Taken

Pinpoints

"Are you all right, Colonel?"

Glinda heard the other woman sigh, then shift again. Finally, an answer broke through the darkness. "I'm fine, Glinda. I just need to find a restroom. My eyeballs are floating. I didn't believe Vala when she told me this would happen. I used to be able to hold it longer than all the guys."

Glinda struggled not to smile, but found it to be nearly impossible. After all, they were in the dark again—it wasn't as if the Colonel could see her.

"You're laughing at me, aren't you?"

Glinda's smile dimmed slightly in surprise. "I'm not laughing, per se. I'm commiserating. It happens to the best of us, either through age or pregnancy." The corner of her mouth tweaked. "And I can't quite believe that we are sitting here talking about this while being held captive by an alien villain."

"It's okay to laugh." And blessed be—there was a note of humor in Sam's voice. "Jack's always telling me that I need to keep positive. While I'm constantly thinking about everything that can and usually does go wrong, he's telling me that it would all work out."

"And does it?"

"Work out?" Sam paused. "Usually. Some moments are tougher than others."

Glinda opened her mouth to agree, but found completely different words emerging, instead. "And will this moment work out?"

Again, the Colonel paused, and when her voice broke through the darkness again, it was earnest. "I hope so, Glinda. I really do."

"So, what do we need to do?"

"Well," Sam sighed, shifting again. "We need to get out of here."

"I take that to mean that we aren't going to sit around and wait for the cavalry." She'd never broken out of prison before. Glinda didn't know if that thought should be terrifying or thrilling.

"No, Pinky, we're not."

Glinda smiled again. The nickname conjured up images of the General—and again she determined that she would rise to the challenge. She served as administrative support for General O'Neill of Homeworld Security—and what could possibly support him more than bringing his wife home to him safe and sound?

"All right, then, Colonel." She straightened her spine and squared her wiry shoulders. "What do we need to do?"

"Can you sit up?"

"That's a good question, Colonel." Glinda rolled slightly to her left, anchoring her elbow into the deep nap of the carpeting. Bracing herself, she shifted her hip, then drew her knee up, using leverage from her other leg to sit up. She was grateful for the darkness, for she felt her skirt hike up to mid thigh—and as much as she liked and admired the Colonel, she wasn't quite sure that their relationship had progressed to that level of familiarity.

"I'm sitting. And so I suppose the answer to that question would be 'yes'." Glinda turned in the direction of where Sam was sitting—grimacing as her body protested. She had been lying in essentially the same position for several hours, at least, and ladies in her state of maturity took a little bit longer to loosen up than the younger crowd. She thanked her lucky stars for Lydia dragging her to those cursed yoga classes. Although she could have done quite happily without the Neti Pot demonstration, the stretching poses had finally come in handy. "What do you need me to do to help you?"

"Do you have a cell phone?"

"In my purse." If it was still there. Glinda closed her mouth on that thought, deciding to adopt the O'Neill Positive Thinking approach to Crisis Management. If it had worked for the General during all those years of traipsing through the galaxy—there must be some redeeming merit to it. "I need to get the strap down off my shoulder."

She shrugged and then wriggled her shoulder, shoving the large, heavy fabric purse down her arm. She'd made the bag the previous month at the meeting of her quilt guild—the Quilting Qats had sponsored a class for its members. It was larger than other bags she'd used, and tended, she'd noted with a little embarrassment, to collect things. With both hands, she grasped it, hefting it into her lap.

"Can you get to it?" The Colonel's voice exuded all manner of patience.

"I've got it on my lap. I'm trying to unzip it." But even that eluded her—the zipper merely crumpled as she yanked with both hands at the pull. She stilled, considering the situation, then shifted again in her position and put one end of the purse between her knees. Sandwiching the strap in her elbow, she pulled it taut, then opened the zipper with her bound hands. "I can't believe how difficult it is to do simple things with one's hands tied up. But there now—it's open."

"Good—now see if you can find the phone."

Glinda reached into the large bag, skimming the contents with her fingertips. The phone would be in the pocket she'd made especially for that purpose. She felt for and found the side where she'd divided the optional pocket into three sections and then sewn in hook and loop dots for closures. Smiling in personal triumph, she located it, and with a tiny zwipp of the closure, the phone came free.

"I've got it, Colonel Carter!" She held the phone aloft. She'd inadvertently pressed a button when she'd pulled it out, and the front screen lit up. In the bleak darkness that surrounded them, however, the light seemed brilliant. Glinda turned it as she would a flashlight to see the Colonel smiling at her, her expression one of understated pride.

