CHAPTER THREE: A TALE OF TWO JACKS
He was strapped down like a lab rat to a metal chair in the observation lab room that they'd used once or twice for the most dangerous prisoners, and that damn Za'tarc testing. Same straps in fact he mused, noting the one across his forehead, across his chest, wrists, legs, ankles and thighs. Seemed like overkill to him. He flexed. They'd hold him fast. Except of course if he really wanted to, he could rip them off without lifting a finger. It was a slightly freeing thought that kept him from getting too riled about the situation.
Janet and Daniel were quietly discussing him off to one side. Two armed guards were on the door, another four in the corridor. Teal'c stood opposite him, a face like thunder, staring him out, his damn staff weapon in hand which had always made him seem more imposing. He glanced up; Landry was in the observation window with the dark-haired woman, Vala, who was sprawled back on her seat, feet up, munching on popcorn like this was some sort of entertainment show. At least they'd shed the fancy radiation suits; he could see their faces now and away from the Gate his head wasn't ringing quite so much.
"What if I have to pee?" he called out and he was met with Teal'c's flat stare, but the ripple of anger beneath was palpable.
Janet was staring at him from across the room where she had been stood with Daniel, her attention now fully on him, arms folded – 'hostile' was the word he'd go for.
"So… what's up Doc?" he asked and Daniel's lips twitched upwards fractionally. Good for him.
Janet though looked less amused as she stalked forwards. "A lot of people thought Jack O'Neill had been killed… which might have been preferable given the alternative possibility," Janet added a little cryptically and, in Jack's opinion, downright coldly as she finally took a step towards him. Each step she took sent Ba'al's name rattling round her head, along with an unsettling memory of the last time that snaky bastard had got hold of him and she'd had to put him back together – a reminder he could have done without; he'd not exactly been a peach from that withdrawal.
With that in mind he decided on his usual go to – glib. "Well, it's not like we've never seen anyone come back from the dead around here, have we?" he quipped; her eyebrows went up. "I mean, it's practically Danny-boy's party trick at this point," he retorted and Janet's expression flickered into a slight tick of amusement – score one to him! She'd always liked the verbal sparring game. Teal'c cleared his throat and the expression was wiped from hers with a twinge of irritation that he noted uneasily. He might not be able to talk his way out of this then.
"I need to run some tests. Do you consent?" she asked curtly. He'd always thought her bedside manner could do with a little work but that was downright frosty.
"Depends Doc. What you testing for?" Jack asked, rightly concerned at this point that maybe he should be testing them.
"We need to ascertain that you are who you say you are. At this point in time, there are several possibilities… all of which would be a threat to this base and the people of this planet," Janet informed him sharply.
"Alright. Who is it exactly that you think we might be, if not us?" he asked, looking between them all with genuine confusion. I mean sure, there'd been copies before but why bring that concern up now. Unless she was worried about evil parallel Earth doppelgangers, which he supposed he could buy, but he hadn't really got that vibe. Even now, her mind was screaming the word Ba'al at him. Odd. The test for a symbiote didn't exactly need all this song and dance.
"And if I say no?" he posed, and she hesitated. "Ah…I see. It's one of those. I need to be a good soldier and grin and bear it for the good of my country type of consent. Right?" Jack snipped and Janet had the good sense to look like she'd swallowed a lemon.
"Yeah well, screw that. I'm me. You need to prove that, it's on you. So do your worst Doc."
"Jack, don't be an ass." Daniel came to stand in front of him, beside Janet, both of them staying a good few feet away – Jack wondered if that was significant. Daniel had his arms crossed and was wearing that judgemental, exasperated look that was deeply familiar to Jack, it was almost comforting.
"Oh, so I'm Jack now… thought you weren't convinced?" he bit back and Daniel rolled his eyes at the childishness. "You know Danny-boy I'm sensing that you're not all that comfortable with me right now," he challenged; he'd have cocked his head, but that wasn't budging.
"Huh, what gave you that impression?" Daniel retorted arms crossing over his chest.
Jack sighed and wiggled his eyebrows violently, which was about all he could manage in his current predicament. "No idea Daniel."
"So why don't you do us all a favour and tell us what you are then? Save all these unnecessary tests," Janet replied smoothly. "For starters, you can tell me how you managed to drop your radiation levels so significantly."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Jack posed with an eyebrow quirk and the Doc looked at him suspiciously. He merely stared back, regretting he was strapped up so tight he couldn't even shrug. "What? We said they were medically advanced. A world whose entire technology centred around radiation. Seems pretty much a given they had some way of dealing with all those inevitable accidents… of which I'm sure there were many." He winced, "I mean, they might have heard of the words 'health' and 'safety' but not sure it occurred to them to string them together." He shuddered, "I ask you… who hands out actual ray guns in a kids theme park?"
"Ray guns…" Daniel cut in looking confused. "… and theme parks? You're not making any sense. You realise that?"
"I know but trust me, that whole planet was full of complete whackos, even before they nuked it. I mean, I'm never complaining about our Government again. Not when theirs decided nuclear fallout shelters were basically giant petri dishes with a captive audience to experiment on! Honestly, that place was better as a smoking ruin," Jack sighed, noting that while Daniel was looking horrified, the Doc seemed to have drifted off into a whole other tangent of thought.
"So you're maintaining your story that this was a parallel world that had suffered a cataclysm?" Janet cut off his ramblings with an expectant look, as if she expected him to just say 'Nah, just kidding. It was all in my head really'.
"Yes. I mean I'd have called it a nuclear apocalypse personally." He reconsidered, "Actually, it was sort of a nuclear-zombie-apocalypse."
