Both Colonel and Major Carter were sitting in Colonel Carter's lab. MacGyver had tagged along with his Carter simply because he was fascinated with the situation.
Last he knew, the others were with their respective doubles, exploring the alternate versions of the places they knew best from their home reality.
Currently, Major Carter was exploring her counterpart's lab, asking questions so fast that MacGyver could hardly keep up.
"How did you bring the precision to such a degree on this?" She asked, holding up a circular device with lots of flashing buttons.
"It was simple. After puzzling over it for about six weeks, I realized that all you had to do was reconfigure the sensor that calibrates the Y plane," She rummaged through a drawer. "Here's the schematic."
Carter nodded appreciatively as she scanned the page. "Nice. I'll have to try that when I get back."
"So Major, Colonel, what's the brilliant idea here?" Mac asked.
They both turned to him.
"We're not sure yet." Colonel Carter admitted. "We think that recreating the control device for the quantum mirror is impossible, considering I've never touched one, and she hasn't really had the opportunity to dissect one either."
MacGyver nodded.
"You mentioned that you've used the Stargate itself to open a bridge between two realities before. Is that an option here?" He asked, picking up some kind of device that looked sort of like a toaster.
"Don't touch that." Both Carters said at the same time.
He set it down. "Sorry." He smiled sheepishly.
"Theoretically, yes," Colonel Carter said. "Last time we used a blast of energy into an active wormhole to create a bridge between the two realities."
"How did you know which one you were connecting to?" Major Carter asked.
"That's the tricky bit. Each of those teams came in through the gate itself. All we had to do was dial each of the addresses they came from and use the beam to open a rift in the fabric of space-time and then they were back to where they came from."
"But we came through the mirror. Not the gate. So there's no address to dial up."
"Right."
"The good news is that we might be able to extrapolate that from the quantum mirror itself. I've spent quite a bit of time poking around that thing, and now that it's been activated, there might be something helpful there."
MacGyver stood in silence as he watched the duo talk back and forth.
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," both Carters said at the same time.
MacGyver smiled.
"Mr. MacGyver? Come with me, please."
He smiled. "Well, I'll see you later. Good luck with your project."
He followed his escort out of the room.
o-O-o-O-o
MacGyver sat at a laptop, working with a technician to discover if he had a counterpart in this reality. He had already inputted his parents' names, his height, eye color, and even blood type, but to no avail.
"Sorry. There are too many A. MacGyver's that match that description. I'll need the rest of your name."
Sighing mentally, MacGyver leaned forward and typed it into the computer.
"Ah. Here we go. Perfect match. I'll print this out and make a copy for you and the General."
MacGyver nodded.
Unbeknownst to either of them, Colonel O'Neill was walking by the table behind them. He was busy talking to his escort, but he didn't get to the rank he had by being unobservant. He only saw a glimpse, but a glimpse was all he needed.
He quickly wiped the impish grin of his face before anyone noticed. No wonder the kid went by his last name.
o-O-o-O-o
MacGyver went to the commissary next. He wasn't particularly hungry, but he'd decided to try and get on Carter's good side. Both of their good sides. He quickly located his prizes and headed back towards their lab, with his counterpart's paper records under his arm.
He knocked on the door and waited until he heard one of them acknowledge him. He pushed the door open. Every chalkboard in the lab was covered in scribbles and roughly drawn diagrams. Both of them had their backs turned towards him, and they were chattering excitedly, occasionally scribbling something on the board.
"Uh, where can I set this down?" He asked.
They both turned and grinned as soon as they saw what he was holding.
"Thanks." Major Carter said as she took the cup of blue jello from him. He watched as they ate their treats, still talking about using the Stargate as a quantum mirror.
He found a stool and sat down to read the file on his alternate self.
o-O-o-O-o
After about five minutes, MacGyver sat back and tossed the slim file on the desk. It turns out that the other guy worked at a 9 to 5 at a local electronics repair store. To MacGyver, that seemed to be almost as bad as torture.