VI
Sam supposed that pitting her computer skills against the unsuspecting administrator of a standard high school network was just a little bit unsporting. But then, any idiot who used a password that was directly related to his username deserved exactly what he got.
"I'm in," she told Daniel, minutes after she'd sat down at the terminal.
Daniel wandered over from his lookout position, hands in his pockets. "Remind me again what you're expecting to find from this?"
She was still scanning the list of names. "This." She indicated joneill1 with the mouse pointer.
"You're gonna look at Jack's English essays?" Daniel considered. "Actually, that's not a bad idea."
Sam smirked to herself as she discovered the password was 'Steenburgen'. "I'll email you a copy. No, I'm looking for- Oh, now that's interesting."
"What did you find?" He leaned over.
"I'm not sure. Some kind of spy program attached to his user account. Could be monitoring his email traffic, or just keeping track of when he's logged on to the system."
"Good way to get a fix on his position if you're planning to, say, break into his apartment," Daniel noted. Sam nodded, mind already on a dozen possible approaches to tackling the program. But which one was least likely to trigger a self-destruct function or send a warning back to the program's creator?
"This is gonna take some time," she warned.
"Okay." Daniel was wandering back toward the doorway when his cell phone rang. She half listened to his side of the conversation. "Hello? Oh, hey, Jack. Yeah, we're still at the school. I don't know, he's not here. Maybe. We were gonna swing by- What? Okay. Yeah. We'll be right there."
He hung up and turned back to her. "Something's going on. I don't know what. Jack wants us back at the base."
"All right." Sam made a few final keystrokes, then logged out of the system. "It's probably better if I finish this up off-campus anyway." Less chance of being interrupted by wandering teenagers. "You think we should send someone to check out Jon's apartment?" she asked.
Daniel shrugged and grimaced. "I don't know. Jack said he's probably fishing, and, well... he should know."
Yes, he should - but that was no guarantee he'd be completely honest with them. The General's non-relationship with his clone was a complicated business; Jack O'Neill had never been an open man about his private life, and technically Jon's private life was his as well. Sam bit her lip.
"He's not going to thank us if we send a couple of random airmen to tramp through his apartment," she decided.
"No. The last thing we want to do is antagonise him," Daniel agreed. The clone was probably going to be even more difficult to approach than the General himself. Sam remembered her superior's hostile reaction to his robot double, and he hadn't been too pleased about that incident with the crystal-
Okay, when you got to comparing the different ways your boss had reacted to various alien-created duplicates of him, your life was officially weird. Sam shrugged and sighed.
"I guess we just have to hope that whatever's going on here, it can wait until we've dealt with this crisis," she said.
"McKay! Keep up!" John hollered impatiently at the stumbling scientist. There were times when Rodney had to be prodded and poked into moving, but the middle of a Wraith attack wasn't usually one of them.
"Keep what up?" McKay muttered irritably, wheezing as he jogged. "Major, where are we going? Wouldn't it have been more sensible to stay in the museum?"
"The Iaeronans didn't seem to think so," Ford said.
"It is their practise to scatter when a culling begins," Teyla explained. "They believe that, just as the hraka scatter before their hunters, it is their place to run before the Wraith. The strongest and most fleet of foot survive, while those who are caught go on to feed the Cycle."
"Ah, yes, survival of the fittest." McKay grimaced. "A fine approach to biological selection. Not the most intelligent way to wage a war. No wonder these people have no scientists."
"Yeah, I guess they've bred out the 'sit at a computer and bitch at your lab assistants to bring you things' gene," John said. "McKay, come on."
With typical contrariness, McKay came to a halt instead, hands on his knees to brace himself as he leaned over. "Okay, I'm gonna hurl," he told the ground. "I knew that hraka meat was a mistake. 'It's supposed to be that dark', they say. Obviously, their natural selection policy extends to serving meals. Probably they think nothing of a few attendees keeling over at every feast. 'Oh, dear, Uncle Bob's pitched over into the second course. Never mind - praise the Cycle! Now, pass the salt, I'm going back for another helping of Russian roulette roast.' Oh, God, I'm going to die."
"The only thing wrong with the hraka meat was the fact that you had three helpings of it. I'm not surprised you can't run." John prodded him back into motion; the sound of Wraith darts overhead was still uncomfortably close, and he wanted to get as far from the Stargate as possible.
