**********SGC**********
The room was silent and still, the air thick with a sense of solemnity that hung over everyone present. Not a word was spoken as if the silence had taken on a life of its own and didn't want to be disturbed. The members of SG1, along with Dr. Fraiser and General Hammond, sat at the conference table waiting for the president to be transported over from the White House.
"Welcome, Mr. President," General Hammond said after the president appeared in a flash of white light, "I wish it were under better circumstances." General Hammond stood up to greet his old friend.
"Thanks for having me, George. I meant to get here to see firsthand what you people do, but as a newly elected president, there is a lot to keep me busy." He turned to his left. "This must be SG1 that I have read so much about." Just as the General was about to introduce them, the president waived him off. "No introductions necessary; I have been using their mission reports as bedtime reading; I feel like I know you all already." He said amicably. "But there is a lot to get done, and I have a very short window here. General Maynard is briefing me in my office on a sensitive matter. I've instructed the staff that we're not to be disturbed, but things happen."
"This is Dr. Janet Fraiser; she is our base chief medical officer," Jack said, making the introduction.
"I have read your reports as well, Doctor, and I must say that they are very impressive." He said. Without wasting any more time, he approached the opposite side of the table from General Hammond and took a seat. Leaning forward, he continued, "Let's get down to business. I had difficulty persuading Helen to come here. Due to the unsecured communication line, I couldn't tell her the truth. Every reason I could come up with, she countered. I had to approve her entire team joining her before she would agree." He left out the part about threatening her. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and set it on the table. "She needs time to get her team together and will call when they are ready. Until then, I will tell you what little I know about her." He leaned back and settled into the chair. "I was briefed on the Sanctuary at the same time I was the Stargate, which was not long after I took office. I have never met her, but I did speak to her twice on the phone. She runs a privately owned facility that focuses on giving rare creatures a home. Sometimes, they actively seek her out for help; however, there are also instances where her team must act before the abnormals become a danger to others."
"What do you mean by abnormals, Mr. President?" Daniel was the first to ask.
"Let's see, how did she phrase it?" He stopped for a second. "Oh, yes, 'Nature is nothing if not diverse,' whatever that means. I had difficulty getting her to open up during our conversation. She made initial contact to confirm the continued support of the United States but didn't provide any useful information. Rather than being forthcoming, she deflected my questions, making for a fascinating yet frustrating conversation on my part."
"Sir, if you didn't have any information on her, why did you stop Daniel from investigating her?" Jack wanted to know.
"Simple, there is nothing to find. An internet search would have gotten you nowhere, and she would have tracked the search back here; it wasn't worth the risk."
"What makes you think she would have known we were looking into her background?" Jack asked.
"Easy. After my initial conversation with her, naturally, I was curious. I had some staffers search for her using some of my information. Within an hour of giving the order, I received a phone call on my cell. She was no longer amused, and after a ten-minute dressing down, I felt like a scolded child." Before he could say anything else, his phone rang.
"I guess that's our queue." Instead of the president answering the phone, Jack signaled Thor to beam them over. Thor was using the signal from the phone to pinpoint the location of the Sanctuary team.
They arrived in the usual flash of light indicating the Asgard beaming technology. They were standing in a semi-circle around a woman, who he assumed was Helen since her hand was still to her ear even though there was no longer a phone in it.
Exclamations of "What the hell was that?" "What just happened?" and "That was so cool" could be heard from the group.
Jack used their disorientation to observe them and do a quick risk assessment. The youngest of the four was a blond woman. She was dressed in black leather, with a tactical belt and a gun on her right side. There was an additional gun strapped to her left leg, one at the small part of her back, and from what he could tell, she had at least three blades on her. Knowing that if she had that many visible weapons on her, there were more that he couldn't see. Jack moved slowly toward the president, just in case.
The second person was a young man, the most excited of the group and probably not any older than the blonde. He had a scruffy appearance and didn't look like he was armed. He did have a backpack on, so there could have been any number of things in it. His outfit was a direct contrast to what the young woman was wearing; he wore tennis shoes, khaki pants, and a rumpled tee, clearly not the fighter in the group. Clutched to his chest was a tablet, so maybe the computer geek?
The third person was also male. He had no visible weapons on him, and he had that nerdy quality that Daniel had back when he first joined SG1. Jack didn't dismiss him because he knew what Daniel could do when threatened, but he was not the biggest threat in the room. His body posture was rigid, and his arms crossed over his chest, unhappy with the situation.
