Taken

Brighter

"A sarcophagus. You mentioned that in your conversation with Ba'al."

But Sam wasn't listening, she'd stepped forward towards the device. "Oh, this isn't good."

The sarcophagus sat in the center of the room, approximately ten feet of space lay between it and the encircling furniture. The glow lit enough of the surrounding area that Glinda could see clearly as Sam walked the entire way around the box, finishing on the opposite side of Glinda from where she'd started.

"This really isn't good."

"Didn't he say that he still needed some sort of item—he was hoping to use us to induce the General to get it for him?"

Sam knelt, laying the knife down on the platform as she prodded at something on the side of the box. Glinda squinted in the dimness of the barn to see a panel of some sort, a key pad and several other buttons illuminated near the base of the contraption, just above the dais. With a metallic squeak, the panel opened to reveal an empty drawer about the size of the printer on Glinda's desk back at the office. Omnously vast, the only contents of the drawer seemed to be capped off wires and some odd bits of what looked like crystals.

"Is that where the device should be inserted?" Glinda found her natural curiosity to be somewhat more potent than her fear for some reason. Perhaps she was becoming accustomed to cloak and dagger situations.

But the Colonel had lifted her fingers to her lips, giving rapt attention to the minute details of the technology before her. Only when the secretary fell silent could she even tell that Sam was muttering behind those long fingertips. She spoke more to herself than to Glinda, her tone taking on the hurried pace of inner thoughts made audible. Taking a step closer, Glinda could just make out her words. "I thought it was theoretical. I never imagined that he'd be this far. He's got the basic components—truly all he needs is the Telchak device."

"Colonel." Glinda stepped cautiously forward, the meat tenderizer ready within her grip. Curious, although still none too certain about this device that sat so benignly in the center of this room, she stopped a yard behind Sam. "What should we do?"

Sam's voice fell silent. For long, tense moments she simply stood at the box, staring at it as if Pandora were engraved on its side. "That's a good question."

Glinda's heart fell. "Colonel Carter—what exactly does this do? From what I remember of eighth-grade Social Studies, weren't the pharaohs of Egypt buried in sarcophagi?"

Sam looked up, her eyes wide. "Yes—well. Sort of." She leaned forward and peered into the glass on the top of the box, then stood back up straight. Her face muddled through a few expressions before she found the right one, apparently, eyes narrowed, mouth a tidge askew. "How much have you learned about the Goa'uld?"

Glinda folded her arms in front of her, the meat tenderizer resting in the crook of the opposite elbow. "The General calls them snake heads and some other phrases that I will not repeat."

"Yes, well." Sam tipped her head to one side, brows high. "I know those phrases. Said a few myself, as a matter of fact."

"I'm sure when one is constantly confronted with bad behavior in some form, a little must rub off from time to time." Glinda nodded with acceptance. She'd felt the need to curse as well, when the situation warranted. Why, just the other day, she'd caught herself just as she'd begun to say, 'For crying out loud'. If that wasn't a sign that she was paying too much attention to her boss, Glinda wasn't sure what was.

She barely caught the Colonel's wry expression before Sam had whisked it away again.

"Anyhow, the sarcophagi are used by the Goa'uld to regenerate. They live within their hosts for hundreds of years, and the device helps them to be able to maintain the body's health and vitality, as well as its youth."

"So the Goa'uld don't age?"

"Well, they do, their aging just isn't on par with our own." The Colonel returned her attention to the box, and the wires within the drawer. "Telchak's device is a box that Daniel Jackson found in the jungles of Honduras. It's the basis for the Fountain of Youth mythology, but we discovered that Telchak was actually a Goa'uld, and the device possesses some rather unfortunate side effects."

"Incontinence and sexual dysfunction?" Glinda's eyes immediately shot wide. Raising her empty palm to her face, she shook her head slowly from side to side. "I'm so sorry—I can't imagine where that came from."

"On the contraindications list of every medication I've ever taken." Sam's dimples appeared with gusto. "As Jack would say, 'there's hope for you'." Sam turned back to the sarcophagus, her expression lighter. "Anyway, if a dead human with no symbiote is placed in the presence of the box, reanimation will occur."

"Reanimation." Glinda tried to imagine exactly what that entailed, but the only image that came to mind was Frankenstein's monster from the movies she'd seen as a child. "I'm assuming you're not talking about zombies."

The Colonel peered up at Glinda from beneath her over-long bangs. "I'm afraid so. Sort of."

"So this device can bring the dead back to life."

"Yes—but the person isn't brought back to normal. The reanimated dead being is reduced to his most base form—animalistic, almost."

"Evil."

