XII
On moment, Jamie was lounging on his bed in the motel room, futilely trying to regain sleep. The next he was... highly confused.
There was a flare of white light, and then he guessed he must have passed out or something, because the ceiling he was looking up at now didn't belong in any motel. It was... shiny - very shiny - and... weird. Sort of like one of those ultra-modern stainless steel kitchens, only really, really, not.
He started to sit up. Into his vision loomed Jon, the two suspicious government types who'd visited the school, a big angry guy with a handgun, an even bigger guy wielding one of the stun gun things, and-
"Holy- sugared pancakes." The ability to swear like a grown-up temporarily deserted him in the face of- of...
It looked like an alien. An honest to God, straight out of The X-files, big-eyed, skinny-bodied Roswell Grey. Standing at the console of its... oh, yes, that was right, this would be its spaceship...
If he hadn't passed out before, Jamie was giving serious consideration to doing it now.
Beside him, Jon lazily climbed to his feet as if little grey men and deadly weapons were nothing to get excited about. He raised a hand in greeting. "Hey, guys." He turned to the alien. "Thor? Do we need to have another talk about that 'classified' thing...?"
The grey-haired guy with the handgun lowered it and scowled. "Yeah. About that."
Something in his voice... Jamie tore his eyes off the Grey long enough to give him a second look - and then a double take. Never mind the voice, the face. Subtract three or four decades, a few inches and some muscle...
"Is that your dad?" he blurted to Jon.
The absolutely identical expressions of disgust this prompted made for decidedly mixed signals.
"There are not enough words for 'no'," the middle-aged Doppelgänger said, with a hand gesture that was totally Jon's.
"He's... a relative," Jon explained, grimacing.
"Distant," said the older O'Neill.
"Very distant." They both nodded, and exchanged a dubious look. The duo who'd come looking for Jon at the school appeared to have relaxed, and both looked amused. The big guy... Well, he had a thing going on with his eyebrow that could mean amusement, disdain, or homicidal tendencies. It was almost easier to read the alien.
Jamie looked at the alien. Disconcertingly, it looked back, blinking slightly. It occurred to him only now that he hadn't for a heartbeat assumed it wasn't real. There were a billion subconscious cues that the cleverest tricks of computer graphics and animatronics couldn't have put out, in its movement, the texture of its skin, even the smell. Not that it did smell. But the way it didn't smell was somehow conspicuously different from the way that things on Earth didn't smell. It was unquestionably a living being, and not the product of creative human bioengineering, either.
"Who is your associate, young O'Neill?" it asked in a melodic voice.
All attention transferred to Jamie. He risked a tentative wave. "Hi."
Jon jerked a thumb at him. "This is Jamie. I..." he grimaced, "kinda kidnapped him."
Jamie opened his mouth to protest that, but the fierce scowl from the older O'Neill deterred him even though it wasn't pointed his way. "Okay," the man began, poking Jon in the shoulder.
He never got any further. At the instant of contact, both O'Neills reeled away from each other as if they'd been shocked. The adult one groaned and staggered, clutching his head, while Jon went white and folded up like a puppet with its strings cut. He hit the deck and lay sprawled, completely still.
The blonde woman ran forward to check his pulse with practised efficiency, while the guy in glasses steadied the older O'Neill. The big dude stayed out of their way, watching everybody at once - especially Jamie. He resisted the urge to put his hands up.
"He's unconscious," the woman reported, looking up. "Pulse is steady, but he's burning up."
"Jack?" Glasses-guy looked worried, but the older O'Neill waved him away.
"Ow. Static shock," he explained, shaking his hand.
"I don't think so, sir." The woman glanced across at him. "It may be that your..." her gaze flickered to Jamie... "cousin has been exposed to the same... technology you were, and it somehow caused an interaction."
Gee, that didn't sound like it was edited for his ears at all.
"Smooth, Carter." O'Neill clearly agreed with his assessment.
The alien spoke up. "I will convey him to the medical area and attempt to determine the cause of his condition." A second later, Jamie almost swallowed his tongue as Jon's prone form disappeared in a burst of white light.
"You should get checked out too, sir," Carter advised.
"Yes, Jack, after what happened yesterday..." Glasses Guy trailed off meaningfully.
O'Neill was clearly not happy about it, but acquiesced. "I'm fine," he grumbled half-heartedly.
"What of the other boy?" Mr Big asked, in a voice that matched his stature.