He could not get a good look at the group's fourth member since her back was to the room, facing the blast shield covering the window to the gate room. She was dressed in business attire—a black skirt and blazer with black heels. Dark brown hair cascaded down her back. He was sure that this had to be Helen Magnus. The blonde was too young, and the men were out for obvious reasons. And how she held herself gave an air of someone used to being in charge.
"Jack, you don't have to protect me; none of these people will hurt me." The president spoke up when he realized that Jack had positioned himself to defend him if necessary.
"Yes, well, Sir, you can never be too careful; in case you didn't notice, they are pretty heavily armed." The president stepped out from behind Jack at about the same time the brunette turned and faced the room; Jack and General Hammond were able to get a good look at her for the first time.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Mr. President; being told you have weeks to live opens doors to things you hadn't considered before."
"Did you just threaten the president?" Jack blurted out.
"Just returning the favor," she eyed his uniform, "Colonel."
"Dear God!" Hammond blurted out. "Colonel, she could be…" he stopped himself from saying what he wanted.
"Cut her hair and make her blonde, and yes, sir, she is the spitting image of Carter." Jack finished for him.
While Jack had made his way across the room to put himself between the new people in the room and the president, the other members of SG1 stayed seated around the table.
"Would someone care to explain what in the bloody hell is going on?" Helen demanded.
"You are in a top-secret military facility known to few as Stargate Command; to most, it is NORAD located in Cheyanne Mountain, Colorado Springs. It is one of this world's best-kept secrets." The president told her.
"And how exactly did we get here?"
"A friend of ours beamed you here." Said Jack.
"A friend?" Henry asked excitedly, "no way! I told you guys aliens are real!"
"A modicum of decorum, please, Henry." Helen gave him a look. "I'm sure that is not what he meant, although I was unaware that the American military possessed such technology."
"If you would like to take a seat, we can start with introductions and move on to the purpose of bringing you all here." Said the president.
As the Sanctuary team sat down, they finally took note of Sam sitting slightly hunched in on herself.
"Um, Mom?"
"Yes, Ashley, I noticed." She leaned forward in her chair, "Fascinating."
"What are…" Will started.
"Not yet, Will. Shall we all introduce ourselves like the President suggested? Afterward, we can determine precisely what is happening!" They went around the table saying who they were and what role they performed within their respective teams. It took less than ten minutes.
"Okay, now that that is out of the way. Who are you? Really?" Helen inquired of Sam.
Before Sam could say anything in response, General Hammond spoke up. "Ma'am, that probably is not the best place to start. To grasp the answer to that question, you need to know what we do here."
"Oh, boy," Henry said under his breath. Simultaneously, Ashley snorted back a laugh.
"Well then, please enlighten me!" Helen said with an air of sarcasm as she sat back in her chair.
"What we are about to tell you has been classified under section 11-C-9 of the National Security Act. The President has told us that you are all authorized to receive full disclosure of what we do here in the mountain; Dr. Jackson will explain." General Hammond continued.
"Hi." He started. "As General Hammond said, this is Stargate Command. In 1928, Dr. Langford funded a dig on the Giza Plateau. During the dig, he discovered a device buried deep in the sand. Later, a fluke accident allowed them to open what we now refer to as the Stargate. The Stargate is used for almost instantaneous travel from one Stargate to another located on a different planet light years away by means of a wormhole. We have traveled to these planets for eight years to contact and learn from other cultures. Currently, seventeen SG teams are going on missions through the Stargate at any time. During our travels, we have made many friends and some enemies."
"Friends like the ones that brought us here?" Henry said with a side-long glance in Helen's direction.
"Henry, please don't encourage them." She said without looking in his direction. "You bring me here and tell me a ridiculous story about traveling to other planets and meeting aliens, offering no proof, by the way," she said, holding up her hand to forestall any comments and directing her ire at the president. "And for what?" She turned her full attention to Sam. "You clearly knew enough about me to mimic my appearance. Mostly. You could have found me at the Sanctuary. There was no need for all of this."
"What are you? Shapeshifter? Chameleon? Something else that gives you the ability to change forms?" Will asked.
"Look, I don't know what you're talking about," Jack said, "the only reason you're here and being told any of this is because we need your help."
"She does," Helen indicated with a nod in Sams's direction, "you don't."
"Helen, We need more information about what you do," the president started.
"It's Dr. Magnus, and that's what all this is about? Satisfying your curiosity? Un-bloody-believable, of all the arrogant, conceited!" She slammed her hands on the table, stood up, and leaned towards the president. "I have told you before. Stop prying into my life!"