"Zombies?" Daniel's eyebrows were in his hairline but his tone had started doing that high-pitched disbelieving thing he did when he thought Jack was talking horseshit. Janet on the other hand had started thinking about big glowing biohazard warnings. Her mind was really quite fascinating he decided as she projected those particularly dire thoughts at him quite loudly and clearly. It was also as terrifyingly efficient and clinical as he imagined it would be.
Teal'c though was ever practical and shifted uncomfortably at the back of the room, readjusting his aim towards Jack's head at the mention of zombies, which Jack had to admit to being impressed by. Clearly Teal'c had been taking notes during one of the horror movie marathons at team night. Although they all seemed to be taking it with a large pinch of salt he noted, as though he was touting some sort of nonsense they had to humour and glean what they could from. A bit like talking to a crazy person he realised grimly. They thought he was stark raving mad, either from torture, experimentation or by design.
Landry's voice came over the speaker. "Is it possible he's suffering from some sort of radiation sickness. Hallucinations, or psychosis?" he called out and Jack looked up at him affronted.
"Hey. I mean, they weren't actually zombies. They were Ghouls. But you know, they shambled about out of graves and had bits rotting off them, on account of being undying radiation soaked bags of bones. Plus they got real bitey if you got in grabbing range. Fast though…" he clarified with a shudder, remembering the forest, because hell he had to stick to the truth on this; the more he offered up and kept to the facts, the more they might realise this wasn't a sick joke.
"Right." Daniel shook his head. "Anything else you want to mention about this little hell world you supposedly visited? Something we might believe this time?"
"Actually, if I'm being completely honest, it was a mutant-robot-nuclear-zombie-apocalypse," he deadpanned, knowing how it sounded but fuck it. It was the truth. Besides, it was almost worth it just to see the look now on Danny's face.
"Mutant robots?" Daniel asked. "That the best you got?"
"No. Super mutants. Kind of troll like things. One of them damn near split me in two with a sledgehammer, Doc saw the impressive scar across my chest. The robots were a whole other thing that made Harlan's look like cheap knock offs."
Janet had just about snapped, her patience wearing thin as his story started to strain credulity in her head. He gave Teal'c a glance but the man was as emotive as a mountain right now.
"Can you be serious for five minutes General?!" Janet snapped, her nostrils flaring as he finally riled her and a little of her emotions actually bled out.
"I don't know. Do you have a test for that too?"
She shook her head despairingly at him and threw her hands up in the air, before pacing in front of him. But at least she was thinking he was winding her up to the same degree as he always had, which was something.
Jack had a second thought, "Seriously though… don't joke about the robots to Sam. She wasn't as over the whole Fifth thing as we'd thought, which was also waaay more fucked up than her report suggested. She'll take it personal," he explained. He didn't exactly want to give Sam's secrets away but after Colter, he was genuinely concerned that if they pushed her on this she'd go more than a little postal.
Daniel was alarmed by that news, as was Janet, but they both seemed to think it was a ploy on his part to either distract them or gain some sort of sympathy. Apparently – given he was supposedly an imposter – it didn't occur to them that maybe he was genuinely worried about her, and them.
"Is this what you call cooperating General O'Neill?" Landry barked down the mic from the observation window, "Or is this all some sort of joke to you? Because I assure you, if you continue to be difficult we will have no compunctions about turning you over to the IOA and the NID. I doubt they'll appreciate your yanking their chain as much as we do."
"What's the IOA got to do with this?" He looked between them, getting the visual of a little beady eyed balding man in a suit with a smug expression. "Oh don't tell me that asshat in a suit is back, sticking his nose in?"
"Mr Woolsey is leading the civilian investigation into your return," Landry confirmed dryly and Janet's expression said it all. After what Woolsey had tried to do in getting them all shut down and blaming Janet for not saving Airman Wells when she'd gone through the Gate to help rescue the under-fire teams, well, he was no one's favourite person around here.
"Really? Even after the last time?" Jack grimaced feeling disdain at the idea. This was getting better and better. "Nice to know some people can still fail upwards in this Government."
"Believe it," Landry muttered, "And they've been making our lives difficult for the last six months. Particularly after what happened the last time we let a Jack O'Neill in through the door. So forgive us for not rolling out the welcome wagon but we have a job to do here before the civilian oversight committee decides were not fit for it. So how about you start acting like the General Jack O'Neill we are all still very much hoping you are… and cooperate with Doctor Frasier and the teams trying to clear your names."
"Okay Hank. We want to talk about building a little mutual trust. Why don't you bring back my wife and I'll think about cooperating," he demanded, not joking in the least. Nor did he appreciate being balled out by the other General or threatened with the damn suits.
"Wife? You don't mean Sam?" Daniel questioned, a little perplexed, cutting across Landry's response which was probably for the best. The General looked like he'd just been hit with a stun grenade with that last one.
Jack sighed. "Yes Daniel… Sam."
"That a recent development?" The expression on Daniel's face was both confusion and suspicion, as if the idea of Sam marrying him was preposterous which, well, he supposed he had him on that.
"'Bout a year. We're still in the honeymoon phase, so you know… it's all good," he grinned. No one met it.
"Huh," Daniel sounded out, his head cocking to take him in.
"Huh? That's it? No congratulations… cake. I mean, I'm still waiting on cake!" Jack snipped.
"Huh as in I don't know what I'm more shocked about. The fact that you actually asked or that she said yes," Daniel got out and Jack pouted mildly affronted by that.
"Hey! I'll have you know she thinks I'm charming."
"Then you've definitely been replaced by a duplicate," Daniel quipped, quick as whip. Jack smirked; oh he'd missed the mental sparring with this geek.
