I apologize that this has taken so long—this chapter gave me absolute fits! And it's horrendously long, too, but there wasn't a good place to split it that would create two equitable chapters. Sorry. . .**Sigh**
I want to thank all of you—I have been astounded by the response to this story about the Little Secretary that Could. I appreciate the time all of you have taken to read this, and the comments and reviews have been unbelievably motivating and kind. Glinda and I appreciate it!
Taken
Standstill
"It appears that you have not made much progress."
Sam's hands stilled on the Telchak device, her eyelids flickering as she stifled yet another sigh. Glinda watched her face, hidden in part by the long strands of hair still escaped from her braid. The Colonel's expression ventured from annoyed to resigned to placid before she turned and faced Ba'al.
"I'm sorry. I tried to explain to you that this would take time."
Ba'al lifted an eyebrow and glared down his aquiline nose before responding. "I believe you are aware that we are short on that particular commodity."
Sam's smile exuded courteousness without respect. "Yes. In the past half an hour you have reminded me of that several times."
"Perhaps we are concerned that you do not fully understand our sense of urgency."
The Colonel's jaw clenched twice before she answered. "I know that you want it finished now. I know that you need it sooner rather than later. I can see that you aren't well. Your brother over there is about to sweat to death. These things I can see." She turned her attention purposefully towards the foot of the now un-lit sarcophagus, where the clone of Doctor Lee had situated himself for the duration.
"There is no need for insolence."
"And there's no need to nag. I'm doing the best I can." The tightness in Sam's voice tore through the lab. "Believe me. I know what's at stake. As do you."
Glinda watched as Ba'al's gaze followed Sam's to where the Bill clone sat on a stool, arms folded over his corpulent form, his face permanently affixed in a sneer. Periodically, he produced a linen handkerchief from a pocket and mopped at his forehead and cheeks, an action that had become familiar to all assembled within the confines of the laboratory. Glinda herself had long since surmised that his prolific condensation arose chiefly from the newly cloned body's time in the cloning tank rather than from any atmospheric discomfort. Although the interior of the barn was brightly lit from above by the skylights, the high roof, time of day, and season combined to prevent the building from becoming too stifling.
She sat on the floor, her back against a cabinet. At first, the goon squad had threatened to take her back to the house and confine her in the same room from which they had previously escaped, but Sam had insisted that her husband's secretary remain in the barn with them. Judging by the tone of the Colonel's voice, the point had not been negotiable, and it apparently had not been an important enough issue to argue, because Glinda had been led to her spot and forced down without further discussion.
From her vantage point, she could see the entire laboratory. To her right, at the head of the regeneration machine, Sam had set up her borrowed laptop and had been dithering between it and the dais, where the bulky, oddly carved alien box currently sat next to the open drawer. The Colonel had thoroughly examined the device and then clicked open a panel on its side, exposing an array of multicolored crystals. At her barked orders, the men had gathered and delivered to her various items, and she'd immediately started working.
To the left sat the moist, visibly uncomfortable Goa'ulded Doctor Lee clone. The henchmen milled around, patrolling, perhaps, or merely watching. Their movements seemed to lack either rhyme or reason, except for those of Whiny Dave, who had remained closer to her than had his compadres. Glinda presumed his proximity was intended to prevent her escape, but how she was expected to attempt that particular feat remained a mystery—surrounded as she currently remained by men and aliens.
That, and her position on the floor had caused certain parts of her anatomy to lose sensation. She'd always found running to be a difficult proposition when she could feel neither her legs nor her posterior. Glancing around to make certain she had no audience, she scooched around on the floor, wiggling this way and that, trying to stay limber and ready. She closed her eyes as some feeling returned to her legs and nether regions. Pins and needles—she'd always despised that feeling of awakening limbs.
"Would you like a seat, Ma'am?"
Startled, Glinda held rigid against her urge to jerk upright. Focusing upwards, she saw Whiny Dave standing at her side, holding a small metal stool in the hand not grasping the rifle. Backless, the three-legged seat held the dubious promise of offering only slightly more support than did the floor, but still, she found herself accepting gratefully.
