Title: Ad Infinitum – Chapter 2/10
Chapter Summary: Their first briefing with the 2006 SG-1 ends up with a surprise guest.
Chapter Rating: PG-13
♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥
Chapter 2/10
Alex's POV
I missed my old SGC quarters. It was just a few doors down from my father's quarters and it had all my stuff in it plus an extra pair of glasses and a few pairs of contacts. My eyes had gone back to normal but unfortunately that also meant I was as farsighted as usual. My focus was back so I could actually see everything as long as it was at least 3 feet away.
The bed was almost the same one I was used to, the military issue blankets and 0-count threat sheets but the room was bare and I didn't have the usual free reign of the SGC I was accustomed to. At least they'd allowed me to change into some BDUs instead of those infirmary gowns I had to wear for the past 3 days.
Suddenly the door opened and the SF admitted Jacob before closing the door again.
I breathed a sigh of relief at seeing him.
"My quarters are across from yours… we can visit each other but nowhere else." He explained to me then moved so that we were very close. He put his arms around me in a hug but I knew it was just so we could have a hopefully private conversation. "Listen, we can't say anything about who we are or what year we came from. If we say the wrong thing, we can change the future."
"I told them my name." I admitted to him in a whisper.
"Your last name too?"
I shook my head. "No, I just said Alex."
"Good… I told them my name was Ben. We need to stay low and try to find a way back to our time as quickly as possible."
"Should I point out that this is entirely your fault?" I teased him.
He pulled back from the hug and held my chin in his hand. His face was too close and therefore blurry to my bad eyes but I had an idea of what expression he was wearing. "Don't worry, ok? I got us into this mess; I'll get us out. In the meantime, try not to mess anything up." He said with just a little hint of humor in his voice.
"So you're saying I can't hint at some nice stocks to my mom?" I whispered. "Because I have to tell you, if we're gonna mess up the future, I'd like to make it so I'm rich."
Jacob ignored me and we heard a knock on the door. The door opened to admit no one other than Uncle Cam and I felt my stomach tighten because I realized this wasn't the Cameron Mitchell I knew, the man that would use his last breath to tease me. This was some younger version of him and I hated everything about it.
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything…" he said with a teasing tone in his voice, looking at the proximity between Jacob and I and making the two of us jump apart… well maybe this was the Cameron Mitchell I knew, I realized with a smile. "General Landry has requested your presence."
Jacob's eyes met mine. Oh this was going to be interesting.
♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥
Jacob's POV
The briefing room was in the same place as usual just decorated slightly different. The technology wasn't as advanced but it was still the same room. My eyes fixed themselves to the Stargate, visible through the huge panel windows as it stood in its full glory. That, of course, meant that the younger version of my family and friends trusted Alex and me to a certain extent, otherwise they would've lowered the blast doors and shielded the gate from our eyes.
I saw Alex as she surveyed the room. The young version of SG-1 sat in green BDUs: my mom, Cam, Alex's parents and Teal'c. General Landry sat at the head of the table and he looked pretty pissed off, Dr. Lam seemed pretty interested in examining Alex and me from a distance. Mom and Cam stood up as another familiar figure appeared. With a slight delay I stood up as well as my father appeared dressed in full uniform, one star proudly displayed on his shoulder. When I finally looked at Alex, her eyes met mine in surprise - I hadn't seen my father in dress uniform in six years.
"At ease," he said directed at the two colonels in the room and then finally at me. He stared me down for a second before turning to General Landry: "Permission to join this briefing, General?" The one star general addressed the head of the SGC. After a nod from General Landry, I saw my father take a seat directly across from my mother at the table, after stealing just a quick glance at her which would've been lost to anyone else but I knew it very well. It was the same glance they shared after she came home after a trip or a mission and their eyes would lock over the heads of their three children, just grateful to be around each other again.
"Very well, you may start, Colonel Carter." General Landry requested.
"As far as I know, General, their story checks out. For all intents and purposes, they seem to be from the future. The subjects Ben and Alex here were found three days ago passed out just outside the entrance to this complex." Mom continued with her exposition: "Both suffered concussions and they state they do not remember what caused them to end up here or how. Ben has volunteered that he made some modifications to a motorcycle he was riding but he had no intentions of traveling through time. I ask that we limit the scope of our questions; sirs, we're well aware of the consequences that time travel can have on disrupting history."
The General nodded and all eyes turned to look at Alex and me. "Uh… hi?" Alex waved a little and gave them her best smile, which was very similar to her mother's. Alex must've realized that too because the smile quickly turned into a frown. It was getting tiring to imagine whether anyone would realize the connection that we had with the people in this room.
"So, the future, huh?" Vala asked Alex, more than a little skepticism in her voice.
"What, you don't believe in time travel?" Alex retorted.
Vala shrugged. "Never happened to me. Not sure what to believe. Now if you were to give me some information on where I should invest some of my hard-earned money that will be profitable in, shall we say, five years, I might be inclined to believe you."
Alex rolled her eyes. "That is so you." She decided not to mention the fact that she had already thought of the same thing.
Defeated, Vala slumped back in her chair.