"Actually Daniel…" he bit back, "…she asked me."
"Huh. That's a new one." Daniel replied looking contemplative, his blue eyes flashing for a moment; the only outward clue to the internal whoop of celebration he'd given, which Jack appreciated. It didn't last long though; Daniel's expression and elation flattened out quite suddenly.
"What?"
"Nothing. I mean, congratulations. I'm happy for you both," he offered, which Jack knew he'd meant but it was now clouded by concern and further suspicion.
"Thank you. I was every inch the blushing bride. I'd have made you my Maid of Honour had you been in the same universe. Teal'c was Best Man obviously."
"Obviously," Daniel frowned. "Just one thing. Doesn't Sam already have a fiancé?"
Jack's eyebrow rose. Oh. That. The less than amused expression must have appeared on his face.
"You forgot?" Daniel posed. "About Pete." There was a flicker of a smirk on Daniel's features. "Did Sam?"
"This is ridiculous. You can't actually be entertaining this idea Daniel?" Janet snapped, looking back at him with a scowl. "The General Jack O'Neill I remember would never have taken this sort of a risk with Colonel Carter's career!" Wow! She was really laying it on thick there with the chain of command, but aside from that she seemed to be really stuck on the 'imposter Jack' scenario.
Daniel gave her an assessing look, his thoughts holding a hint of concern for her before it was gone and Jack looked between them curiously. "It's something to factor into our conclusions. This is clearly very real to them both. They've deluded themselves into this whole narrative complete with happy ending. You don't find that odd for escaped prisoners?" Daniel asked, ignoring Jack for the moment and focusing on Janet.
Jack's lost his temper right then, willing like hell for everything to stay where it was and not smack Daniel upside the head and give him away. "For crying out loud!" he bellowed making Janet flinch and Daniel's head snap back to him, "How many times do we have to say this? We were stranded for two years… on a parallel Earth… a real nasty one. And…" he glared at the Doc, "…this whole situation with Sam…I assumed we'd been declared KIA. There shouldn't have been any regulations left to breach!" He looked around the room seeing some stony, somewhat bewildered expressions. "Two years!" he reiterated, "I'm a man not a monk. We made the best of it."
"So, you what… settled for Sam?" Janet all but hissed and Jack blanched, feeling anger rising. Janet should do interrogations more often because honestly, he was coming close to exploding here.
"Janet. Take it easy okay? We don't know enough yet," Daniel reminded her quietly but Jack was still seething, his expression must have spoken volumes because Janet uncrossed her arms, a more apologetic expression settling over her face and, as usual, Daniel stepped in to de-escalate the situation.
"You have to understand Jack…" he rubbed his forehead as though this was all giving him a headache, "…from our perspective it's only been six months," he pointedly reminded him.
"How the hell is that my problem?!" Jack snapped, how was he supposed to know that some freaky parallel-world-time-bending-crap would happen and make it look like he'd jumped his 2IC after only six months. "After six months out there we were still figuring out how to get water that wouldn't slowly poison us and building a shelter that might, just might stand up to a radiation storm… and every mutated nasty or Raider that fancied a stroll through camp middle of the night," he growled. "Hell, you haven't lived until you've had a Radscorpion chase you up the roof of your privy when you've gone out to take a leak!"
"General O'Neill." Landry's voice came out over the speaker and Jack craned his mostly strapped head up to see him. "See it from our perspective…"
"Gladly. Untie me and I'll strap you down to this chair and we can chit chat," Jack retorted cutting him off.
"Jack…" Landry started and paused. "We've good reason to suspect you may not be who you say you are."
Jack grimaced, yes, he'd gotten that disturbing technicolour visual several times now. "I was under the impression that you'd already cleared us of being Replicators, Goa'uld and probably a bunch of other stuff," Jack growled. "How about entertaining the notion that we're really just two officers who rescued their damn selves from being stranded on a hostile alien world and treat us with some courtesy!"
There were a couple of looks and that woman Vala was staring avidly, shoving popcorn into her mouth like there was no tomorrow; her mind was quick though – quick and devious. The kind of mind he'd have had a hard time accepting onto his base. Damaged he thought, based on the scenarios running through her head. She was here because she knew the Goa'uld intimately, Ba'al particularly. She was here because she could see through his masks. That might be a problem.
"Am I entertaining you lady?" he snarled up at her.
"Immensely," she retorted with cool amused eyes.
"Vala… don't," Daniel beseeched her.
"Get her the hell out of here!" Jack bit out staring flat out at Daniel. That pulsing energy between the two of them seemed to flare at the suggestion. Weird.
"I'm afraid that's not possible right now," Landry replied, "Miss Mal Doran is here as a guest and is assisting us in this matter." Jack frowned, she was an ex-Goa'uld, he got that straight out of Landry's head – and a pain in the ass – but useful. They hoped she'd spot something they might miss. But aside from that, she apparently needed to remain with Daniel. Some ball and chain idea. Jack had no idea but it sounded like a headache he didn't need right now. Possibly tactically useful.
"Get yourself hitched did you Danny-boy?" Jack smirked and blanched quite quickly at the way Daniel's head whipped around at the accusation. His quick mind picking up on Jack's interpretation of something that he had absolutely no way of knowing.
"What makes you say that?" Daniel asked and Jack rolled his eyes deflecting.
"Oh I know you have a thing for brunette's." he winced internally at the wounded and furious look that put on Daniel's face. He hadn't meant to be quite so cruel but reminding him of Sha're and all the ways this Valawasn't her was distraction enough. He turned his attention to the other silent member of SG1 hanging back.
"Teal'c buddy. You want to enlighten me as to why you've got a stick up your butt about me right now?"