All eyes turned to Jamie. He tried to look non-threatening.
"Beam him back to the base until we've got time to debrief him," O'Neill decided. "Teal'c, you go with him."
Before Jamie could protest the plan, O'Neill and the other two disappeared in a similar blaze of white.
Jamie looked up at... Teal'c. Contemplated arguing. Didn't. Another flash of light, and he was suddenly standing in a hallway, surrounded by a whole lot of extremely agitated people with guns.
He couldn't help but notice the last few days of his life had developed a troubling theme.
Jamie put his hands up.
Elizabeth hid her smile inside a sip of Athosian tea. Governing a colony composed largely of scientists might make brokering the most complex international treaty seem like child's play - quite a lot like child's play, actually, given that it involved persuading stubborn, spoiled little monsters to stop pulling each others' hair and share their toys - but they were certainly a lot more fun to watch when they were excited. If Doctor Zelenka bounced up and down any harder, he'd be in danger of dislodging his own precariously balanced wiring.
"It is as I suspected," he was saying, hands working frantically as if he were accompanying himself in sign-language. "The device is some kind of scanner. It looks at internal workings with some kind of radiation that... we do not quite understand, but is very exciting."
"Is it safe?" Her people's protection always had to be her first concern. Unfortunately, considering said people were mostly either marines or the kind of research scientists who would run toward an explosion to see if they could take any interesting readings from it, she seldom got much support in that priority.
"Oh, yes. This whole room is a..." He gestured as he chewed over the right choice of words. "Scanning chamber, yes? Like... MRI room. Fully shielded."
"So it's designed to scan human beings?" she said hopefully. An Ancient medical scanner, if they could get it working, would be an incredible asset. As Rodney's fortunately non-lethal condition had proved, the Pegasus galaxy was full of hazards they simply didn't know to be on the lookout for.
"When set correctly." Radek nodded quickly. "Also, there is a secondary shield." He indicated where the panelling on the device had slid aside to reveal something like a hexagonal aquarium. "When the secondary shield is engaged, radiation is restricted to the inner chamber, so more dangerous levels can be used without damage to human - or Ancient - operators."
"So Rodney was right," Elizabeth realised. "This is a radiation test chamber as well as a medical scanner."
Radek quirked an eyebrow her way. "Rodney is usually right. This is why we do not mutiny and replace him with a more agreeable man."
Elizabeth smiled. Rodney McKay was a person who took... a certain amount of 'getting to know you' time to properly appreciate. The fact that he was, actually, at least ninety percent as brilliant as he repeatedly proclaimed himself to be was probably the only reason no coworker had yet murdered him before that time was up.
"There are failsafes to make sure the outer chamber can't be flooded with lethal radiation when it's occupied?" she checked.
"Presumably," Radek said, a word that didn't fill her with a huge amount of confidence. "But we are proceeding with caution. Thus far, I have been testing it only on vegetable matter."
The tray of 'vegetable matter' he produced, Elizabeth couldn't help noting, appeared to be a portion of the alleged bean casserole that they had been served last night. Having actually eaten her helping, she wasn't entirely sure she would want to know what results the machine produced.
He placed the tray and closed the inner chamber with practised hands, tweaking controls and adjusting settings until he was satisfied. Screens of Ancient text flowed by, with little time for her to pick up much more than the general impression of numbers. Doctor Zelenka was, it shouldn't be forgotten, sufficiently skilled at picking up languages to discuss the intricacies of alien technology in a tongue that he hadn't been born to - but it was something else that allowed him to follow the data with such ease. Mathematics was a language all its own, and those who understood it seemed to regard the symbols or words that expressed it nothing more than a mere technicality.
Satisfied, he touched one last panel and stood back. Elizabeth watched in fascination as rings of light pulsed through the crystal aquarium. Up above, a holographic image started to take shape, growing more detailed with every pass.
Then the image flickered and died, to be replaced by a blinking message in Ancient text. Elizabeth just had time to pick out the words for 'warning' and 'expands/outgrows/exceeds' when all the lights on the machine abruptly died, and the crystalline chamber popped open.
The bean casserole was now a blackened smear on the bottom of the tray. Its smell had not improved.
She exchanged a look with Radek, who gave her a small, mild shrug.
"The power settings may still require some fine-tuning," he allowed.