She stood, unfolding her lanky frame from where she'd settled in front of a bookshelf, then shuffled stiffly to one side as the guard placed the stool on the floor where she'd just been. He offered her an arm as she approached the new arrangement, which she took after the barest moment's hesitation, bracing herself on it as she lowered herself to sit. Her legs felt in turn wobbly and stiff, and his help could not have been more welcome.
Looking up at him, she found herself nodding, smiling at the young man with a frank sincerity. "Thank you, David."
He looked surprised at her graciousness, but recovered quickly, pursing his lips briefly before replying with a dismissive, "Whatever."
He jostled around a bit before leaning back against a shelving unit, and Glinda used the moment to study him. Young—no more than twenty five—he already appeared tired, somehow. His blondish hair had long since begun to thin on top, which he'd made no attempt to hide. Languid light blue eyes, blond lashes and brows, and the beginnings of a reddish five o'clock shadow made for a face that, though hardly repulsive, was not memorable, either. His was a face that would be easily overlooked—simply forgotten.
A quick look around the laboratory allowed Glinda to study the other guards. Jenkins had long since headed back to the main house, mumbling something about checking up on Phil. The four that remained in the lab ran the gamut of size and temperament. Growly was a burly man, bald and aggressive. Lean and tall, Barry seemed calm, but volatile—as if something constantly festered within him. Carl, stocky, yet healthily so, just didn't appear to be all there. His look held a vacancy, of sorts, as if all the eagerness in the world could compensate for not having yet quite grasped the meaning of things transpiring around him. The General would have verbalized some acerbic, pithy comment about a man such as Carl—most likely involving drawers lacking knives, or elevators that didn't reach the top floor. Glinda's father would have said that Carl had fallen out of the stupid tree and managed to hit every branch on his way down.
Whiny Dave, on the other hand, seemed different. Wounded, somehow, as if he'd been a lifelong outcast and still had no idea exactly why. Thin and bony, his frame did not fit the image Glinda had in her head of a mercenary. Granted, that image had been carefully nurtured during years of enjoying James Bond films. But where else was one to discover what passed for 'normal' within the ranks of paid thugs? No resource existed within Glinda's realm of knowledge where interested individuals could study up on the goings-on of such a subculture, even if one should anticipate the necessity of such an exercise. Had she known that she would be in the company of hired mercenaries within her near future, she would have schooled herself on their motivations and commonalities.
As it was, Glinda felt as if she were receiving quite a lot of on-the-job training lately. Possibly too much, should the truth be told. Perhaps upon her return to the Pentagon, she would pen a "how-to" pamphlet for those in the position to someday be kidnapped by alien life forms. Situational etiquette could be discussed, as well as various uses for items commonly found in one's pockets, or oversized bags.
But she digressed.
Henchmen on the silver screen always seemed to be physically fit and agile, taken to attiring themselves in matching uniforms—normally with zippers up the fronts. Glinda believed the garments to be called 'coveralls', and they always carried a logo embroidered on a pocket over the left pectoral.
The men assembled in the laboratory did not resemble those orbiting in the space station with Ernst Stavro Blofeld or any of the rest of the Spectre minions. And there was not a coverall in sight. Merely sturdy denim trousers, and a straight split for shirting between flannel and fleece. And in the time since the Colonel had sat herself down to work, Glinda had perused the congregation and found them observably lacking in logos.
Glinda knew for a fact that Goa'uld utilized markings in identifying their Jaffa. She'd asked about a tattoo on the forehead of the General's friend when she'd seen him in a photograph—a swarthy, virile looking character with a head roughly the size of a small planetoid. Emblazoned between his dark brows shone a gold oval containing a gilded coiled serpent. General O'Neill had explained that the Goa'uld branded Jaffa with the markings to differentiate between the varied sects and statuses.
