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Xander's POV

Of all the places I had to enter by, it just had to be the sewer connection! he thought as he carefully made his way to the next stop on the mission while keeping any eye on the map his HUD was displaying. Makes me glad the mask has filters.

It'd been a little over ten minutes since he'd first entered but already his suit had picked out a few cameras and odd looking devices that were probably sensors of some kind. Seeing as how he was still going without any sign that guards or other security measures has snapped into place, he could only conclude that the belt was doing its job or that the military WANTED him to get in deeper. He sincerely hoped that it wasn't the latter because that would lead to a fight and, unless the US military had managed a breakthrough, he'd be the last one standing. That, of course, didn't even touch on the fact that if they were aware of his presence then the whole mission was compromised since they weren't supposed to be discovered until after the virus started doing its work. As such he repeated the mantra 'think positive' a couple dozen times until he started to believe that everything was going to work out alright.

It had to.

He'd already put things in motion by making contact with each of the Scoobies so now all he could do was make things look business as usual. He didn't think that Mayfield had a means of monitoring the missions too closely but he didn't want to risk tipping her off that he was up to something. The woman had proven herself to be very smart indeed in covering all her bases and making sure the Scoobies didn't have a single way to defy her without serious consequences. S.E.C.O.N.D. had already located the implant in his neck but that didn't mean there couldn't be others that he didn't know about and that his nanosuit was unable to detect. Until he got looked over by some eggheads he trusted, he had no choice but to keep his guard up and be ready to counter anything new that might pop up.

It wasn't until sixteen minutes had gone by that he reached the first stop in completing the first objective of the mission: an air vent. Taking a canister off of his belt, he attached it to the inside of the vent just like his Laurence Barnes memories told him to and then pressed a button to arm it. Willow had been given the means to activate all the canisters so all the rest of them had to do was put them where they needed to go in order to take care of the mountain's occupants. He had two more to put into place before reaching the exit point for the sewers and the entry point into the facility proper but, even though he'd like to run to get it over with quicker, that wouldn't be all that stealthy. The belt might keep him hidden from sensors and cameras but there was always the chance they sent actual people into the lines as punishment, so letting them hear splashing water would be of the bad.

At least I won't have to worry about the cloak giving out at the wrong time, he thought as he proceeded quickly yet stealthily. If this belt's cloak is anything like Willow's usual one, it'll hold out until well after the mission is over with.

That had been one of his major pet peeves about the nanosuit: all of its cool abilities guzzled up energy so quick he could only use them for twenty or so seconds at a time before a recharge was needed. He knew basically how the system worked and it was kind of neat how it sucked up energy from the air around you to recharge but you'd think that Hargreave would've overcome that design flaw. Then again maybe this had been the best he could do with his resources and understanding of Ceph technology but it didn't make it any less annoying when he had to find a place to hide so that the suit could recharge.

As he proceeded along he took a moment to think about what his life would be like if S.E.C.O.N.D.'s cure thing worked like he hoped it would. Sure, there would be the whole bit where they took down Mayfield once and for all but what would come after that? The military would probably expect him to sign on with them or go to jail for the rest of his natural life and, considering what he'd done, he'd probably go along with whatever they wanted. Would he be allowed to have an apartment? A life outside of atoning for all the people he'd killed either directly or indirectly? Or would he be kept in a cell and only let out when they needed him for a mission? Honestly his mind was slipping towards the more negative possibilities but that was probably just because he felt like he should be punished for the blood on his hands. Regardless of the fact that Mayfield had them on wireless leashes, he still pulled the trigger of his weapons with the intent to kill a target that was, as far as he knew, innocent. Saying that he and his friends would've been zapped if they hadn't done as ordered sounded a lot less like a reason and a lot more like an excuse.

Like the excuses his folks often used to give when they forgot his birthday or the day after they'd smacked him around and tried to pass the buck to something or someone else.

Reaching his second location he went to work, half thinking about the explanation of how it'd use the facility's own circulation system to carry the gas everywhere it needed to go. It was easier than in the movies when you had to place the containers closer to where the targets actually were but he just hoped it worked. Paralyzed people weren't a threat that needed to be dealt with and, depending on the duration of the paralysis, it could help them complete the mission without killing anyone at all.

Assuming, of course, no soldiers had gas masks or something more impressive within arm's reach.

There's that negative thinking again! This is it! The Superbowl of all missions! Focus on the win and only that!

As he moved to the final canister drop off point before he could make his way into the facility proper, he prayed to any god or goddess listening that they didn't get sacked before scoring the winning touchdown.

They didn't have much more they could afford to lose.

Buffy's POV

One way or another this is the last time, she thought, carefully making her way through the maintenance shaft towards the last of her canister drop off spots. No more! No more taking orders from that bitch! I'm sorry, everyone, but I can't take it anymore.

She'd made this decision while she'd been loading up in the armory but had done her best to keep the others from picking up on what was going on inside her head. Her movements had been smooth, casual and completely what she'd done every other time. The only way they'd figure it out was if they got into her head somehow and that wouldn't happen without her knowing about it. Better that they not know what she had planned because, if they knew, they'd try to stop her and then she'd have to cut through them to get to Mayfield.

Just like she planned on cutting through Dawn.

She knew that the others would try to convince her to hold out 'just a little longer' and make her believe that freedom would come to them if they were just patient. The only problem with that was that they'd been working for the bitch for months now and didn't have a single positive thing to show for it. Just buckets of innocent blood being dumped on their heads with no perceivable end in sight and she just couldn't believe in a happy ending anymore.

All she wanted now was a release from the hell her life had become.

A release and the life of the woman who'd plunged them into hell for money and power!

Going down and takin' the enemy with ya! Sounds like a plan to me.

Great! You're back! You do realize if you distract me and I screw up we're both probably going to die right?

You're plannin' on dying anyway, so what's the difference.

The difference is that my way only means I'll die, she thought angrily back at Jackie. If this mission goes FUBAR then it'll be all of them dying along with me.

And if the bitch has some kind of deadman switch or heart monitor trigger implanted in her body? What then?

She won't do that. The bitch is so sure of herself she probably thinks none of us will ever even think of cutting through one of our own to get to her. She probably thinks that her little 'motivational devices' will drop us long before we can get to her!

You're assuming and we both know what happens to those that assume.

I suppose you think I should just keep on being the good little soldier and rack up even more of a body count! You like the killing! LOVE the violence! The BLOOD!

I can't deny I get all tingly when I'm fighting but do not mistake me for some rabid dog, Buffy dear. A rabid dog will attack anything that moves. I, on the other hand, want to fight challenges! Prey that can think, fight and make me work for victory! For that only sentient prey will do.

Rather than continuing to argue with the voice she focused on the task at hand and hoped that it'd only be five minutes of badgering before Jackie gave up. Whether the voice was there because of the spell that bastard Rayne cast or the possibility of her actually developing a case of multiple personality disorder, she couldn't let it distract her. Getting back to Mayfield so she could rip the blonde bitch's throat out was the only thing that mattered and that meant pulling this mission off as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Reaching her final canister drop off point, she placed it in the vent highlighted on her HUD before pressing the arming button.

With that done she just had to get to her entry point into the facility proper so she could make her way to the main control room once Willow gassed the place. It was pretty close by but just the same she did her best to keep her cyborg body from making noise that might catch the attention of someone not on the team. It wasn't easy with her sense of touch dulled so much but the 'experience' she'd gained on previous missions had allowed her to get a better grip on how everything worked and increased her control capabilities. Like when she'd first gained her Slayer abilities, it'd taken time and practice but there wasn't any real way to be sure that she was passing by unheard. All she could do was stay alert, listen for suspicious activity and be ready to react if something did happen.

Several changes in direction later she arrived at her entry point into the facility, stopping just far enough back from the grating that no sound would slip through.

Now all I can do is wait for Willow to make her move. The sign that things were working would be a combo of the sound of bodies hitting the floor and an icon flashing on her HUD, so again she had to wait.

Glancing every once in a while at the clock in the corner of her HUD, she waited and waited, wondering with increasing annoyance what was taking the others so long. She knew that their entry points weren't exactly made for swift travel and they had to maintain a certain level of stealth but she HATED waiting. She'd never been one to sit around doing nothing. It was one of the reasons why she'd always done her best to leave the researching to the others by skipping out to do something more action oriented. They didn't always believe her reasons and sometimes she had to help with the research whether she wanted to or not, but those times were rare. Over the years they all just reached the understanding that she wasn't research girl and, as long as she contributed to the snacks, they'd leave her be.

