Taken

Glowing

She'd given her pantyhose to the cause.

Of course, they'd been run anyhow, somewhere during her kidnapping and captivity. Glinda had been grateful that the Colonel had turned to the side as she'd shucked out of them and her half-slip. With a swift movement of the rotary cutter blade, Sam had torn the nylons asunder, then wadded the slip into a ball.

They'd used the lamp cord to truss up the unconscious man's legs, and then flipped him over with a tremendous heave and secured his hands with half of the stockings. The other leg had been used to hold the slip firmly to his mouth—Glinda believed that the accoutrement was known as a 'gag'. To her it looked like the enormous man was foaming like some rabid bison—but that was certainly due to her laundry prowess, and not to any presence of disease on his part. Her unmentionables were just that white.

"You know what, Glinda?" Sam's quiet voice broke through Glinda's thoughts.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"As much as I hate to have you in this mess with me, I'm really glad that you're in this mess with me."

Glinda ducked her chin at the smile that glimmered across her features. "Well, ma'am. I'm glad I'm here, too."

"Really?" Sam began tucking things back into her pockets and Glinda's purse. "I would imagine that you would be angry that I guilted you into lunch this afternoon."

Without thinking, Glinda glanced at the watch on her wrist. "Yesterday afternoon, actually, Colonel." She held out her arm for Sam to see. "It's past midnight."

Sam grinned. "Okay, then. Yesterday. When I saw you at the mall, I couldn't resist asking you to lunch. And I'm glad that you took pity on me and accepted. I hate that you're here—but I couldn't have done any of this without you."

"I imagine that my purse has been more helpful than I have been."

To which the Colonel raised her brows. "Your purse didn't take down a man roughly the size of a Angus steer with a lamp. I'd say you're the hero, here."

"Bison." Glinda replied, without really meaning to. "I was thinking he looked more like a bison. Something about the hair and the lack of a visible neck."

The Colonel's quiet snort cheered them both.

Glinda watched as Sam adjusted the wide-hemmed shirt she wore around the bulge that was the zat gun. If she were to be strictly truthful, she'd been waiting for an opportunity to get to know the General's wife a little better. She'd been friendly, if not close, with each of the wives of the men she'd served—always having considered it part of her responsibility to put them at ease as she'd aided in the work their husbands had accomplished. In her younger years, when her silver hair had been a cheeky auburn—many a wife had been threatened by the well-mannered, efficient girl she'd been. Age-old stereotypes about secretaries and bosses abounded, and it was natural for some women to be nervous.

Glinda wasn't one to toot her own horn, but she still found herself to be quite popular among certain crowds. If only most of them weren't on oxygen.

Ah, well. Such was life. She turned back to the Colonel. "It wasn't pity."

"Mm?" Sam paused in shoving the rotary cutter back into her pocket. She looked up, a question playing across her fine features.

Glinda took a deep breath and continued. "It wasn't pity. I've been wanting to meet with you in a different setting than in the office."

"Oh?"

"I really had gone to the mall for a reason—it was Block of the Month day at the Quilter's Bee, and I needed to get my block and buy a new rotary cutter. When I saw you there, I decided that it was time for us to become better acquainted. That's why I placed myself within your field of vision." She smiled, remembering her own machinations. "Because I deduced that if you wanted to speak with me, you would. And then we could become better friends."

"So it was a plan."

Glinda had to consider for just a moment before she decided that the Colonel was teasing. "Not a plan, exactly. I consider it providential karma."

Sam laughed to herself. "Isn't that a contradiction in terms? A little mixture of metaphors?"

"Not particularly." Glinda shook her head, her silver curls glinting in the multi-hued light of the hanging lamp. "Who knows from whence all good comes? We can never presume to know the exact reasons for our blessings, nor the sequence in which they should be awarded."

The Colonel's expression turned thoughtful, then a tidge sad. She lowered her eyes and stared briefly at the carpet, and Glinda noticed how she concentrated on small movements—the deliberateness she took in adjusting the placements of things in her pockets, her preoccupation with the elastic in her waistband.

"If you don't mind my asking, Colonel." Glinda couldn't help herself. She'd always held her bosses and their families in high regard, but these two—General O'Neill and his wife—mattered to her in a way she'd never felt before. She took a step closer to Sam. "Are you all right?"

Still looking at the floor, Sam nodded. She smoothed down her blouse, her fingers hesitating just for a moment on the slight fullness at her midsection. "I will be."