Teal'c merely glared at him. "I will not address you until I am certain you are who you claim to be. Which remains doubtful."
"You do realise you're talking to me right now? … just to say you're not talking to me," he replied, deliberately riling up the big man whose jaw twitched in repressed annoyance. It was childish but it usually worked and it distracted Daniel.
"Stop! All of you. This is getting us nowhere!" Janet declared, cutting across them all. "The General… if indeed he is… is correct. There are several possibilities we have to entertain here, one of which is that they are the real Jack and Sam. In which case General, I can only apologise for your treatment but as the former Commander of this base I'm quite certain you can understand our caution and the protocols in place."
"You know I never was much for protocols," Jack replied sardonically, with just a hint of bite. "Just spare me the platitudes Doc and run your damn tests."
"The first thing we need to rule out is that you are some sort of clone."
Jack huffed. "And who the hell is it you think might have cloned me?"
"Ba'al," Teal'c replied with clear distain.
"Well, that's a disturbing thought," Jack muttered, "Really though…?" Jack looked to Daniel, getting that God damn image again and he winced, that hadn't ended well. "Why'd he want to clone me of all people?" Jack hedged his bets, trying to remember what had been said to him and what he'd just overheard, which wasn't the easiest right now. "I mean… we're talking about Bocce here. The guy hates me. Like really hates me… takes great pleasure in murdering me slowly hates me." There was a whisper of remembered history there from them all as they grew uncomfortable with the reminder and Jack sighed, not wanting to go there himself but being as they'd bought it up. "Why the hell would he want to make another me? Other than as a pincushion to whale on?"
"Well, any number of reasons as it turns out," Daniel replied with a wince. "Infiltration for one. He knew the SGC were searching for you rather than believing you killed. At the time there was credible information that you'd both been captured by Ba'al. Not to mention he might want to use you against Repli-Carter if he could… she was quickly decimating what was left of the Goa'uld." There was that information again, damn it was nice to hear, but still disturbing to know that Sam's face had been linked to it.
"Daniel, this is all just speculation. Or are you telling me you have proof he made a clone?" Jack accused, knowing full well they did from what he was getting from their heads with that fucking image that he was adding to the nightmare pile; but he needed it out in the open so he could damn well react to it. "'Cause I can't see why I'm strapped to a lab bench because of a maybe scenario. That isn't how I remember us doing things around here. Isn't it supposed to be Innocent until proven guilty…"
"We have all the proof we require," Teal'c told him sharply, barely looking at him. "Daniel Jackson. I do not think it is wise to continue this line of questioning until we have determined his identity," he advised darkly, giving Jack a fair amount of stink eye to go with that unhelpful statement. "Have a care. You may very well be conversing with the consciousness of Ba'al masquerading as our lost friend, it would be unwise to reveal all."
Janet turned and shot Teal'c a look. "And how are we going to assess anything Teal'c if he doesn't talk?" There was a sting to that and Teal'c merely bowed his head, deferring to the Doc's authority. Jack snorted. Teal'c always had always had a healthy level of respect for the Doc, and her temper.
Jack looked between them, memories and thoughts flooding him and he winced. Damn it. "Oh for crying out loud! Throw me a bone here people. How can I prove I'm me if I don't even know what I'm being accused of? He made a clone… great! I mean, it's all kinds of creepy that he did and I'm not thrilled about it but I fail to see how that's such a problem. Way I remember it from the Asgard, those things were blank slates right? Unless you're telling me you can't tell the difference between me and a blank clone?" A dark thought crossed his mind. "It wasn't another mini-me was it?"
"Well that's sort of the problem General," Landry replied through the mic. "He did indeed make an adult clone of you. One that was convincing enough to fool even Repli-Carter. At least for a while… until she discovered the deception and sent him back to us. Not dissimilar to how you've appeared right now. Only he definitely didn't come in peace. Pieces maybe." Jack got that image again… more violently this time with the clone erupting – quite literally – into thousands of mini-Replicators and closed his eyes for a moment. Nightmare fuel. Whatever that was, it hadn't been like any human-Replicator he'd ever seen. It looked more like his clone had been infested with the damn things and they'd burst out the casing. Gross.
"Okay. Not that I'm not charming and all but why the hell would Repli-Carter be interested in a clone of me. Or why would Ba'al for that matter? The only person that metallic bitch ever showed an interest in talking to from here was Sam. Surely if he'd captured us both, he'd have picked her to clone. Hell, for that matter why would anyone pick me over Carter to clone?" That one stumped him; he had it on good authority that her brain was considered precious in several universes and galaxies.
There was a pregnant pause. "What am I missing?" Jack asked, picking up on one overwhelming thought and it didn't bode well for him. "And why'd she kill you Daniel?" he asked pointedly.
"And how did you know about that by the way?" Daniel changed the topic.
"What?"
"In the Gate room. You asked if I'd died."
"Oh. That." Jack swallowed, he might have to fess up on that one, besides he wasn't lying. "You came to see us in the other universe."
"What?" Daniel asked confused.
"Not you, you. The glowy arrogant version of you that's a lot less helpful than you think you are you." Jack replied.
"I did?"
"Yep."
"Why?" he frowned, "How?
"I dunno. I never know how this crap works. All I know is that you said it was a loophole. Some sort of alternate universe thing that meant you could pop over and have a chat."
"Huh," Daniel replied, looking thoughtful and a little disturbed.
"I take it you don't remember that?" Daniel shook his head. Jack tried to shrug and aborted the manoeuvre strapped down as he was. "Well, thank you anyway. Sam had been captured and I wasn't dealing with it so well." Understatement of the century. "You pretty much smacked some sense into me and gave me a clue as to where to look for her."