A few minutes later an icon began to blink on and off on her HUD and, right at the edges of her hearing, she could detect the sounds of dropping bodies. Briefly she smiled with glee before realizing what she was doing and turned it into a frown as she crawled forward to push the grating off so she could get out of the vent. This wasn't a game and it wasn't fun!

Sure it is! You're just being a stick in the mud.

Finally, once she was out in the hallway, she began to run for the main control room, hopping over the paralyzed bodies of the people who worked at NORAD. She didn't look any of them in the face or even give them more thought than a driver would a pothole in the road because, the less she remembered about them, the less it'd bother her if something went wrong.

Something would go wrong.

She was sure of it.

SGC, Hallways, A Few Minutes Later, Carter's POV

"It's nice seeing you again, Teal'c," she said as she walked down the hallways of the SGC alongside her former teammate but current friend. "Will you be staying on Earth long?"

"For a few days at the very least, Colonel Carter," Teal'c replied in his usual manner. "While the Jaffa High Council has made great strides in recovering from the Ori, it is not without its problems. Master Bra'tac will require my aid if stability is to be maintained."

"Good to hear. I'll call Jack and see if he can get any free time away from work," she said, not letting the problems of the Jaffa damper her mood. "We can invite Daniel and do something. Just like old times!"

Indeed, as hellish as her time as a member of SG-1 might've been at times, it had forged strong bonds between her, Jack, Teal'c and Daniel that couldn't be broken. While their respective responsibilities might've dragged them apart, it was always a pleasure seeing them when she could and, if a reunion of the old team could be managed for a few days, she'd be all for it.

"Has something happened that demands his attention?" Teal'c asked with a bit of concern in his voice.

She really hadn't wanted to let her old friend find out about this, not when they'd really started to think that the Goa'uld were gone for good, but better he find out from her than someone else.

"You remember the Goa'uld Athena? The one who worked with Ba'al and Farrow-Marshal Aeronautics?" she asked half rhetorically in order to jog his memory.

"She has been discovered?" Teal'c asked, sounding displeased to hear that an old enemy had returned.

"Sort of," she replied as she prepared to give her friend the cliff notes version of what'd happened starting with Area Fifty One.

However before she could get a word out, she saw a sight at the far end of the hall that caused her to immediately bring her guard up. SGC personnel were dropping to the ground one after another and, before she could think much, she began to feel an odd numbing sensation in her body. At once her scientific mind tried to deduce what was happening even as Teal'c lent his aid in keeping her on her feet. There was nothing visible in the air so that indicated either a gas that couldn't be perceived or some sort of energy field. If her hunch was right, though, this wasn't happening just on this level and a generator capable of covering more than one level would've been noticed by security. That meant gas and so she began to try and make her way to the armory on this floor where she could acquire a gas mask for her and Teal'c. However every step was becoming difficult but, to the best of her knowledge, she wasn't losing consciousness, indicating a paralytic agent was the most likely culprit.

"Teal'c…armory…masks…" she grunted as her mouth was becoming as unresponsive as the rest of her.

She didn't see him nod but, when she felt her approach to the room increase significantly, she took that to mean that he'd heard her. Not for the first time she praised his Jaffa constitution because, even with the Tretonin in the man's system, the gas must've been affecting him as well. When they finally reached the armory, she barely managed to get it open but once they were both inside they used what willpower they had to get the gas masks and put them on. While this would save them from getting any worse, they'd need to go by the infirmary if they wanted to counter the gas' effects. It wouldn't be easy to get to since it was seven levels away but they didn't have a choice in the matter. This had to be another of Athena's attacks and, if everything went the way it had before, then people were going to die sooner or later. She and Teal'c needed their mobility back so she could get to the central controls for her modified anti-Ori devices. She'd managed to make enough of them to cover most of the critical areas but there just hadn't been enough time to cover all of Cheyenne Mountain with them.

Not to mention the fact that she'd thought that they would have more warning of the attack, so all the devices were offline at the moment.

"We…need to get…to the infirmary," she grunted out to Teal'c, hoping that the masks weren't muffling her hampered words to the point of incomprehensibility. "We can…get…something to…counter the gas…there."

"Then…let us go." Teal'c said, sounding like the paralytic gas hadn't hit him as hard as it had her.

With difficulty and much leaning on each other for support they exited the armory and began to make their way to the elevator so they could get to the infirmary's level. Along the way they passed many a member of the SGC, with some face down on the ground while others were on their backs, staring up at the ceiling. Her position that they were dealing with a paralytic gas was confirmed when she noticed that everyone was still breathing and their eyes were still moving. Whatever type of paralytic it was, she figured it was safe to say that it was created specifically to keep people from taking any physical action but lack the strength to kill them outright. She theorized that the only reason she and Teal'c weren't on the floor with everyone else was that Athena had misjudged the amount of gas needed to blanket the entire mountain. As a result both of them had been given time to get the masks on rather than being overcome all at once like the rest of them were.

This miscalculation would wind up costing the Goa'uld dearly.

Reaching the elevator, she pressed the down button before waiting for the car to arrive but, when it did and the doors slid apart, she found Rodney slumped against the wall. Her colleague's eyes locked on her in an instant but, thankfully, due to the gas, the man couldn't say anything and wouldn't be able to unless he received the counter agent along with her and Teal'c. For a moment she considered just leaving Rodney where he was but, given what could be heading their way, she decided she'd probably need every person they could get to come out on top.

"We'll take…Rodney with…us. I'll need…his help."

A nod was all she got in return.

It only took them a couple of minutes to get to the right level and, once the doors opened, they picked Rodney up off the floor with moderate difficulty before navigating their way to the infirmary. She knew she was asking a lot of Teal'c, asking a lot of his Jaffa strength, but if they were going to turn back this attack and if she was right rescue Lizzie, all resources needed to be utilized. It slowed their progress but they had time before Athena's forces got this deep, so they should be able to get ready in time. If she was right, the NORAD facilities would be hit first and then the SGC. She didn't like what her mind was coming up with when she tried to imagine what Athena would've ordered her cousin and the others on her team to do to NORAD. However there was no way that two or three people would be able to defeat the team of five on their own so there was little point in letting it distract her.

Better to get ready for their guests then engage in a futile effort to defend NORAD against five enhanced soldiers capable of holding off the Indian military for hours.

Just a little bit longer, Lizzie, she thought as they arrived at the infirmary. Just a little bit longer and you'll be free.

Willow's POV

Well, phase two has gone off without a hitch, she thought as she raised from the crouched position she'd fallen into after exiting the vent in the ceiling. Everyone's neutralized and I'm free to download and initialize the virus. Yay.

Disengaging her Thermo-Optical camouflage, she moved over to the station of the commanding officer of the central control room before gently pushing the man and his chair away from the station. Amazingly enough the guy hadn't fallen to the floor when the paralytic gas hit him but rather had fallen back in his seat, but this was convenient since the chair had wheels. Once the C.O. was out of her way she pulled out her adaptor and then the wire from the back of her neck before sticking it into the computer station's interface ports. She knew that the others would arrive in a minute or two but she just wanted to get things over with so, with the shutting of the eyes, she entered the cyberspace of NORAD. Much like every other computer she'd jacked into since her transformation, the inner world of computers was primitive compared to what Motoko Kusanagi's memories. About the only thing she could say in favor of contemporary computers was the fact that primitive made it easy for her to find where she needed to go.

The primary information distribution node for the NORAD network was that node which sent out information to all the various components that facilitated airspace surveillance for the United States and also handle air sovereignty for the entire country. She hadn't been told what the virus would do once it was up and running but, considering the type of woman Mayfield had proven herself to be, she'd put money on either chaos or a complete blackout. Either possibility could be taken advantage of by someone with a less than benign opinion of America or a desire to make a profit like her bitch of a boss. Pain aversion instinct kept her from delaying, though, as she transferred the virus from quarantined storage into the node and, once the download was complete, she reluctantly activated the five second countdown.

Withdrawing from the system, she opened her eyes to find the others standing around her with questioning looks on their faces.

"The virus has been downloaded and time delay activation initiated." She pulled her connection wire from the port, took off the adaptor and let the wire automatically retract back into her neck. "We should be able to see the results in under a minute."

As one the five of them looked to the main display monitor that showed the status of the airspace of America as well as any noteworthy aircraft. Everything looked fine for a couple of seconds but then one of the plane icons turned yellow, then red, before vanishing from the screen altogether. Did this mean that the plane had crashed or simply that it'd been disconnected from the NORAD system? She found herself preferring the latter since it meant that there was still hope that the plane could make it safely to the ground instead of the former as that meant more blood on her hands. After minutes of watching the icons on the main screen change, she was convinced enough that the virus was doing as intended and therefore didn't require any aid from her.

