Taken
Stalled
At least the Colonel seemed to be feeling better.
Although the redness on her cheek seemed to be coloring into quite a spectacular bruise, the rest of her coloring had pinked up quite nicely. Such an improvement over the greenish hue of nausea.
Of course, Glinda acknowledged that the reasons behind her recovery had been impressive as well—enough so that the whole convoy of four wheeled drive conveyances had needed to stop in their paths and wait for their captive to hurl herself—quite literally—into a stand of young oak trees. Despite her concern for her companion, Glinda had enjoyed watching the goons' discomfort at the Colonel's distress, and found herself smiling outright when Sam had formally pardoned herself with meek gentility for her —in her own words—gastrointestinal pyrotechnics.
As the Colonel had emerged from the copse, she'd wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and Glinda had keenly felt the loss of the big purse. She'd had some hard candies in the depths of it that might have helped to lessen the bitter taste in Sam's mouth.
Of course, nothing could assuage the bitterness of being caught again.
Or of being frisked.
That particular joy happened to be one that Glinda had heretofore managed to avoid in all her sixty-seven years of life. Her strict adherence to rules and laws had not necessitated even the most bland brush with the police. Even with the heightened security at the airports, she'd packed and dressed methodically enough whilst travelling to never raise the red flags of suspicion. Passing through the metal detectors, and once being given a close "wanding" had apparently been scrutiny enough for the Travel Safety Administration to trust her.
Evidently, her current status as an escaped captive didn't qualify her for the same regard.
She'd been driven back to the compound seated awkwardly sideways on the front of one of her captors vehicles. The goon squad had not re-bound her hands, but she had been thoroughly searched, and the guards had confiscated everything but the clothes on her back. Glinda felt curiously naked without her purse on her shoulder, and the sense of loss she'd felt when they had found and taken the cell phone from her pocket had been acute. The loss of those items, she'd found, mattered more to her than her current state of appearance.
Because the quick inventory she'd taken as she'd mounted the quad had been, to be perfectly honest, a little shocking. Skirt torn, shirt untucked and filthy, knees and hands caked with dirt, sans panty hose and shoes, Glinda hardly recognized herself. And she couldn't help but wonder if she didn't rather like herself this way. There was a strengthening force in one's own action—one's own empowerment. Making those decisions that she would have left to others in the past had filled her to the core with a sense of self that had been loudly absent up until now.
But she still wasn't certain how the Colonel had felt about her emerging from the hiding place behind the trunk. As of yet, Sam had not said a single word to her. They'd been ordered to sit together next to the stump for several long, tense minutes while waiting for Jenkins to come around. She'd expected to be chastised for her actions, perhaps given a whispered word of warning. What she had received, however, had been stony silence from the Colonel.
That, undeniably, had dealt the sharpest blow.
The quads made short work of the trip back to the compound. Glinda's assigned henchman, Whiny Dave, had helped her dismount with a seemingly uncharacteristic amount of care, and then grasped her shoulder and led her handily into the barn.
Stepping over the threshold, the wood floor felt soothingly smooth against her mistreated feet. Prodded on by Whiny Dave, she rounded the first row of shelving units and emerged into the laboratory created by the stainless steel units.
The box looked innocuous in the bright light of day. A glance above her revealed skylights set into the high ceiling of the barn, and the natural illumination made the eerie scene she'd escaped just hours before seem less frightening—less foreign. The metal box appeared even more like a chest freezer now, the bluish light issuing forth from its interior diluted in the more yellow light of the morning sun. Glinda stared at it apprehensively, pausing in her steps, until Dave prodded her with a finger to her scapula. Ripping her attention from the sarcophagus, she stepped towards the dais, and then moved past it and around, to the opposite side of the lab.
Directly across from her sat a tall unit, its doors shut tight. Even in the bright light of day, however, the faint hum and unearthly glow of that particular cabinet made her stomach churn. Glinda knew what squirmed behind those doors; what lithe, glistening bodies swam in their individual jars within. And in the far back reaches of her mind, she allowed the thought to germinate.
Were the symbiotes part of the plan now? Now that she and Sam had shown themselves to be decidedly uncooperative, would this be their punishment?
