Taken

Commencement

She waited for the footsteps to fade on the stairs before stirring from where he'd unceremoniously planted her.

She counted to two hundred, slowly—remembering to add the hippopotami, just as he'd told her. And then she waited for several breathless moments before jiggling the zip-tie on her wrists free and dropping it to the floor. Even then she lingered, listening to the daunting silence around her some more, searching for any hint that someone lurked outside the door, or on the staircase beyond the room.

At least it wasn't dark this time.

After he'd ushered Doctor Lee out of the basement room, Whiny Dave had shoved Glinda in—perhaps with more vigor than he would have otherwise. But Phil stood just across the hallway glaring at her, his face haphazardly covered in bandages, and his finger ready on the trigger of his rifle. Expedience and prudence both dictated that the sooner Glinda escaped his field of vision, the better. Especially since she'd been the one to narrow that field down to just the one unswollen eye. So Dave had pretended to tighten the plastic fastener around her wrists and then forced her to a seated position on the cot within the cell. Whispering his instructions, he'd turned and exited. The door had clicked shut behind him, and he'd fiddled loudly with the knob on the outside of the door, ostensibly going through the motions of locking it.

Hopefully, his efforts at subterfuge would pay off.

She'd spent part of her counting allotment studying the room around her. Cot, currently rumpled and unmade. Chair—tilted at an odd angle—it appeared to be broken. A small desk on which sat a singularly ugly lamp. Over her head dangled a square glass lighting fixture in which three of the four bulbs were burned out. No window, no phone, no dresser—no other comforts or amenities. And the place smelled gamily of what she gradually came to identify as 'Eau de Captive Scientist'.

Wrinkling her nose, Glinda had folded her hands in her lap and worked her way through the first hundred and started on the second. She'd finished her final 'hippopotamus' while staring at what looked to be a dead cockroach directly below the fixture's single working lamp.

Some things were better in the dark, she decided.

She stood and was grateful no one else loomed near to see how wobbly her limbs were. Taking a shuffling step forwards, Glinda braced herself on the desk until her legs controlled themselves, and then she drew herself upright again. With a thoughtful glare at the closed door to her right, she girded her loins and moved towards it, hoping that her words to David had truly struck the right nerve.

Guilt. It was a classic strategy, really. She'd reached back into her nearly seven decades of life and pulled forth each and every method of evoking shame and remorse that she'd ever learned. And when the Doctor Lee clone had ordered Dave to escort her back to the house in exchange for the real Doctor Lee, she'd used the opportunity to further her cause.

"Are you really going to kill an old lady?"

"How could a nice young man like you want to hurt a pregnant woman?"

"Surely you know this is wrong? What if I were your grandmother?"

"Are you the kind of young man who could kill a grandma and an innocent baby?"

Begging, cajoling, and pleading would have come up next in her repertoire—but thankfully, her powers to inflict a sense of conscience in the youth had been sufficient for the day. With Phil looking on from the hallway, Whiny Dave had encircled her wrists with the plastic ties and only pretended to yank them securely. Low, quick, his voice terse, he'd told her to count to two hundred—adding the bit about the African water mammals as if it were the most important part of the plan. She'd assumed he meant for her to make her escape once the house was empty. He'd figured that counting two hundred of the beasts would do it.

Glinda had been only too glad to put his theory to the test.

She took two more steps and leaned close to the door. Fitting her ear to it, she listened, holding her breath, for any hint of life beyond. Her fingers dropped to the knob, and after a prolonged bout of silence, she tightened her fingertips and twisted—slowly, quietly, painstakingly—until the knob reached its limit and released its internal latch with a tiny click.

She reminded herself to breathe, inhaling through her nose and exhaling slowly through her mouth. Holding the knob turned far to the right, she pulled lightly at the door, peeking around it into the void of the hall beyond.

Empty. Both other doors gaped wide. The bathroom light had been left on. In its arc of radiating glow, she could see the lamp with which she'd cudgeled Phil earlier lying on its side on the floor of the still-darkened larger room directly across the hall. She padded out of the smaller cell, her bare feet making nary a sound in the dead of the corridor. Sidling up to the wall next to the bathroom, she glided along it to the corner, then peeked over her left shoulder, scanning the staircase with now more knowledgeable eyes. Up at the top landing, the single panel door stood closed, daylight filtering in around the ill-fitting jamb.