"Magnus," Will stood beside her but refrained from touching her, "you need to calm down."
"Do not tell me…"
"Your nose is bleeding." He said softly, "You need to sit down; your blood pressure is probably through the roof." Janet made her way around the table with a box of Kleenex and handed it to Helen.
"Understandable, I'd imagine, given the circumstances." Helen pulled a few tissues from the box. "Thank you." She said in a completely calm voice, a complete one-eighty from her outburst seconds ago.
"They can't force you to tell them anything, Mom, so does it hurt to listen?"
"We have been made aware of an anomaly in your DNA by our friends," Sam said, just that little information to see where it would lead the conversation. "We were hoping you could shed some light on what it does and how it got there."
Before Helen could respond to the comment about her DNA, Thor, and another Asgard appeared standing next to General Hammond.
"Thor and…"
"Heimdall Colonel, we met when…" The second Asgard addressed him directly.
"Yes, I remember. How have you been? What are you guys doing here? Thor, I thought you had to go home to talk to the council?"
"Holy Crap, this is so cool," Henry said, bouncing in his chair. "Nikola is going to be so pissed that he missed this."
"We were about to leave O'Neill when Heimdall told me the sensors detected a medical issue during transport; given the severity of her condition," He nodded in Helen's direction, "we decided it could not wait until we got back.".
"Wait, is your beaming technology equipped to give bio readings during transport?" Sam asked.
"Of course, Maj. Carter, it prevents us from accidentally bringing a pathogen on board and assists in determining if medical treatment is necessary."
"Like now."
"Precisely."
"Are we in any danger?" General Hammond asked in concern.
"I would not have come if there had been any threat to your people. Radiation poisoning is not contagious." At the mention of radiation poisoning, SG1 cringed and looked at Daniel.
"I'm glad that Thor can help because, from experience, I can tell you that radiation poisoning is not a pleasant way to die."
"Excuse me?" Will asked.
"Story for another time, Daniel." Jack waived off Wills's questioning tone, "Thor, since you are here, I would like you to meet Dr. Helen Magnus and her team," said Jack. "Dr. Magnus, this is Thor, a member of the Asgard race.
Thor slowly made his way to Helen's side. He reached out with his hand, and she automatically shook it. "It's nice to meet you, Dr. Magnus. I want to leave Heimdall here and, with your permission, start the procedure to repair the damage done to your body."
"Wait, are you telling me that you have a cure for my Mom?"
"You were serious earlier when you said you were dying?" The president asked.
"Yes." Helen and Thor both answered their respective questions.
"What's the catch?" Ashley wanted to know.
"I do not understand," Thor said, looking at Jack.
"I think she means, what do you want in return." Jack specified.
"Nothing. Consider it an apology."
"Ya, we haven't gotten that far yet, Thor," Jack told him. "She doesn't know what you're apologizing for."
"SG1 will explain, but I hope this will be seen as a step toward friendship. I must go."
Thor returned to his ship and sent Heimdall the necessary items to start Helen's treatment.
"Colonel, if Thor is leaving, how exactly will I be getting back to the White House?"
"Oh ya, I forgot to mention that. Thor temporarily retrofitted a crude, his word, not mine, version of their beaming technology to our satellites. It only goes to these three locations, so don't get too excited. I will beam you back when we are done here."
Heimdall was moving around Helen and muttering to himself before addressing her, "I am most impressed that you found a way to move through the dimensions of time and space, Dr.; it is not a level of technology we thought your race had achieved yet. But I must warn you, it is not something the human body was meant to be exposed to; you should proceed cautiously."
"Ya, figured that out, thanks. Didn't really have a choice; don't plan on doing it again."
"Mom!"
"Sorry, I didn't mean…How did you know about the rifts?" she asked, trying to reign in her anger.
"I understand." He patted her hand, "the cell degeneration has moved to the top of your spine and is getting closer to your brain; it has already started to affect you mentally. The type of radiation you were exposed to is not naturally occurring; there is only one way to receive this level of poisoning." He picked up a small disk from the table, "the sooner we apply these, the better you will feel. You should notice a change almost immediately. I also need you to swallow this." Heimdall pushed a pill toward her, then went about attaching the nodes to various parts of her body, starting with the back of her neck. "These will inject you with a time-release medication; it is a massive dose to start, so you may feel dizzy at first; it will halt the cells from continuing to degrade but will not reverse the damage already done. It will also alleviate the pain and stop the nausea." Henry was out of his chair and getting as close as he dared to watch what Heimdall was doing. He so badly wanted to examine the technology.