Glinda's heart broke a little. She had never had the opportunity to experience that which the Colonel currently traversed. Neither had she carried the fears of the circumstance. The worry that something was wrong that couldn't be repaired. By the secretary's calculations, and having seen the initial ultrasound photos of what she still thought resembled a lima bean, the pregnancy should be in its nineteenth week. Being the thoroughly prepared woman that she was, Glinda had researched the week by week progression of fetal development. According to her friend Maryanne Badger, who had personally birthed seven children and currently awaited the arrival of grandchild number twenty-three, most people would have another sonogram at this point in order to determine gender, as well as to check on various health concerns. Glinda didn't believe that the examination had yet occurred—surely the General would have taken time off for that, but he had been in the office all day each day in the past two weeks.

So she already knew the answer before she asked her question. "Have you determined what you're expecting yet? Boy or girl?"

Sam stiffened, then shook her head. "No, not that I haven't been given the opportunity."

"Then why—" Glinda rarely left sentences unfinished, but the Colonel clarified before she could complete her question.

"Because of my age, my obstetrician wants me to be monitored more closely, but I admit to being a little stubborn about that. I'm not fond of doctors, and kind of resent being labeled 'of advanced maternal age'. So, I've been insisting that they treat me as just any other first timer. We've got the ultrasound scheduled for next week. Thursday makes twenty weeks."

"Halfway."

"Yeah. I'm kind of in shock at that. So much left to prepare." Sam's brows rose as she sighed. She nodded towards the sliding door. "But before I do anything else, we have to get out of here."

Glinda found it fascinating to observe as the Colonel gathered herself—there was such intimacy in watching the other woman seemingly discard the poignantly insecure mother-to-be and don the armor of the toughened and experienced Air Force Colonel. Even her face changed, the set of her jaw, the hard edge that took over the delicate blue of her eyes. This was Soldier Sam. The woman who had defeated more evil than had any gaggle of nuns.

"So what, pray tell, is the plan, Colonel?"

Sam took one last look at the man they'd bound and gagged. They had rolled him to the side of the door, where he still lay placid, for all intents and purposes dead to the world. The only evidence that he still lived dripped slowly from his nose. Dead men didn't continue to bleed.

"We're going to go upstairs and try to get out. Hopefully, once we get outside, we can find a car that's unlocked, or get a signal on your cell phone."

Glinda nodded, reaching out and grasping the handle of her bag. "And what if none of that is possible?"

"Well, we get out of Dodge." Sam made one last check of things before turning the light off. "There has to be a road somewhere. Maybe we can steal some shoes and just disappear. I don't want to start a war here. Ba'al has most likely hired mercenaries to protect him. It's possible that he's gotten a contingent of Jaffa from somewhere. We don't have the ability to take that on. So our best bet is just getting away and then bringing back the cavalry."

She slid the door open, and Glinda found herself gazing up at the transom window above with a great deal of apprehension. Yes, she was a Warrior. But her particular kind of warrior felt more potent with a better plan than that currently posited by the Colonel.

That no more light gleamed through the transom told her that, in all likelihood, the other occupants of the house had gone off to sleep. Or perhaps they had taken up positions around the door and were preparing to capture or shoot them immediately as she and the Colonel appeared. She felt herself pale again, and bravely resisted the urge to chew on her bottom lip.

"So, the upshot, Glinda, is that we need to move quietly, quickly, and be ready for anything."

Nodding, the secretary tried to put her war face on.

Sam reached under her blouse and palmed the zat gun, raising its eerie, snake-like head with a single tap of her finger. "Then let's go."

Stepping past their conquered captor, they ascended the staircase. They stood at the platform at the top for long, tense moments, listening, as Sam's nimble fingers tested the knob. Luckily, Glinda's seam ripper and the stylus weren't needed again, and the handle turned open in blessed silence. Sam held a finger in front of her lips as she jockeyed for position on the landing, her left shoulder flush against the door, her body protected by the dense wood.

Glinda eased in behind her as the door opened. Breath bated, teeth clamped together, she watched as, inch by inch, the room was revealed. She could see well around the uplifted zat—it was a large, farm-house kitchen. Sidling through the doorway, they emerged into the room. Moonlight flowed through large windows that stretched from wall to wall over a long array of cabinets and a set-in double basin sink. Few appliances cluttered the surface of the counter, and the Roman shades on the windows had been left tightly gathered near the wooden valances.