Glinda waited, willing her heart to beat normally, counting hippopotami again—an earlier attempt at summoning Paul Newman had not gone well—and the counting seemed to help give her something on which to focus. The gravity of the current situation was not lost on the secretary. Before, she'd had the Colonel to lean on. Her example to follow, her experience to learn from. Last night, Colonel Carter had been there to lead the way. This time—Glinda had no one but herself on whom to depend.

Furthermore, this time, the Colonel relied on Glinda.

She'd strategized while counting, staring up at the desiccated roach in the Cold-War Era light. The steps to her plan had become a mantra. Escape the house. Follow the driveway in the cover of the woods. Walk along the road until she found help. Come back and save the day.

If she could have, she would have added bullet points.

She glanced down at her tattered clothing, her filthy bare feet. Climbing off the quad, the back slit of her skirt had ripped further upward, and she suspected rather equitably that she was mooning all and sundry whenever she moved. And because she was a woman of certain age, she couldn't help but flinch at the thought. Even if she did get to the road and manage to flag down a car, who would want to aid in the rescue of a grimy old lady showing an indecent amount of cheek?

But then, what was it that General Bodine had always said?

No use borrowing trouble.

Her previous boss' face flashed into her head—unwanted, but persistent. Square headed, neat as a pin, even his wrinkles had seemed to march in perfect lines. Never flustered, never perturbed, he'd calmly handled difficulties with a perfect alacrity that had meshed well with Glinda's natural affinity for organization and order.

They had worked so well together that Glinda had planned on retiring at the same time as he. Seventeen years, she'd been his administrative assistant. And never once whilst in his employ had she been kidnapped by anyone, let alone been taken from a mall, gullet pleasantly filled with roughage, by a gaggle of egotistically maniacal clones.

She'd held on at the Pentagon, entering the Secretarial Pool for a few mere months in order to boost her pension payouts. Just a few months' delay had raised the monthly sum she'd receive upon retirement considerably.

Greed. Greed had brought her to this.

No, she peeped down again at her muddy toes with a self-effacing smile. Pragmatism had brought her to this. And then she'd fallen for the O'Neills—both of them. All three of them, should truth be told. Pragmatism and a soft heart. And then she'd gone to the mall to buy herself a new Olfa.

Pragmatism, a soft heart, and a rotary cutter.

But whatever course of events had left her at the foot of these stairs, self pity would never take her up them.

All lay tranquil around her, and she spurred herself up the first few steps. Stopping, she listened to the house again. Quiet. Silence. Stagnance. She climbed four more, and then another eight, and then paused at the landing. Again, her ear touched wood, and she strained through the quiet to hear any hint of movement or trouble.

Nothing unusual—the hum of the refrigerator—but she recalled that from the first time she'd made this particular trek. Her fingertips skimmed the knob, and she twisted cautiously, then pushed the door open a sliver, peering around the now-bright scene.

The pineapple still reigned supreme in the bowl on the island. She could see past it to the sink, and the knife block on the counter. The Roman shades had all been lowered over the large windows, but enough light filtered in that she could still see most of the room. Cracking the door open further, she slid through, then paused next to the fridge as she turned her attention towards the doorway in the cabinets to the right that led into the depths of the house.

The linoleum was memorably cool on her bare feet, and, subduing the fear that tightened her gut, she paced along the smooth flooring towards the archway. Beyond the opening, the living area sat silent, bathed in a yellowish shadow that came from sunlight hitting the gold curtains on the large window dominating the furthest wall. Furniture—forgettable cheap couches and chairs—dotted a threadbare carpet. She craned her head around the doorjamb and took in another hallway exiting the room to her right, a thin door next to the hallway that looked like a coat closet, and the front door to the house, nestled in the wall adjacent to the picture window.

Normal. She could practically see the family that had lived here before—surely a far cry from the beings that now inhabited this residence. With a notion to make certain she was alone, she tiptoed to the hallway, and stood at the corner there for several moments, listening—hearing nothing. A quick look down the length of the passageway assured her she'd been right. The house was vacant but for her.

Satisfied, Glinda turned back towards the kitchen. Her footfalls quiet on the carpeting, she trod back around the random couches and chairs and crossed the metal threshold into the brighter expanse of the kitchen. Passing the sink, she paused, and then felt herself deflate a smidgen. She took a hesitant step backwards.