"Says the man who can eat twice his body weight in pie and still look like a famine victim. Major, if the biology department ever figured out the secret of whatever chemical reaction goes on in your digestive system, the energy crisis would be solved. We'd be able to power the entire city for a year with a bowl of sugar." McKay's diatribe was punctuated by episodes of alarming panting, and his face was turning a worrying shade of grey. Maybe he really was suffering a bad reaction to the meal. There could be any amount of toxins in the meat that the Iaeronans had built up an immunity to.
John made a decision. "Okay, Ford, Teyla, I want you to head toward those cliffs we saw and see if there are any caves or any sort of structures out there. McKay and I will stick around here and-" McKay wasted no time in dropping his gear and collapsing on the ground. John wrinkled his nose at him. "I was gonna say 'scout around for any sort of natural shelter in the woods'," he finished.
McKay looked down at his right hand, splayed in the dirt, and blinked a few times before looking up.
"Does a buried underground bunker count as natural?"
The patch of ground under his fingers began to glow with the familiar light of activated Ancient technology.
"So why have we come here?" Jamie asked. It looked like just about any other high-tech office building; the sign on the front said 'Bradleigh Biotech'.
"It's the centre of operations for a friendly little organisation involved in... research projects." The way Jon said it, Jamie suspected he wasn't talking about curing cancer.
"How do you know about this place?" he asked.
Jon grimaced. "They approached me about taking part in a little scheme of theirs. I politely declined. Took a while for them to take the hint, though, so the second time around I followed 'em home."
"Why are they interested in you?" Jamie didn't doubt that they were; whatever Jon's story was, he was no ordinary sixteen-year-old.
And he had a remarkable talent for turning his face as blank as a brick wall. "Let's just say... I saw some things a while back I'm not supposed to talk about, involving some technology that's still classified at the highest level. And it looks like these guys have got themselves a piece of that, and they're thinking they can get me to work it for them a lot easier than they can a bunch of high-profile government types who are out to arrest their asses."
"Technology like a certain glowy football thing?" Jamie guessed.
"Something like," Jon agreed, hiding Jamie's moped away in the middle of some bushes. Jamie winced at the thought of what that was doing to his paintwork.
"So what are you gonna do? Hey, put the chain on," he added. Jon shook his head.
"Rule one of espionage: it's dumb to chain your getaway vehicle to a tree. Rule two: you? Are staying right here with the bike."
"Oh, no way-"
"Ah!" Jon waved a finger in his face. "You stay." He pulled down his hat to cover more of his hair, and settled down to watch the building for a while. Jamie crouched beside him.
"What are you going to do?" he asked again.
"Get in, check out the scope of the operation and find out whether they have any more little surprises like that thing they planted in my apartment. Then get out and call in some friends to deal with the problem."
Jamie winced. "Wouldn't it be better to call in the friends first?"
"Don't want to spook 'em," Jon said. "I get these people mobilised, you can bet this place will be all squeaky clean and innocent looking before they've pulled into the parking lot. Now stay here."
Before Jamie could argue further, he had darted off toward the building. Jamie watched him locate a delivery entrance, get it open via some unclear bit of fiddling, and disappear into the shadows.
He obeyed Jon's parting instruction... for about fifteen minutes. Then he got itchy. What if something had gone wrong? Even if Jon had some kind of funky special infiltration training, a teenager in a biotech facility was going to stand out like a sore thumb. And his all-black secret agent outfit might be useful in the dead of night, but it was more like the dead of mid-afternoon. Even if that big glossy building was only a front, there was surely still some sort of activity going on inside there.
Jamie came to a decision. Maybe he would just sort of sidle over to that delivery entrance, take a quick peek inside. And if there was no sign of danger, maybe he would just go in a little further, see if there was any kind of commotion that might indicate Jon had been rumbled.
A few minutes later, he was creeping through the halls, horribly conscious of the way his sneakers squeaked on the polished flooring. Maybe this place really was a nothing but a front - it certainly seemed empty. All the hallways were incredibly samey, and he tracked the number of turnings carefully. Somehow he sensed that people on stealth infiltration missions didn't stop and ask directions.
What the hell did he think he was doing?
Jamie rounded the next corner-
-And was knocked to the floor, his squawk of dismay stifled by the hand clamped with brutal force over his mouth. He was flipped over, a knee pressed into his throat... and then released. It all happened so fast he could do nothing but stay lying dazed on the floor.
Jon's face loomed over him, displaying variations on a theme of 'pissed'. "Okay, did I not-?"
He abruptly silenced himself and Jamie too, this time with a much gentler but no less authoritative hand. The sound of footsteps approached, and the two of them backed away...