"What does this do?" Helen held up the rather large horse pill, "It looks like it is made out of metal." She said. She put it on the flat of her hand and held it out for Herry to see since he had moved to get a better look.
"Okay, again, I say, holy crap! It looks like it is made up of thousands of small metal shards."
"Like a kid in a candy store," Helen smirked at him.
"You better believe it, Doc."
"It is a preprogrammed nano repair bot designed specifically for your physiology. It will enter your system, separate, and repair the damage in their assigned areas. Once done, they will deactivate and pass harmlessly through your body. Any residual effects of the disease will be cured when we put you in a stasis pod and put you in a healing sleep for several hours." Two nodes were left on the table next to a tablet when he was done with his explanation. "Can you stand and lift the back of your shirt; these need to be attached to both sides of the bottom of your spine to be the most effective." She had five tiny opaque crystals attached to her when he was done. In addition to the ones on her back, one was attached to her wrist and another over her heart. As she moved slightly back to the table to resume her seat, she stumbled as the dizziness Heimdall predicted hit her. Henry, already at her side, reached out instinctively to steady her and guide her back to her chair.
"You okay, Doc?"
She had her eyes closed tightly, and she was grasping the handles of the chair, "Honesty, I feel like I'm back on the Titanic after we hit that damn iceberg."
"Magnus!"
"It's fine, Will." She waived him off. "I think I am beginning to understand what is happening and why my presence was specifically requested. Good job, by the way, on enacting the charter; I didn't realize how much this affected my logical thinking ability."
"It's what you hired me for, to see what you don't."
"It most certainly is working out to my benefit. Case in point."
"According to the readings, your blood pressure has stabilized, and the electrical impulses in your brain are no longer randomly firing," Heimdall confirmed. "How are you feeling?"
"Quite like myself, thank you."
"Heimdall, are you referring to the stasis pods in the ship Thor just took to go home?" Jack asked. "It could take a while for him to get back. Will she be okay until then?"
"I am not O'Neill. Once we determined the nature of the medical issue, Thor decided to use this as an opportunity to disconnect the science vessel and leave it behind for our use in the event the meeting with the high council takes longer than expected; it is also an excuse for him to come back if the council is unhappy with his decision to bring this information to you. When we are done here, or if her condition becomes worse, we can begin the additional treatment." Henry was trying to get a better look at the tablet design the whole time Heimdall was talking. It looked like biometric feedback from the crystals, but in a language he had never seen before. 'Well, duh,' he thought it was alien after all. It's not like it would be written in English. "If you are interested, I can show you how it works." He told Henry as he started walking towards the General's office.
"Can I, Doc?" He asked pleadingly.
"Just try not to touch anything that will zap me." She laughed.
"General, may I…" Janet gestured towards his office.
"If Heimdall does not mind, I'm fine with it." He responded to her almost unspoken request.
"Of course, Dr. Fraiser, you are welcome to join us." She was out of her chair and halfway across the room before he finished saying yes.
Once the small group moved to the office, Helen addressed the president. "I owe you an apology for my outburst earlier. It was out of line. Clearly, I was wrong."
"Not to worry, according to our friend here, you didn't know what you were saying."
"I would take the apology, Mr. President, because I can guarantee you, radiation poisoning or not, my mom knew exactly what she was saying, and …"
"Yes, thank you, Asley."
"Anytime,"
"So, proof enough for ya?" asked Jack, motioning toward Heimdall.
"Yes, we can safely say that matter has been settled. Shall we get started then?" Helen turned her full attention back to the matter at hand. "So, let me test my understanding here. You all travel to other planets. The Asgard is the friend who brought us here, and they did some testing on me at some point. Otherwise, you would have no way of knowing about the abnormality in my DNA, and it was a significant enough event to bring all of us here and warrant an apology. And from there, all roads lead me to you, Maj Carter. Based on the physical bodies of the Asgard being similar, I would assume you're a clone. But that wouldn't make sense; why not just keep studying me?"
"The president said you work with abnormals, and just now, you called the anomaly in your DNA an abnormality. Does that mean you're not human?" asked Sam.
"Not to worry, I am very much human, just with a little something extra."
"That 'little something extra' made you interesting to the Asgard." Jack said, "Care to elaborate?"