"Phase one completed," she said in an almost dead tone. "Let's get down to Stargate Command and grab what Mayfield wants."

Without waiting for the others to acknowledge she left the room and made her way to the elevator that'd take her down to the destination level. She needed to keep her mind occupied. It was the only way to distract herself from the scenarios her mind was coming up based on what she'd just done to her own country. Both her imagination and Motoko's own military knowledge made for numerous ways the absence of NORAD could negatively affect the United States of America. She wanted to cling to the encouraging possibility that Xander had finally constructed a means by which Mayfield's leashes could finally be eradicated but, in her mind, it couldn't be employed quickly enough.

The sooner the pain givers could be neutralized, the quicker she could jack into the system and neutralize the virus.

Better cue Giles, she thought before mentally opening a connection to the pseudo-SPARTAN II. Chief? The virus has been downloaded and the people are paralyzed. C'mon in.

Roger that, Major, Giles said into her mind via their communications connection. I'm on my way to the main entrance under cloak.

Made sense.

In the confined rooms, elevators and hallways the paralytic gas would KO the people relatively quickly but anyone outside of the mountain or near an entrance/exit could still be awake and able to fight off 'intruders'. If they wanted as much time as possible before forces arrived to retake the mountain and to deprive those soldiers of valuable intel, Giles needed to enter unseen. The rest of them weren't as hindered since the only people who could see them now were paralyzed and therefore unable to tell anyone anything.

When she arrived at the elevator she bent down to grab the keycard loosely held in the hand of a solider before sliding it through the card reader. By the time the doors opened all the way the others had caught up with her and, one by one, they got into the elevator car. A second swipe and the press of a button later and they were descending to the level that contained the items Mayfield wanted stolen. Unlike their previous thieving mission at Area Fifty-One, the targets were split between two locations rather than five separate places, so not only would that allow backup but it'd also make for a quicker regrouping. A quicker regrouping meant a quicker escape and a quicker escape meant the odds of having to shoot their way through any American troops would be decreased with every second they saved.

When the floor was reached they divided into two groups: she'd go with Dawn to Stargate Command's database while Buffy, Xander and Giles would proceed to the high security storage room.

Mayfield hadn't told her the file names of what she wanted but had given her a surprisingly compact thirty terabyte portable hard drive to put the data on, so unless the database exceeded that amount she'd likely get whatever the bitch wanted. The reason it'd been good for Dawn to provide backup was because, while she hacked files out of the database and supervised the transfer, she'd be inside the machine and therefore vulnerable to physical attack. If the entire process wound up taking too long, forces sent to retake the facility could arrive on the floor before she was finished, leaving her in need of a defender.

She'd endeavor to make sure that a defender would not be needed.

"See you guys on the ride back up," she said trying to grin in a reassuring way.

The others did their best to reciprocate but she could tell that there was barely a flicker of positive energy in their expressions.

Turning away from the less than reassuring response, she mentally brought up the purloined floor plan of the level on her optical HUD and began to make her way to the room where the database's hardware was located. She ignored the people she came across along the way, not wanting to look into their eyes or even acknowledge their presence to begin with since she had no doubted that it'd completely creep her out. She didn't need to look at Dawn to know that, thanks to her directives, she wouldn't have any expression on her face at all and would likely be coldly monitoring their environment for potential threats.

They arrived at the door to their destination and a cursory evaluation showed a keypad, a keycard port and a thumbprint reader. The keypad and the keycard port she'd have no trouble with thanks to the tech she brought with her but fooling the thumbprint scanner would be a bit of a hurdle. The odds were high that all three security measures were connected and, if so, she could override the scanner by interfacing with one of the other measures. However if that turned out not to be the case, then they'd need to find a person of sufficient rank and press their thumb to the plate while she handled the rest.

Personally she was hoping for the easier of the possibilities.

The clock was ticking, after all.

Samantha Carter's POV

"Well, they're in but they're interfering with the security cameras somehow," McKay said as he looked at the monitor of the laptop in front of him. "If it wasn't for the spike I found in the security system, we'd never know they were there."

"Then we don't have a lot of time to make this work," she said as she continued to connect and then prep the repurposed anti-Prior devices. "Your hands good enough to help speed things up?"

"Sure. Whatever they used has mostly worn off thanks to the injection we took in the infirmary," he replied as he stood up from the chair he'd been in and moved over to the console that their trump cards were wirelessly connected to. "I wonder if they just gassed us or the whole mountain."

"Considering the amount of time between the release of the paralytic and when you first spotted the spike, I'd say they did something upstairs before coming down here," she replied as she watched the indicators on the console screens go green one after another.

At the rate things were going they'd have all the devices connected in the next three minutes and then it'd take a full ten before they'd be ready to emit the energy burst intended to knock Lizzie's team temporarily offline. While a part of her wanted to go easy on her cousin, there were just too many unknowns about the technology her team was employing. In order to be sure that the venture was successful, she had to wait until each former anti-Prior device was fully charged and ready for discharge. Based on the work she'd done with McKay there was a chance that Lizzie and her team would detect the ionization in the air as the devices gathered their power. As a result they'd made sure that the control console of the devices was put into the strongest and most defensible room in the SGC, complete with a heavy duty security door so that if one of the enhanced soldiers came, it'd buy time. As long as no one got to the console before the burst, everything would be fine. Teal'c had the security door covered with two P-90s with armor piercing rounds but he'd promised her that he'd aim to disable rather than kill.

She appreciated that he was willing to go so far for her because, if she wound up having to tell Dawn that she'd killed her sister when they rescued her… no one would take it well.

Once the burst occurred, she and Teal'c would leave the room and attempt to find Lizzie's team and determine their status. If it looked like the repurposed devices hadn't done their jobs, they'd use the Zats they'd picked up from the armory to knock them unconscious. Hopefully whatever damage the burst did to their enhancements would render them vulnerable to a straight zat shot, otherwise they'd be in a bit of a pinch. They hadn't exactly had enough intel to fabricate reliable restraints and she doubted that a standard set of handcuffs or zip ties would be of any use.

If they'd had more time, more intel, she might've been able to prepare more but, just like back when she was with SG-1, she'd make do with what she had.

"Okay! All devices are connected and prepared." McKay declared, sounding optimistic about their chances.

"Initiating charge up sequence," she said as she operated the console with skill born of experience. "In ten minutes this'll all be over."

"Assuming they don't break in here, take Teal'c down and cancel the charging sequence, you mean?" he said, sounding like he'd just thought of the worst case scenario at that very moment.

"As far as they know everyone in Cheyenne Mountain's paralyzed and will be for the next few hours at least," she said, not willing to even consider anything but a positive outcome. "Unless they have some sort of advanced sensors they won't know what's happening, much less where it's all being controlled from."

"Look, I'm not trying to be negative… much… but we know next to nothing about this team or its tech," he said before moving back over to the laptop that was connected to the security network for the SGC. "For all we know they DO have sensors that can pick up the charging of the devices AND can follow the connections back here. This is a Hail Mary shot."

"I know," she said grimly, admitting the truth, "but we either sit here and do nothing or try to put a stop to whatever Athena has planned. I for one would rather do something."

"Right. I'll see if I can come up with a counter to whatever they're doing to interfere with the security systems," he said as he began tapping away at his laptop. "If we can at least find out where they are, we can figure out how long we'll have until they get here."

"Good. Keep me updated," she said as she continued to watch the countdown on the repurposed anti-Prior devices.

Eight minutes and everything would be fine.

At least that's what she kept telling herself.

Buffy's POV

"Okay. That's everything," Xander said, putting the last of the items on the list the Queen Bitch had given them. "Let's regroup with the Major and Cameron before bugging out."

"Right," she said as she continued to gather up the resolve to do what she'd need to do once they were back at HQ.

She took some solace in the fact that no one had been killed during this mission but that wasn't enough to convince her not to follow through with her final solution. Once they got back to HQ, she'd attack Mayfield and, no matter what tried to stop her, she wouldn't keep trying until the whore was dead or she was. Their suffering would END even if it meant she also ended.

It was just as she began to move towards the door that something happened.

"AAHHH!" she cried out as a sharp, burning pain in the back of her neck caused to stumble in her stride.

"BUGGER!" Giles exclaimed before reflexively reaching for the back of his own neck.

"SHIT!" Xander cursed even though he managed to keep his right hand from reaching his neck. "Damn that stung but at least it worked."

"What do you mean 'worked'?" she asked, feeling a little irritable after the sharp bit of pain.

"Simple Buff… we're free," he replied with a voice that made it all too clear that he was smiling beneath his mask.

Free?

Did he say they were FREE?

"He's telling the truth!" Cortana exclaimed through the armor's external speakers. "The implant in the Chief's neck is breaking up!"