Sam nodded, looking back at the drawer. "Yes. Quite evil, from what I hear. I wasn't there when they found the box the first time. Although I heard that the results were more than a little disturbing."

"Well, then, we need to make certain that the device doesn't make its way here." Glinda spread the handles of her bag and reached for the middle inner pocket, ripping open the closure with a distinct scwhipp sound. Grasping her phone, she pressed a button with her thumb, grateful that they had not depleted the battery while using it as a flashlight. She squinted at the sudden flash of brightness on the screen, focusing on the upper left corner of the display where she, thankfully, found a few bars. She showed it to the Colonel. "I can call the General. I have a signal."

Sam stood. "How much battery?"

The tiny charge icon to the right of the screen blinked on and off. Glinda felt herself deflate a bit. "Not much. Maybe enough for a single call."

Sam considered, then rounded the dais again and set off towards furthest set of shelves, poking around in the books and papers. "There might be a land line somewhere."

"I haven't seen one—and I didn't see one in the kitchen." Nonetheless, Glinda turned and headed for the opposite bank of shelving and began moving papers and objects aside in search of something useful. "And it might be another problem that we can't tell him where we are, in any case. After all, we don't know exactly where we are."

"You said rural Virginia."

"I only deduced that because of the horses."

Sam stood upright and turned to face her where she stood across the barn. "The horses?"

"On the wall in the basement room. There were dozens of pictures of horses. I noticed that many of the pictures had rosettes on them—awards given at horse shows and races. But one photograph in particular caught my attention. It was Secretariat. Secretariat was bred on a ranch in rural Virginia—in the northern part of the state, in Caroline County. Somewhere near Fredericksburg. It looked as if the photograph was original, so it is a safe assumption that it was a gift from the breeder or owner of the stallion. In which case it could be that we are near his foaling site. The racing horse community is very insular."

It appeared that the Colonel had been struck quite speechless by this pronouncement. At Sam's blank look, Glinda found herself explaining. "My father was a racing man. Loved to 'bet on the ponies', as he put it. I watched Secretariat's final race in nineteen seventy-three with him in his hospital bed after his second stroke. By then, I was already working as a typist and clerk within the Pentagon, and I was struck by the horse's name—Secretariat. The story goes that he was named by the secretary of the stable where he was foaled. So you can imagine that I felt quite a connection to the beast."

Glinda was rambling, and she knew it, but couldn't seem to stop. "So I became something of a buff. That's how I knew that this place might be in Caroline County. Like I said—the community is rather closed-off. The Goa'uld living here hasn't redecorated the place, so those photographs and paintings must have been left here by the previous owners. Perhaps an aged breeder who had no progeny to which to leave his property. Perhaps a foreclosure. One never knows." She trailed to a stop, embarrassed by her vocal meanderings.

But the Colonel had been listening intently. "So, where is Caroline County in relation to Washington DC?"

"Fifty or so miles. Maybe further, depending on exactly where in the countryside this farm is located."

"And there are dozens of backroads, hundreds of small farms."

"Yes, I would imagine so, ma'am."

"Glinda." Sam's long braid shifted from side to side as she shook her head slowly. "You are a wonder."

"I beg to disagree, Colonel." Glinda shook her head, her brows gathered towards the middle of her forehead. "We still have to be found—and with no land line, and no idea of exactly where we are, that will be a frightfully tall order."

But Sam, apparently, had already thought that eventuality through. The rapidness of her response indicated as much. "He could put a trace on the signal."

"I don't believe my phone has special signaling abilities of any sort. Don't these contrivances bounce their calls off of towers of some kind?" Glinda turned the phone towards her and regarded it with a bit more interest.

"From what I understand, since the attacks on September 11, a lot of cell phones are equipped with an emergency power pocket that is capable of calling '911' even with a low battery or if service has been disconnected. And some phones have GPS locators that will allow remote access to the phone's location." Sam pointed with the hand that had previously held the knife. "Even if we just get one call off—Jack could try to set in place a trace. We have—um—" she paused, searching for the appropriate word, "friends that could help him."

"Not to mention that ship that's currently orbiting the Earth."

Sam's brows rose. "You pay good attention, Glinda."

Glinda felt her cheeks flush with heat. "I wouldn't be much of a secretary if I didn't."

Sam nodded in agreement. As if something important had been decided, she straightened, adjusting the zat in her grip. "Well, before we deplete the battery completely—let's look around a little more. There are some doors over there—rooms, maybe—I'll check them out while you look around here for a phone. A computer with an internet connection would work, too."

Glinda slid the phone into the pocket of her skirt, watching briefly as the Colonel disappeared between two banks of cabinets. She turned back to her shelving units, moving things aside until she came to a cupboard whose doors were shut tight. With a look behind her, she determined that the Colonel was occupied on the other side of the barn, and reached out a hand to touch the smooth, steel surface of the doors. It seemed to be warmer than the other surfaces she'd been touching, and—she searched for the properly descriptive word—vibrating.

