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Chapter 9
The first half of SG1 and Dr. Frazier arrived back down in the briefing room well ahead of everyone else who was still in the mess and sat down in their respective places. No one said anything, each lost in their own thoughts since coming down from the surface.
"So…157 years old and not by any means that we are currently aware of." Daniel was the first to point out the obvious. "Any thoughts Doc?" Daniel leaned on the table to look past Teal'c.
"Daniel, I am so far out of my depth with all of this. As far as we know she is human. I am sure that if that were not the case something would have shown up in Sam's DNA long before now." Janet leaned back in her chair. She wanted nothing more than to call the lab to ask for the test results, but while she could and had moved the tests to the front of the line, there really was no other way to rush them. Yelling at the staff to go faster would not have the desired effect.
"How long do you think that they will stay on the surface?" Daniel asked no one in particular.
"No longer than is necessary Daniel Jackson. Col. O'Neill will not endanger Major Carters life." Responded Teal'c.
"Ya, about that…" Daniel was not able to finish his thought. General Hammond opened the door to the room and escorted the President and the members of the Sanctuary team back in.
"Where are Major Carter and Col. O'Neill?" Hammond wanted to know.
"MajorCarter needed a few minutes and O'Neill is ensuring her safety." Teal'c responded.
With a nod of understanding General Hammond regained his seat at the head of the table and everyone else followed suit.
After a few minutes of silence Sam and Jack walked back into the room and sat down at the table. Janet leaned over and whispered something in Sam's ear.
"I'm fine Janet. I am ready to hear everything else." Sam made eye contact with Helen. "Whenever you are ready." Sam inclined her head.
"As I already told Major Carter I am 157 years old." She paused at the end of the sentence letting everyone in the room digest the new information. Just like with Sam, it didn't take long before the questions started. The only one in the room that looked shocked was the president.
"I am assuming that you are going to tell us how this is possible?" General Hammond asked calmly. With as many strange things as they had encountered over the years he would not rule anything out.
"Yes. But didn't you say that we were waiting for someone else to arrive?" Helen asked no one in particular.
"You all must see a lot of things going to other planets to not bat an eyelash at my mom's revelation." Ashley said. "Most people, even ones that have know her for a long time have a bit of an adjustment when they first find out, not to mention a whole lot of questions." Ashley was curious what these people went through to not be phased by what her mom had revealed.
During the entire conversation, Jack was watching Will. Up to this point he had been strangely quiet about everything. What he did notice was that Will was watching everything that was going on around him and if Jack was not mistaken would be able to recall it in vivid detail later if asked. It was no wonder that he was here.
"Your awfully quiet over there." Jack said to Will.
"Well, it's like the President said, Ashly and I are only here because Magnus refused to come without us. None of this is my story to tell." Will was sitting back in his chair with his hands casually in his lap.
"Besides, Will only joined the team about 6 months ago. Something about needing a Psychologist or some such non-since." Ashly helpfully provided while grinning at Will. "But I will admit that he was a good choice." She added to let Will know that she was only joking.
"So Ashly, how old are you? If you don't mind me asking." Janet was trying to put the pieces together in her head.
"I will be 23 soon. We don't know yet if my mom's ability will affect me in the long run. I guess only time will tell." Ashly responded honestly.
"While Ashly does share the abnormality in her DNA, we don't know yet how that will manifest, there are several possibilities." Helen expanded on her daughter's explanation.
"Does this mean that it may not be active in my DNA?" Sam was eager to know.
"Honestly I don't know. Since you were cloned directly from me at this point I would assume that you will have the same longevity that I do."
"When did you find out about your immortality Dr. Magnus?" Frazier wanted to know.
"That's all part of the story I'm afraid. Although I am not immortal." Before she could continue a beam of light lit up the room and Thor appeared at the opposite side of the table from Hammond. SG1 watched amused as both Ashley and Helen stayed seated with barely a reaction. Will's reaction however almost had him falling out of his chair.
"Really Will?" Helen said with a small laugh.
"Thor, I would like you to meet Dr. Helen Magnus, Dr. Will Zimmerman and Ashley Magnus." Jack stood up and did the introductions. He was often the one that interacted with Thor and felt it was his duty. "Sanctuary team, this is Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet."
Thor inclined his head to the three new people in the room but addressed General Hammond.
"I have read everything in the file and found a few additional references to Major Carter. Dr. Magnus, however did not appear anywhere other than the original file. Once he was able to successfully clone Major Carter, Loki did no further tests on Dr. Magnus." Thor turned and looked at her. "It appears that he should have."
"I'm sorry, but did you just imply that he should have continued to do medical experiments on my mom?" Ashly was indigent.
"Ashley, I am sure that was not what he meant by the comment." Helen turned and looked at Thor expecting him to continue.
"You are correct. We do not condone the experiments that Loki was conducting on Earth." Thor explained. Jack snorted at the comment. It was not the first time that he had heard that from the Asgard. "Most likely had this been an authorized investigation, we would have gained your permission before continuing. Based on your appearance, you and Major Carter may hold part of the key to our problem."
"Thor, Dr. Magnus was waiting for your arrival before explaining. She has stated that she is 157 years old but offered no other details." Jack paused. "I am sure that she is about to fill us in now?" Jack directed his question to Helen.
She took a deep breath and started her story.