Involuntarily, she shivered, stamping down the fear that arose with that thought.
A familiar blond head in transit behind the cabinet caught her eye, and she followed it behind the steel shelving until Sam emerged in the space between the units. Growly, the Colonel's handler, shoved her roughly towards the dais, his rifle casting an ominous ebony reflection in the smooth steel of the cabinetry.
"I'm telling you." The Colonel drew herself upright and turned towards the guard, her back to the sarcophagus. "I don't know how to meld the two technologies. It's not like simply rigging a suit return hose to pull air through LEM space module canister sockets stocked with CM cubes."
Glinda watched as the men exchanged glances, fighting an odd sense of bemusement. Behind her, Whiny Dave shifted from foot to foot, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Carl and Barry shrug at each other.
Sam groaned, rolling her eyes. "Come on, you guys. Haven't any of you seen the movie?"
Glinda bit back a smile, dropping her chin to the floor. She knew precisely to what the Colonel referred. But then, she'd also been asked once to transcribe portions of the command staff dust-up. That sort of thing tended to stick with you.
Barry frowned. "We don't watch much sci-fi."
"It's not sci-fi." Sam's sigh said volumes. "It's in Apollo Thirteen. But then, some of us also read the actual mission reports."
Making the sound for which he had been named, Growly pointed toward the box with the barrel of his rifle. "We're not talking about movies, here, Colonel. We're talking about the sarcophagus."
"That's what I was trying to explain. The technologies aren't compatible." She turned and stepped over a grouping of wires, gesturing at the now-closed panel on the side of the box. "This sarcophagus is Earth technology. The Telchak device is Ancient in origin. The two just can't be plugged into each other. It's like a Chihuahua and a Great Dane. They just don't quite fit. Think square peg, round hole."
"And yet you managed to produce a weapon from the Telchak device that would defeat my Kull warriors."
The voice came from behind them, and Glinda turned to see a man enter the barn from the front entrance. Sickeningly familiar, with his elegant dress and well-groomed beard, his expression reeked of condescension, and his manner of impatience.
Glinda's gaze flitted to Sam just in time to see her frown, her top teeth worrying at her bottom lip.
"So you see, Colonel." The Goa'uld made his way into the laboratory casually, deliberately. "I should warn you that your capabilities have long since been found out."
"Ba'al."
"Colonel Carter." He stopped a few feet from her, teeth bared into a veneer of a smile. "Again. Such a delight."
Sam's answering smile didn't reach her eyes. "If seeing us recaptured gives you such joy, we could always escape again. Double the pleasure."
His dark eyes gleamed as he surveyed the scene before giving a casual shake of his head. "I hardly think that is necessary. It's much more gratifying having you here, where your cogitative abilities can be of use to me."
Sam regarded him lengthily, her blue eyes hard. "Where's the other clone?"
"Which one?"
"The one that you plugged into Doctor Lee."
"Ah—my not-so-identical twin." Ba'al's gaze flickered to a point behind Glinda, to the closed doors on the other side of the barn. "He will be joining us shortly. After his last encounter with you, he is something of a new man."
"So you put him into the spare clone?" Sam paused, her posture evaluative. "And where is the real Doctor Lee?"
This time, the answer came even more quickly. "Nowhere you need to be concerned about."
"I tend to disagree with that." The Colonel looked down at the sarcophagus and touched it lightly with her fingertips. "He's a friend."
"And at the moment, he is a pawn." Conversational, the Goa'uld's tone also betrayed his contempt. "Surely you can understand that."
"What I understand about this situation is that you took us in order to hold us in exchange for the Telchak device. Another clone has brought that to you—a clone that you engineered expressly for that purpose, I might add." With her fingertips, Sam combed the hair that had come loose from her braid back behind her ear. "You no longer need us for ransom—so let us go."
"Your skills are still required."
"For what, exactly?"
"As a means to an end."
Sam thought about that for a minute before answering, her voice low. "I won't help you infest our planet with Goa'ulds."
"Ah, I see." Ba'al raised a hand and fidgeted with the button on the wristband of his sleeve. "But we have no desire to infest the Earth with our kind. Some might say that there are too many of us to begin with."