Seeing his clone lying unconscious in an Asgard medical pod was the weirdest out-of-body experience he'd had in a while. Jack had met his robot duplicate, been impersonated by entirely too many aliens, and even swapped bodies with Teal'c, but somehow this was even more disconcerting. An identical duplicate was easy to consider an impostor, but 'Jon' was just different enough to think of as a separate person.
Is that your dad? The innocent and obvious assumption had stung, and not just because of the age thing. He'd once had a son, who would be not a million miles away from his clone's apparent age, if-
If. Best to stay well away from that 'if', because it led to some places that were difficult to claw his way back out of.
But yeah, there was an uncomfortable paternal feeling going on there, and knowing how messed up it was to be wanting to parent yourself wasn't enough to switch it off. Add to that the usual clone-related heebie-jeebies, an absolute bitch of a headache, and the sinking feeling Thor was about to tell him something he wouldn't like, and this wasn't turning out to be the best of days.
Thor told him something he didn't like.
"O'Neill, it appears your clone's physiology has changed significantly since our last opportunity to examine it."
"That's called growing," Jack interjected. "We do it the natural way around here. Uh, no offence," he added, contemplating Thor's decidedly short stature.
Thor, much like General Hammond, had mastered the art of appearing to listen attentively to everything he said while simultaneously ignoring him completely. Jack was sure it must be one of the super secret leadership skills in the 'Generalling For Dummies' handbook that no one had gotten around to giving him yet.
"Our scans indicate that his genetic code has undergone structural alterations on a level currently impossible to achieve by human technological standards. In addition, his brainwaves have adopted a pattern similar to that manifested in you after your exposure to the Ancient database."
See, it wasn't that Jack had a problem with big words; it was just that when you strung a whole lot of them together into one big-ass technical explanation, the part of his brain that was supposed to be doing more important things - like, say, monitoring their immediate environment for things that might explode, bite, take them as hosts or assign him paperwork - objected to freeing up that much processing power. In the time it took to decode Thor's version of 'It's just like that time with the head-sucker thing' he could have done three sweeps of the room and gone for donuts.
"So it's just like that time with the... head-sucker thing?" He made appropriate hand gestures. "Well, suction it out of his brain again and send him on his merry way." With a not-so merry kick in the ass for dragging a sixteen-year-old civilian into things. Just the thought of the headache that debriefing was going to be made him grimace.
He wasn't an expert on The Faces of Thor, but this one looked entirely too apologetic for his liking.
"I am afraid, O'Neill, that in this case that will not be possible. The device you encountered previously loaded new information into your mind, but did not alter the underlying structure. The side-effects you experienced were due to your brain's lack of storage capacity, which caused existing information to be overwritten."
"Hey!" Jack frowned, and wondered whether or not he'd just been insulted.
"But this new device is affecting Jon's brain... physically?" Daniel tried to cut to the heart of Thor's explanation. See? See? Now why couldn't he do that with his own explanations? Yes, it was all very fascinating - in the lecture room - but in the field, nobody needed to hear a twenty minute treatise on the origins of ritual traditions when the words they were looking for were, "Don't touch that unless you want an arrow in your butt."
Thor nodded. "I believe the device that you describe was one of many created by the Ancients in an attempt to stave off the plague that threatened their people. It was intended to help regenerate deteriorating tissue, in order to keep those infected in a stable condition while a cure was sought."
"Okay, but Jon doesn't have the plague," Carter pointed out. "Why would it try to 'cure' him?"
Thor looked, insofar as it was possible to tell, distinctly shifty. "O'Neill, I am afraid we have not been entirely honest with you or your people."
The three members of SG-1 exchanged glances. "Well, that's always what you want to hear from your allies," Jack noted, stomach sinking.
"We did not in fact, as you put it, 'suction out' the knowledge that was downloaded into your mind. We simply prevented any further information from being imported, and repaired the mental damage that had been done."
"You mean it's all still in there?" Jack's eyes widened.
Thor tilted his head. "It is inaccessible to your conscious mind in its current format."
"Like deleting a piece of software instead of properly uninstalling it," Carter said. Jack raised an eyebrow her way for clarification. "Remember that talk about not just pressing 'delete' we had, sir?" she said, smirking. "If you just erase the executable file then the program no longer runs, but your system is still clogged up with lots of subsidiary files that no longer serve any purpose."
He turned back to Thor. "So you decided to just leave me... clogged?"
"Yes. It was judged that the removal of the information still remaining would create unnecessary risk to your mental facilities. You cannot access the information on a conscious level, and it is not causing you any harm."