Having recalled that bit of information, she'd performed completely non-surreptitious surveillance. None of the men around these particular aliens sported tattoos on their foreheads. Jenkins had a mark that Glinda had thought might be just such a brand, but it had turned out to be a mole. And no other characteristics served as demarcation amongst the men. They appeared, for all their bravado and muster, like ordinary men. With semi-automatic weapons.
The thought beckoned that these men might not be true believers—they might just be performing their labors for something as crass as a paycheck. However Glinda felt about their occupational choices in general, she could appreciate the significance of that discovery. If money could purchase loyalty, then that allegiance became an article of trade.
Next to her, Whiny Dave adjusted his hold on his weapon, and Glinda found herself drawn to study his hands. Long, lean, with shallow palms and knobby knuckles, his hands appeared more suited for chess playing than for weapon wielding. They were an artist's hands, or a scholar's. Or a musician's—perhaps he'd taken piano lessons as a child. His nails were clean, and neatly trimmed.
His mother had taught him well.
"What does your mother think about all this?" The question came out before Glinda could bite her tongue to stop it.
"Excuse me?" David's brows lowered, eyes narrowing in response.
"Presumably you have a mother." Glinda mentally shrugged and sallied forth. "What does she think about your working here?"
David glared at her for a full beat before turning his attention towards his weapon. Sliding a hand along its barrel, he pulled his lips in towards his teeth, simultaneously puffing out his cheeks. He looked not unlike a squirrel. A squirrel at odds with his own choice of trees.
"You will have to pardon me, young man." Glinda adjusted herself on her seat, tilting her head to and fro—the importance of keeping one's self limber had been learned well in the past hours. "I find myself in need of conversation. Old women, you know—we do tend to babble."
But still he didn't speak, merely stood there, trying to look more foreboding than confuddled. Glinda's practiced eye judged his attempt as a failure.
"So, from your silence, I'm assuming that your mother has no knowledge of your occupation, nor of the character of your employers." Glinda watched his face change—a tightening between his brows, a tilt down at the corner of his mouth. "Another assumption would be that she would be none too happy about the choices that her son is making. And although I would wish to believe that no mother would be delighted with the career of paid thug for her son, your reluctance to discuss the matter tells me that the former is more likely than the latter."
Silence stretched for a long pause, and Glinda turned her attention back to Sam, as she removed the crystals one by one from their assembly inside the Telchak box. The Colonel placed each on one a piece of paper, where she labeled it before reaching for another one. At her side, the Goa'uld waited and watched, his manner aloof even while his dark, intent eyes missed nothing.
Whiny Dave moved from foot to foot beside her, the rifle obvious in his hands—held like a life-line. After a long, deep breath, his voice emerged low, almost a whisper. "It's not like that."
Glinda pretended, for a moment, that she hadn't heard him. She kept her gaze fastened on the Colonel, on her face as it became more and more aggravated, as her expression became increasingly taut. Sitting up straight in her chair, Sam stared at her diagram, and then turned towards the computer screen. She entered some numbers, then scowled as the results appeared on the monitor. Impatiently, her fingers pushed her hair behind her ear yet again, then returned to tap a staccato beat at her lips.
The Colonel's entire body radiated frustration, from the nervous motions of her fingers, to the way her eyes had gone unnaturally bright. Her shoulders had hunched forward, her back stiff.
Glinda exhaled lightly, speaking without looking at the young man at her side. "Then what is it like?"
"It's just a job."
She did look at him, then, turning just her head to catch his eye. "You know as well as I do that's a fallacy. If you believed in your actions here, you would have fired into the bushes with Carl. Your suggestions were ridiculous—not those of a man comfortable with murder."
He blinked once, holding her gaze. Color had risen in his cheeks, making him appear even younger, more vulnerable. As if attempting to dissuade himself rather than her, he drew in a deep, deep breath, and then let it out loudly. Tapping his thumb loudly on the stock of his rifle, he shook his head. "It's just a job."
Glinda felt her left eyebrow raise. Skeptical, she bore directly into his eyes, knowing she'd touched home when he looked away, his frown profound.
