Coming back to consciousness wasn't a pleasant experience for Dean. His head felt like he had been on a three-day bender and he had a weird taste in his mouth. He shook his head gingerly trying to clear the fogginess, but that was not a good idea and it left him feeling slightly nauseous as the world seemed to spin around him. He took a few deep breaths like Sam had taught him and that helped to clear some of the cobwebs from his brain. He was finally able to lift his head to see what damage had been time everything stayed stable and he was able to focus, which was when he realized that he wasn't in his bedroom, but rather he was in a al'kesh. With that realization the memories of what had happened came back to him. Angrily he tried to stand up only to quickly realize that he was tied to a chair. He looked around for MacGyver and saw him slumped in a chair adjacent to his own. The room that they were in looked like it was an empty storage room that was typical on most al'keshes. Dean's arms were fastened to the arms of the chair, and his feet were secured to the chair legs . Looking over at Mac he saw that he was similarly restrained and sitting in a sturdy looking metal chair.
"Mac! Hey, Mac wake up," Dean hissed softly, not wanting to alert whoever had kidnapped them that he was awake. The kid didn't even twitch, so Dean tried again, "Mac, wake up!" This time he saw a tightening around the kid's eyes.
"MacGyver, now isn't the time to be taking naps." More twitching, so Dean continued to talk to him trying to bring him to wakefulness. Slowly Mac straightened up and looked blearily around. "Good morning sunshine." Dean snarked.
"Jack?" Mac asked hoarsely.
Dean snorted, "I'm so much better looking than that Texan redneck." Mac stared at him blinking owlishly a few times.
"Dean?"
"In the flesh."
"Shit."
Dean had always thought that the saying that people turned green when about to puke wasn't accurate, but Mac's coloring was starting to resemble the sick emoji. "Accurate, try taking some slow and deep breaths. That seemed to help clear my mind and get rid of the vertigo." Mac did as Dean instructed and a few minutes later he was looking more alert and had lost the greenish tinge on his face. "Now that you're back with us, do you think you can figure out a way to get us outta here?" Mac's ability to do something outta nothing was becoming legendary around the SGC. "And do you see my boots anywhere? My feet are getting cold" Dean wiggled his toes trying to warm the digits up.
"I just woke up, why haven't you figured out a way to get us outta here?" Mac retorted snippily.
"Why is that?" Dean asked. At Mac's puzzled expression he elaborated, "That I woke up first and all."
Mac nodded, "Body weight plays a huge factor in how drugs affect different people, not to mention any prescriptions you may be taking, and how hydrated you are."
When it looked like Mac was about to continue Dean cut him off, "Thanks Einstein, I get enough of that from Sammy. So, a way outta here?" Dean tried to move his arm, but was only able to move his wrist. Mac wasn't struggling with his bonds but was studying the room around them instead. It was pretty barren except for a long table running along the one side of the smooth wall. Anything under it was covered by a long cloth. Mac then tried his chair to see if it would move, but it was connected to the floor.
"Hey Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Could you see if you can move your chair? It doesn't look like it's connected to the floor, and if you can move it, we might have the start of an idea."
With a nod Dean tried to rock his chair, and was able to get it to move a tiny bit. The joy of the discovery was short lived because the door slid open with a quiet swoosh.
The shrouded figure from before stepped in. "I trust you both had pleasant dreams?" A male voice asked. When neither one of them answered he sighed and flipped back his hood. Dean recognized him immediately as the Goa'uld who had tried to kill Mac before, 218, and going by the sharp intake of breath Mac recognized him as well. "Good I'm glad to see that you haven't forgotten me! But allow me to properly introduce myself, I am Murdoc. Just Murdoc, just like Madonna or Prince." Dean repressed his urge to roll his eyes. "And it is my lucky day because I got the two for one special! All I was wanting just sweet Angus here and I got a Winchester to boot!" He giggled and turned to Dean, "I am so sorry that your accommodations aren't as nice as Angus's, but I was only prepared for one guest, not two. Oh, that reminds me!" He trotted back out, but quickly returned pushing a cart with a sheet covering it. "I went ahead and brought some party favors! Now don't get to excited, you'll have to share I'm afraid. Remember sharing is caring!"
"Hey!" Dean bellowed, the asshole was making him angry.
Murdoc casually backhanded Dean whipping his head around and causing his cheek to sting. "We don't talk like that here. Use your manners." Dean glared at the alien clad all in black, "Speak."
Growling Dean complied, his curiosity outweighing everything else. "So why do you have such a hard on for Mac over there? I mean, I guess he's good looking, he's got the nickname 'Hollywood' for a reason." Dean ignored the glare that Mac shot him.
"That's so cute, Hollywood! I've always thought of him as a Boy Scout."
"I'm sitting right here." Mac said his tone sounding somewhere between angry and frustrated.
"To answer your question, a while back Mac here messed up a pretty important operation I had going on." Murdoc said, starting to pace as he was talking. "You see I have a bit of a reputation as an assassin who never misses, and he and his little team caused me to miss a target. Then when I came to call on him, you and the Jolly Green Giant had to come and rain on my parade." He stopped and templed his fingers, "So I decided to send out an engraved invitation, and I'm delighted that both of you accepted!"