Daniel had that constipation face that suggested he was about to make a thing about the 'on a conscious level' deal, so Jack hurried things along. "Okay. So how come I didn't know about this?"
Thor made an expression that Jack would have classified as raising his eyebrows if, you know, he'd had any. "It was felt that... certain elements in your government might fail to respect our warning that the information was no longer accessible."
"Ah." Yeah. Jack had to hand it to the little grey guy: wise decision. If he'd known, he would have been obligated to report it upstairs, and then... Well, the idea of the NID being after his brain was kind of funny, actually.
In an 'only because it's not actually happening' sort of a way.
"That explains why the second download progressed so much faster than the first," Carter said, in a tone that suggested she'd been wondering about that for some time. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of the contents of his brain being a subject for Carter-theorising. "But what about Jon?"
"Under normal circumstances, the healing device would have detected him to be a species distinct from the Ancients, and would have had no effect on him. However, the traces of the initial download would have been present in your clone just as they were in you. In light of that discrepancy, the device would have been likely to reach the conclusion that he was an Ancient who had suffered traumatic brain injury, and attempt to repair the perceived damage."
"So it's trying to fix his brain," Jack said.
"And yours," Daniel added. "Thor, what about Jack? He was exposed to the device too."
"Only for a second!" he said defensively.
"O'Neill's scan also showed traces of reorganisation on a molecular level, although to a much lesser degree."
Okay, that sounded like the kind of thing that was likely to give you a headache. "But there's no permanent damage, right?" Jack might not have the greatest brain in the room - although, to be honest, the combined presence of Daniel, Carter, and the Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet was weighting the scales just a tad - but that didn't mean he wasn't attached to it.
"The structural changes are very minor, and at their current stage entirely harmless, or even beneficial."
"Sweet." He was sure he'd jarred more than a few brain cells loose over the years, what with all the dying and the oxygen deprivation and the being repeatedly hit on the head with blunt objects. And sharp objects. And projectiles. And energy blasts. And, occasionally, low-flying members of his team.
"So why is Jon's condition still deteriorating, now he's been removed from the proximity of the machine?" Carter asked. Thor turned his big eyes her way.
"The healing device causes... agents... to form inside the subject's body, in a similar manner to what you would call nanotechnology. The longer the exposure to the device, the larger the population formed, and hence, the more rapid the healing process."
"So I'm gonna go the same way, just slower," Jack said grimly.
Thor hesitated. "There is also another point of concern."
"Of course there is," he said.
The Asgard seemed reluctant to continue. "I fear, O'Neill, that I may have unwittingly placed you in greater danger by bringing you and your clone into close proximity," he said finally.
"How?" Carter asked.
"A population of such agents is bound to the genetic code of the carrier, giving it a unique identity. They communicate information to each other, but not to others outside the population, unless a central signal is sent through the control device."
"But Jack and... uh, the other Jack... have the same genetic code," Daniel said.
"Yes. It is conceivable that, were the two of them in physical contact and their brainwaves synchronised, the two populations would consider them to be a single entity, and hence pool information. Should this occur, it is likely that part of the greater population would transfer into O'Neill's body to provide more even coverage."
"I touched his arm!" Jack protested. "We didn't... rub brains." He contemplated the obvious 'on a first date' joke, realised how incredibly icky that would be in context, and kept silent. Damn duplicates always complicated everything.
"Physical contact or even close proximity would be enough to cause synchronisation," Thor said. "In his current state, your clone's natural telepathic ability has been heightened."
"Whoa, whoa." Jack rewound that. "Natural... telepathic ability? Is this another of those 'inaccessible on a conscious level' dealies that you didn't get around to telling me about?"
"All humans possess it, to a greater or lesser degree," Thor said calmly. "In your people it is a vestigial talent only, rarely possible to distinguish from intuition or empathy, and strongest between close relatives."
"And you don't get much closer than a clone," Daniel said.
"Great. So those things are making him sick, he's put the mind-whammy on me and now they're gonna make me sick, and you can't help us fix it." Jack gesticulated a little wildly in Thor's direction, but the Asgard took it with his customary calm.
"I am afraid not, O'Neill."
He sighed heavily. "Okay." He waved a hand at his unconscious clone. "So... when's he going to wake up?"
His clone's eyes immediately cracked open. "I'm awake," he said, clutching the side of his head. "And I know exactly how to fix this." He swung his legs out of the medical pod, and stood up, albeit unsteadily. "I have to get to Atlantis."