With an internal smile, Glinda returned her attention to the Colonel.
Across the dais, the Goa'uld leaned over Sam again, crowding her with his body. Her elbow bumped his side as she reached for the crystals and began reinserting them into the set-up. She glared without referencing him, her motions curt, and precise.
"Have you discovered the obstruction to its functionality?"
Glinda watched as Sam fought back what would most assuredly have been a coarse retort. Eyes narrowed, she didn't so much as pause in her motions as she finally said, "Nope."
"For what reason have you replaced the crystals?"
"Just a hunch, Ba'al."
"I have previously attempted this strategy. As has my brother." The Goa'uld straightened, turning his head to look at Doctor Lee's clone. "Neither of us could gain a satisfactory reaction with this method."
"Yeah, well, my human brain needs to see what happens." She shut the compartment door and leaned awkwardly over, out of Glinda's view. With a sharp click, the sarcophagus thrummed to life, the clear window in the top of the box glowing blue once more.
For a moment, all held still, but then a strangled sound from the Colonel spoke volumes.
"I believe I told you that this strategy would fail."
"I have to do things in my own way, Ba'al." Again, she shoved her hair back behind her ear. Sitting up, Glinda watched as she suddenly pulled the elastic out of her braid and finger-combed her hair back into a pony-tail, re-braiding it deftly. Once it was secured again, she lifted the Telchak device back out and opened the compartment door again.
"Regardless, my patience is wearing thin."
Even from some distance away, Glinda could hear Sam's sigh.
"Well, if you wanted it to go faster, you could help, you know." Sam turned back to the multi-hued crystals, picking up some sort of tool with which to prod at them. Hand poised over the array, she blinked up at the Goa'uld. "We have successfully worked in conjunction before, you recall."
Ba'al's face froze, his eyes turning slightly glassy. "Do not presume to know our motivations."
"I think I know you well enough to call that one, Ba'al." She'd returned to her work, her full attention back on the task at hand. She spoke with an air of distraction, as if not really paying attention to herself. Glinda suspected the affectation to be more deliberate—as if she were trying to gather information. "It probably has something to do with the fact that you don't know what you're doing. Some glitch in the cloning process that doesn't transfer the entire memory?"
"Your insolence is ill advised, Colonel Carter."
"Oh, crap in a bucket." Sam lifted her face from the Telchak device, her fingers stilled on its innards. "If you don't mind, I'm getting a little tired of hearing that one. Can you please find some other way of expressing your dissatisfaction with my work?"
He shifted on his feet, moving closer to her, peering over her shoulder at the device and its components. "I could remind you that your life is on the line." Dropping his hand, he laid his fingertips to her braid, using it to tilt her head so he could study the bruise on her cheek. "You appear to have forgotten the perilous nature of your predicament."
Sam glared up at him for long, taut moments before forcing her lips into a hint of a grin. "Yes, well. We all can't be as smart as you, now can we?"
"Furthermore, I grow tired of your flippant manner." His fingertips skimmed the hollow of her bruised cheek. "I would believe that your precarious situation would spur you to a quicker resolution of the issue at hand."
Sam's eyes closed as the Goa'uld increased the pressure on her cheek, his digits making deep imprints into the already battered skin there.
Glinda watched as the Colonel fought against the impulse to cry out, saw her hands flex, and then flatten themselves on the desk in front of her. With a supreme effort, she turned her face away just enough that the Goa'uld's touch slipped a bit, and then she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. "I worked with this device for weeks on end. I know what it's supposed to do."
"As do we."
"What I'm trying to tell you is that it should have worked." Quiet, her voice carried, nonetheless. "Something else is happening here."
Ba'al moved out from behind her and rounded the table to examine the now-empty drawer. "Enlighten me."
Sam sat upright, arching her back in a stretch. Stifling another smart remark, she gave the alien box one more searching look before turning her face up towards the Goa'uld. "Listen—I know what's at stake here. What I'm telling you is that something's wrong with this device. Someone has been messing around with it."
"In what way?"