Hesitating only for the briefest of moments, she grasped the U-shaped pulls and drew the doors wide.

It took a moment for her to understand what she was viewing—but by then the gasp tickling in the back of her throat had already welled up. Dropping the tenderizer on the floor, she covered her mouth with both hands and muffled what she could of the noise she couldn't seem to completely squelch. And she felt helpless and decidedly un-warrior-like in admitting that the creatures she had found disgusted her—that the snake-like beings writhing within their individual tanks were the embodiment of every nightmare she'd ever suffered.

She forced her mouth to shut, willing her breathing to normalize. Footsteps behind her alerted her to the fact that the Colonel had heard her. Ashamed, Glinda reached down for her quasi-club, using the action to disguise the fact that her hands were shaking. When she stood again, Sam was there, and somehow, the Colonel knew that an arm around her shoulders and a slight squeeze were just what the older woman needed.

"Are you okay?" The question came out quietly, followed by another squeeze on the shoulder.

But Glinda could only nod.

"The first time I saw one, I nearly threw up." Sam simply stood there, offering quiet support. "It was our second trip through the 'Gate, and we'd just met Teal'c. He explained that he was Jaffa and then showed us his belly pouch and the symbiote just kind of popped out. I remember thinking that it was the grossest thing I'd ever seen."

In the blue light radiating from the box behind them, the symbiotes wriggled in their tanks, caressed by bubbles that rose up from the aerators in the bottoms of the glass enclosures. These, then, were the Goa'ulds. These lithe dervishes with their fins and gaping tooth-ridden mouths were the creatures that possessed the power to burrow themselves into a person and completely overpower them from within.

"I've gotten used to seeing them. Although I have to admit it's a bit disconcerting to find a whole cupboard full of them in a barn in Secretariat country."

Glinda could finally speak. Swallowing hard, she nodded at them. "What are they doing here?"

"Well." Sam shrugged slightly, her face a mask. "My guess is that they're all Ba'al clones."

"Why so many?" Her voice cracked on the question, so she steeled herself and asked it again. "What could be the purpose of making so many of them?"

Sam made an odd sound in the back of her throat—a sound so characteristic of her husband that Glinda was momentarily startled. "Goa'ulds are born with genetic memory. These symbiotes will have the memories of their creator. Also, personality is transmitted through the cloning process. My guess is that these symbiotes are being held in case one is needed for implantation."

Glinda felt her eyes fly wide open. "Not into us?"

"That may be the plan, but I doubt it. Ba'al would have done it by now, if that were his intention."

Glinda allowed that information to sink in. Swallowing again, she counted the vials—twelve. Twelve unsuspecting people could be taken over by the snakes thrashing about within this cupboard. She thanked whoever had been watching over them thus far that there weren't only ten of the monsters still swimming in the closet. She felt the weight of the meat tenderizer swinging from her hand. "Well, shouldn't we dispense with them?"

Leaning forward, the Colonel peered into the cupboard, making closer observations. "These aren't mature. They're not ready for implantation." With a final look, she reached out and grasped the door handles, easing the twin panels shut. "I think I know what the plan is for at least one of them, though."

Glinda really didn't want to ask—she wasn't sure that her ticker could handle any more shocks. But she followed anyway, as the Colonel rounded the dais in the middle of the room again and led her through the shelving units towards the door that she'd left standing ajar. She opened the heavy panel further to reveal a larger tank simmering in the center of a room about the size of the average bathroom. Inside, floating on his back within the greenish water, was a short man. Pale, and completely bare, he was heavy of body and face, with a scraggly beard and mustache. Glinda noted that his hair floated in dark, thin strands around an already balding crown. He should have been dead, submerged as he was in that tank, but Glinda had the rather disconcerting feeling that he was, instead, quite alive.

"Do you know him?"

"I do—although not this particular incarnation of him."

"Who is he?" Glinda knew that she needed to ask, although she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to know the answer.

"His name is Doctor Bill Lee. He's a scientist with the Stargate Program—he recently took over directorship of research at Area Fifty-one."

"The Area Fifty-one?"

Sam nodded. "And it appears that the Ba'al who captured us has been playing around with cloning of more than just himself."

"So this isn't actually Doctor Lee?"

"Nope. It's a clone." Sam shook her head, this time, her focus on the tank, and the floating man inside it. "Someone's mixing up a whole new batch of bad guys."

"To do what?"

But Sam's voice wasn't the next one Glinda heard. It came from behind them, and Glinda had heard it before. In the basement, as a matter of fact. Just a few hours before.