"Then what's with the jars in that cabinet?"
Ba'al's brows rose. "So you have seen the nursery."
"I did some looking around."
Ba'al walked to the cabinet, stepping in a practiced manner around the wires strewn upon the floor. Touching the closed doors with a palm, he hesitated briefly before turning back to face the Colonel. "Let us just say that they provide me with a bit of insurance."
Glinda watched as Sam cocked her head to one side, her braid sliding onto her shoulder. The Colonel and the Goa'uld stood mere feet apart—she at the sarcophagus and he next to the incubator cabinet. It seemed that they rested in a stand-off—both powerful personages, both vehement in their beliefs. Around the laboratory, Glinda watched the men as they tensed, preparing for whatever confrontation seemed eminent. Straightening, she searched around her for an exit, or a place to hide. Or for something that could be used as a weapon.
But the room seemed devoid of anything with which she could inflict damage. Books, papers, a few computer terminals that appeared as if they would be unwieldy in battle. At her feet, wires protruding out from the bottom of the sarcophagus lay taped on the floor—and a fleeting image of the Colonel wrapping a measuring tape around her hands as a garrote caused Glinda to wonder how much force it would take to loosen the electrical cords, and further, how much determination it would take for her to use them.
And bleakly, Glinda wondered if it was even worth it to try.
She faltered a bit, suddenly tired. Flexing her hands experimentally, she found that her muscles were losing their potency, that the exertions she'd made in the past twenty-four hours had compounded and sapped her strength. Lack of sleep, lack of nourishment, lack of a sense of security all combined to make her feel older than her sixty-seven years. Older than she'd ever felt before in all her life.
Sam's voice broke through Glinda's exhaustion, and she found herself rousing enough to refocus on the Colonel. "Insurance? Against what?"
"Against your refusal to lend your skills to our endeavor."
"To create the sarcophagus."
"I have already created it." Ba'al's voice suddenly rose, his tone angry. "I am a God, after all. I possess all knowledge."
"Apparently not." Sam took a step backwards and around the far end of the box, indicating it with an open palm. "If you need me to finish it for you."
With a suddenness that Glinda found slightly unnerving, the Goa'uld's eyes flashed golden. His face changed, his jaw tightening. Moving away from the cabinet, he took a few steps to the opposite side of the lab, stopping near the end of the device. "My reasons for your participation are my own. Suffice it to say, dear Colonel Carter, that you will offer your services to this endeavor. Might I remind you that more is at stake than just your own life?"
Finally, Sam raised her head towards Glinda. For a painful moment, their eyes met, and the secretary saw what her companion had been hiding. Worry. Concern. Fear.
The expressions were gone from the Colonel's face as soon as they'd arrived, and Glinda took care not to acknowledge she'd seen anything at all. She lowered her face to stare at the floor.
"Ba'al, I'm tired." Sam placed both hands on the box, leaning slightly. "Really tired. All I want is to take my people and go home."
"Your condition is of concern to me, Colonel." The Goa'uld folded his arms in front of his chest. "After all, your efforts may be compromised by your lack of energy."
"So let me get some rest, and talk to Bill. Get some ideas. Then I'll help you however I can."
Glinda had never before heard a laugh comprised of so little humor. But the Goa'uld's chuckle seemed infused with something beyond evil—something devoid, even, of humanity.
"I could suggest another means." Still smiling, Ba'al took long, purposeful strides towards the cabinet again. Without looking away from Sam, he reached out and popped open a door, revealing the Goa'uld larvae writhing within. "Their recuperative powers are quite extraordinary. You would feel refreshed in a heartbeat."
Glinda didn't think that any of the other people in the barn would have recognized the subtle shift in the Colonel's stance—nor the nearly imperceptible twitch in her jaw. For all of her bravado, the mere thought of being invaded by one of those beings created a fair amount of anxiety within Sam Carter. But her face radiated a certain calm—an attitude of careless acceptance. She gathered herself and shrugged, turning to face the Goa'uld.
