Chapter 4
***************SGC***************
Daniel went up to his office and immediately started a search for one Helen Magnus. He was not the computer genius that Sam was, but he was great at research. So, when forty minutes later he had still not been able to find out anything about the woman he began to get suspicious.
Given his work with a top secret organization, he knew what a background scrub looked like. If that was the case though it meant that she was connected pretty high up in the government somewhere. He leaned back in his chair and took off his glasses trying to think of a new way to go about the search. He figured with the time frame Jack had given him he had about an hour left. He leaned forward and put his hands on the keyboard hoping it would give him inspiration of where to go next. He was actually relieved when the phone rang. With a sigh he answered it.
"Dr. Jackson." He said slightly distracted; still thinking about what to tell Jack.
"Dr. Jackson its Hammond, I need you to stop searching for Helen Magnus by order of the President. He will have more information when he gets here."
"Well Sir, that just leads to more questions. She is connected enough to have the President stop us in our tracks, but she has no paper trail leading to who she is. Was she scrubbed?" Daniel was starting to get concerned with all the secrecy. It was one thing to have Sam cloned from a completely unknown element, but to have her cloned from someone so high in the government that they were ghosted, was dangerous. Jack needed to be made aware of what was going on as soon as possible.
"I'm sorry General, what were you saying?" Daniel had been so focused on the consequences of this latest information he missed everything else.
"Dr. Jackson, I said the President is flying in. We have about eight hours before the everyone should arrive and everything should be answered,. Or we will have more questions; I just don't know."
"Yes sir, I'll let the rest of the team know what is going on." Daniel was about to hang up when he remembered something. "Wait, General Hammond…why don't we just see if Thor will beam them over. That way we get our answers faster."
"Good idea son, I will call the President back and make the suggestion. Have Colonel O'Neill report to my office." General Hammond hung up with Daniel so he could call the President. He started to push two on the red phone when he had another idea. Instead, he pressed the coms button that gave him a direct line to Sgt. Harriman.
"What can I get for you General?"
"Sgt. I need you to bring me three copies of the non-disclosure agreement. We will be having company soon."
"Yes sir, about that. It would seem that there is a force shield around the briefing room and your office sir in addition to the cameras not working. We found out when Siler tried going into the briefing room."
General Hammond sighed. "Is he alright?"
"Yes sir, nothing out of the ordinary. He banged his head pretty good when it threw him backwards so a couple of airman escorted him to the infirmary."
"Alright Sgt. Thank you. I will figure out what is going on. I didn't know Thor's security included a force shield." As he hung up the phone he glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only 0830. The day already seemed like it should be ending, not just beginning. He started to pick up the phone to call the President when Colonel O'Neill knocked on the door and entered.
"Colonel O'Neil, care to explain to me how you just walked through a force shield like it wasn't there?"
"Sir, what force shield?" Jack looked behind him perplexed and walked back through the door. "There is nothing out here sir." He walked back into the Generals office. "You told Daniel you wanted to see me?"
"Colonel, Siler was injured by a force shield when he tried to enter the briefing room. I need you to contact Thor and find out what is going on. Also, see if he is willing to beam the President to the briefing room. Daniel suggested it, and hopefully we'll get answers faster. I have a call to make."
Hammond picked up the phone as Jack walked through to the briefing room to call Thor.
"Mr. President, I have stopped the search into Helen Magnus as you ordered sir. Out of curiosity, how did you know we were looking into her background?"
"Funny story actually, she found out and asked me if it was some of my people. I could only assume that with the information Thor dropped on us this morning that SG1 would want as much information on her as possible. She requested the searches be stopped, so I put a stop to them."
"So you know her sir?" Hammond was flabbergasted. He really didn't want to buy into Dr. Jackson's theory, but it appeared he may have no choice in the matter. Considering he ran one of the military's top secret facilities, he sure hated secrets.
"I have met her a few times. If you think you have an amazing job, just wait until you hear about hers. You may find that you have a lot in common with her organization."
"Yes sir, I will take your word on that. Next matter, how would you feel about beaming over instead of flying? Someone pointed out that with Thor in orbit we could get this done a whole lot faster."
"Sure George, that would be great, however don't forget some of the secret service agents, they do tend to get a bit prickly when I go disappearing on them." Hammond smiled at the phone picturing all the confusion around the White House if the President were to just disappear. Total chaos in seconds. It would almost be worth it to…Nope, talk about being reassigned to Alaska or somewhere equally unpleasant.
"Not a problem sir I will let the Colonel know to expect…how many?" He needed to know an exact number, Thor tended to get a bit beam happy when he was not told exactly what he could take.
"Well, it is a secure facility, so how about three?" That sounded like a good number, after all he was flying Thor express, not like he had to worry about terrorist attacks while in route.
"What about Helen Magnus? Not sure what kind of warning we could give that she would be willing to believe. Should we just allow her to arrive on her own and we can bring you in at that point?" Hammond wanted to know.
"Actually, we will just have Thor beam them over. But wait until I arrive, I really want to see her face."