"Well, here, the crystal core has been tampered with. Ancients, like the Goa'uld, use crystals as circuitry."
"I am aware."
"When Selmack and I were formulating the weapons we used against the Kull warriors, they were laid out in a distinctly different pattern. It's all wonky now." She leaned forward and touched a specific piece. "And this one was reversed in direction completely."
"Does that make such a difference?"
"It could. I won't know until I can see my previous research and whatever testing Bill was doing at Area 51."
"We do not have time for that."
"It's what I need, Ba'al." She raised her hands, palms up. "I can't do anything else without Bill's help, and more information."
"You're stalling."
"No, I'm not." The Colonel shook her head. Eyes wide, chin set, she looked up at the cloned Goa'uld. For the shortest of breaths, her emotions rang clear on her bruised face—her fear, and frustration, and anger. She swallowed once, twice, before exhaling sharply. "Don't you think that I would do it if I could? I know the alternatives. I don't want to die here, in a barn. I don't want to see Miss Baldrich hurt, or anyone else. I just want to go home."
Ba'al's leer hardened, the corner of a nostril twitching upward even as his lips thinned.
"Well then," his tone was even, lethal, and cold. "Perhaps you just need a little more motivation."
-OOOOOOO-
With every step he promised himself that he'd start exercising regularly again. His chest burned, and the omnipresent cramp in his side had become so a part of his 'normal' that he'd only have started noticing it if it suddenly disappeared.
The horse trail led in a wide swoop around the property, crossing the hard-packed rut that passed for a road twice before leading back into the deep woods. Jack and Daniel had scouted ahead rather than following it exactly, mapping it mentally in case they needed to find it again. Their old habits had come back without fanfare—they found themselves communicating mostly through hand signals, and spreading out in a search pattern rather than clumping together, using peripheral vision and instinct as helps.
Halfway through yet another copse of trees, Jack found himself smiling to himself through his discomfort. Turns out all those trees on other planets weren't so alien after all. A forest was a forest was a forest—be it in Virginia, or P3C-whatever.
The second time the bridle path crossed the road and headed east, they'd hoofed along it for more than a mile before it had intersected with a more substantial gravel road. Slipping back into the cover of the woods, the three men had followed it for another mile or so before the road had dead-ended into a wide empty yard covered in gravel sitting close to a quintessential farm house.
Immediately, Jack had gone still, crouching behind a stand of thin aspen saplings, his shotgun halfway to his shoulder, the barrel resting on his bent knee. White fencing sat between him and the expansive lawn that lay just beyond the gravelled drive. The property spread out before him neat, and plain. Nothing stood out to signal anything amiss. Too perfect. Too static.
A normal farm would have some activity around—livestock, perhaps, or a dog. Children playing in the vivid green of the grass, or laundry waving on a line in the morning breeze. This property seemed bereft of anything but the house, and the outline of another structure beyond. A chill crept up the General's spine, making the fine hair at his nape rise.
A faint footstep and a familiar voice in his ear alerted him to Daniel's presence. "There wasn't a picture on the website. I can't tell you for sure that this is the house."
"Where's Ba'al?"
"Behind me." Jack could hear the faint shushing of skin on fabric as Daniel turned his head to look around. "He went down like a lead balloon—trying to catch his breath."
"Apparently Goa'ulds don't work out."
A snort signaled Daniel's assent. "Apparently, neither do Generals."
Jack left that alone, too grateful for respite to argue.
A second later, his friend spoke again. "So, what do you think?"
Jack considered for a moment. The building was a long, low ranch house, with whitewashed patios and minimal vegetation abutting it. Despite the warmth of the morning, and the height of the sun, the windows remained closed, obscured by curtains. The long drive had ended in a gravel parking area, in which no cars were stationed. The place felt off, somehow. And he'd always trusted that part of himself that told him when something felt wrong. "This has got to be it."
"Why do you say that?"
"Location fits. And look." He nodded towards the porch, where a door had just swung open.