"Listen, Ba'al. I'm not trying to be difficult. No implantation will be necessary. I just want to make sure that my people are taken care of."
"Your people."
"Yes—Bill, and Miss Baldrich."
"Of course—Miss Baldrich." The Goa'uld sneered the name more than said it. His attention turned to where Glinda stood beside Whiny Dave.
At the sound of her name, Glinda peeped up at the lab, at the two strongest figures within it. Like the Colonel, she found herself standing up straighter under the scrutiny of the alien. Stepping ever closer to the dais, his eyes raked her grimy figure. "Miss Baldrich. She who would challenge a God."
"I've done nothing untoward." Glinda gathered her courage around her and met him straight in his strange, disturbing eyes. Her voice gained strength as she spoke again. "At least, not against Him whom I worship."
"And yet you have challenged me. You have injured some of my guards, and aided in the escape of another of my hostages."
"I have fought against you," Oddly, Glinda found herself smiling. "But you are mistaken if you consider yourself to be deity."
"It is nothing but a difference in definitions."
"That's where you are wrong, sir." Glinda shook her head, and was further fortified when yet another leaf dislodged itself from her hair and drifted down to the floor. It seemed like kismet—as if she'd calculated the move to draw attention to her hours spent away from him and his guards. She felt supremely gratified when the Goa'uld's gaze followed the leaf until it disappeared behind the sarcophagus. When his attention returned to her face, she tilted a brow with a cockiness she was starting to feel again. "It's a difference in ability. My deity possesses some that you clearly lack."
"Such as?"
"Would you like a list?" Beside her, Whiny Dave shifted, giving her a surreptitious elbow in her ribs. A signal? Glinda wasn't certain. She glanced at him from beneath her lashes, then returned her attention to the Goa'uld. "But perhaps not. I wouldn't want to show any disrespect—however appropriate it might be."
Ba'al opened his mouth to answer her, but another voice made its way into the lab from behind her. "Brother."
All eyes seemed to turn towards the new voice. He emerged from the room in which had lain the tank of greenish water, looking somewhat—Glinda searched for the right word—moist. His face and hands—all the skin that was visible above his clothing—seemed puffy. Glinda concluded the distortion probably resulted from the body's time floating in the green liquid environment of the incubation tank. It was eerie—seeing the two cloned Goa'ulds, so different in appearance, yet with such similar mannerisms. Now that Glinda had observed them both, she caught the parallels in their walk, the likeness in the way they held themselves. The Doctor Lee clone held himself in the same arrogant manner as his brother, although the difference in their body types made it seem odd that he should do so.
"You." The original Goa'uld clone watched as his comrade made his way around the outer perimeter of the lab and entered through an opening on one end. "I see the melding went as planned."
"As well as could be expected." He lifted a wrist and adjusted his shirt sleeve in a move so reminiscent of his counterpart's that it was chilling. "Although awakening into this host yet again was indeed discouraging."
"It was the only option."
"I beg to disagree."
"Of course you would." Ba'al sighed, tweaking one eyebrow aloft. "But then, that is what caused our rift in the first place."
The Bill clone stopped at the foot of the sarcophagus, glaring at Sam with undisguised anathema. "And then you brought this one here. And her friend. And then you were so pathetically irresponsible as to leave them unguarded."
"Bygones, brother. It means nothing, now that they are with us again." Ba'al shrugged. "And there were perks to their escape."
"Such as?" The cloned Bill's round face exuded skepticism.
"They did manage to rid me of you—however briefly."
"Enough!" His bald head shining in the light streaming in from above, the Bill clone held out a hand to the assembled throng. "Enough. We have wasted too much time. This device must be completed. Our opportunity lessens by the hour."
"What, do you have an expiration date?" The Colonel interrupted them with a terse tone. "If so, I vote that we wait it out and see what happens."
The Bill clone rounded the box, jostling past his brother as he made his way to where Sam stood. "You try my patience."
"Yes." Sam nodded, her hair haloed in the light from above. "I do."
Inches shorter than the Colonel, he seemed impressive anyway, barrel-chested and superior. Lifting a pale, doughy hand, he gripped her face between his fingers, turning it with a sharp yank to the left. He examined her bruised cheek with a leer. "I see you have been injured."