A refrigerator hummed directly to Glinda's right, and a long gleam in the moonlight revealed itself ultimately to be large island in the center of the room. Once her eyes adjusted to the shadowy lighting of the moon, she could see a U-shaped set of built-in cabinets, with an opening in the far right-hand wall that led to a darkened area that Glinda thought could be a dining room. In the wall to the left was a white door, gaily decorated with a sprigged curtain gathered in the middle with a jaunty ribbon. Through the square panes of glass behind the curtain, Glinda could see a patio, and further, a wide expanse of lawn limned white in the moonlight.

With a motion of her hand, Sam indicated that Glinda should stay put, then the Colonel crept off to investigate the darkened room to their right. Standing in place, Glinda regarded the room. In the daytime, the kitchen would be welcoming, and bright. The counter tops appeared to be formica—the appliances well-worn and used. Beneath her feet, she recognized linoleum rather than the more fashionable tile or wood. A dark shadow in the center of the island soon became visible as a basket full of fruits. For some reason that surprised her.

While she could understand not wanting to improve upon a previous owner's decorating, she'd never expected an alien villain to fancy pineapple.

Peering off into the dark, she caught no sign of Sam returning, so she took a cautious step forward. Drawing the purse open, she reached into the basket and withdrew some of the smaller fruits—a few apples, and a rather green pair of bananas. A single orange. These she placed carefully in the depths of her bag.

A step backward allowed her to recognize a dark shadow on the counter under the hanging cabinetry as a breadbox. She painstakingly slid the lid open and withdrew a deli bag full of bolillo rolls, which she added to the commissary in her bag. Opening a cabinet above revealed several bottles of mustard, which she eschewed, and a few cans of Vienna sausages, which she snagged and bagged. She felt not a little like either Bonnie and/or Clyde—whichever one had done the robbing and plundering while the other stood guard.

A sharp noise behind her caused her to jump, and, frantic, she closed the cupboard door and looked around, anxiously fighting to control her sudden inability to breathe properly. A glance towards the darkened passageway revealed no trace of Sam, but another sound forced her around the island and back to the doorway, ready to flee down the stairs again, until she forced herself to calm down and think.

She knew that sound—that multi-layered clunking, and that whizzing sound. She fought past the fear to correctly identify the noises. Place where she'd heard them before.

The refrigerator—its automatic icemaker. The water moving rapidly through the hoses to refill the ice machine.

She placed a hand on her heart to make certain that it still beat within her chest—that it had not jumped out and escaped on its own. Blinking rapidly, she took a series of deep breaths and was intensely grateful when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Colonel Carter appear around in the opening at the end of the cabinetry.

Sam moved silently along the linoleum floors, and Glinda watched as she made a cursory check of the shadowed items on the countertops. She lifted something out of a decorative crock near the stove, then reached for and pulled something else from what appeared to be a butcher's block closer to the bread box. Glinda felt slightly embarrassed when she realized she hadn't even thought to consider taking weapons.

Some Warrior she made. Perhaps she'd been thinking of attacking someone with the bananas. How very, very foolish of her.

But Glinda's self-recriminations went unnoticed by the Colonel, who had beckoned her from across the island, and was now heading towards the outer door. Glinda took a moment to close the panel which led down to the basement before following Sam, who had grasped the knob and was turning it.

Glinda hadn't realized her breath had caught again until she'd seen the door swing open—with the slightest hint of a squeak of its hinges. Another unlocked door. Apparently when one was the evildoer, one didn't need to protect oneself from the evildoers.

They fled out of the open door and onto the porch, then down the steps and onto the cool grass of the lawn. A lawn which blatantly lacked anything behind which to hide. Grass, nothing more than grass—a dandelion here or there, to be expected when a homeowner was bent on galactic domination. It was probably difficult to convince one's hired thugs to go down to Lowe's for the Weed and Feed.

They could see around most of the yard—at least on that side of the house. The lawn extended about a hundred feet or so, before disappearing into a line of tall trees. White fencing surrounded the outer perimeter, and outlined an area to their left that obviously had been intended for vehicle parking.

Unfortunately, no vehicles currently resided there. Sam soft-stepped through the grass on the side of the house, ducking below the lower edges of windows on that side, until she'd reached the opposite corner. Gathering the knife and whatever other tool she'd collected in the kitchen in her left hand, she readied the zat with her right hand, taking a few preparatory breaths before poking her head around the corner. After a second, longer look, the Colonel motioned Glinda over with a jerk of her head.

The coast, apparently, was clear.