"Go me," Daniel replied with no trace of irony.
"Your knack for dying aside," he took a pot shot, "Still doesn't explain why Ba'al and Repli-Carter were so interested in remaking me of all people," Jack pointed out.
"Really. You can't think of one reason?" Daniel rolled his eyes.
"I'm a pain in the ass. Who'd want two of me?"Except maybe Sam he conceded. Maybe.
"Oh come on Jack, you're an advanced human. Your DNA is pretty unique and gives you the ability to use Ancient technology," 'and right now everyone wants to know what Ancient knowledge might still be in your brain to defend against the Ori.' He thought loudly.
Jack rolled his eyes, "Oh please, everyone knows I had that Ancient crap sucked out of my head by the Asgard. Twice." Jack retorted. It took him a moment in the ringing silence to realise his mistake.
"Who said anything about Ancient knowledge?" Daniel cocked his head, taking a step closer to him, all sorts of alarm bells going off in his head that Jack needed to shut down pronto; Daniel's mind was like a pit bull, or a sniffer dog – once he got the scent, it zeroed in with alarming intensity.
"You did," Jack replied.
"No I didn't," he replied readjusting his glasses off his nose.
"Yes you did."
"Didn't."
"What?" he resorted to and Daniel was staring at him hard.
'Ba'al wanted to make a Hok'tar clone of you and use it as a host. He found another one of those Ancient download databases. He was going to use the clone to get at that technology.' Daniel thought at him really hard and Jack kept his poker face up. Oh crap. That wasn't good. Nor was the fact that Daniel was thinking at him like he half expected Jack to be able to hear him. Astute little Space Monkey. Which meant he had to double down on this denial; no way could he fess up right now or he'd be all but confirming their suspicions.
"Look, whatever the reason…" He started using his tried and tested distraction methods, "…I'm taking it this clone made a bit of a mess which is why you're all paranoid and I'm strapped to this damn chair. But it can't have been that bad… I mean you're all standing. Right? How much of a threat could he have been to necessitate all this?" He indicated his current predicament.
"Not all of us," Janet replied quietly and Jack's eyes turned back to her and a wave of grief hit him that he instantly felt and understood.
"Who?" he asked, his voice a harsh rasp; he knew – he'd heard in that second, saw the image in his mind, but he had to have them say it. He needed them to say it. "Who died?"
"Sergeant Siler." The words Janet spoke split his chest and he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the grief, pain, anger coming from all of them at once, compounded by his own. He coughed, a sound like a keen making its way out of his chest. God damn it. Siler. That man had been a rock for him for years, with a shared love of the Simpsons and deep appreciation for Homer and astronomy –a difficult combo to master – but the guy was like a trouble seeking missile. It seemed his knack for lucky escapes had finally run out and it had been an asshole with Jack's face that had done it.
"How?" he bit out, gritting his teeth through the urge to shout or just rail at something for the unjustness of that.
"He died stopping the clone from taking out this base, and probably this planet," Janet informed him quietly, as if sensing the deep pain of this news and at least respecting that. At least he died a hero Jack mused, cold comfort for his wife and daughter no doubt. "We think Repli-Carter had infected it somehow with some form of biological Replicators. His body literally disassembled into them, and then they…" Janet looked ill as she hesitated, emotion getting the better of her.
Daniel took over. "Siler had trapped him in one of the labs on level nineteen before he… that is to say… they emerged. He detonated a small explosion before they were able to replicate further, using more robust source material."
Jack felt physically sick and he'd seen some really fucked up shit in his life, especially since joining the SGC and worse since being in the Wasteland. But that was a pretty fucked up way to go right there.
"Was it… I mean..." he paused not sure what he wanted to ask. "Was it me? Did it have my mind, my memories? Like Repli-Carter."
"We're not sure," Daniel replied eying him carefully but talking at least. "That's the problem. Best we can figure, Ba'al had tried some sort of memory stamp on it like on that ice planet we visited. We think he got the mental imprint when he had you captive a few years back, or at least that was what we could get from the few memories we had. That clone… it seemed trapped in a nightmare. We assumed that Ba'al had tortured the real you again."
"Right." Jack winced not needing that reminder on top of the rest of this news. "Clones huh? Like we needed more reasons to hate that guy."
Daniel shared his uneasy look, "Yes well, it seems he's got dozens of his own running around the galaxy. That was until Jacob and Selmak started rounding them up. I should warn you, Jacob's taken this personally of course, given as Sam was missing presumed captured by Ba'al too. For the last six months he's pretty much been on a one-man crusade to rid the universe of anything Ba'al shaped."
"Well, it's good to have a hobby… especially that one," Jack quipped, trying to hold onto his emotions for the time being by slotting them behind his tried and tested amour of irreverence and sarcasm. "So clearly we weren't Ba'al's captives, which is probably why he'd resorted to using an old memory stamp of me huh?" Jack poked a hole in their logic. "So it stands to reason I'm not a clone. And you've already proven I'm not a Replicator."
"Replicator no…" Janet stepped forward, "The Asgard reprogrammed the weapon with a little help from Rodney McKay to detect and mitigate the biological versions. They're far more vulnerable in that form. And you're right, we tested that. But a Hok'tar clone… that we haven't ruled out. Nor have we ruled out the possibility of another Za'tarc program on both of you."
Jack closed his eyes and blew out an exasperated breath. "Seriously. Just go look at the tech we bought back. It's nothing like anything anyone in this universe has seen."
"Oh, that would be the highly radioactive tech that none of us can touch would it?" Daniel pointed out and Jack grimaced.
"It's only slightly radioactive," Jack grumbled. "I've been walking around in radiation soup for two years and I'm fine."