She'd made this mistake before. Contemplating escape without preparing to protect herself. Taking a deep breath, the secretary turned her entire body towards the counter and the knife block that seemed to dominate it.

A few knives were missing—she recognized the empty slot at the top where the Colonel had removed the largest blade. Glinda's own fingers reached up and stretched towards the congregated cutlery, the tips teasing the back of a large black-handled cleaver.

Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of color caught her notice, however, and she turned her head to look into the depths of the deep kitchen sink.

Three items sat at the bottom—piled slapdash, one on top of another. Stainless steel—long handled—wicked blade—black grip—a flash of incongruent yellow. Instantly recognized, she'd last seen that yellow blur still quivering in the neck of the Goa'uld, the blood pulsing around it. What little left in her stomach rose anew to settle in the back of her throat.

They'd been cleaned. Rinsed of dirt and whatever other grunge they must have accumulated the night before. With a tremendous effort, she reached into the sink and withdrew the meat tenderizer—its weight felt familiar in her grip. Transferring it to her left hand, she extended her hand again and curled her fingers around the knife's handle.

The rotary cutter, she left there. Even pristine, it seemed too indecent to be constructive.

With a quick look behind her, she headed towards the side door, but a glimpse of a shadow on the patio stopped her cold. She heard a footfall on the boards of the decking—and then another. Saw the crouched figure of a man dart from one side of the patio to the other, and heard a hint of a bump as his back landed up against the wall to the side of the door.

Her eyes flew to the knob on the door, to the little lock in the center. How the ridge in the center ran from side to side rather than up to down. Unlocked. Only this time not through carelessness, but to facilitate her escape.

A shadow moved to the side of the door, and Glinda caught a glimpse of pants through the glass not covered by curtain. The knob turned, and she frantically skittered to the side, whacking her hip on the island before managing to slide back around the basement door and stop short on the landing. With the last three fingers on her knife hand, she grasped the knob, pulling the door shut behind her.

The outside door swung open—through the thin wood paneling of the door she could hear the jaunty curtain slap against the glass panes. More footsteps—furtive—then deliberate. These treads were not made in haste or in panic. They traversed the length of the kitchen, then stopped, and Glinda heard a shuffle as someone turned. A floorboard creaked underneath the linoleum, and then all sound was obscured within the sudden clamor of cubes falling into the ice tray in the freezer.

With a look into the depths of the basement, Glinda found herself already taking the first descending step, her weapons ready in her hands.

She hustled down the remaining steps and flew back into her original cell, past the bloodstain on the floor, past the lamp, past the remnants of her unmentionables—shredded hose and stained and wadded half-slip. Had she only donned them a little more than twenty four hours before? How much had changed since then.

How much she had changed since then!

Despite the light from the bathroom, the sitting area was dark. Flattening her back against the wall again, she waited. With a gentle grate of wood on wood, the door to the basement opened, and Glinda caught her breath at the distinctive sound of a rifle being butted up against a shoulder, the trigger being jostled. She heard a whisper, a sound of assent, and then feet—light on the stairs—their strides even and calm. She shoved herself deeper into the room, until her retreat was halted by the multi-colored lamp in the corner.

In her left hand, the meat tenderizer felt heavy, the knife in her right hand seemed inelegant and graceless. Her gaze sought, and found, the weaponized lamp on the floor, and wondered in a moment of panic if she could attain it before the interloper could reach her. But then the large shadow loomed in the still-open doorway of the sitting area, and Glinda could actually see shoes—brown boots—and the muzzle of a shotgun.

She struggled not to cry out—biting her lips closed so tightly that she was sure she tasted blood. Her hand firmed around the handle of the knife, and she shrank back further into the darkness, hoping that the man would take a cavalier look and then retreat. But the figure scanned the room at the doorway, the movements of his body mirrored by the sweeping span of the shotgun's barrel. Taking note of her new threat, Glinda watched intently—hoping to find a moment to strike—a point of weakness.

She strained in the darkness to watch as he entered the room, her eyes flying wide as he turned the weapon directly at her. Raising her hands, she prepared herself—wondering inanely if it was blasphemous to pray to the Almighty for the ability to hurt someone. Her shoulder hit one of the hanging lamps just as the man turned in her direction, and the sharp sound of his rapid chambering of a round had her swallowing a tiny gasp.