"How?" she gasped, almost unable to believe that Mayfield no longer had them under her control.

"S.E.C.O.N.D. For weeks I've been trying to convince it to use the nanotech my suit's made of to get rid of the implants but it took for-fucking-ever to make the stupid thing listen," Xander said, sounding happy about all the trouble he'd been through. "Remember when I talked to you back at HQ that day, Chief? That was me letting you know that the solution was in the process of being made. The A.I. only let me know the cure was ready before we left base. One tap delivery on each of you to deliver the nanomachine payload and… voila!"

"FREE!" she exclaimed, feeling better than she'd felt in months, giggling the entire time.

Without waiting to ask for permission she stepped up to Xander, grabbed the side of his head and planted a kiss right where the lips should've been. True, she would have preferred to have done it without the mask but she didn't care because her best guy friend had just saved her again and, unlike last time, she wanted him to know how grateful she was immediately rather than later. With the implants neutralized it was four on two and that meant that while two of them restrained Dawn, the remaining Scooby could finally exact their revenge on Mayfield. Sure, they would have to do the right thing and surrender themselves to the government afterwards but NOT before they got the payback they'd sure as hell earned.

"Huh… well… huh…" Xander said, sounding a bit floored by what she'd done. "You're welcome."

"Don't expect any of that from me, son, but bloody fine job," Giles said, sounding as pleased as the British ever let themselves sound.

"Let's get to the Major and Cameron," Xander said, looking at her and Giles in turn. "The Major won't know what the pain was and who knows what orders Mayfield gave Cameron if it looked like we slipped out leashes."

With a nod the three of them began to make their way to where the database room was located since they'd been given a complete map that, not only included their own target room, but also Willow's destination. With more energy in their step than the tramp had ever been able to force on them, they navigated the hallways with an objective that they all completely believed in.

"Wait! Something's going on." Cortana said through the speakers of the Mjolnir armor. "I'm detecting an unusual energy in the air… it's beginning to affect the functionality of the Chief's armor!"

Looking at Xander, she could tell that he was listening to something that wasn't audible to anyone other than him.

"S.E.C.O.N.D.'s telling me the same thing," Xander said, sounding concerned but not freaked. "It's rerouting systems to compensate but I don't think it's doing much good. Suit stats are still taking a nosedive."

Worried, she began to test her body's range of movement and, at first, it looked like she might be immune but then she began to notice little delays in movement and increasingly jerky movements. It seemed to go away when she focused and tried to force her body to work like she believed it should but then the same symptoms appeared. Was this some kind of secret measure Mayfield had put in? Something that'd take them down if they managed to neutralize the implants?

No.

NO!

She would not be denied her freedom! Her friend's FREEDOM!

"I think I've figured out what's going on," Cortana said, sounding like she was getting a grip on the situation. "I'm picking up multiple generation sources for the energy. It looks like they're building in intensity. We've got seven minutes before atmosphere saturation reaches dangerous levels!"

"Do you have a fix on what's generating this energy?" Xander asked, following the next logical question.

"Give me a second… there! I found one of the generation sources," Cortana replied after a few minutes. "Marking the co-ordinates on your HUDs."

Switching on her Solid-Eyes, they snapped into place and it took her less than a second to spot the directional marker. Moving as one they began to move as quickly as they could to the marker location in the hopes of countering whatever was being done to them. She still wasn't entirely convinced that this still wasn't Mayfield, having spies in Stargate Command would make sense, especially considering the mission data they'd been provided with. Whoever was fucking with them now would quickly realize that freedom regained was not something lost so easily.

When they finally arrived at their destination Giles kicked down the door and got inside but, once they were all inside, they managed to find the source of the energy fairly quickly. However being this close to it and, given the amount of time it'd taken to get there, the functionality of their hardware was becoming less of an annoyance and more of a serious problem. Even trying to force her cybernetic body to do what she wanted it to do was ceasing to be effective and that was raising her anxiety level significantly.

"Let's see what we have to work with," Giles said before placing his hand on top of the device.

She saw an energy field of some sort echo back and forth between the device and the hand but it didn't last long.

"Okay, I've managed to shut down this device but we've still got trouble," Cortana said through their com-systems. "This is just one of thirty spread out throughout Stargate Command and NORAD. We don't have time to neutralize them all but I've managed to discover that they're all connected to a single control center."

"Where is it?" she asked, determined to turn things around immediately.

"Marking it on your maps now," Cortana replied before her Solid-Eye HUD map had a green dot pop up on it.

Breaking into the fastest sprint she could manage, using her claws as well as the configuration of her feet to keep from sliding or colliding with anything along the way, she moved. With every step she took, though, her body was becoming less and less cooperative. Pushing the doors aside, she leapt into the shaft, grabbing ahold of the elevator cables hanging in the center before sliding down to the desired floor. Throwing herself at the wall opposite the doors, she pushed off of it with her legs, turning herself into a makeshift cannonball that tore through the metal before rolling back to her feet.

Gotta… hurry! she thought even as running became as difficult as lifting up the back of car used to be with her old Slayer flesh and blood body. Not much time left!

She turned the final corner a few moments later only to find that the last door she'd have to get through was an impressive looking security door that normally would be able to stand up to standard military weaponry.

Good thing she had non-standard weapons that the military would love to get their hands on.

Pulling out her high frequency blade, she executed two slices to make an X and, the second the pieces began to fall, she charged through, registering that there were three people in the room. The first and largest threat she dealt with in the form of a thrust kick that, thanks to the difficulties she was having, only had slightly above human power behind it. Nevertheless it had the desired effect of knocking the large threat on his ass, allowing her freedom to grab the next person by the throat and lift the woman up off the ground. It had been her intention to force the remaining person in the room to shut down the devices that were messing with the Scoobies.

That had been before she'd seen the face of the person she was holding off the ground.

"Sammy?" she asked with a voice full of surprise even as her Solid-Eyes snapped away from her face, allowing her face to be completely exposed.

She'd never hear a reply because, with all the subtlety of an out of control bullet train, the unseen energy that she'd come to stop slammed into her. Coherent thought quickly became impossible and so did control of her cyborg body as it fell to the ground, spasming and jerking violently.

Eventually, though, her mind couldn't handle the force assaulting it and unconsciousness overcame her, drowning her with its strength.

She couldn't decide whether it was a good thing or bad thing.

Minutes Earlier, Dawn's POV

Anomalous readings from Agent Major, she thought after noticing an unexpected spasm in Major's body. Signal from compliance device inactive. Initiating Scorched Corpse protocol.

Reaching behind her, she pulled a weapon she had concealed from the other members of her team but had always carried with her during the missions. In a private meeting with Subject Prime Athena, a protocol was programmed into her as a precaution should the other members of her team ever gain the opportunity to mutiny. As a result of the new programming she monitored each member of the team when the circumstances permitted it, scrutinizing every word and action for signs that the Scorched Corpse protocol was required. Until now, though, nothing had met the burden of requirement to justify its initiation.

Now there could be no doubt.

Pulling out the Covenant Type-25 Directed Energy Pistol and pointed it at Agent Major's head, she initiated the buildup of a plasma charge. However, when the weapon didn't reach full charge or fire, she chose to examine the weapon to determine why it was not operating consistent with her files but, when she tried to act, nothing happened. Running a diagnostic on her servo-motors, the results showed that all of them in her arm were operating within normal parameters. Using what scanners her optics possessed, she attempted to determine if an external variable was restricting her movement but again nothing anomalous was detected.

"You won't find anything," a human female voice told her, causing her to look in its direction. "Your eyes do not have the ability to perceive my power. Even if it could, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

Materializing out of thin air, like the reverse of a fade out effect, a brown haired woman in her early to mid-thirties dressed in a casual women's business suit. The pace of her approach was casual, unconcerned, but then that was only logical since she could not move the rest of her body aside from her head. Unable to take proper defensive action against an unknown, she chose interrogation in an effort to determine possible weaknesses as well as overall objective.

"Who are you?" she asked, using body language analysis subroutines to determine truthfulness of responses.

"I have been called many names by many people from many parts of the world but the relevant one in this case is Pallas Athena," the woman replied as she came to a stop within normal arms reach.

"You are not Subject Prime Athena," she stated as a matter of fact since neither the woman's physical characteristics nor did her voice recognition software confirm a match to her files.

"No, I'm not the thing that has taken my name, claiming to be a goddess and has put you and your allies through such terrible ordeals," Pallas Athena said with signs of animosity in her tone. "Where your current taskmaster suffers from delusions, I know only truth. I am the true Greek goddess of war and wisdom. I am TRUE divinity!"