"Which is a medical impossibility General," Janet replied tersely.
"For this Earth."
"For any Earth," Janet corrected. "Radiation on the scale of that contamination is fatal and irreversible to humans. Even for the Goa'uld."
"Look, way I see it you just gotta prove that two years has passed right? At least that would corroborate some of what we're telling you."
"Right, so?" Daniel prodded.
"So. Go get the Pip-Boy. Sam's got journals on there… data. All sorts. Two years-worth of the damn things. Honestly, she enjoys reports. Did you know that? Enjoys them. Wrote them just for fun… and because she had the ridiculous forethought that we might need them," He sighed, "which I promise you is going to get me an 'I told you so'."
"You're not hearing us Jack. All your gear was contaminated," Daniel reiterated sharply.
"Oh Danny boy," Jack shook his head feeling his stomach sink, "Please tell me you didn't incinerate it?" he checked, feeling genuine panic at the notion. All their work, their gear, the tech.
"Incinerated it… no." Janet frowned, "Half of it… by your own admission… was nuclear powered. No, we sent it off world to one of the Beta sites for decontamination and further analysis," she revealed and Jack let out a breath of relief.
"And in case anything exploded," Daniel added. "New protocol."
"Whose dumb ass idea was that?"
"Woolsey's." came a chorus and Jack felt his heart sink. Well there went that rational idea.
"Oh come on. It was perfectly safe," Jack grumbled.
"Nuclear apocalypse wasn't it?" Daniel quipped.
"Touché," Jack replied. "Yeah, maybe best they don't futz with it too much without Sam. But that sort of proves my point. We could have easily blown you up if that's what we'd intended given how many explosives we bought with us."
"Sorry, can I interject here?" The speaker crackled on as the dark haired Vala leant in, having finally finished her popcorn it seemed.
"NO!" came a short sharp response from both Daniel and Landry.
Vala though was clearly not military, nor undeterred, as she merely rolled her eyes and snatched the mic that Landry had made to grab for. "I'm just going to point out that there's a third option here that no one seems to want to mention."
Daniel spun. "Vala… not now." The tone of his voice was sharp which surprised Jack, clearly this woman had gotten under his skin because Daniel was rarely sharp with anyone. Interesting.
"Well, when would you like me to tell you Daniel? Afterwards, when you're all dead. Shall I wave at your ascended floating body whilst your world is in ashes and Ba'al is lording it over us all? Shall I tell you then?"
Daniel grit his teeth.
"I'd like to hear it," Jack piped up. All eyes turned on him. "Seriously."
"See, I knew I'd like you. At least you have a sense of humour," Vala grinned, "Not like Daniel here. Dreary hardly covers it. He's got a stick up his…"
"Enough Vala!" Daniel growled out, "Will you just spit it out." She gave him an affronted look. "Please," he tacked on, looking like it had cost him.
"Well, since you asked so nicely General." Vala ignored Daniel with an eye roll and looked at him instead. "The Goa'uld have access to very realistic VR technology. I was talking to a lovely, if slightly balding bespectacled scientist down in the labs, and he was telling me all about one of those pods you tried to use for training purposes. That obviously went horribly wrong because you were trying to use tech far beyond your capabilities or understanding," she paused, "You do that a lot by the way." She sighed, "Considering you were supposed to be the home of our ancestors and you've barely progressed to space travel, I'll admit these constant disappointments in your ability to affect real change in the galaxy are becoming tiresome."
There were quite a few thoughts coming his way and Jack smirked. "You know, you're sounding mighty Goa'uld-like yourself lady."
Everyone froze. Vala's eyes were wide and, to his surprise, somewhat haunted by that statement. Ah! He got the word 'Qetesh' and quite a lot of unresolved feelings – guilt and pain. That would be the ex-Goa'uld he'd picked up earlier, so he hadn't been wrong then but he hadn't quite anticipated the guilt and trauma the poor woman seemed to have buried. It was unfair but he needed to push a weakness right now.
"Sore subject?" Jack prodded and Vala blinked, releasing the mic and leaning back as though stung. Daniel though got quite protective suddenly.
"Leave her alone!" he barked.
Jack cocked his head. "You know Daniel, I would but there's just this notion nagging at me. I mean she's clearly Goa'uld. You died. Teal'c's had a personality transplant not unlike the one Apophis gave him a few years ago to bring him back on side. Janet… well she's got a very un-Hippocratic, more Napoleonic-powermonger than usual vibe about her now. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Foothold situation," Jack got out, levelling that accusation at them all.
He honestly had thought about it. For about a minute back in the Gate room. Had he not been able to read their minds he might have continued thinking it. Certainly, enough to evade capture and break out of here. God he hoped Sam didn't go down that particularly mental path without his benefit of mind reading or this might get real ugly real fast.
Jack was mildly impressed at how quickly Daniel rallied to that. "If that were true, why did you let us imprison you and take your… wife?" Daniel asked the pertinent question. "Because that's what you did. You didn't put up a fight, you didn't resist. Not once."
"Why indeed Daniel. You know what I've been asking myself the same damn question."
"Right. It's almost like you wanted to be here," Daniel posed shrewdly.
"Gee, I wonder why. Maybe because I'm me and having just spent two years in the shit, literally, I just wanted to come home."
"Or you are the real Jack O'Neill released from captivity and brainwashed to come back and kill his own people. Ba'al would admire the grotesque symmetry in that," Daniel countered.
Jack tutted. "You know, the Goa'uld are unimaginative copycats at the best of times but they are generally pretty smart. Even Ba'al wouldn't be dumb enough to try and Trojan Horse you twice now would he?"
