Chapter 6, part 1.
The airport was loud and Alice had to strain to hear General Carter, even though she had the phone right by her ear.
"When is the meeting?"
"Fourteen-thirty Zulu," Alice replied, grabbing the handle of her carry-on and violently moving it out of the way of a careless passerby. "The flight should come in at six am, so I have plenty of time, even London traffic shouldn't be a problem, or so I hope." She looked around at the sea of people swirling around. "Though I have to say, if the number of people on this flight is any prediction, I may have miscalculated—London is sure to be extremely crowded nowadays."
"Yeah, the timing sucks—kinda makes me think we may actually use that satellite of yours sooner than I'd thought," Carter said, amusement audible in her voice.
"If only I can figure out how to make it," Alice agreed. "Wouldn't be that bad if not for the Olympics. I had real trouble even getting the ticket. I think in the end they had to bump someone off the plane to get me a seat."
A platinum-blonde woman sitting next to Alice threw her a disapproving look.
"Well, tough," Carter commented. "This is more important. Though I do wish O'Neill had told me this was coming so I could've prepared you better."
"I'm just glad I grabbed my passport on my way out the door, out of overabundance of caution." Alice smirked. "Would've been real annoying if I had to fly all the way back to Colorado just to get it. I'll just have to go shopping while I'm in London—I could've thought of worse things to do while waiting for the meeting. It's just one day, anyway, so all I need is a good business suit."
Carter chuckled. "By all means, go crazy. Only not so much that I won't be able to explain it on your expense report. Don't forget to take receipts for everything." She paused for a moment, and then added: "And don't come back the same day. Get a room, sleep in a real bed for one night, get a flight back the next day."
"That's not necessary, ma'am, I can sleep on the plane. I'm not even sure if I'd find a room anywhere in London these days."
"I'll ask Walter to call the TMC and check if they can book you something. One redeye across Atlantic is quite enough for a day, and it's not like you'll be in a hurry once your meeting's over."
"Yes, ma'am, thank you," Alice capitulated. She then lifted her head to listen to the announcement on the PA system. "They're calling my flight."
"Alright, good luck at your meeting, Major," Carter wished. Alice wondered if she actually knew what the meeting was about; when Alice called, the general was already appraised of her new mission, so she didn't have to explain anything.
"Thank you, ma'am."
Alice hung up and got up to get to the line already forming at the gate. As she stood in place, waiting for it to open, she heard the woman behind her complain loudly about entitled people who think they can just bump others off the plane at any time, and understood she meant her, Alice. She felt her temper flare up momentarily, but didn't turn around and instead focused on the line ahead, which finally started moving. Once she passed the gate, she slowed down her step and allowed the annoying woman to overtake her. She noted it was the same platinum-blonde one who had overheard her talking on the phone and given her the disapproving look. Alice was not very happy once she got to her seat and saw the very same blondie occupying it.
"You're kidding me, right?" The woman asked at the sight of Alice stopping by her.
Alice put a lot of effort into making her voice sound pleasant. "I believe you are in my seat, ma'am."
"I heard you say you bumped someone off the plane," the blondie replied with a stubborn expression on her face. "You do not deserve an aisle seat. You can take the middle seat!" And she pointed to the one beside her.
Alice's simmering rage boiled over and immediately turned to ice. "I have a ticket, ma'am, and it states that my assigned seat is 34C, which you are currently occupying. Please move to your own assigned seat."
There was a line of people forming behind her already; one of the flight attendants spotted the blockage from the other side of the plane and started moving towards them; and even though she was still a ways away, she must have heard the platinum-blondie's loud outburst.
"You spoiled, entitled little rat!" She shouted, her voice indignant. "I am a hard-working American, I worked fifty-hour weeks for months to be able to afford this trip, and I am going to see our boys dominate in these Olympics, and I deserve this seat more than you!"
"Ma'am, please lower your voice!" The flight attendant reached them.
"You have to do something with this entitled little rat!" The blondie exclaimed, her volume still way over the normal conversation level, though she was no longer yelling, at least. "She bumped someone off the plane, and now she's demanding to take my seat!"
"Could I please see both your tickets?" The attendant asked, and, despite her fury, Alice admired her cool professionalism.
"Here is mine." Alice handed the ticket over before the blondie had a chance to respond. "As you can see, it says 34C, the aisle seat. Frankly, I would've been fine taking the middle seat if this lady weren't so rude right off the bat and instead asked nicely." She then turned to the woman, pulled her passport from her pocket, took her CAC from in between the pages, and showed it to her, adding with a cold smile and intense eye-contact: "For your information, ma'am, I am an officer in the United States Air Force, and, yes, I did bump someone off the plane, and that's because I have to be in London tomorrow to deliver a briefing for a British government official. Also, I have two Bronze Stars, an Air Medal, and three Purple Hearts, but by all means, please explain to me how much more deserving you are of my seat."
The woman looked at her with her mouth wide open, her expression stricken. Someone on Alice's left—one of the people waiting in line to get to their seat—started clapping, and a moment later they all did. It had the unintended effect of actually quashing Alice's rage in the moment, and reminding her that she was supposed to be keeping a low profile—not to mention plunging her into an embarrassed unease.