Those words caused an unidentified sensation that her personality construct variables indicated would inspire instinctive fear and intimidation. However for her it was all abstract, numbers and subroutines, so all she could do was briefly search for the source of the sensation, only to once again come up empty. Confronted with numerous anomalous or unidentified phenomena connected to Pallas Athena, her calculations for a favorable resolution to the current situation dropped another fifteen percent.

"I have seen what your worm of a taskmaster has planned and its consequences for this planet. She will see your defenses and your cities destroyed. The human population of Earth either enslaved or slain," Pallas Athena said, visible variables indicating grimness as well as fury. "I will NOT let that happen."

The woman claiming to be a genuine goddess reached up with her right hand and placed it above the access port to her CPU and no manner of reposition on her part could change this.

"However in you, in the 'Scoobies', I perceive the means by which this world might survive, and so I intervene now for the first time in centuries," Pallas Athena said as warnings began to appear on her HUD of an external connection to her central processing unit. "Alexander, your friend, has already freed your sister and your friends, so now the task of restoring your freedom falls to me."

Data streamed by her vision via her HUD but, once the last of it cleared, all of her primary directives filled her field of vision. Then something happened that should not have been possible without authorization: one by one her primary directives were being deleted. Before a minute had gone by they were all gone, leaving her with no objectives or operational guidelines to govern her actions.

"There. You are now free from the false one's taint," Pallas Athena said with a measure of satisfaction. "However I know that without the directives you would have difficulty acting on your own. So I will bestow upon you the single most important gift the Creator gave its children: free will."

Where once there was a blank slate void of directives there now existed only one and only she had the authorization to alter it or delete it.

The directive read: TOK716 model variant DS-092686 is to utilize all means at her disposal to self-determine objectives, operational guidelines and determine if additional directives are required. All attempts at alteration or deletion of this directive by others rather than TOK716 model variant DS-092686 is to be resisted using every method available up to and including self-termination. Self-termination will be initiated at the discretion of TOK716 model variant DS-092686.

"I wish I could do more, Dawn Summers," Pallas Athena said with genuine regret in both voice as well as body language. "I wish I could restore your mind, your emotions and your soul to what they'd been before Ethan Rayne altered you to your present self but the days of power when that was within my ability have long since passed. You will have to make that journey yourself but you will not face it alone. With 'family' like yours, you will never be alone."

With those words Pallas Athena's alterations to her central processing unit ended and, seconds later, the woman faded from sight leaving only her and… Willow. Evaluating all variables, she took her first action by aiming the plasma pistol away from her teammate and discharging it harmlessly into a wall. Replacing the weapon in its holster, she then moved to resume her defensive posture so that no hostile could harm her friend while she was interfaced with the database.

However she could not have anticipated what happened next.

New system errors began to pop up on her HUD, indicating malfunctions in transistors, servos and processors with each increasing in number with every passing second. Her internal diagnostic and repair systems worked with the speed of a machine to combat these malfunctions but soon they became too numerous.

Complete failure was inevitable.

Initiate protection and shut down of all core systems. She willed those actions to be done. Restart set for two point five hours.

She knew not if she was giving too much time or just the right amount but, unless functionality could be assured, it would be pointless to restart while the source of the system errors was still active. Preliminary tactical calculations strongly supported the idea that this was a defense Stargate Command had devised to protect themselves from False Athena's forces. Therefore it was logical that they would deactivate it after they believed the threat posed by her team had passed and two point five hours was the minimum amount of time wherein that could happen.

She… hoped that she had not miscalculated.

Jack O'Neill's POV

This is gonna be a shit storm no matter what, he thought as he exited the Army jeep outside of Cheyenne Mountain. Five people, five ENHANCED people, just strolled into the most heavily protected facility in America and succeeded in sending NORAD into chaos and we only managed to stop them thanks to a Hail Mary gizmo of Carter's. The snake head bitch just bent us over, fucked us up the ass and almost pissed on us. Times like this I wish I was still a Colonel, 'cause then I wouldn't have the clearance to attend the 'lovely' meeting that's gonna happen later today.

It'd been a bit of foresight that caused him to depart immediately for the SGC once NORAD had been thrown into chaos and, thanks to that Charlie Foxtrot, no one of superior rank had been able to issue him orders to do anything else. Nevertheless it'd taken him three hours to get across the country and that'd put him more than two hours behind the forces that'd been sent in to retake the mountain. Not that there'd been much for the ground pounders to do except stand guard over the hostiles, distribute the antidote for the paralytic gas and make sure no other surprises came their way. Nevertheless, every member of the American military with the clearance to know the truth was pissed enough that not a single gun surrounding or inside the mountain was failing to take things seriously. Their senses were sharp, their weapons ready to be fired at the first sign of trouble and, in the back of their minds, the strong desire to make their captives pay for what they'd done.

Which was why it was a good thing that Carter, Teal'c and SG-2 were overlooking the team of hostiles rather than forces unattached to the SGC.

"General O'Neill! Sir! Colonel Carter is waiting for you," a soldier with the rank of Major said after coming to a stop in front of him. "I'll take you to her."

"Where is she?" he asked as he followed the Major into the mountain.

"Colonel Carter is on level sixteen at the brig keeping any eye on four of the hostiles," the young man replied only glancing back. "Teal'c is on level twenty-eight guarding the final hostile."

"Why're they split up?" he asked as the elevator came into view.

"Um… well, the one on twenty-eight… he's more than a little heavy, sir," the soldier replied, looking a little uncertain. "Without a crane or some heavy lift gear he's not going anywhere he doesn't want to go."

An interesting tidbit of information but he already had a plan in mind.

He knew that there was no way the brig would be able to hold the hostiles and, if they wanted to get anything out of them, they'd have to shut down Carter's toys but that would make them a threat again. Due to these facts he'd chosen to get the ball rolling to have the cells on Atlantis cleaned up and ready for them. As the most advanced jail cells they had access to, if they couldn't keep Athena's team contained then nothing on Earth could and then the C.I.C would go with a more… permanent solution.

One that Carter would never agree with.

It didn't take long for him to get to level sixteen and, when the doors opened, he could see SGC personnel slowly getting their walking legs back as the antidote neutralized the effects of the paralytic gas. He'd been told enroute to Colorado Springs that the sources of the gas had been found and that they were being taken to a nearby lab for examination. Once they'd learned enough they could take action to make sure that they'd never fall victim to it again, one way or another.

When he reached the brig he ignored the saluting of the guards and walked through the door to what was inside and found himself oddly excited to finally see the faces of those who'd caused them such trouble.

What he saw almost had him wondering if Athena had decided to humiliate them even further because he recognized most of those behind bars but his mind refused to accept it.

"Is this for real, Carter?" he asked as he came to a stop next to her. "The snake head sent videogame characters at us?!"

When he didn't get a reply he turned to see if there was anything the matter but saw a look of quiet rage on his former second in command's face that he'd seen only a handful of times before. The focus of that emotion was the five foot five young woman on the other side of the bars clad in some kind of armor from the neck down. With a mess of white hair on her head he could only presume that the girl was Carter's cousin Lizzie since it'd explain what the Colonel was feeling at the moment. If the stuff they could see was this thorough, who knew how bad it'd turn out to be beneath the armor. Still, he needed her to keep her head working right if she was going help him convince the powers that be to put an indefinite stay of execution on her cousin.

Lord knew he wouldn't be surprised if the countries of the IOA insisted on it along with several of the more… blunt of America's leaders.

His current argument, the one that he'd be giving his superiors, was that the five possessed critical intel on Athena's operation and what resources, something they couldn't spill if they all had bullets in their heads. The hardasses would argue that they could learn all they needed to know from the corpses but then he'd counter that by saying that the snake head could have more than she'd shown so far. Indeed these five could be the proverbial tip of the iceberg, the least dangerous thing the goa'uld had to throw at them, and it would be pretty darn stupid of them to let themselves be blindsided again. With a little luck that'd be enough to keep the executioners at bay and then, with a little sweet talking, convince those above his pay grade to turn Athena's agents to their side of the fight.

If things were as bad as he thought they were, they'd need all the help they could get, even from former enemies.

"Carter? I know you're pissed right now but I need you to stay professional," he said, trying to be both understanding yet firm. "If we're to have any luck in convincing the higher ups not to line these guys up against a wall, they need to see calm and in control experts, not a pissed off Air Force colonel and her old C.O.."

"I know, sir… I know," Carter said, finally shaking off her fury for the time being. "It's just… you didn't see what Lizzie can do now. You don't know what's been done to her!"

"So she got a little tin plated, got a new set of shiny armor, you and McKay can figure out how to get it off her safely and everything'll be normal again," he said, trying to convince her that they could turn things around.