"Have the men standing with you sir, so that Thor knows who to bring. Should only be a few minutes." He warned. "See you when you get here."
"Alright George, see you in a couple of minutes." Both parties hung up the phone. Hammond walked into the briefing room.
"Colonel, is Thor willing to help us out?" Jack was standing in the middle of the room making gestures and talking to himself. Or, that's how it appeared anyway. Through previous experience with the communication device he know that Jack was talking to Thor.
"Hang on Thor…" He turned his head to look at General Hammond. "Yes sir, he is standing by to beam the President on your order."
"Just make sure he gets the three secret service in the room with him. No need to cause a commotion at the White House." Hammond smiled to himself thinking about the time Thor started beaming massive amounts of gear and food off the base and everyone panicked. Multiply that by about five million and that would be the reaction at the White House.
Jack turned his back to General Hammond to continue talking to Thor.
"Alright Thor we are good to go. There are four people that are there ready to go from the White House."
A second later there was a bright flash of light and the President was moved over a thousand miles in the blink of an eye. All the occupants of the room looked around for the three missing agents.
"Oh, this can't be good." The President said seriously.
Jack turned back to talk to Thor. "Uhm Thor buddy, I said the secret service guys had to come to." Jack stopped talking and stood still for a minute.
"George, what is he doing? There is no one there." The President tried looking where the Colonel was staring, but could see nothing.
"Well sir, he is listening to whatever Thor is telling him. It's a bit disconcerting to view from this side the first time…" Hammond stopped talking when Jack started to turn back their way.
"Okay Thor, I got it geeze." He turned back to General Hammond and the President. "Sorry about that Mr. President. If you would follow me for a second." Jack walked over to the door and opened it. "Wait!" he yelled and held up his hand as the secret service made a move to enter the room. "There is a force shield surrounding this room. According to Thor you are not invited in, but as you can see the President is here and completely safe." Jack turned to the President, "Sir, if you would like to step out of the room to reassure your agent that you are not being held against your will." Jack gestured at the door and stepped to the side.
The President stepped up to the door and next to where Jack was standing and glanced back at Hammond. "Never a boring day around here is there George?" He looked back to where his agent was standing and started looking for a force shield.
"You can't see it sir, but as Sgt. Siler found out earlier, it is there."
"So I can just step through it? Will I be able to get back in?" If his agent was not allowed to get in, how was he going to be able to?
"Don't worry sir, Thor coded your DNA into the shield, or something like that. I'm sure Carter could explain it better, but there you have it. You can come and go at will and not feel a thing. I should know I've done it. Several times in fact." The President took a deep breath and stepped forward. The secret service agent grabbed him and pulled him away from the door.
Talking to the President he said "Sir, I don't feel comfortable not being able to get to you in an emergency."
"Frankly Scott, there is no safer place in the world. No one can get through that shield unless Thor gives the okay for it. I'll be just inside. Besides, if anything goes wrong, I'm not sure what you folks would be able to do anyways." He looked around the hallway not seeing the rest of the agents. "If it will make you feel better, why don't you station yourselves at all the doors." He turned and walked back into the room and closed the door. "Well George, I kind of expected all of SG1 here as a welcoming committee. I must tell you I am a bit disappointed."
"Sorry about that sir, Major Carter is in the infirmary having some tests run." Hammond explained.
"Well George, I would really prefer if we hold off on any testing until Helen and her team gets here. She will be able to answer a lot of your questions…after we explain to her what is going on. Although, when she meets Major Carter, she may figure part of it. She is really smart."
"Of course she it, I would expect nothing less knowing Sam." Jack said "Sir, I have to ask, did you know about all of this?" Jack needed to know if this was a known fact and it was intentionally kept from Carter.
"No Jack, I swear I had no idea. Let's get everyone here and then we can discuss the particulars." The President looked around the room. "I have Dr. Magnus's location if Thor can bring in her and her team that would be great." The President handed Jack a paper with grid coordinates on it. He went over to relay the message to Thor.
"Sir, how many people?" Jack needed to give as much information as possible to Thor, not a good idea to bring in random people to a top secret base.
"Three." He turned to Hammond.
"Sir, is this a good idea bringing her directly here? How much are we going to share with her?" Hammond hated bringing more people into the well-kept secret of the Stargate program. It was hard enough to keep it a secret at it was.
"Full disclosure George. She is going to have to be willing to share her secret with you and your team. She is going to have to trust that you all can keep it secret. To do that we need to explain what this program has been doing. Besides, how were you planning on explaining Thor?" The President turned to the location that he arrived in. He really did want to see Helens face when she arrived.
The few times he met with her she seemed so unflappable, like nothing could phase her. He really hoped to get a reaction out of her.
Jack turned back to the General and the President. "Well sir's they should be here any second now." He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Yep, any time now." His comment was followed by a bright flash and three people standing together in a group.
They all spoke at the same time.
"What the Hell was that?" "Well that was different." "Bloody Hell."
The President started laughing.