Right into the arms of two very large, very ugly looking guys. A third man, this one in a tailored suit and lilac tie, appeared between them. He had the kind of smile Jamie associated with his math teacher right before he dropped the test from hell on them. The smile of a guy who knew he was the only one in the room going to be enjoying himself anytime soon.
"Ah, Mr O'Neill," he said. "So good of you to join us." He cocked an eyebrow toward Jamie, looking more dismissive than curious. "And you've brought a little friend. How sweet."
Jon seemed totally relaxed, hands thrust into his pockets as he rocked back and forth on his heels. "Hawkins. Hi. Nice place you've got here. Love the tie, it really complements the decor. Your mom pick that out for you?"
Hawkins flashed that unpleasant smile again. "Sadly, no. Dear old mom was always one for more... practical gifts." He produced a handgun, pointing it unerringly at Jon's head.
Jon didn't even flinch. "Nice. My mom was always into needlework, herself."
"So sad, to see a person's talents constrained by gender roles," Hawkins said. "Or, for that matter, denied thanks to foolish delusions about youth." Jon narrowed his eyes. Hawkins gestured with his head, without the slightest deviation in his aim. "This way, gentlemen."
Jamie had a nasty feeling that he was in so far over his head he was about to implode from the water pressure.
"Dad!" Sam greeted her father delightedly. They'd been out of touch even longer than usual this time around; since Earth's alliance with the Tok'ra and the free Jaffa had collapsed, her father had been staying away, trying to re-establish Selmak's position in the Tok'ra hierarchy.
"Hey, Sammie." He gave her a warm but distracted smile as she and Daniel took their customary seats at the briefing room table.
It was funny, she reflected, how the image of him in his Tok'ra uniform - if you could apply that term to the hide tunics they all seemed to wear most of time - had become her default image of him, superseding the stern Air Force General she'd known him as most of her life. He might have originally agreed to become a host to Selmak to save his life, but the unlikely partnership really had been good for him.
"So, what's up, Jake?" The General asked, lounging back in his chair. "Tok'ra finally figured out they had nobody to send on all those pesky suicide missions and decided to come crawling back?"
"Actually, no." Her dad smiled wryly. "I managed to persuade the council to see the merit in bringing the SGC in on this particular mission, although there were some objections to giving you the full background."
The General narrowed his eyes. "I'll bet there were."
"Baal is up to something," her dad said simply.
"Of that we are aware." Teal'c pressed his fingertips together.
"After the disappearance of Anubis from the scene, Baal is probably the major player remaining among the System Lords," her father said. "His more powerful rivals are forming alliances and trying to hold out, but the bit players are flocking to take sides - and no Goa'uld likes to pick a side that looks like losing."
"Baal doesn't exactly have a reputation for playing well with others," the General said sardonically. His tone was always a fraction harder when he spoke about Baal, but his face betrayed nothing. Jack O'Neill was a man who would let the whole universe know it if you curtailed his fishing trip or someone took the last slice of pie, but when it came to a trifling little matter like the Goa'uld who'd repeatedly tortured him to death, he could give Teal'c lessons in inscrutability.
"Not usually, no," her father agreed. "But right now, he has the chance to pick and choose who he invites to join him... and we're a little worried about who he's been picking and choosing." He sighed slightly. "By their nature, the Goa'uld are conquerors and scavengers, not inventors. They rarely make their own technology, but some are better at making use of what they've stolen than others."
"Like Nirrti," said Sam, suppressing a shudder. He nodded.
"In some ways, the lower ranks have it even rougher than the System Lords when it comes to backstabbing and infighting. Those without territory or armies have to rely on having some skill that would make a more powerful Goa'uld want to keep them around. A couple of months ago, Baal started rounding up all of those with a reputation for working with captured technology."
Daniel leaned forward. "Isn't Baal fairly technically-minded himself? I mean, he was able to adapt and make use of the Avenger virus when we used it against him. So he must know how to program DHDs."
Her father nodded soberly. "Baal is probably the closest thing to a computer expert the Goa'uld have. He understands Ancient technology at least as well as any of our scientists do - maybe better. So if he's calling in the reinforcements, the odds are that it's not because he's found an interesting gadget and he wants to know what it does."
"They're building something for him," Sam realised.
"That's right, Sam - and that's not all. I said he was collecting Goa'uld engineers... well, he's just dismissed them all. Whatever they were working on, he doesn't need any more help to finish it."
The General scrunched up his face. "Can I just say, I love how your news always reaches us in such a timely manner."
"Isn't it possible that he's just... given up?" Daniel tried optimistically. "I mean, Goa'uld. Not really known for their unending patience."