"I was born on August 27, 1850. My father, Gregory was a controversial medical researcher. He helped what we call abnormals. Some are offshoots of humans, while others share no genetic markers with us at all." Helen looked around the room to see if they were following her. "I wanted nothing more when growing up than to be a Doctor. I am sure you can imagine how well that went over with society. My father used his influence with the medical community to gain me a place to study medicine at Oxford University, although at the time I was only auditing classes as women were not allowed."
Helen got up from the table and turned her back to the room. She rarely if ever shared the details of her life with others, let alone a room full of people. Will asked a lot of questions about people that she knew, but not even Ashley had all the information that she was about to tell, if she told them everything.
"Studying at Oxford was a dream come true for me, but as the only woman allowed, it left me separated from my peers and ridiculed. My second year of study, I formed a group of extraordinary people who were just as curious as I was about the world around them. But most of all they didn't mind that I was female. We called ourselves the five."
Helen glanced at her daughter and over to Will. Both were watching her as if they had never seen her before. This was actually a story that nether of them had heard before. They both had just assumed that she was an abnormal just like the ones they studied.
"Due to my father's work we was able to procure a very rare blood sample called Sanguine Vampiris." Here she stopped and waited for the questions to start.
"As in Vampire?" Jack asked jokingly.
"Yes, exactly like that." She replied seriously.
Jack snorted in disbelief.
"Your saying that vampires are real?" Daniel asked with almost a childlike glee.
"From our research we have found that they were at one point, many thousands of years ago, the ruling class on the planet. Some time before the dark ages they were wiped out by a religious group who had decided they were evil." She paused for a drink of water considering where to go next. "There is only one left as far as I know, and he was part of the five." As an afterthought she added "Although given what I know of them as a species, if there were more they would not have stayed hidden and would have attempted to return the world to the way it was, with them as the ruling class."
Daniel interjected "That is amazing."
"As I was saying, after almost a year of studying the blood, we were able to make a serum that we injected ourselves with. Most likely not the responsible thing to do looking back. I was the first to go and while painful, it didn't seem to have any affect. The other four members injected themselves with varying results."
"So your saying that the blood had a different effect each of you?" Janet's medical curiosity was killing her. She had so many questions about the results and how they manifested.
"Exactly. And let me tell you that when they started showing abilities I will admit to being extremely jealous. As you can imagine, it took some time before my ability became apparent." At this point she debated on how much information to share regarding the other members. Considering all but one was still alive she didn't want this to possibly impact them.
"So let me see if I understand so far." Jack said. "You and four of your college friends injected yourselves with vampire blood and waited to see what would happen? You know how crazy that sounds right?"
"Sir, is it really any crazier than walking through a stone ring on a weekly basis not knowing what was going to happen on the other side or if you would even be able to make it back to Earth?" Sam was the first to point out how crazy what they did on a regular basis was to everyone else in the room. "They just do it here instead of halfway across the galaxy."
"Fairpoint Carter. Shutting up now, please continue." Jack sat back in his chair and indicated that Helen should continue her story.
Helen smiled at Sam.
"Your right Jack, we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The other members of the group were Nigel Griffin, Nikola Tesla, John Druitt and James Watson." Helen sat back down in her chair with a heavy sigh. "Nigel's ability was to become invisible and John could teleport to anywhere he had knowledge of in the blink of an eye. James's ability was almost as subtle as my own. His mind grew to new heights, and he became increasingly smarter as time went on. Nikola was the biggest surprise though. He apparently had vampire ancestry somewhere down the line and thus became the only vampire left that we currently know of."
Helen debated telling them of her work with the Sanctuary. In the grand scheme of things, they were only there because of her. She decided that if they needed more information later than she could provide it, for now, it would only be the basics. Kind of like what Dr. Jackson did with the information pertaining to the Stargate program.
"I run a Sanctuary for the abnormals that I mentioned earlier. Our main focus is protecting them from humans as we do tend to destroy what we don't understand. But we also get called out to neutralize or contain a threat if there is no other way." She finished.
When no further information appeared to be forthcoming Janet addressed Thor. "So Thor, is there a way that you could test both Major Carter and Dr. Magnus to see if the trait carried over during the cloning process?" Dr. Frazier knew that she was going to need his help to get a conclusive answer.
"Janet, I thought you were already testing Major Carters DNA for the abnormality?" General Hammond asked.
"Yes Sir I am and I have every technician in the lab working on it, however it will takes days if not weeks before the tests will be complete. If Dr. Magnus consents Thor has much better testing equipment on his ship and could get it done a whole lot faster." Dr. Frazier hated to admit the next part. "Also, sir even if I had the results in front of me right now, I am not sure that I would know what I am looking for."
"Thor?" General Hammond redirected the question.
"If Dr. Magnus is willing to consent to the tests, it should not take long."
"What would these tests consist of?" Helen wanted to know.
"A trip to my ship and a very brief stay in a stasis pod. Nothing that SG1 has not been through before." Thor made eye contact with the various members of SG1. "Several times in fact."
"Can Will and I come as well? Going onto an alien spaceship would be so cool." Ashley looked like a kid in candy store at the thought.
"I don't see any issues with that. General Hammond?" Thor was asking permission to proceed.
"You said that there was more information about Major Carter in Loki's files Thor. Anything that we need to know?" General Hammond asked.
"No General Hammond. Nothing about the current situation. I will however discuss the additional information with Major Carter once the tests are complete." Without giving anyone a chance to ask further questions Thor moved some controls on his chair and everyone in the room was beamed to the ship except for General Hammond and the President.