"Are you comfortable with the knife?"

Glinda glared down with some suspicion at the cleaver. Wickedly sharp, it shone blue in the moonlight. She shifted her attention to the other tool. Also metal, this was a handle with a square head on one end, along which orderly rows of tiny pyramids marched up and down.

A meat tenderizer.

"Well, Colonel, I'm not certain I'm quite up to either slicing and-or dicing," She reached for the tenderizer, grasping it in a firm hand. "But I think I've already demonstrated a frightening propensity for bonking people on the head."

"That you have." The Colonel adjusted her grip on the knife, allowing it to dangle from ready fingers at her side. "There's a barn over there. I don't see any cars near, but they might be using the structure for parking. Let's go there and see what we find. I can't see any lights, so I'm hoping it's deserted—we can use it to for cover while we try to phone Jack."

"A hidey hole."

Sam's teeth flashed in the night. "Right."

Glinda exhaled, experimentally moving the meat tenderizer in her hand. Well balanced, it swung easily at her slightest movement. A worthy weapon. Eminently suitable for coshing noggins.

At Glinda's short nod, the Colonel turned and took another tactical scan around the yard. Apparently satisfied, she set off at a quick jog, her bare feet making dark indentations in the dew-silvered grass. Glinda followed, focused on keeping up—grateful that she'd never allowed herself to become completely sedentary. Although she didn't follow a strict exercise regimen, she nonetheless had always believed in keeping one's self in some form of physical fitness. She preferred karate to yoga—something about deliberately posing one's self so that one's largest muscle hovered in full view of God, His angels, and the Nation smacked of the tacky.

Feeling certain that they would not be able to traverse the lawn without being spotted, it pleased Glinda to find herself proven wrong as they reconnoitered in the eaves of the barn. The grass had petered out about a yard away from the structure, but Glinda refused to complain about the hard gravel digging into her feet.

As barns went, the structure seemed ordinary in every way, down to its reddish coloration. It sat around two hundred feet from the house, its front double doors facing the home's side. Glinda expected the Colonel to try to slip through the huge doors, but was surprised when Sam urged her to continue following along the side of the building and around to the back. There, next to a pair of doors that mirrored the ones on the front, a normal-sized entrance sat, untended, and true to form for the rest of the compound, unlocked.

Sam had already cracked the door, and stood peering into the darkness within. Holding the zat in front of her, she pushed her way inside, her back angled towards the wall. Like the excellent learner that she purported herself to be, Glinda followed, emulating the other woman's pose, one hand securing the bag to her shoulder, and the other holding the meat tenderizer aloft. She fervently prayed she wouldn't have to use it.

The barn seemed noisy after the stillness outside. The faint hum of electrical energy floated about—computer fans whirred, and other noises reminded her of the humming of refrigeration units. She'd been expecting farm equipment—perhaps some live-stock—but all that she could see were stainless steel cabinets and racks. Every shelf seemed to be full—boxes, and notebooks, and glass jars which held things that Glinda found to be unidentifiable, although they appeared to be organic. As they passed behind some racks, she averted her gaze when a floating item reminded her a little too closely of an eyeball.

From the center of the—laboratory? Glinda struggled to identify into exactly what the barn had been converted—a faint light source back-lit everything else. Rounding the bank of shelves behind which they had entered, Sam pulled up short and scanned the room. When she turned back to motion Glinda around, too, her expression had become one of violent distaste.

In the center of the barn, surrounded on all four sides by stainless steel cabinets, shelves, and counter tops, was a huge steel box. Mounted on a dais, dozens of wires snaked their way under the shelves and attached themselves at various points on the box. A glass panel in the top revealed the source of the faint, bluish glow—the box seemed to be lit from within. It seemed innocuous enough—a simple rectangle—Glinda's neatly ordered mind assigned a possible use for the item.

Whispering in the ambient light, Glinda said as much. "It looks like a deep-freeze."

But the Colonel shook her head, biting her lip, her eyes huge and worried. "It's not a freezer, Glinda."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Unfortunately, I think I do." The Colonel stepped forward, her shoulders visibly drooping. In the blue dimness, the faint bruise on her cheek where the Goa'uld had hit her seemed to capture the light from the box and glow, as well. Sam sighed and looked over to where the secretary stood, barefoot on the wooden boards of the barn floor.

Glinda glanced from it to the Colonel. "Sam?"

Colonel Carter hesitated only briefly before stating flatly, "It's a sarcophagus."