"Alright, alright, you can have your seat!" The blondie threw up her hands and started getting up to move, but the flight attendant stopped her.
"Actually, you can stay there. Ma'am—" she turned to Alice "—we have one empty seat in the First Class, how would you like a free upgrade?"
Alice glanced once at the renewed scandalized expression of the blondie, and then nodded. "I would love that, thank you very much." And, without another look back, she followed the attendant towards the front of the plane and the First Class section.
The seat in the First Class was wide and comfortable, with the option to turn it into a bed; it was also very private, as it was sheltered from view with plastic walls high enough to conceal a sitting person. The food was much better than what Alice was used to on planes, and the flight attendants seem to pamper her even more than the other First Class passengers. Even so, Alice didn't get much rest, let alone sleep; the incident that landed her the seat brought on a lot of internal conflict. She couldn't stop thinking how stupid her little outburst was. She sometimes enjoyed flaunting her status as a service member, and especially as a fighter pilot, to clueless people—it had a nice, satisfying shock value to those who would dismiss her as a matter of course. But never before she had used it to win an argument and it wasn't sitting well with her. And why would she add the thing about her medals? That was pure bragging. Was she really that full of herself? Did she really think she deserved better than any other hardworking American? And all that was even before one began to consider the optics: an officer getting into a spat with a civilian over a damn plane seat was not a good look for the Air Force. The people around might have thought different in the moment—most of them clapped—but Alice thanked her stars that no one seemed to have been recording the incident. A viral video showing an Air Force officer flashing her CAC and then receiving a free upgrade could be disastrous in terms of PR. On the other hand, the blondie was just asking to be put in her place. Every time Alice remembered her outraged face, she felt a wave of cold satisfaction. And so continued the spiral of internal conflict until she finally did fall into fretful sleep, only an hour before they landed.
Feeling worse than before she had fallen asleep, Alice dragged herself out of her seat and into the terminal. Standing in line to the passport control, she checked her phone and found a text from Walter with the details of a room he had booked for her in Kensington. It was still very early when she emerged from the building and got into one of London's signature black cabs. It took over an hour to reach the hotel, but thankfully the driver was not chatty, so Alice could simply sit and look out the window at the changing scenery, so different from what she was accustomed to. She had never been in the UK before, and, thinking about it, found it funny that she'd seen hundreds of distant planets across two galaxies, but only ever visited a single country on Earth that wasn't her own—France, where she'd gone as an exchange student in college.
She checked in at the hotel, went up to her room, took a shower and changed, effectively exhausting the pool of clean clothes she had taken with her. Either way, she had only packed casual outfits—jeans and a couple of t-shirts—never expecting to need anything else, aside from her uniform. But going into the British Cabinet Office in an American uniform might attract attention, and so it was decided she'd go in civilian clothes—she just had to buy something more appropriate first. How hard could it be in a city known for its tailors?
It turned out to be pretty hard, and for multiple reasons. The streets were incredibly crowded, with a disproportionate number of tourists just ambling around with their cameras and not looking where they walked; Alice had never seen so many in one place. L.A. had tourists, of course, but never such a huge, multi-national crowd. The fact that, aside from some bigger boardwalks, most streets tended to be rather narrow, didn't help. They also twisted and turned in weird ways. Back home, roads were generally straight and perpendicular to each other, creating neat blocks. Not in London; here, they seemed to have grown and expanded in ways that escaped logic, and while Alice found it incredibly confusing, it was also very interesting and refreshing—especially coupled with the fact that all buildings looked old (in a historic sense), and yet were still used and lived in. Alice was never a big admirer of architecture, but she had to admit that she felt somewhat impressed; it threw her back in time to when, as a young girl, she walked the streets of Paris, which had a similar quality. Despite the confusion and the overwhelming pressure of the crowd, Alice found herself enjoying the stroll, although she initially had little success in achieving her objective. She had taken the subway—or, rather, the tube—to arrive at the Piccadilly Circus (she found the names of stations rather charming, though inherently amusing), and then ambled around a bit before she finally found Savile Row—even she knew it was renowned to be the center of tailoring in the city—but it disappointed her; there were very few stores—shops—that even offered garments for women, and those for some exorbitant amounts of money. After a while of wandering around, she finally ended up on the no less famous Oxford Street and eventually found a place that offered business suits that were still of very good quality, but at a little more reasonable prices. With that done, she could finally relax a little and walk around just for fun, only stopping to buy an additional pair of underwear and a new t-shirt, for the flight home. She returned to the hotel to change into her new suit and deposit her new acquisitions, and then got back to central London.
She got lunch at a restaurant on Leicester Square and then slowly strolled down to Whitehall, the street where the government buildings were located at. She got there too early, and so she lingered for a moment by the gate leading to Downing Street, where the Prime Minister's residence and main office was. There were plenty of people standing around and trying to catch a glimpse of the famous door, so she didn't stand out. A few minutes later she backed up along Whitehall to number 70, where a golden plaque on one side of a double door proclaimed it was the entrance to the Cabinet Office. There was a single guard outside in a fluorescent yellow safety vest put over a white shirt and tie. He had an earpiece, but Alice didn't see any weapons on him, and for a second pondered the differences between Britain and her own country; an American guard at an official government building would not get caught without his piece.