"When you work at the frontier of medical science like I do, the rewards and curses can be rather unexpected; I am…older than I look. But that is all I am willing to say for now."
"I guess I will start then." Said Sam.
"Just to be clear, the Asgard is an ally…now. But they didn't use to be." Jack started.
"On the contrary, O'Neill, we have always been friends with the people of this planet," Heimdall said without looking up from the tablet as he walked back into the room. He returned to Helen's side, removed the sensor from the back of her neck, and moved it about three inches down.
"Friends don't do medical experiments on friends, Heimdall." Said Jack incredulously.
Heimdall slowly returned to the table and stood next to the president to see everyone in the room. "The brain mapping our scientists were doing was so we would know when you had reached a level that interaction between us would be possible. What Loki did to Dr. Magnus would never have been approved by the high council."
"So you all keep saying."
"Do people on this planet not experiment on other species?"
"Well, yes. But that…" said Jack
"And have your own people not begun research into cloning?"
"Again, yes…" Jack was starting to get irritated.
He held up his hand. "At least with our methods, your species is unaware of what is happening; can you say the same?" He asked, almost sounding angry. "We create a clone and temporarily transfer the host consciousness into a new body. They go about their normal lives, not knowing the difference. Once the tests are complete, the clone is brought back on board, the mind transferred back to the original body, and they wake in the morning as if nothing happened."
"Really? Tell that to Dr. Magnus or the mini-me running around out there." Jack railed.
"You have failed to see the bigger picture because you are all deeply involved. It would be best if you saw things from a broader perspective."
"What do you mean, Heimdall?" Sam asked before Jack could say more.
"If it weren't for Loki, you would not have been born," Heimdall said unapologetically. "The most likely outcome would be the destruction of the human race as you know it, along with the Asgard, Tok'Ra, and Tollan. You are right about one thing, O'Neill."
"And what's that?"
"The Asgard owe Dr. Magnus an apology for how Loki went about what he did. Once he discovered the anomaly in her genetic code, he should have come to the council. We would have made contact and gotten her permission."
"Okay, I get what you mean about not being born without the assistance of Loki, but I don't believe that my mere presence could have had such a significant influence in the universe," Sam exclaimed.
"No, Sam, what he is saying makes sense," Daniel said excitedly as he leaned toward her.
"How's that, Daniel?"
"Well, without your work on creating the dialing computer, that first mission to Abydos would not have happened."
"Someone else could have come up with a similar solution if given a chance."
"Within the same timeframe? Then there are the calculations needed to account for stellar drift and programming the computer to do it independently."
"Again, Daniel, someone else would have come up with something similar. I'm not as important as you are all making me out to be."
"Is anything they are saying making any sense to you?" Will whispered to Henry, who had returned to the room at the raised voices. Helen shot them both a look that said to shut up.
"Me? No. But I'm pretty sure Magnus is getting it all, given the look we just got."
"Maybe another scientist would have been assigned to the team, but let's face it, there is no way that Jack would have put up with them for long. There is a reason why in every parallel universe we have been to, the ones where you are not military, were destroyed by the Goa'uld."
"We all know how much I love scientists, Carter, so I gotta give Daniel that one."
"Did he just say parallel universe?" Henry whispered, primarily to himself.
"Daniel, you have only been to two; that is not proof. It's a coincidence." Sam said in an attempt to brush it off.
"Maybe. But I spent a lot of time in that supply closet trying to find our way back here after Jack made me turn off the quantum mirror. Every reality I saw was destroyed by the Goa'uld or under attack. But even if that wasn't enough, Dr. Carter said herself that ours was the only one not destroyed where they could seek refuge out of all the realities they searched before coming here."
"And you know what they say about being able to trust yourself, Carter." Jack quipped.
"Not helping Jack!"
"Sorry, Daniel."
"Okay, but Daniel, I read your report. According to your own words, there were several universes where I was in the military, but they were still under attack, so what's different here?"
"The two realities that I saw you in uniform, you were not on SG1, that's the difference."
"I think you're grasping at straws or trying to make me feel better about the situation; I'm just not sure which."
"You not being on SG1 means we don't meet the Tok'ra or Thor on Chimera in the Hall of Thors Might; the Tollan would never have trusted us enough to invite us to their new home world. You helped the Asgard by fixing the time dilation field." At the mention of this, Helen stiffened and was momentarily caught off guard. Daniel continued, not noticing the movement. "You also came up with the stupid idea to blow up the ship that saved them from the Replicators."