"I know you're there." He took a step further inward. "If you were one of them, you'd have fired by now. So why don't you just come on out? It'll be a lot less messy that way."

And Glinda realized that her frantic prayer had been answered in a completely different way.

That voice. Blessedly familiar—wonderfully so. A flood of relief flowed through her—and she did gasp, then, her entire body involved in a sound that was truly more a sob than anything else. Vast relief overwhelmed her, and she sagged against the wall, the weapons she held sliding from her grip to land benignly on the floor.

She breathed deeply once—twice—just to make certain she still could, before tentatively venturing an answer. "Sir?"

The shotgun dropped slightly from the horizontal, and his voice came again, stronger, into the darkness.

"Pinky?"

-OOOOOOO-

"So there are two Ba'al clones in the barn."

"Yes, but only one of them resembles yours."

Glinda glared for the umpteenth time at the General's companion. After having been introduced to this latest version of the alien, she found her already tenuous patience for the species waning. She'd been civil, but not friendly, notwithstanding his current whim of cooperation. And his regard for her proved equally unremarkable. He had paid her no attention since they'd gathered in the sitting area, preferring to pick stray leaves and bits of dirt from his overly expensive clothing.

"And how many guards?"

"Five." She answered automatically—her exhaustion evident in her lack of elegance in verbosity. "Six if Phil is with them. There might be more—those are the only ones of whom I have firsthand knowledge."

"And Phil is the one with—"

They'd already discussed this. Glinda sighed, her eyes drifting closed with the effort. "Bandages. Across his nose."

"And you're responsible for said bandages?"

"I hit him with a lamp." Glinda nodded towards the object, lying on the opposite side of the room. "That one."

The General half smiled, his eyebrow quirking upward. "Good girl."

"Your wife said much the same thing."

"Yes. Well." The General didn't elaborate. His mouth thinned, and he adjusted his hold on the shotgun in his hand. "And they have a sarcohpagus?"

"And the other device." She nodded, returning her attention to her boss. "But Colonel Carter claims that she won't be able to get it to work. She said someone had futzed with the crystals."

"Futzed with them?" Doctor Jackson asked this, his back against the jamb. He'd stationed himself at the doorway, his handgun held in such a way that Glinda knew that he could wield it proficiently. "Sounds like she's channeling you, Jack."

"It happens, Daniel. You know that."

"What I find surprising is your ongoing ability to tell the truth, Doctor Jackson." Ba'al glanced at the General's friend, one side of his mouth smirking upward. "What with your wife being who—and what—she is."

"Shut up, Ba'al." O'Neill's answer seemed both automatic and tired. His face hadn't changed as he'd spoken—merely continued studying Glinda as if he could ferret more information out of her than she knew.

"Sir, I don't know very much more than that. There is the real Doctor Lee, and then his clone, who has a Ba'al clone inside him, and then the other Ba'al, and then Carl, Barry, Jenkins, David, and Phil. And Growly."

"Growly?"

"I still don't know his given name. He has a rough, crude voice. Hence—Growly." Glinda folded her hands in her lap and then unfolded them, splaying her fingers against her bedraggled skirt. "And David could be considered to be on our side. He did, after all, facilitate my escape."

"He left you to your own devices." This from the Goa'uld, his tone little more than a sneer. "I would hardly call that an escape.

"My devices have served me quiet well during this kerfuffle." Glinda drew herself up—injecting steel into her spine. "I, at least, have done my best to aid the Colonel in whatever way I could. You appear to be good for nothing better than following and whining."

Daniel's quiet snort raised her spirits considerably. "Wow, Ba'al, you just got owned."

"People." The General turned towards Daniel, his eyes wide. "Can we keep on topic, here?"

"Sir, we do need to hurry. Your wife is attempting to fix the machine, but the clones are losing patience. I suspected that she might be trying to stall at first, but now I truly do think that she doesn't know how to repair the device."

"Have they hurt her?"

Glinda faltered, then nodded. Honesty had always served her well, but she knew this particular information would be difficult for the General to hear. She took a cleansing breath under the guise of thinking. "She's bruised. They used the zat on us in the mall, and then interrupted the operation of some sort of internal sensor."

"The personal beacon." Daniel watched his friend, his face carefully bland. "We tried to locate the signal when you first went missing."

"They didn't cut her?"

"No—I believe they disabled it remotely, somehow."

The General processed this, then raised a brow at her. "Go on."