Onto the patio stepped a man, a white bandage clearly visible on his nose, bruising rampant across his forehead and one eye. Despite his injuries, he carried a large weapon in both hands, which he raised to his shoulder, fitting the scope to his unswollen eye as he swung around, surveying the property.
Daniel hunkered down next to Jack in the stand, both men holding completely still as the guard on the porch swung his scope towards the trees behind which they hid. The shiny black barrel of the rifle panned right, then left, and then lowered as its owner squinted intently into the trees. He took another step towards the steps of the patio, only to turn back when the door opened again.
Jack watched as he conversed with someone behind the door—from his distance their voices weren't audible—finally allowing himself to breathe normally when the guard turned back into the house, the door swinging shut loudly behind him.
Daniel's tone was light. "Yeah—I'd say this is the place."
"Unless crime in the sticks is rampant enough to necessitate that kind of firepower." The General balanced his shotgun on his knee and raised a hand to scratch absently at the stubble on his jaw. Behind him, a rustling sound heralded the Goa'uld's movement, and he and Daniel both turned to see Ba'al creeping towards them.
Jack cocked an eyebrow. "Feeling better, buttercup?"
"You will, of course, excuse me. I have not been used to this sort of activity." The Goa'uld wiped at his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.
"That's obvious." Daniel exchanged a look with the General before continuing. "Plan?"
Jack turned back towards the sprawling home, taking in the situation—the distance from cover, the number of windows.
"I don't see any cameras."
"Doesn't mean there aren't any." Scowling, he reached into his shirt pocket for his scope. Sliding it open, he peered through it, and then lowered it with a growl, rubbing it on his knee.
"Broken?" Daniel pushed his glasses up on his nose.
"Dusty." He raised it again to his eye, fixing it on the main building. "Desk job, remember?"
"We can get around in the woods. People in the house couldn't see us if we were careful."
"I would not underestimate my brothers." Ba'al spoke quietly behind them. "They are both far more paranoid than am I. Yet they did not, as I remember, embrace the technology of the Tau'ri easily."
"Do you know what their defenses are?"
The Goa'uld shrugged. "I've spent no time here. I know that in the original compound, there were only guards. Situated as it was in the country, the First One relied primarily on distance and man power. Much as if he were on another world."
"So most likely no cameras." Jack's mouth turned white around the edges, his eyes narrow and frank.
"Do we want to take the risk?"
"What other choice do we have, Daniel? Wait until dark? It's only—" Jack twisted his arm and checked his watch. "Twelve hours until sundown."
The younger man's eyes widened, then narrowed, his lips tight. "So let's go. At least we can see if there are other buildings on the property—or a better way to get in."
But a commotion beyond the house had them all turning, trying to find a vantage point between the trees. Around the far end of the structure came two figures, a woman—grimy and ragged, the other a tall and lanky man. The man, a rifle strapped around his body, had the woman's arm bent up at a painful looking angle behind her back, and was shoving her towards the house. For her part, she was largely cooperating, although even across the distance it was obvious that the two were exchanging words.
Halfway along, the woman turned and yanked her arm free, yet didn't run. She stood tall, steadfast, staring at her captor, speaking vehemently. His answer was just as terse, but it didn't seem to sway the captive. They stood there staring at each other for several charged minutes, their poses, their attitudes speaking nearly as loudly as their words. After another pointed exchange, the man grabbed his detainee's arm again, thrusting it back behind her, whirling her back towards the house. With a wicked-looking lurch, he propelled her forward, around the other side of the house, and up the porch. Automatically, as if the door were wired, it gaped wide, and the two disappeared inside.
Jack lowered his scope, his fingers tight on the barrel. Behind him, Daniel shifted again, scooting while still crouched around to look the General in the face.
"Who is that, Jack?"
"I don't know the man." He slapped the scope shut and re-stowed it into his breast pocket.
"And the woman?"
Jack wiped from forehead to chin with a hand that itched to make something hurt. Finally turning to catch Daniel's eyes, he forced a swallow past the anger in his throat. "That was Miss Baldrich."