"Did he just call her stupid?" Henry asked Will.
"Sounded more like an inside joke, I hope." He replied in a soft and calm tone.
"That is too much to put on one person, Daniel. You're saying that the fate of the universe is in my hands? I don't want that responsibility."
"But you have already done it, Sam, without even realizing it. Now, if I went back to the beginning, before that first mission to Abydos, and laid all of this out for you and told you that this was your destiny, I could see the issue. But you have already lived it, so embrace it."
"So, you're saying what? It's destiny? Fate? Is that someone out there manipulating the events in my life?"
"How many times have we died and come back? Or, in your case, should have died but didn't. Everything we know from the Tok'ra says that when the symbiote dies in a host, the host dies with them. You didn't, and the Tok'ra have never been able to give you an answer as to why. Or that we know that two shots from a zat will kill the person every time; you are the only person that we have ever seen survive that second shot, including all the times that Teal'c has seen it used. How do you explain that?"
When there was no immediate answer from Sam, Helen said, "Ah, yes, well…that may actually be my fault. With the help of the Asgard, of course. But I have a question first: you both referenced being born; are you implying that you were not just copied as you are now? I assumed, given your appearance, that this happened recently."
"No, his experiments started in 1971; I was born at the end of 1972."
"Again, you use the term born. Are you saying that Loki somehow manipulated an embryo with what, my stem cells and you were born the natural way?"
"As natural as it can be, given alien intervention. But it wasn't just any embryo he used - it was yours."
"My god!" She sat heavily back in her chair.
"Magnus, does that mean…"
"Just a moment, Will; I am trying to piece everything together." She replied.
"OH! Here, maybe this will help explain it better." Sam jumped up and went over to a table along the wall. She picked up a tablet very similar in design to what Heimdall was holding and walked back to her seat. Before sitting down, she leaned over the table and slid the tablet to Helen. "Thor translated some of Loki's research for me; just touch the bottom right corner to go to the next page."
"This is all of his research on me?"
"No, on both of us. Thor was still going through the file; he said it was long and could take days."
Helen picked up the table and started to read. It took her maybe three minutes to get to the end of the file.
"Okay, now I'm jealous. You can speed read?" Sam exclaimed as she watched her start back at the beginning of the file.
She continued to read as she answered Sam's question. "Yes, a dear friend taught me years ago; I recently had a lot of time on my hands to practice."
"Okay, if Carter is way smarter than we are, what does that make her?" Jack quietly asked the General, indicating Helen and referencing the first time he had been introduced to Sam.
"Way out of our league; just nod and pretend you know what they're discussing. I'm sure Sam will dumb it down for us eventually." The General mumbled back. Hearing their whispered conversation, Sam smiled slightly, remembering that first encounter fondly.
"So, it is your understanding that you are my clone, correct? And all of this is because you need to know how the anomaly in our DNA will affect you."
"That is how Thor explained it, and yes, I would like to know what to expect, and that is something only you can tell me."
"They are wrong," she said with absolute certainty. "You're not a clone," when everyone started to talk at once, she stopped them. "Hear me out. The Asgard are clones, yes?" she inquired of Heimdall.
"We are."
"And from what you told me of your research on humans and transferring the mind, is it safe to assume that when your current body is dying, you simply transfer your mind to a new cloned body?"
"It has been that way for several thousand years, yes. It is not something we normally discuss."
"If the Asgard have not reproduced sexually for thousands of years, they would naturally conclude that this experiment resulted in a cloned body. You would have all your memories and experiences to shape your life, but you are essentially just a copy."
"You don't think that's the case?" General Hammond asked.
"No, there would be minute differences if we got down to a cellular level. Just the fact that he used some of your mother's DNA to make the pregnancy viable means we are different. Think of it this way," she addressed Dr. Fraiser and Sam. "A child is created using the genetic makeup of both parents, each contributing half of the chromosomes. But what happens when there is no second set of chromosomes?"
"There is no diversity in the appearance of the child. She, and it would have to be female, would look just like the person who contributed the sample." Janet was starting to understand where this was going, even if Sam wasn't quite there yet. "But since we don't have the technology to do this, it would never have occurred to us either." Janet finished.
"But the Asgard do; they just didn't understand what they were doing. Sam, you're not my clone." Helen reassured her, "You're my daughter."
I hope everyone likes it so far; please let me know your thoughts. This section was much longer than I intended, but I was setting up for future chapters. Obviously, Ashley is still alive, and Kate still joined the team.