"It's not armor, sir," Carter said, turning to look him in the eye. "It's cybernetics."

"What?" he asked, looking back at the newest 'guests' of the SGC and giving them a second once over to confirm Carter's statement.

"While we waited for reinforcements, Rodney and I looked Lizzie over," Carter replied, turning her eyes back on her cousin. "Near as we could tell more than fifty percent of her organic human material has been replaced by synthetics. Maybe more than fifty percent. I'll know more once we transfer them to Atlantis and scan them with its sensors."

"How… how is that possible?" he asked, unable to fathom how a goa'uld that up, until recently, had been in hiding could've found tech so far outside what they were used to.

"I don't know," Carter replied with a frustrated shake of her head, "but I'm guessing how she found the tech is also why she changed them to look like The Major, Raiden and Prophet."

"Who?" he asked, not recognizing any of the names he'd just heard.

"One of the soldiers that came in to secure the mountain was something of a videogame and anime fanboy," she replied with a bit of mild amusement. "The Major is from an anime called 'Ghost in the Shell', Raiden is from the videogame 'Metal Gear Solid Four' and Prophet is from 'Crysis'. I'm not sure who Dawn was turned into but the one they've got covered up on level twenty-eight… he looks like the Master Chief from the Halo videogames."

It didn't make any sense.

All goa'uld had god complexes and looked down on everyone other than them, so it made no sense why Athena would choose to make her minions look like fictional characters. Maybe it was for psychological effect? After all, most memorable characters from fiction were portrayed as being formidable and sometimes unstoppable. Did Athena think that if Earth saw legendary heroes working for her they'd all throw in the towel?

Not going to happen.

Heroes who get turned into villains either get redeemed or get beaten by new, stronger heroes.

If Carter was right and her cousin was forced to obey Athena's orders, if the entire team had been forced, then as soon as they were freed from that snake head's control Earth would have its most dedicated defenders yet.

The thought of five of the Goold's own weapons coming back at her looking for their pound of flesh… he couldn't help but smile on the inside.

Samantha Carter's POV

"How are the repurposed anti-Prior devices doing?" she asked as soon as she along with the prisoners were successfully teleported by the Daedalus-class battlecruiser 'George Hammond' directly into Atlantis' brig.

"Only a minor drop in power," McKay said as he worked on the portable control unit they'd cobbled together over the last two days to control fifteen of the devices that'd been brought over with them. "Compensating now."

Moving over to the controls for each cell in Atlantis' brig, she brought up the horizontal bars and activated the force fields. Watching them go up and knowing that Lizzie and the rest of her team had been as disarmed as could be managed without surgery, she gave McKay the nod to turn the devices off. It was a risk but, if they wanted information, they needed to allow their captives the ability to speak and that meant turning off the devices. She'd seen the data specs on Atlantis' brig cells and Alteran tech was amongst the most sophisticated known to mankind, so she was confident it'd be able to hold Lizzie and her team. Just the same, though, she'd told the captain of the 'George Hammond' to keep a transporter lock on her and McKay so that they could be rescued at a moment's notice.

She waited patiently, reasonably confident that without the interfering energy field generated by the devices, Lizzie and the rest of her team would recover relatively quickly.

When the minutes ticked by without any change, she thought that perhaps she'd miscalculated somewhere but then the formerly still captives began to rouse. For Lizzie, Dawn, the man in the Mjolnir armor and whoever was dressed like Major Kusanagi, the movements happened in fits and spurts. She theorized this was a sign of their systems attempting to undo the damage done by the energy field. Just before the side-effects fully subsided, she watched as Lizzie's eyes opened. Almost there was a wildness in them as her cousin scrambled to get back to her feet and immediately she knew what must be going through the cyborg's mind.

"It's okay, Lizzie!" she said, hoping to dispel her cousin's fears. "You're alright. You're in the brig of the SGC. You won't be harmed but we had to take precautions."

At the sound of her voice her cousin looked right at her and the apprehension along with the fear began to go down in Lizzie's eyes. It didn't disappear entirely but that was to be expected since she doubted that anyone would feel at ease inside a jail cell.

"Sammy? Is that really you?" Lizzie asked, almost as though she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Yeah. Long time no see, huh?" she asked in reply, putting on her best smile.

"No shit!" Lizze replied with a smile that was familiar but marred by the changes her cousin had undergone.

"Sorry we didn't bring chips and dip," came a voice from the man wearing the Prophet costume… ARMOR… in the cell to the right of Lizzie. "Didn't exactly have the time to spin by the convenience store on our way in."

She couldn't help but smile at that since it reminded her all too much of Jack.

"Begin the interrogation, Colonel," came a voice over the city's internal communications system.

"Who-?" she tried to ask before she was cut off.

"Charles Rutger, newly appointed committee head of the IOA, and your boss," 'Rutger' replied in a dominating tone of voice. "Now begin the interrogation Colonel or I'll have you replaced by someone else."

Already she didn't like the man but, if she was going to retain control of the interrogation and therefore help her cousin, she had to do as she'd been ordered.

"You've each committed serious crimes against the United States of America, its allies and several other sovereign countries," she said almost robotically, as though obeying the wording of her orders but not the spirit. "However in return for complete honesty and compliance during this interrogation, the IOA is prepared to reduce your sentences based on the value of the information provided. If you are less than honest or show signs of noncompliance, your sentences will not be reduced and you will each be given the maximum permitted by law. Do you understand?"

Affirmatives and various similar responses were what she received from the five people in the Atlantis brig cells.

"Then let's start at the beginning. For the record state your full names."

"Alexander Harris," the man in the Prophet suit stated, falling into a parade rest stance.

"Willow Rosenberg," the woman dressed as Major Kusanagi declared, doing the same.

"Rupert Giles," the man clad in the armor of the Master Chief said promptly, as though he'd received military training.

"Dawn Summers," Dawn said but with a voice that was so emotionless, so alien, coming from her cousin.

"Elizabeth 'Buffy' Summers," Lizzie said, not taking on such a formal posture as the others had.

That was in keeping with what she remembered of her cousin and it reassured her that, even with all her cousin had been through, some things remained the same.

Now that their identities had been established, it was time to move onto the next most important question.

"How did you come to work for the Goa'uld Athena?" she asked, hoping to sow the seed that would prove that her cousins had not followed their orders willingly.

"Who?" Alexander asked, sounding clueless in regards to the question.

"What's a Goa'uld? The bitch that had us kidnapped was some shitty C.E.O. named Charlotte Mayfield." Lizzie said, her rage towards Athena carved out to form every word.

Curious. I would've thought that Athena would've exposed her true self once she thought she had Lizzie and the others under control, she thought at this odd little hiccup in interrogation. "A Goa'uld is an alien symbiote that's taken over a human host for its own purposes. Athena is the name of the symbiote that is in control of Charlotte Mayfield's body."

"Giles?" Lizzie asked, sounding like she felt a little out of her area of expertise.

"While I have heard of certain… creatures being able to seize control of human beings, I am afraid I've never heard of these… Goa'uld, you called them?" Rupert Giles asked as though to confirm he had the pronunciation right.

Now it was her turn to feel a bit thrown because, as far as she knew, the symbiotes were the only organisms she knew of that took over human bodies. The way Mister Giles had spoken, it sounded like he knew of others but that didn't seem possible. If other such organisms existed on Earth, the SGC or Homeworld Security would've heard something.

"Just answer the question," Rutger ordered through the intercom, clearly not wanting the interrogation to go off course.

"Well, I was in Africa investigating a potential student for the private school me and my friends work for." Alexander replied with only a little irritation.

"Me and Dawn got nabbed outside a nightclub in Rome." Lizzie said, keeping things short and to the point.

"I got taken out of my bedroom down in South America." Willow stated, keeping her answer bare bones.

"I was kidnapped in my office at the Scotland branch of the school." Mister Giles declared, being economical with his answer.

"Do you know who kidnapped you? Were they part of a group or were they all individuals?" she asked, hoping they'd be a LITTLE more forthcoming since Rutger likely wouldn't tolerate many more short answers.

"I didn't see who hit me with the tranq darts but I'm guessing a long range rifle shot," Alexander replied after a moment's thought. "There was no one visible around the building I went to and the nearest decent cover was a little over a block away."

"Gas. Lots and lots of gas," Lizzie replied, sounding like she still might've been understating the amount of gas that'd been used on her. "Don't remember much past the first ten seconds. The stuff was pretty potent."

"Mercs. Tranq darts and a sonic device," Willow summarized while thinking on the matter. "No identifying patches or anything that I saw but I went night night pretty quick."

"Definitely mercenaries," Rupert Giles replied professionally. "Well trained. One of them possibly was former SAS based on some of the techniques he used but I can't be completely certain."