"He would if he'd programmed you with a very specific trigger." Daniel shot back, seemingly having an answer for everything.
"And that would trigger would be?" Jack posed, eyebrows up, feeling like he was in the twilight zone right now and trying to only respond to what he'd heard from their mouths and not their heads.
"Never you mind," Landry cut across this discussion with the heavy hand of 'need to know' which Jack felt. Shame. He could rip the information from his mind though, which of course he did, given as he'd so handily decided to think it loudly. Apparently Jacob and Selmak were on their way for a scheduled update, prior to being informed they'd returned – he'd obviously now be called in to interrogate them with that damn Za'tarc machine. But it didn't change the situation; they thought Ba'al had gotten wise to the movements and that he or Sam were here to assassinate Jacob and Selmak.
"And where does Sam figure into all of this? Or did Ba'al clone her too?" Jack pressed on, mildly concerned about the idea of a murderous father-in-law on his way here to interrogate him.
There was a shared look but Janet spoke up. "I'll admit, until she walked through the iris with you, that was the first news anyone has gotten about Colonel Carter in all this time. We assumed she'd been killed in the explosion when Ba'al captured you."
"Ah! And now?" Jack queried wondering where the hell this was going.
"Ba'al's been making advances in technology and tactics. Weapons, shields. We assumed he was getting the Ancient knowledge from you or the database through you. But given as you don't seem to be all that Ancient right now…" Daniel looked him up and down, that suspicion not quite clearing. "… maybe we were wrong and Jacob was right. That Ba'al was in fact forcing Sam to work for him using you as leverage."
"Ah," Jack acknowledged. "Makes perfect sense."
"Which would also explain the damage to the two of you," Janet replied and sighed heavily. "I saw you both in the showers General. Your bodies are littered with scars and wounds. Injuries that have clearly been healed over and over again, perhaps without the aid of sarcophagus but a healing device instead, they aren't quite as miraculous."
Right. That. Jack grimaced. They were tripping off down the light fantastic with their theories and supporting their own narrative with the evidence they wanted. Fear would do that he supposed. Paranoia.
"So… let me get this straight… I'm either a clone with superpowers, or a programmed assassin who's been living in a fantasy VR world getting horribly tortured by Ba'al the last six months in an effort to get his hands on Ancient knowledge… which he wanted Sam to build."
"It would explain the time discrepancy," Vala cut in. "You can lose years in those pods and only a few days or weeks can pass in the real world."
"I remember," Jack muttered, having once spent far too long chasing Teal'c through one for his liking. "That doesn't change the fact that you guys have clearly all gone nuts. I prefer my theory. The one where you've all been replaced by brainwashed lunatics." He tugged at the wrist straps considering if he ought to break out. Go check on Sam.
"Or…" he considered, "…maybe this is another parallel universe. Sam wasn't exactly at her best and there was a great big honking spaceship crashing all around us. Maybe she got the math a little wrong and we ended up in bizzarro world instead. Close but not close enough," he reasoned. You know what, that one actually had legs. Who's to say that wasn't the case, because this sure as hell didn't feel like home.
"Maybe General but that's yet another possibility to be ruled out," Janet reasoned, as if not realising he was close to breaking out and running with that one. She was so matter of fact and clinical about it all, like it was settled and he'd comply happily. "So, with all that in mind, how about you level with me and tell me if there's anything else I need to know before I run these lab tests and find it for myself? Or worse yet, wait for our allies to reveal it. Because rest assured they are coming to do their own testing," she pressed, arms crossed, clearly at her wits end with all the emotions she was having to keep ramped down until she was sure they were who they were claiming to be.
Jack thought about it seriously. Obviously he wasn't going to fess up right now to being some sort of Ancient-mutant Hok'tar given everything she'd just said; they'd lock him away as an experimental clone for sure. But there was more than just that to reveal. "Honestly Doc, we've had so much shit and God knows what in our systems over the last two years, I have no idea what your tests will find. But we're us. Hell, you've tended every bump we've ever had. I'm sure if anyone will know, it's you."
"Well lets address the elephant in the room shall we? How do you explain the biological reset? As you can imagine that is very heavily influencing our current line of thinking towards clone," Janet asked coolly, her pen waving over his face to indicate the current predicament where he was a good few decades younger looking than when he went through.
"Healthy living and moisturiser?" he quipped.
Janet's expression grew irritated, Daniel's was practically furious. "Oh come on. I told you. I got stuck with a regenerating serum to fix this chest wound alright? I know you saw in that oh so pleasant shower!" he barked, growing more than a little exasperated. What the hell was he supposed to say? They weren't buying even the simple stuff let alone this one at this point.
"I did and frankly I have no idea how you could have survived such a grievous wound. Not without a Goa'uld healing technology," Janet pointed out. "Why don't you try a little harder to explain that to us?"
"I'm not a doctor, Doc," he grunted indignant. "And I wasn't exactly in the best shape at the time to be asking questions. I pretty much got gutted like a fillet-o-fish and given as half my chest was outside my body… and Sam was dragging my sorry ass through a war zone at the time… I wasn't really paying much attention. She saved my ass, got me help with the nearest thing to a Doc out there. We couldn't exactly afford to be choosy you know? That turned out to be a bit of a mistake but you know how it goes. Next thing I knew, I was waking up like Frankenstein's monster… twenty-four hours later… with this lovely souvenir and a face I didn't expect to see in the mirror again." It was a mostly true version minus a few Ancient related tangents and what Sam had done to secure his damn life. For her, he'd take that to his damn grave if he had to but he reckoned it was a strong enough recollection to pass most lie detectors as omissions weren't lies, not really, or so the US Government had always taught him. Although if Jacob was going to whip out that damn Za'tarc device again that might prove difficult – damn he hated that thing!