"How's the connection?"

Glinda turned the contraption back towards herself. Her phone did not belong in the annals of high-technology. Nothing more than a basic flip phone, it had been the freebie that came with her plan. And, upon inspection, the little section on the screen that showed the strength of the signal was sadly lacking in bars. She forced herself not to slump in disappointment, fought back the completely uncharacteristic impulse to curse. She wasn't prepared to emulate that portion of the General's character quite yet.

Reminding herself to be positive, she pushed the power button, but to no avail. The message flashing on the screen said it all. Frowning, Glinda turned back towards the Colonel. "I'm sorry, Ma'am." She held the phone out. "There's no signal. Nothing at all."

"What else do you have in your purse?"

"Nothing else communicative."

"No, Glinda, I'm talking sharp objects. Something we can use to cut through these Zip ties. Fingernail clippers, maybe, or a metal nail file."

Glinda looked down at the vastness of her purse for a moment before holding the phone closer. Carefully balancing the phone in one of her bound hands, she pawed through the depths of the bag with the other, coming up with a decorative paper sack. Across the front, cheerful letters spelled out, The Quilter's Bee. "I bought this just before I saw you at the mall this afternoon."

"What is it?"

Glinda removed a thin package. Turning it, and holding the lit phone next to it, she showed it to the Colonel, who frowned. "A pizza cutter?"

"No, it's a rotary cutter. Quilters use these to cut fabric accurately." She turned it back to herself, then carefully perched the phone on the bag before bending back the paper backing of the packet and inserting a fingernail under the plastic bubble in front. With several small rips, she'd detached the plastic well enough to withdraw the object, dropping the torn paper to the floor next to her. She retrieved the phone and held both items up towards the Colonel.

Sam sat, patiently watching her, a bemused expression playing on the corner of her lips.

"I've been wanting a 60 millimeter Olfa for a while—and this one is ergonomic. The handle locks." Glinda demonstrated, pulling the handle towards her palm with her fingers, then snapping the safety lock with her thumb, exposing a wickedly shiny blade. "They're really quite sharp—much more so than a pizza cutter. My girlfriend Jo Louise has cut a dozen layers of fabric with hers. With a forty-five millimeter blade, you're limited to only six layers or so, depending on how sharp the blade is." She snapped the safety lock off and released the handle, sheathing the blade. "You can understand why this size would be so useful."

"Yes, well, you know what they say." The Colonel moved, scooching towards Glinda stink-bug style.

The secretary pushed the button the phone again, illuminating them both in its screen-light. "No, Colonel, what do they say?"

Sam grinned. "Size matters."

A crease formed between Glinda's well-plucked eye brows. "Well, of course it does. One must always take dimension into account when calculating any fit or contemplating accurate construction."

The Colonel actually snorted, shaking her head. "Oh, Pinky. Remind me to tell the General you need a raise." Sidling up next to Glinda, she pivoted around, holding her hands out behind her. "Can you cut these?"

Glinda again juggled the rotary cutter and the phone. Shining the phone onto the Colonel's hands, she studied the way the zip ties were fastened. Two of the plastic ties had been used—one on each wrist, and they were linked together creating a chain of sorts. Glinda placed the phone on the floor so that the light shone on the Colonel's hands, and then knelt, carefully exposing the blade.

"Please don't move, Colonel." With a plastic snick, she pushed the locking button. "I've never done this sort of thing before."

"You'll be fine, Glinda."

"But if you move much, your fingers might not be." She pushed the Colonel's hands down as flat onto the carpet as she could, so that the zip ties were flush with the floor.

Glinda squinted in the dim glow of the phone, lowering the cutter to the loosest of the ties. Sawing just the teeniest bit, she created a groove, then pressed down into the carpet with the blade. With a decided snap, the blade broke through the binding, and Sam's hands came free.

"Truly, Glinda." Sam drew her hands around to her front, gingerly stretching out her arms, working kinks out of her wrists. "You really do deserve that raise."

"Well, at the very least, a new blade for my cutter." Glinda handed the tool into Sam's outstretched palm. "These plastic ties will probably nick it."

