Chapter 9

"The chromium concentrations in the food were pretty high, from what I can tell doctor Brennan just saved your lives." Janet was distributing antacids to the thoroughly stomach pumped and quite defeated SG-1 team. "In the long run anyway. What I don't get is how it ended up in your chicken casserole. We didn't find any traces of it in the rest of it, just the batch your servings came from."

"Yeah. That's what I wanna know", said Jack, looking steadily at Noli while dialing security. Noli was sitting on a cot dangling her feet, recovering from her own precautonary stomach pumping. She gave Jack a hurt look when the security guards arrived but went with them without complaining.

"I don't know what to think, Jack", said Daniel, looking at the floor. "I mean, she knew, but if she's behind it, then why would she say anything?"

"Maybe she took to us. Changed her mind." Jack made a theatrical gesture.

Sam rubbed her throat. "I don't know... I don't want to distrust her any more than you do, but you gotta admit where this is heading." She slumped down. "But why would she do that? Why try to poison us, and then save us?"

"Perhaps she is not the only one involved", suggested Teal'c. This scenario worried them all, but also lit a glimpse of hope that maybe their new colleague at least was the lesser of two evils.

General Hammond was deeply concerned. Doctor Brennan had contributed greatly to the work of the SGC and he had hoped she would stay on after the project with the energy reading was over. When Jack called on him and asked for an emergency hearing concerning the fact that SG-1 had just suffered attempted poisoning and possible murder, and that the scientist had something to do with it, he was shocked. There had been no indications, neither during the recrutation process nor after, that she was in any way affiliated with the NID or any other hostile organisations. None the less, the recent events clearly pointed at her and it had to be investigated. The base was locked down and he did what he could to find anything out quickly, and then held hearings with them all. After listening to the statements of the team members one by one he called them all into the briefing room.

"I know this is unorthodox, but as there is no clear evidence pointing to doctor Brennan as the one who attempted to harm you, and we've been unable to link her in any way to the NID, I've given in to a demand of hers in order to get anything out of her at all. You see, she's promptly refused to speak to anyone about this. Anyone, but this group, that is." He pushed a button on the intercom. "Show doctor Brennan in, please." The team looked at each other. She wanted to talk to them? To say what? Come up with some fantastic excuse? Did she expect to get away with this by refusing to talk to anyone but her friends? Tension was high as Noli was let into the room and took a seat.

"Doctor", said general Hammond. "Perhaps you would like to finally shed some light on what the hell is going on here."

Noli clasped her hands together in front of her and leaned on her elbows. She looked around at them, hesitantly. Finally she spoke.

"You guys are used to 'weird', right?" No one answered and she continued. "I guess you're wondering why might have been acting a little... odd. Slapping food around and such. Sneaking around the base pawing alien stuff." She glanced at Teal'c with the shadow of a smile. Teal'c unnoticably raised an eyebrow, very surprised that she should have noticed him watching her at all.

"Yes", said Jack, not in a good mood," We are. Cut to the chase, professor."

"Did you put the chromium in the food?" said Daniel to the table.

"No." She looked firmly at him.

"Then how the hell did you know about it?" said Jack. "Just admit you're some rogue NID so we can kick you out and get this over with."

Noli looked confused.

"I'm what now? No, listen." She opened her mouth and unclasped her hands and froze in that position for a second, trying to find where to start. She turned to Jack."Do you remember when I talked about how everything in the world is humming?" Jack did, but he certainly didn't understand how that could be relevant right now. Neither did Sam, Daniel or Teal'c and they were growing unpatient, but they let her continue. She looked at them to see if they understood what she was talking about. "That everything has its particular frequency, vibrating?"

Sam stared at her.

"Yeah...?"

"Well it's basically the reason I got into physics. I had to." Noli leaned on her elbows, holding up her hands to emphasize the words. She spoke slowly and precauriously. "See, when I was a kid..." Oh for crying out loud, thought Jack. Sam's brow was wrinkled with irritation but Daniel and Teal'c were listening closely. "...it took me a long time to realise, that, uh, not everyone can actually feel it." There was a pause. Noli looked around at them with a worried expression.

"What exactly are you saying, doctor?" said general Hammond. Noli sighed quietly.

"I'm saying exactly that. The chromium - I felt it." She turned to Daniel. "You haven't gotten around to x-raying that rock yet, have you?"

Daniel glanced around. "No, not really..." He'd been so busy with the scratches on the surface he hadn't thought about it.

"There's a mechanical device inside of it. The overlay is really brittle, you just have to crack it open." The faces around her grew more confused as she continued. "Teal'c. First impression. 'Hey, this guy has a new element in him.'" Sam thought back to their first encounter and how Noli had reacted to what they assumed to be his exterior. This didn't mean anything, she had learnt everything about the Jaffa within the first days here. Although, it would account for what she did the first time she saw the gate... And the rock, and the chromium. But it was crazy!

"Daniel", Noli continued, "I'm sorry, but certain kinds of plastic make me - very - restless." She gestured with her hand to point out the words. Daniel looked at her for a moment as his mind put the pieces together. In his office she had been jittery. In her own office she had been perfectly relaxed. What was different, apart from the superior lighting?

"The chair", he mumbled. His eyes widened a bit. "You switched chairs. That's all you did." Noli's eyebrows arched in confirmation. "Happy as a clam around anything organic", she said. Daniel let out a surprised chuckle. "But how- Why-" he studdered.

"Not to mention 'really?'" said Jack, definitely not convinced. Sam interjected:

"So what you're saying is that you can somehow pick up on, what, energy emissions on a nanolevel?"

Noli looked at her.

"Remember working on the material scanner, how you said that I was 'feeding frequenzies into the registry as if I knew them by heart'?"

Sam stared back. There was no deception buried in the depth of Noli's eyes, no hard shell protecting her true intentions, just the tired look of someone trying to convince her of an impossible fact.

Noli continued.

"So yeah, pretty much. I don't know how or why, but I just... feel it. On my skin."

Teal'c spoke out. "This kind of ability is unheard of in any cultures I know of."

"You do realise how this sounds", said Sam.

Noli half-closed her eyes. "Oh yeah." She straightened and put her hand on the table. "Table's pine with an two millimeter aluminum lining, it's got 18 titanium screwes - why they would use those I do not know - two in each corner and ten in the legs." She made a short pause. "And there's a quarter stuck under that one." She nodded to the end of the table indicating the tableleg underneath.

After a second of incredulous silence Sam had a thought. "Wait, you're not in direct contact with those things, how can you feel things that you're not actually touching?"

"It sort of echoes through. One thing is in contact with the other and the other is in contact with me."

"Like a sonar." Sam's natural curiosity was creeping up on her. "How far does it reach? I mean how much cohesive matter can you go through?"

"I don't know, so far the only obstacle has been time. If I had enough time and energy I could probably get through this whole building. Then again I don't know how much spare room there is in my brain for this..." They were interrupted when the table jerked, and then Jack dove up with the quarter in his hand. They all stared at each other for a second.

"X-ray rock?" said Jack.

"Yeah", answered Daniel and everyone got up and dashed for the labs.

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A/N: Wow, it took forever to get here! From now on there'll be more interesting relationship stuff and better one-liners.