After a brief pause, Glinda continued. "And then she was wounded in a firefight."

"She's been shot?"

"Grazed." Glinda's response was immediate. "On her leg. We bandaged it up and she doesn't appear to be in too much pain. And then she gave herself up in hopes that I could get away, but one of the goon squad started threatening her, and so I had to utilize the alien weapon on him."

"You zatted one of them?"

"Jenkins." Glinda met his gaze straight on. "It was Jenkins. He hit her—bruised her face."

O'Neill's lips had turned impossibly thin, his jaw distended. And a hardness had invaded his normally warm eyes—as if he'd gone cold inside. As if something had turned to steel.

"She's tough, sir." She forced the words out—more for her own benefit than for his, since she knew without doubt that nothing short of finishing this whole drama would make him feel any better at all. "She's an amazing, amazing woman. I am in awe of her."

"She is." The General unclenched his fingers from around his weapon, reseating it in his grip. He looked at her while at the same time looking through her, and then breathed once before answering. "And I always was, too. You don't get used to it."

Glinda schooled her voice, her features intentionally calm. "And she needs us now."

"I know."

Daniel moved away from his post at the doorway, nearing where the General stood in the center of the room. He pushed his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose—more a habit than anything else, Glinda had deduced—something to busy himself with while deciding his next action. Pursing his lips, he placed himself close to his friend. "Jack—what's the plan?"

"We're going to get her back."

"Just like that?"

"You've got a better idea?"

"Not really." Daniel shrugged. "And I guess we've done with less over the years."

"I'll expound upon it." He raised the shotgun in his arms and chambered a round with a sharp, efficient motion of his hand, the mechanism's tight schick loud in the close environs of the basement room. "How's that?"

Daniel tilted his head to one side with a random shrug. "Okay then."

And the General glanced at his three companions in turn before reaching behind him and withdrawing his Beretta. Stowing his shotgun under his arm, he prepared the handgun for use and returned it to the holster at the small of his back. With a fierce look at Glinda, he lowered his chin in question. "Are you up for this? Because you can stay here if you want."

"No—I'll go." The secretary stood, resisting the urge to smooth down her skirt. Leaning over, she grasped the handle of the meat tenderizer that had ended up on the couch next to her. She felt like hammer-wielding Thor, albeit without the beard and horned helmet. "I need to."

"Then let's go." He jerked his head at Ba'al, who unfolded his lanky body from the couch and aimed himself towards the door. Daniel followed the Goa'uld, and the General waited as Glinda caught up.

She passed him, and then hesitated within the door frame. He'd questioned her thoroughly, about everything except one topic. Glinda knew why he'd omitted it—people normally hated asking the question to which they feared the answer.

Bracing herself, she captured his eye, his attention.

As if he'd anticipated this, he frowned. "What?"

"Sir, I just wanted to say—" Her voice trailed off, and she bit her lip, watching him as he darted a look up the stairs at Daniel, and then fixed his focus on a non-point somewhere far away. "General—I—"

But his jaw began to work again, his brows low over his hard eyes.

"Jack."

Instantly, he pulled himself back, his lids flickering as he turned his gaze to hers. "What?"

"She felt the baby move. After she was zatted. In the woods—after the bullet grazed her." Glinda paused, gulping in a breath. "She was so happy about that, even with everything else. And if the baby survived all that, well, he's probably strong enough to survive all of this. I just thought you should know."

He stood still, only the subtle movement of his temple evidence that he wasn't stone. She waited for a beat, then one more, before finally turning to follow Daniel and Ba'al up to where they stood at the landing.

Without warning, the General captured her arm and pulled her back to himself, pressing her to his side, his wide palm at her nape, her cheek against his shoulder. One armed, the embrace lasted no longer than a second or two, and then Glinda found herself released unceremoniously, his hand holding her steady as she took a hurried, clumsy step backwards.

But his face—good heavens.

Relief. Coursing through him like the muddy waters of the Colorado.

And even though he hadn't smiled, hadn't sighed, hadn't so much as moved, she could tell. With a brusque nod, she turned back towards the stairs.

"Pinky."

She paused on the bottom step, swiveling a quarter turn back towards the General. "Yes, sir?"

And his body had relaxed, somehow, his knuckles no longer as white on the barrel of his shotgun. He nodded almost imperceptibly, his movements spare and economical, his voice equally so.

"Thank you."