"Ben?" General O'Neill asked. "You military?"
With a look that must've resembled a deer in the headlights, I shook my head. "Not yet, sir."
Satisfied, Gen. O'Neill nodded his approval. "So, Carter, what do you think caused this—time travel?"
"Honestly, sir, I'm not sure yet. Ancient technology seems like a fair guess, since solar flares wouldn't affect the time-space continuum without the presence of a wormhole… Ben has provided me with some blueprints of the engine modifications he completed, but there's some technology there that even I don't recognize. It seems to be a mix Ancient and Asgard technology but nothing we've seen before."
"Ah, a motorcycle that goes back in time… I think I've seen this movie, except it was a tin car and it had Christopher Lloyd in it." Dad turned his attention back to me. "I think I liked that movie better than this one… So, Ben, is it? How do you know so much about the Stargate and about us? Aren't you a little young to be part of the SGC?"
I shared a quick look with Alex. "We uh, we were recruited very early on. As sort of an experiment." Technically, I wasn't lying. We were unofficially recruited from birth and had gone on missions as soon as we could walk.
"What kind of 'expertise' do you offer on interstellar matters?"
I recognized his tone as the one he had when he was trying to find the truth about something yet amuse himself at the same time. Deciding that I knew exactly how to curb my father's curiosity, I decided to put his mind to work. "Well, there are many things. For example, the motorcycle engine and subengine were designed by me. The bike also had a reverse engineered Asgard dampening shield, which doesn't seem to work very well considering my concussion this morning but the best part is the neutrino-naquadah reactor that serves as a second engine. That part is Ancient… basically it uses standard unleaded fuel to power up the second engine which then uses naquadah to accelerate the neutrinos which in turn can create sub-light speeds greater than any vehicle made on Earth."
Dad looked almost disgusted. "Scientist?"
I laughed. "Not officially, sir. I just like to play around."
"With naquadah reactors?" He asked with raised eyebrows. "Don't you kids in the future ever hear of hockey? Baseball? Football? Basketball? Hell even soccer sounds like more fun that naquadah reactors and neutral-ninos things."
"Don't worry, General, I own a baseball glove." And you taught me how to play all those sports and we have loads of fun but you also know I love science - at least the future Jack O'Neill knows. Of course, I knew something no one else at the table did - Jack O'Neill knows a whole lot more about science than he lets on. When I was 13, I was reading through some of mom's books (as in the ones she wrote) and I kept seeing several lines highlighted, page after page... finally my dad admitted that he'd tried to read them but he wasn't sure of what he was reading so he was going to highlight the parts he didn't understand so mom would explain it to him later... except he realized it'd be too much work so he just highlighted the parts he did understand. I laughed but as I flipped through the pages, there was a lot highlighted - somehow over the years, the good general had learnt almost everything there was to know about black holes, wormholes and Einstein's relativity.
Seemingly satisfied for the moment, it was time for Uncle Daniel to take a turn asking questions. "How about you, Miss—" he looked as his notes again, his glasses slipping a little down his nose in a way that comforted Alex. "-- Miss Alex... What do you do in the SGC, or more precisely, what will you do?"
"Mostly I hang around your lab and I back-up several SG teams on recon missions where they desire my assistance."
"My lab?" Daniel replied, surprised. "So you're an archeologist? Or a linguist?"
"A little bit of both actually." Deciding to tell the truth without actually saying too much, Alex continued. "My father is an archeologist. I followed him around on several digs. I have also been very proficient in learning new languages."
I almost applauded her ability to hide the truth without lying.
"If you did travel in time with the aid of a modified Earth transport like you suggest, should that transport not have been recovered as well?" Teal'c asked.
"Theoretically?" I asked him rhetorically but he bowed in concession. "Yes. But for some reason the motorcycle, as well as another piece of technology we had in our possession, were missing when we were found." I explained, remembering that SGC swore they did not find our bracelets either.
Teal'c's instincts must've recognized I was telling the truth because he didn't protest any further.
General Landry stood up and so did his direct reports and I but he motioned for us to sit down. "Colonel Carter, you will continue to work on the technology described by the teenagers." Then he turned to Alex and me. "You two may assist her in finding out exactly how we're going to get you back home."
I knew that it was unlikely my mother would even leave base if she had new technology to explore. She would probably just spend the night at her lab like she always does when she finds something to work on. My father would probably not leave the base either considering this was his home away from home - actually considering he was currently stationed in D.C., this was more home to him than Washington. If my mother was going to spend the night on base, dad would probably find something to occupy his time in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex as well.
Before leaving, Alex quickly examined her own parents. The interaction between the archaeologist and the space smuggler was very similar to what we were accustomed back home. Alex's father was sitting back in his chair, arms propped on the armrests and hands clasped together under his chin in thought. Her mother was eyeing her father and tugging on the sleeves on his uniform as she whispered question after question. But Alex and I knew her mother better than that, she knew she wasn't just relying on Doctor Daniel Jackson for information, she was also reaching her own conclusions in her mind.
We said our goodbyes and followed the SFs to our quarters on level 17.
♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥♦♥