"We can help you." Mac stated calmly. "We have technologies where we can separate the host from the goa'uld without harming either. You can both live separate lives."
Murdoc started laughing, "You think we want to be separated? Oh, that's so cute! Do you want to talk to the host? He's name is Nicolas Helman, and we've learned a lot from each other." Murdoc bowed his head and closed his eyes, a few seconds later he opened them stood a bit straighter and held his head differently.
"You wanted to speak with me?" This voice had a slight English accent a very different tone from how Murdoc spoke.
Mac tried again, "We can help you, we can free you of Murdoc and let you live out the rest of your life without something taking over your body."
And just like Murdoc, Helman started laughing, "Oh my dear boy, that is quite amusing. I can see why Murdoc has decided to share this with me. You see I don't want Murdoc to leave. We have a very beneficial arrangement that both of us are quite happy with. So thanks, but no thanks." A second later and Murdoc was back in charge. "Enjoy the conversation? Did he tell you how I came to find him?" He looked at his two captives. "No? Well it's a fascinating tale for another time. Now back to business.
McG – SGC - SPN
Meanwhile back on Planet P3X-285
Dr. Jackson said, "While that is a very real possibility I think we should head back to Earth and see if we can pick up on their sub-dermal transmitters."
"Y'all go ahead, I'm goin' to stay back and see if I can't find some answers here." Jack said as he crossed his arms in defiance, his Texan accent becoming thicker.
Rowena walked up to him and laid a petite hand on his arm, "Don't you think we've done everything that we can on this planet to find Mac and Dean?"
"Yeah man, plus we can always come back if we find any evidence that leads back here." Bozer said.
"I want to try to ping their trackers, but I need a computer hookup from Earth to access that data," Riley added.
Jack sighed, "Fine let's go, the sooner we get there the sooner we can find Mac and Dean.
Bozer jogged over to the DHD, dialed Earth, sent the signal and the team plus the MALP went through the gate. General Carter was waiting for them in the control room. "Is everything okay? We didn't expect to see you for several more hours at least." Her tone indicating that she didn't know anything was wrong.
"We have a Code 9 situation. Col. Winchester and MacGyver were abducted and taken off in an al'kesh." Daniel said quickly.
Carter's face went from expectant to hard in a flash. "Meet me in the briefing room immediately!" She turned on her heel and departed.
The remaining members of both teams started down the hallway to the briefing room, but Rowena stopped and turned to Dr. Jackson. "If you don't mind, I have a few contacts that I'd like to try. Hopefully they will have information about our missing wee ones."
"Uhh, yeah. Please do." Daniel said as he motioned for her to hurry. The rest of the group was quiet as they went into the conference room and placed their bags against the wall before taking a seat. Riley had detoured to her room on base to get a laptop that was capable of tracing their sub-dermal trackers.
Carter walked in just as Riley sat down. "What happened?" Her tone was deceptively mild. Three voices started to talk at one.
"Wait!" Charlie commanded. "Let Dalton tell it, he was there."
He nodded his thanks and then quickly recounted what had happened. As Dalton was telling the story Teal'c, one of the founding members of Daniel and Carter's original team, SG-1, walked into the room and stood behind Dr. Jackson.
When Dalton finished his debrief Carter asked, "Is there any way that we could pick this al'kesh out of a line up? Or any idea who would want to kidnap MacGyver and Col. Winchester?"
"Dean's not exactly good at making friends, but nobody I can think of would go to these extremes." Sam said shrugging.
Carter turned her attention back to Dalton who said, "Mac's much better at making friends, but who knows. As for identifying the al'kesh there was a scorch mark along the back of it. I would be able to identify it if I saw it again."
"What about that dude that broke into the house?" Bozer exclaimed. He snapped his fingers trying to recall the exact wording. "Before I knew about the program Mac got all beat to hell and that psycho tried to kill him?"
"218?" Sam asked, "Oh yeah, Dean and I were beamed down to help with the clean-up of that mess."
Charlie stood up, "I'll go grab all of the files that we have on him." Without waiting for a reply, she hurried out of the room. "
"Davis, any luck picking up the trackers on our guys?" Carter asked.
"Nothing yet ma'am. But as you know it takes time to ping each beacon to see if it's gotten a hit from the transmitter."
"How does that work?" Jack asked puzzled, "I thought it was like when I lose my phone or rather Mac loses it for me and you pull it up on the map and it take us right to it."
Riley grinned, "I wish it worked like that. But since the chips are RFID, in order to be read something had to ping off of it to get a reading. So, on planets where we have stargates and at various places throughout our galaxy we've placed antennas capable of reading those RFID chips, but I can only gather the data from a small group at a time and then I have to compare it to see if any of the readings that I get back match Mac and Col. Winchester's."
"And they could also be on a planet where we don't have an antenna or they are currently in hyper space. It's not perfect, but it is helpful." Carter added.
"Indeed." Teal'c stated. "Jack Dalton could you please tell me more about this 218 and the al'kesh. I think I might be able to help."