Daniel shifted on his feet uneasily, clearly pensive. "You really expect us to believe that you didn't bother to ask what had happened to you when you woke up?"
Jack raised an eyebrow at him. Oh he really needed them not to ask Sam about this so he tried to give a little more. "Of course I asked Daniel, I'm not an idiot. But frankly I got a lot of mumbo jumbo back and out there it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth… or at all... sideways glances at most." He grimaced and met Daniel's blue eyes head on. "Trust me Daniel there's some shit you can't unknow… like what's in the mystery meat." He shuddered and felt his stomach shift uncomfortably at the reminder of a certain meat packing factory, fighting the urge to retch.
Daniel frowned and Jack broke off the eye contact which was a little too revealing for both of them.
"Speaking of that… Doc, I really think you should check me out for gut rot or something… radioactive parasites even… get us on some yoghurts stat," he suggested, certain he looked green. Her expression looked somewhere between horrified and curious.
"I'll add it to the list," she confirmed quietly, doing just that; making a note to give them a bunch of antibiotics and other stuff too which he was pleased about.
"Fascinating as this is…" Landry cut across them all on the mic, "… and not to put too fine a point on it… there's another elephant in the room we need to address. I assume that you're sticking to your guns about this time discrepancy of two years?" he prompted with a tone that suggested he thought it was bullshit and Jack nodded. "Very well," Landry tutted. "Then if you could be so good as to confirm the date you went missing and the details of your last mission… for the record General."
"Checking for parallel Earth duplicates?" he quipped but Landry didn't smile; Vala did, even gave him a little wave and thumbs up. Janet had her pen out making notes, apparently she was also checking for false or incomplete memories he noted.
"Right," he muttered, thinking back. "January 15, 2005. It was a Friday. I remember 'cause it was supposed to be our weekend off. Until we got the call to come help SG-4 on good ole P4M-523. We're calling that place Far Harbour now, FYI," he shared, realising that it felt a hell of a lot longer than two years. More like decades, or another lifetime. Maybe it was. But mostly what he was feeling was tired. So damn tired of all this suspicion and paranoia and conflict in his damn brain. He was half looking forward to the sedative Janet had in her pocket. At least then he wouldn't have to feel the press of all these minds for a while, whilst they ran their damn tests.
"Okay." Janet wrote it down; clearly he'd passed that test. "Then Daniel's right. That was roughly six months ago for us, relatively speaking," she informed him. He looked up at her and then at the nodding Daniel and the looming figure of Landry in the window, but they all seemed just as confused by that particular fact as he was. For a brief moment he tried to hear how all this sounded from their perspective. Maybe the idea of a VR nightmare world cooked up by Ba'al to torture them was more plausible. Hell, maybe that was what really happened. Ba'al might be sadistic enough to come up with something like the Wasteland, but somehow Jack seriously doubted he was that creative. He wondered if that was how Sam had felt at the beginning, after Fifth, when she'd come back and confessed to feeling like her perception of reality was slipping. Shit. He hoped they didn't go sharing this VR theory with her. It had taken Sam some pretty fucking hard knocks to shake the idea of a false reality that first year out in the Wasteland, settling on the notion that not even Fifth was that fucked up to create such a place. Ba'al though? God the whole notion was a head fuck and he tried to delete the idea from his mind, focusing instead on what he thought was the most logical cause – something trippy with the Gate.
It was the only explanation he could give them right now that sounded halfway plausible. "Look, Sam mentioned something about black holes and gravity not mixing well with time. That or… I don't know… time moving differently in that other universe. On the world we were on, it was 2077 when the bombs fell... and we landed two hundred years after that oh so happy event. So maybe we were already out of time too. That or they just started a calendar way before us," he offered up with a shrug, going for helpful.
"But as you know, it's not really my area. All I can tell you is I've had two hard won birthday's out there. So trust me when I tell you, we came the long way round. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with that snaky asshole," he declared, disappointed to hear from her mind that she didn't in fact either trust or believe him right now.
"We'll take that under advisement General. I'm going to administer a sedative now which will put you to sleep. Once under I'll do a brief physical to assess your obvious injuries. I'll take blood and tissue samples and we'll perform a number of scans and more invasive tests. I apologise again, but if we don't we will have no choice but to keep you imprisoned indefinitely, or hand you over to the IOA or other interested parties to ascertain the truth."
"Or execute him," Teal'c growled.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence buddy." Jack gave him a shit eating grin; this was getting old real fast.
"On the contrary I have none," he intoned and Jack rolled his eyes; one day Teal'c would get sarcasm.
The Doc was approaching with a sedative. Jack eyed it warily; he didn't especially want to be out. "Can't you do a physical first? You'll want me awake for that right? I can answer all your annoying questions about what's what." She didn't stop coming at him and he tried to flinch away. "Oh come on Doc! I have every one of my damn memories, even the ones I'd rather forget," he swore. "I'm me. Ask me anything. Let me prove it!" he exclaimed.
Teal'c approached as he started thrashing, backing up the Doc as she held the injection aloft and Jack considered really fighting. "That won't be necessary General," she replied and the injection slid into his arm and he winced, glaring at her and Teal'c both.
"You've always been a little too keen on the needles… you know that? Someone should really do a psychological review." His head got woozy. Damn this stuff was fast! "Make sure you're not… enjoying your work… a little… a little too…" He slumped forward. "Stuff's fast," he groaned.
"Yes General, it is. Just relax," says the woman with the needles to the man strapped down Jack thought, as he felt blackness rolling up from the back of his eyes until he was overwhelmed went out like a light.