"Yes Colonel, why don't you elucidate us?"

Glinda jumped, and automatically swung about with her meat tenderizer. The tool hit a bar on a steel shelving unit, the impact reverberating up her arm and down her spine. The noise rang loudly through the barn, and from somewhere, an eerie, alien sound surrounded her, and a flash of brilliant blue flared to her right. She ducked, dropping the heavy bag to the floor and untangling her arm from the strap. Her right shoulder braced against some shelves, she stole a glimpse between some notebooks to see a little man—an eerily familiar little balding man—holding a zat out in front of him, a gleeful expression on his face.

"Colonel Carter!" That voice bellowed again in the eerie blue glow from the sarcophagus. The same voice as from the basement—but in a distinctly different body. "Colonel Carter! I have no wish to harm you!"

A quick glance behind Glinda told her that Sam had taken refuge somewhere—most likely behind the tank in which this man's corporeal twin floated. And, proving Glinda right, Sam's voice emerged from behind the greenish glow of the Doctor Lee-filled water. "Then what do you want, Bill?"

"Surely you know that I am not Doctor Lee."

Glinda heard Sam mutter something crude behind the tank. A look in that direction provided Glinda with a view of Sam, lying on her side, slowly creeping closer to the corner of the contraption, using her arm and presumably a knee for propulsion. She paused long enough to yell, "I can't call you all Ba'al. So I think I'll just stick with Bill."

Turning back towards the little bearded man, Glinda reached a hand up and adjusted the books so that they provided a steady window through which she could see. He still held the zat gun at ready, only now he was doing something odd—reaching behind him and drawing forward a bag of some sort. Black, with a drawstring top, it appeared to be inordinately heavy. With his attention so occupied, his hand lowered slightly, Glinda wished that she had the zat currently possessed by Sam. She had a clear shot. And she was just angry enough to actually take it.

And the thought truly stunned her—that she knew that she would fire the weapon. At a complete stranger with a ludicrously heavy drawstring bag. She glanced down at herself—her skirt hiked up to her thighs, bare feet dirty and still damp around the edges, her blouse mostly untucked from her waistband. Heaven only knew what her hair looked like—and she hadn't touched up her lipstick since lunch. A stubborn piece of grass clung to one toenail. For some reason, that random blade felt like a badge of honor. She wouldn't have removed that blade of grass from that toenail in that moment for all the world.

Goodness, yes, she would have pulled a trigger right then.

"So, Bill—is that the Telchak device you have there?"

"You always did think you knew everything."

Sam's voice took on a patient tone—as if she were dealing with multiple small children. As she spoke, she inched closer to the edge of the box. "One of the others cloned Doctor Lee to get access to the box, right? But you didn't know that the other two Ba'als wouldn't let you live to use it. And unfortunately, Ba'al clones aren't quite up to the standard of the Asgard quite yet. You're breaking down, and you need a fix."

"Don't presume to know the plan."

Glinda glanced behind her to see Sam creeping out from behind the tank. Crawling, she emerged warily from behind the greenish box, still hidden from the faux Doctor Lee's view, even though Glinda could see her clearly. She moved uneasily, stiff, as if injured. Glinda watched as she propped herself on one hand and then turned to sit, her back against the tank. She was breathing hard, holding herself stiffly, making only the most tentative of movements. Obviously, she'd gone down hard when the alien weapon had flashed.

"Oh, I think I'm smart enough to figure out the plan of a third generation Ba'al." Sam somehow still managed to sound strong. "You're like Gameboys. Different on the outside, but the innards are all the same."

"Your pithy Earth metaphors mean nothing to me."

"Too bad." Sam awkwardly scooted closer to the door of the room, still using the tank as cover. "It really is pretty accurate."

"Regardless." The clone had situated himself near the still-open drawer that Sam had left gaping in the sarcophagus. "It is fortunate that I have found you before the other Ba'al discovered that you were gone. I may keep you alive if you prove useful."

"I'm not going to help you turn it on, Bill."

"Not in exchange for your own life, no." His pause stretched out between them, meaningful and dense. "But what about the life of your companion?"

"She has nothing to do with this." Sam's voice became calmer—almost dangerously so. Glinda turned to see the Colonel's eyes narrow, become hard. "Miss Baldrich is completely innocent in all of this."

"Ah, but Colonel Carter." With a loud clunk, he dropped his burden into the drawer in the sarcophagus. "I wasn't referring to Miss Baldrich." Standing, he hefted the zat again, rounding the dais until he stood within a few yards of where Glinda still crouched behind the shelf. "I was referring to your other companion."

His smile exposed straight teeth, amidst a slightly crooked mustache. "The one you carry within."