Within seconds the other ties had been dispensed with. Sam stood and, using the phone as a flashlight, crossed to the door. She found a panel and flipped a switch. A lamp blazed on—a multi-bulbed affair that hung in brightly colored glass tiers in one corner. Glinda vaguely remembered having a similar lamp in an apartment she'd shared with some fellow stenography students during a wild time in the Sixties. They had stayed up late nearly every night. It was a wonder any of them had every graduated.

But, without the glaring fear she'd encountered in meeting her first alien, Glinda could now pay attention to their environs.

The room was almost barren—the single couch and the lamp, and the wild carpet beneath their feet. On either side of the couch sat twin dark wood end tables, on top of which stood matching lamps of indiscriminate make—either brass or plastic—neither stylish nor remarkable. Bare cinderblock walls and a low ceiling completed what seemed to be little more than a cement box. Glinda felt, because of the lack of a cell phone signal, that the room was most assuredly a basement.

Carefully, Glinda pushed herself to her feet. Standing now—and thankfully, less wobbly than she'd feared she'd be—she could see no windows—and just the one door, through which had previously entered the Goa'uld. The couch that the Colonel had leaned against seemed to be a holdover from a different era like the hanging light fixture—olive green with wide brown stripes.

Above the couch, however, there hanged a conglomeration of pictures. They littered the unfinished cinderblock walls—and every one of them featured horses. Dozens of them. Photographs and paintings ranging from simple charcoal sketches to large oils lavishly displayed in carved gilt frames.

What truly caught Glinda's attention were the multicolored rosettes adorning some of the pieces of art.

Glinda had quite a few of her own in the sewing studio at home. Although she'd won those awards for her textile art, and not for livestock, she recognized the implication of the clue.

She set her mouth firmly around the satisfied smile that beckoned to be released. Her deductive skills had been well honed over her many years—she felt not just a little like the character Mrs. Pollifax from her favorite series of detective novels. The rosettes cast significance not on the artwork, but on the subject.

This basement, Glinda felt certain, sat amidst horse property.

----OOOOOOO----

"Daniel, she just wouldn't leave the car." Jack stood in the parking garage, staring at the vintage Volvo. Not a doubt existed anywhere in his mind—the car belonged to his wife. He knew her license plate number. Hell, he knew the car. He and Daniel had spent only a few moments in the garage near the mall before they had found it on the bottom level, near the elevators.

"Could she have met someone else here?"

"What, like another guy?"

"Jack, don't be an ass." Daniel had reverted to the first eight years of their relationship—working as a team again must have brought it out in him.

"Vala? You said Sam hadn't showed up for their little shopping trip."

"No, like someone else."

"Daniel—my secretary is missing, too." Jack allowed his fingers to skim the pristine finish of the vehicle once before turning back to his friend. "Like I said before, it's not a coincidence."

"So what do we know?"

"That they're both gone."

"Since when?" Squinting, Daniel cocked his head to one side. "When was the last time you saw Miss Baldrich?"

"Lunch." Jack answered automatically. "She had an errand she wanted to run and warned me that she might be late back."

"And Sam?"

Jack paced to the back of the car. "I haven't heard from Sam since this morning. The only phone call I've had all day has been from Landry about some device."

"Which device?"

"That evil dead box thingy that you and Doctor Lee found in South America."

"Telchak's device?" Daniel quieted, his mouth pursed tightly. "What did he say about it?"

Jack's expression hardened. "Daniel, you're not in the loop anymore. Since you took up with the Smithsonian, you lost your clearance."

"Jack." He ran a hand through his hair, his face a study in concern. "Let me help you."

The General considered, then came close again, leaning lightly on the side of the Volvo. "Landry said that during a routine audit at Area Fifty-One, they tested it."

"Why?"

"They do it to all alien artifacts that are potentially dangerous." Jack reached up and loosened his tie with an impatient tug of a hand. "Every few months they do a battery of tests to make sure that the artifacts are still all present and accounted for."

"That's right. Since the Kinsey thing." Daniel didn't elaborate—knowing that Jack didn't need to traipse down that mimic device road again. The General hated remembering being in prison, and loathed the fact that he'd been credited with saving Kinsey's life.

"So during this routine inspection, turns out that something's wrong with the—zombie—thing at Area Fifty-one."

"Like—it's broken?"

"No, Daniel." Jack frowned, pushing himself away from the car, stepping closer to the other man. "The device at R and D in Nevada is a fake. Someone switched it out."

"And the real one?"

Jack shook his head, his frown deepening. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned back around to stare at his wife's empty car. "No one knows where it is."