"It's nothing." Sam pulled her face free, looking at him down the length of her nose. "You've had worse."
The corner of the clone's mouth twitched. "And so will you. If you do not cooperate."
"I already told the other one." Quiet, dulcet, Sam's voice carried, nonetheless. "I will take no part in your scheme. Whatever it is."
"Maybe not to save yourself."
Sam's back straightened, but she remained stubbornly silent.
"Do not mistake my meaning." The stout body turned, and all of his venom found its way towards Glinda—his narrowed eyes making no mistake as to his target. "You are not the only one at stake in this endeavor."
And there it was. The threat Sam had known would happen. Glinda knew that she stiffened, knew that she hadn't been able to completely swallow the small sound at the back of her throat. Whiny Dave shifted next to her, seemingly uncomfortable. He cradled his rifle in his arms, as one would a security blanket, rather than a weapon.
"If you harm them, then I won't help you." Sam looked first at the Doctor Lee clone, and then back at Ba'al.
"And if you do not complete the device, then you will all die. You will be of no use to me then." Doctor Lee's twin sidled closer to her. "I believe I already made myself plain. I have an anxious desire to avail myself of the cells you carry within your body." His hand lifted to her elbow, sliding up her arm to cup her bicep. "And I can think of no more expedient method of acquiring those cells than making you one with us."
Glinda watched as Sam's hand flexed, and then curled, at her side. She knew that tension, had seen that anger unfurl from inside the Colonel before.
And the Colonel's next utterance displayed it in the utter loathing contained within a single word. "Implantation."
"You are aware of what happens to the child when the Goa'uld awakens?"
"I am."
"And you would not want your child to be born still."
With frightening rapidness, Sam's fist came up, targeting the Goa'uld's head. Contrary to his sedentary appearance, his own hand flashed out and grasped her wrist, twisting it back towards her own body.
"Do you really wish to start this, Colonel?" Spittle formed at the corners of the clone's lips. "I assure you, Taur'i, you will lose."
Sam's throat worked as she swallowed, her lips tight. As the Goa'uld continued to stare at her, she shook her head—once—her movement stiff. The Goa'ulded Doctor Lee lowered her hand, finally releasing it near her hip.
"I assure you. We are in earnest. I would not wish to kill you for your insolence. Just as you would not wish to merely stand by as your friends—Miss Baldrich here, and Doctor Lee in his cell—are sacrificed on the altar of your stubbornness." More a statement than a question, the pudgy, balding Goa'uld's words pierced not only their intended recipient, but Glinda, as well.
Sam stood completely still for a long, long time. Glinda could see her profile—the bruised side of her face, the haphazard braid as it lay down her back, her fine nose, and the puffiness surrounding her eye. She too, stood covered with dirt—leaves, and mud, and the blood dried brown over the bandage's thickness at her knee.
And somehow, amidst this all, what seemed most obvious was the fullness of Sam's abdomen—the swell of the child therein. The hand that had been curled into a fist a few moments before now raised and curled protectively around that life.
Raising her head, she sought something from above—absolution? Permission? Guidance? But evidently, whatever she needed wasn't forthcoming. Glinda knew to her core that the Colonel needed some sort of shove. Taking a teeny look at Whiny Dave, she licked her parched lips and spoke—a single word meant to contain volumes. "Sam."
And had the Colonel understood? She turned, her face raw, eyes wide, a flush on the unbruised cheek. Their eyes met and locked, and Glinda forced her meaning across the void. Too far—they had come too far to give up now. To sit by and not try to preserve this most innocent of life. Glinda tilted her head to one side, and fought to see through the exhaustion that veiled her eyes. Sam's brows sank in towards each other in question, and Glinda found herself nodding—slowly, intently. Readily.
With an angry exhalation, Sam turned to face the two Goa'ulds, her shoulders squared.
Ba'al raised his brows, the corners of his mouth edging slightly upward. His every motion screamed victory. "Yes, Colonel Carter?"
And Glinda could practically taste the enmity that dripped from Sam's words as she whispered her answer. "I'll need a computer."