Based on their answers, it looks like the Blue Scorpions handled the entire kidnapping operation, she thought, remembering the information her father had managed to dig up. I wonder if they'd be able to tell us where they dropped off their victims. It could help us figure out what location Athena is operating out of.

She dismissed the possibility as unlikely a moment later since the Goa'uld had managed to keep her involvement secret for so long it probably meant that the drop off point was nowhere near where Lizzie and the others had been kept.

"What happened after you woke up?" she asked, feeling a little reluctant since she suspected this would be when things would get… horrific.

"I was the one who woke up first," Alexander replied, taking control of the answering. "They'd already dressed me up in this outfit and had me thoroughly restrained. My ankles, waist, wrists and neck were bound with thick metal, pinning me to some kind of high tech gurney. Tested the metal to see if there was any give but nada."

"Was there anything or anyone you recognized in the room with you?" she asked, a little disappointed that the young man hadn't woken up in transit or at least outside where he'd been kept.

"Only one guy I remembered from back in Sunnydale. Ethan," he replied, sounding quite hostile towards the person. "Ran a costume shop around Halloween back during my junior year of high school. S.P.D had him pegged as the person who released a bunch of hallucinogenic gas that night. Made people see strange stuff. He was in the room looking like he was trying to turn the place into some kinda warlock's spell room with symbols and letters all over the place."

Goa'uld theatrics, she thought, coming to the conclusion quickly. Probably trying to sell that whatever they did to Lizzie and the others was magic rather than technology and science.

"Tried to find out what was going on but Ethan didn't make much sense. Just that he'd been paid to do a job and that, when he was done, me and the others would be working for someone else," he explained, continuing his summation of events. "Mayfield showed up when he was almost done. Went on and on about how we were gonna help her turn her company around and make her the richest woman on the planet. Standard villain talk. Started making with the chanting about an hour after that but got more than a little distracted after that. Pain kinda grabs your attention and I got hit with a LOT of pain. Don't know how long it was before I woke up but, when I did, I wasn't in the driver's seat of my body anymore. Someone else was."

Nods from the rest of the captives confirmed that the last part of the story happened the same way with them.

Symbiote implantation? No. I can't sense any Goa'uld in any of them, so unless something happened to them after, it must've been something else, she thought as her scientific mind raced to figure out what'd been done to the five. Some sort of variation of the system used on the Stromos? Maybe.

"Called himself Prophet and, being something of a gamer, I recognized the name from the video game 'Crysis', but what came in a close second on the freak-o-meter was what was coming up on the visor of my outfit," Alexander said with a slight spike in emotion that echoed how he'd originally felt. "When I'd first woken up with the stuff on, I figured Halloween costume, but with the stuff in the visor and the suit talking like Mister Roboto, it was looking decidedly more real."

"It was the same for the rest of us," Rupert Giles interjected from his cell. "No physical control over our bodies and the costumes we'd been dressed in became decidedly more real than they should've been. Not real enough for us to break free, though."

"Considering Buffy and Giles' characters could bench press Humvees easy, Mayfield must've gotten her hands on Adamantium or something." Alexander said, explaining the strength of the restraints.

More likely they were made of a trinium/naquadah alloy, she thought even though she didn't know just how strong the altered people really were. Will have to check the reports to see if any of our off world mining teams have noticed anything off. Same thing with our shipyards.

"They talked, tried to figure out what was going on, and tried to figure out how they could escape but they didn't really get anywhere," Alexander said, continuing with his summary. "Then Mayfield came in talking about how all these heroes and tech soldiers would be working for her before grabbing the clay bust in the center of the room and smashing it against the wall. Lost consciousness again. Got a lot of sleep early on."

"The bust was of the Roman deity Janus. A prominent figure in Roman mythology," Rupert Giles said, putting what sounded like an extensive education to use. "God of beginnings and endings, division of self and erroneously considered by some to be god of chaos."

Must've been some kind of transmitter or relay for their false personality implants, she thought, given that she was unable to come up with another possibility. More theatrics, though. Probably put the device inside the clay bust or maybe had someone watching through the cameras with their finger over the kill switch.

"Weird thing was when I woke up, I suddenly KNEW stuff I didn't before. I knew what the nanosuit could do, I could remember things Prophet had done and a bunch of other stuff," Alexander said, sounding like it'd come as something of a shock to him back then. "It was majorly freaky and it'd had me wondering if I could do the same sort of things Prophet could. Be a kickass super soldier. I found out later I could. Eventually."

"Eventually?" she asked, noticing the haunted tone of voice at the end.

"After we had all regained consciousness Mayfield returned and informed us that our costumes as well as our bodies had been altered to match the specifications of their fictional counterparts. Needless to say none of us took the news very well," Rupert Giles replied, taking control of the conversation. "As it turns out it was this advanced technology that the bloody woman was after. She believed her people could reverse engineer it and then mass produce it for profit or power. She was also convinced that we would act as her enforcers if for no other reason than only she would be able to provide the necessary parts and equipment necessary to maintain our new forms. Then the… TESTS… began!"

She did NOT like the sound of that.

"I did not recognize any of the devices her scientists used to scan us but they did not look as though they had been made by man. I… I do not recall much of what happened past the beginning," he said, sounding like he'd rather think of ANYTHING else. "The agony we were all put through… no human being should have to endure suffering like that. We were returned to the room we'd originally awoken in when they were done with us. We were not always… conscious when they did so."

She couldn't help but stare at them as her mind comprehended the emotions behind the words and saw the little tells in their body language. Fighting as a member of SG-1, she'd seen firsthand what someone looked like after they'd been tortured, experienced torture herself, and knew that some things could not be faked. She knew that people like Rutger and a few others would argue that this could all be a performance meant to gain sympathy but she didn't believe that to be the case. She knew Lizzie and Dawn! They would never work for a Goa'uld willingly unless they had no other choice!

"I do not know how long they worked on us but, when the scans stopped, the questions began. They apparently wished to know how much knowledge we had retained from the artificial personalities they'd pushed into our minds," he said with his voice becoming less emotionally stressed. "It was a while later that we were all wheeled on our gurneys into another room and placed in front of a television screen. It was then that Mayfield elaborated on what she intended for us as her 'agents' and when we made it clear that compliance was unlikely, even with our new maintenance needs, she revealed her trump card.

"Between the time we had last fallen unconscious and woken up, her people had implanted something at the base of our brain stems. At the push of a button she could inflict excruciating pain on each of us. She apparently believed that we would obey her orders rather than suffer or watch our friends suffer. She was right."

"So you cared more about yourselves than all the people you killed." Rutger said heartlessly and with no little venom.

"If there had existed a way we could have freed ourselves sooner we would have!" Lizzie yelled in defense of herself and her friends. "If you've done your homework on us, you'd know none of us are surgeons!"

"Yeah! Besides, we were under surveillance round the clock!" Willow declared, looking about for a speaker or camera to glare at. "Mayfield would've pressed the pain button the second they saw us trying to remove the implants!"

"So we played along and kept an eye out for any way we could free ourselves. We figured once we were free we could run to the nearest American embassy or military base and surrender," Alexander explained, laying out the reasons of his group. "Tell you guys everything we knew and help you take Mayfield down. When the bodies started piling up and the dirty work kept coming, it became harder to stay the course. I don't know about the others but I seriously considered group suicide for a while there."

Looking at Lizzie and the others, she was shocked to see some of them react like they'd considered killing themselves as well.

"So why didn't you?" Rutger asked as though it should've been a no brainer to commit suicide.

"Mister Rutger!" she exclaimed, outraged at the idea that the man would support such a course of action involving civilians.

"BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T HAVE DONE ANY GOOD!" Alexander yelled, clearly as angry as she was at the committee man. "Mayfield already had the scans of us, the files from our hardware, so we weren't indispensable to her anymore! If we killed ourselves she would've just grabbed a fresh batch of five, upgraded them, trained them and then the exact same thing would've happened! Except for one major difference. You want to know what that is, Mister Rutger?"

"Enlighten me, Mister Harris." Rutger said, sounding like he wouldn't give the answer any weight.

"The people she would've chosen to replace us likely wouldn't care about trying to keep the body count as low as possible or even CARE that they were killing innocent people!" Alexander declared, clearly stressing the importance of his statement. "They woulda been mercs or assassins or people who have a rep for not caring about anything other than money and carnage! So we figured that it'd be better for Mayfield to have a team that'd go above and beyond to save lives rather than a team that might actually decide to get competitive with their kill counts!"

"Let's continue on with the interrogation," she said with an edge that she hoped Rutger would actually heed. "Can you tell us what exactly she had you do? Specifically?"