"If the project had failed, he would not have allowed his inferiors to live to testify to it, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.
"Teal'c's right." Her father nodded "He's taking enough of a dent to his illusion of godhood from all the Jaffa defections; if he'd failed, he'd never have let them walk out of there alive. The fact that he did at all means that he's pretty confident that whatever they were working on is nothing they can replicate."
"Yeah, well, I think we can guess where he got it from." The General sat up. "He just hit a dig site on P2C-491, where SG-6 were scouting for possible Ancient technology. He took four of my men."
Her dad smiled. "Well, as it happens, I might just be able to help you get them back. I came here to ask to borrow the members of SG-1 for an infiltration mission. We have a lead on the location of his technology project. Whatever it is, we can't possibly allow it to remain in his hands; we need to find it, steal it if we can, but failing that, destroy it."
The buried panel McKay had found opened up what appeared to be the Ancient equivalent of a bomb shelter. Or perhaps they'd just felt like building underground - who knew? The hatch slid open as smoothly as their technology always did, although a cascade of dirt fell down into the chamber below.
Ford aimed his weapon down into the darkness, and waited for a tense moment to see if anything stirred. Even before they'd encountered the Wraith, the Goa'uld had taught SGC-trained personnel to be wary of assuming any place was deserted just because it had been sealed shut for a century or four. Alien nasties had a bad habit of popping up long after any decent law-abiding lifeform should have crumbled into so much dust.
This place, fortunately, didn't seem to be populated by anything but dust bunnies. Major Sheppard jumped down into it and the chamber immediately lit up - whether in response to the motion or the Major working his mojo, Ford wasn't sure. Other people had the ATA gene, but even those who came by it naturally instead of through Doctor Beckett's gene therapy often had to work hard to make use of it. The Major seemed to use his gene with as little conscious effort as any other part of his body.
The underground chamber was cylindrical, and big enough around to have fitted his grandparents' big old carved oak dinner table. There were no kind of furnishings or any features on the walls, but a couple of odds and ends were piled to one side: bowls and things. Ford assessed them with a military eye and then dismissed them, but expected McKay to give them a closer once-over in case one of them was a well-disguised technological gizmo. However, when he looked up, the scientist was still hovering on the edge of the entrance hatch, looking decidedly grey.
"Jump, McKay!" the Major called impatiently.
"The drop is not too severe," Teyla encouraged him more sympathetically. But Ford wasn't sure it was vertigo that was giving McKay a case of the wobbles. He'd previously filed the food poisoning theory under typical McKay bitching, but now he was beginning to wonder.
"Sit down on the edge and drop in," he advised. McKay managed to follow that directive at least, although it was really more of a controlled slide. Teyla took hold of his arm as he landed to stop him falling to his knees.
Sheppard raised a lazy hand and the roof closed up above them. Ford was braced for the feeling of claustrophobia, but it didn't arrive. The air was still as fresh as it had been out in the forest, and the inside of the ceiling emitted a rippling, naturalistic light that was kind of like sunshine through leaves.
"Nice," said the Major, settling back against the curved wall. He pulled a mildly startled face, and pressed his knuckles into the floor beside him. "Hey. Squishy."
Ford prodded the ground with the toe of his boot, and sure enough, it yielded under the pressure. With a whoop, he jumped up and deliberately landed on his ass. Not much of a bounce, sadly, but some pretty nice impact absorption. He grinned, and stretched out his legs.
Teyla smiled, in that way she had of looking amused without being mocking, and wandered over to examine the pottery.
"These are very old," she said, turning some sort of cup over in her hands, "but I do not think any of these things were made by the Ancestors."
"I don't think the people who relocated their flying city to a whole different galaxy were much into kiln-crafts," said Doctor McKay, the tone rather duller than usual.
"Hey, we've got mass produced synthetic fabrics, but my grandma still knits," Ford pointed out.
"Oh, of course she does," said McKay, not bothering to look up from where he was lying flat on his back with a hand draped over his eyes. He gave a few dry coughs, and Ford tossed him a water canteen.
"If the Iaeronans have scattered into the forest it may take some hours for the Wraith to depart," Teyla said. "It would be best to wait until night has fallen to emerge." Sheppard nodded, and looked up at the lighting effect on the inside roof.
"You think that thing changes with the outside light level?"
That was the kind of question McKay would normally be all over - whether trying to answer it or scathingly deriding the fact that it had been asked at all - but he didn't make any response. When Ford glanced over at him he was still slumped in the same position, and he hadn't touched the water.
Ford was beginning to get seriously worried.