed covers.
"No! Jack, don't." He shouted, uncaring of anyone listening. "Don't go! You have to stay here." He tried again, forcing himself to imagine the flesh beneath his hand. "We can't help you if you leave."
"But it hurts."
The voice was so desolate that Daniel wanted to demand Janet do something, anything. Instead, he did what he did best, talked.
"Tell me what they did to you, Jack. What did they do to stop it hurting?"
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Janet listened, trying to stay detached, but terrified the Colonel would disappear again. Daniel's hand seemed to be resting in midair, as the man in the bed faded in and out.
"Janet?"
She turned quickly to the open door, putting her fingers to her lips. Sam nodded, lowering her voice.
"The readouts on the monitors in my lab went crazy a few minutes ago. What's going on?" Then Daniel moved position slightly.
"Damn!" Sam leaned forwarded. "How long's he been like this?"
Janet watched as the Colonel flickered again. "A few minutes. He seemed to be having some sort of hallucination."
The two women listened as the Colonel spoke.
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He kept his eyes fixed on Daniel's, knowing they were one thing he was sure was real. Before he had felt them sucking and pulling as they fed on him, only to realise they weren't there at all.
He was home.
So why was he still trapped back there?
And why did he want so desperately to stay?
He saw the horror in Daniel's face as he explained what they had done. When he described the feelings he had as the blood was sucked from him, he saw his friend shiver. He tried to explain it – the mixture of pleasure and pain, the loss of which he felt so keenly, but he knew Daniel didn't understand.
How could he? He barely understood it himself.
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Janet read the lab results, finally feeling she was getting somewhere. Finally they had been able to semi-identify the substance in Colonel O'Neill's blood, revealing it to be a powerful hallucinogen unlike any they had seen before.
Combined with the story the Colonel had told Daniel, and Sam's test results, she now enough information to come to some conclusions.
The creatures' saliva contained a strong drug that once in the bloodstream kept the prey docile, by causing it extreme pleasure, almost as if a reward for being cooperative, It seemed this drug could be administered at will, and could be refused, as evidenced by the Colonel's experience when he refused to let the pack feed. Whatever it was, it was slowly dissipating from Colonel O'Neill's body, along with his ability to vanish.
Sam's instruments had shown high levels of a similar energy to that recorded when the Reetou were on the base. She could only hypothesise that the creatures were related in some way to the Reetou, using their ability to hunt. General Hammond had refused to allow Sam to return to the planet to do more tests, and for this Janet was extremely grateful.
She stacked the pages carefully, giving the edge a bang to coax them into some sort of order, and placed them into a file cover.
General Hammond was waiting for her report. At least she finally had some good news. Within the next day or so, the chemical should have disappeared completely, and its effect along with it. The Colonel should be back to normal. No more vanishing. No more hallucinations. No more dreams.
She sobered, remembering one detail she had forgotten for a second in her relief.
Then the surgery to save his arm would begin.
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