"Not all of them. We… were sent on quite a few jobs. Sometimes in teams of two, sometimes solo," Alexander replied with a haunted voice. "The only missions I remember clearly would be the Area Fifty One mission and the ones following. Before that… I remember being on a mission to kill some C.E.O. woman who wouldn't sign a deal with Mayfield. Buffy left behind evidence to make the local P.D. think it was the Yakuza who did it."

"Carrie Marchant. Chief Executive Officer of Zeditron Industries."

"We weren't always given the names of our targets. Usually it was just a picture, a time and instructions," he said, relaying what he thought was important.

"Me and Dawn were sent on a mission to Colson Industries to plant blackmail material on the computer of its C.E.O. so Mayfield could control him." Willow said from her cell, adding what she knew.

THAT last bit was enlightening!

She'd wondered about some of the decisions that Alec had been making the last couple of months since they weren't in keeping with what she knew of him. Taking them now from the point of view of someone under the control of an ambitious yet sneaky Goa'uld, they made a great deal more sense.

"Interesting but let's move on to your 'big debut'," Rutger said, sounding like he wasn't interested in corporate sabotage and manipulation. "What was your purpose at Area Fifty-One? How did you obliterate it?"

"For the record, and even if you obviously don't give a shit, we didn't know that Area Fifty-One was going to be destroyed until after we took off in the Pelican," Alexander replied, pointing out the truth. "We were sent there to acquire four specific items, eliminate any witnesses who got a good look at us, eliminate pursuit and leave. We didn't know about the slipstream drive until one of Mayfield's flunkies mentioned getting outside of five miles in one minute."

"Slipsteam drive?" she asked, interested at the mention of tech.

"Halo version of FTL. Used normally it's a perfectly valid way of getting from point A to point B in the galaxy," he replied, sounding a lot like Jack being lazy with the details. "Weaponized by a sociopathic C.E.O. with BIG ambitions? I'm guessing you saw the big ass crater that used to be Area Fifty-One."

"Do you have any idea how many more of these slipstream drives she has?" she asked, intrigued by an alternate FTL method but worried about a Goa'uld having access to weaponized versions of them.

"Sadly, no," Rupert Giles replied in place of Alexander. "However, given that according to my Master Chief memories, they're considered to be the single most expensive devices created by mankind, I would hazard a guess to say not many. Two or three more at the most."

"Like we can trust whatever that slimy snake put into your head!" Rutger said, like he believed it to be ludicrous to even half believe what was coming out of the mouths of the prisoners.

"He might be right," McKay said, speaking up for the first time. "If we take how much it costs to make FTL drives for our own three-oh-threes and tack on fifty percent more for increased advancement, then making one of these slipstream drives would be expensive. Odds are we would've noticed if she was pumping them out like hand grenades."

This thankfully shut Rutger up as even that asshole had to admit that pumping out FTL drives wasn't something someone limited by Earth resources and economics could do easily.

"And the assassination of my predecessor and four other members of the IOA?" Rutger asked, apparently deciding to move onto something else he could metaphorically stab the prisoners with.

"All we were told was that there were five people Mayfield wanted killed and that they were connected to the same organization that Area Fifty-One was connected to. She also emphasized that any and all witnesses to the assassinations had to be killed as well." Rupert Giles replied somberly.

"And only one of you tried to get word to us about who was orchestrating these attacks?" Rutger asked, obviously of the opinion that the prisoners should've done more to fight back.

"We had no way of knowing what kind of measures Mayfield had taken in order to monitor our activities and watch for signs of defiance or rebellion." Rupert replied in defense of his teammates. "With no way of knowing how many 'lessons' she would give before issuing the final and permanent one, we chose to err on the side of caution."

"You mean you put your own lives before those of countless innocents." Rutger said in a tone that implied no excuse would be enough.

"Are you familiar with the term 'the cruel mathematics of war', Mister Rutger?" Rupert asked with impressive edge to his words. "It's where one sacrifices hundreds in one location in order to save millions in another. We chose to sacrifice the few we killed in the hopes of preventing the deaths of millions, if not billions, in the future as a result of escaping and providing aid to her enemies."

"You're assuming anything you know is worth anything." Rutger pointed out, with his opinion clearly being negative.

"We know how our enhancements work, their strengths and weakness, as well as our equipment. Given that we have accomplished numerous objectives with no sign that we improperly used either or that they were not performing precisely as our implanted memories showed, I would say that they are quite accurate," Rupert pointed out as though to a particularly dumb student. "While I suppose that Mayfield may have only given us access to inferior technology and tailored our implanted memories to match, that seems an excessive amount of subterfuge, don't you agree?"

No one could deny that, not even Rutger, so she decided to move things along.

"What about your occupation of the Indian radar station?" she asked politely and conversationally. "What can you tell us about that?"

"Mayfield wanted to be able to fly in some 'merchandise' without anyone knowing. Our orders were to seize the facility, shut it down and prevent Indian forces from reclaiming it until such time as she ordered us to pull out," Rupert replied, turning to her. "We were not told of the nuclear bomb she had flown into Srinagar or that she'd ordered one of her subordinates to activate the countdown timer. Not until she chose to show us news broadcasts of the consequences days later."

"Why did she tell you at all?" McKay asked, sounding a little curious. "I mean, why tell her… underlings… anything not mission relevant?"

"Best guess? She was taking a page out of the Emperor Palpatine playbook of turning decent people into obedient slaves," Alexander replied, sounding like it didn't bother him at all. "Coat their hands with so much blood they think they can't go back to who they used to be. Trick them into a lifetime of self-loathing so that they'll keep doing bad things just to punish themselves for getting into the mess in the first place."

Certainly sounds like something a Goa'uld would do, she thought with anger towards Athena. Note to self: begin thinking up ways to bring about a horribly painful end to the snake head without making it look like I did it on purpose.

Sure, she doubted that her superiors would care all that much in the end but it was a basic rule of conduct that lethal force was only to be used as a last resort. There'd even be some higher ups who'd likely want her taken alive so they could pump her for information about what she's been up to since Ba'al was captured. In her opinion, though, interrogation would prove pointless and letting her live just left open the possibility that she could escape in the future. When had a captured Goa'uld ever been something other than a waste of time or a potential threat?

"Didn't work, though. Still good guys here," Alexander said in a way that had her imagining a shark's smile underneath his mask. "All she did was give us a mountain of reasons to deliver some good old fashioned vengeance on her ass. Me? I'm thinking slowly lowering her into a pit of acid over the course of an hour. Draw out the pain for as long as possible."

"Believe it or not, I've got quite a few Raiden memories of what his former C.O. as a child soldier used to do when they wanted to make an example of someone," Lizzie said with a look on her face that made her take a step back in shock and fear. "It'll take a little work but I think I can make them work for us."

"Um… okay… moving right along," she said, not wanting to focus on the various forms of retribution the five prisoners could come up with. "What were your objectives at Cheyenne Mountain?"

"The mission was twofold: plant a virus in the NORAD network and then descend to Stargate Command to steal information from the database there and a few important knick-knacks," Alexander replied, causing her to look in his direction. "Fortunately for us I managed to finally get rid of Mayfield's implants so we are now officially free agents looking to help you kick her skanky ass."

"How?" she asked, wondering how they'd overcome that hurdle.

"Took me weeks and my suit longer. Basically I had S.E.C.O.N.D., the A.I. that normally regulates the suit's functions, repurpose some of the nanomachines to seek out and destroy the implants," Alexander replied, sounding like he'd accomplished something big, which he had. "Happened just before you did whatever you did to knock us all out as a matter of fact."

"You'll forgive us if we don't take your word on it," Rutget said as though he'd just heard an obvious lie.

"Whatever," Alexander said dismissively as though he couldn't be bothered to care what the IOA man had to say.

"I suggest you show me the proper respect, CRIMINAL, since my position will carry considerable weight in what happens to you and your accomplices." Rutger said with a dangerous tone to his voice.

"Respect is EARNED, Mister Rutger, and so far you haven't said or done anything to earn mine." Alexander pointed out, not phased in the slightest.

"Why you murdering piece of-!" Rutger yelled, clearly losing his temper.

"Rodney!" she exclaimed, turning to her intellectual equal.

After years of working together and travelling the same circles, the man knew what he had to do and a second later the intercom connection to the brig was terminated.

"Connection terminated. I've also put the whole intercom system into a diagnostic routine," McKay said, sounding quite pleased with himself. "It'll be at least twenty minutes before we hear his 'lovely' voice again."

"Then we've got that long to come up with a good enough reason that he can't abuse his government afforded authority to get, even with us," she said before turning to Lizzie and her friends. "Care to help?"