She mounted the three little steps and nodded to the guard.
"Hello, ma'am, can I help you?" He asked nicely.
"Hi, my name is Alice Boyd, I have an appointment for two o'clock?" She replied, but the rising intonation of her words made it a question.
"One second, ma'am," he told her, and then spoke into his earpiece. "Tom, I have a Ms. Boyd here, is she on the list? Ok, thanks." He turned back to Alice. "May I see your ID, ma'am?"
Alice handed him her passport, with the CAC still inside. He looked it over, compared the photo with herself, and then nodded and returned her documents.
"Please follow me, ma'am," he said and stepped inside the double door—which hid another pair of doors just inside, these less fancy, but instead secured with a card reader, which he used to open them. He ushered her through, but didn't come after her, so she thanked him with a smile and stepped inside. She didn't know what to expect—some sort of a lobby, perhaps, like in the House Office Building in Washington, D.C., where Alice had been once to talk to her uncle Alastar, who was a Congressman—or maybe like in the White House. Instead, there was a wide corridor with half-columns lining the white walls and antique-looking lamps hanging from the arched ceiling. Another security guard stood inside and carded Alice again. Before he even handed her papers back, the sound of heels clinking on the floor came from the left and a middle-aged woman appeared at Alice's side.
"Hello, Ms. Boyd? I'm Chandra Simms, please follow me." And without waiting for a confirmation, she turned away and led Alice through the corridor, then up one flight of stairs and down another, deeper and deeper into the building. Finally they reached a grand-looking room, with red walls, a massive marble chimney, and gold-framed paintings on the wall; there was also a huge black table in the middle, encircled with leather chairs.
"Please wait here, the Prime Minister is finishing up a meeting and will be with you momentarily," Simms told Alice and quickly left.
Alice walked slowly along the walls of the room, looking at the paintings of people in powdered wigs, doublets and breeches. Then one of the chairs standing next to the wall captured her attention—it was upholstered in red material with gold thread and raised above the others, and she wondered if this was where a king used to sit in olden times when the monarch was still involved directly in governing—or, rather, ruling. Then she smiled, amused—she figured out why they brought her here, of all places. This room was supposed to convey a sense of power and history, in a similar way that the Oval Office and the Resolute Desk were designed to intimidate visitors back home.
She heard the door open and turned around to see three men enter the room; she only recognized the Prime Minister.
"Major Boyd, I presume?" He asked, standing at the opposite side of the desk.
"Yes, sir. It's an honor to meet you." She nodded respectfully.
"Please take a seat," he waved towards the chairs near her, but Alice stepped closer to him and sat down at the side of the table perpendicular to the one he occupied, instead. He didn't seem put off and simply took his own seat, still flanked by the two other men. "So, you are here to smooth my ruffled feathers, aren't you?" He asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Alice restrained the urge to smirk; it was the exact phrase the President had used, but it would not do to admit it. "No, sir, I am here to deliver a briefing. I was, however, under the impression that I would be only briefing you, sir. I have to admit I am not familiar enough with the British political scene to even recognize the two gentlemen who accompany you." She nodded to them both, trying to remain respectful while also being authoritative.
He chuckled. "Oh, well, I don't blame you. This is my Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and this is my Defense Minister," he pointed to each of them. "Whatever you have to say, you can say to all of us."
Alice sighed. "With all due respect, sir, I would prefer not to. The information that I was asked to give you is of an extremely sensitive nature, and the fewer people know about it, the better." She saw resistance on his face, so she added quickly: "I swear to you, this is not a trick or an attempt to hide anything from you, sir. I genuinely believe that this information should not be spread to anyone who doesn't have an immediate need to know. The number of people who know about it is very limited, and I would prefer it stayed that way."
"These two are my most trusted advisers," the PM protested, indignant. "Are you telling me that your President didn't tell his Defense Secretary at the very least?"
"No, sir." Alice shook her head emphatically. "He did not. Most people who have been informed of this are in the US military service. The President's the only politician who knows, and it's only because he is our Commander-in-Chief."
The Prime Minister looked at her with his eyes narrowed to slits, displeasure clear on his face.
"Let's make a compromise," Alice suggested. "I understand why you would want your Defense Secretary to be here, sir, but I will stipulate that there is little value add in the Foreign Affairs Minister being here, as it does not come under his purview."
"Relations between our two countries do fall under my purview," the Foreign Secretary noted in a disgruntled tone.
"Yes, sir, but the content of my briefing does not."
"Doesn't it, though," the PM said; it didn't sound like a question. He opened a folder he had brought with him and read from a paper inside. "Captain Boyd is one of the finest officers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. She is extremely smart and capable, and her dedication both to the success of the mission, and to her team is beyond reproach." He closed the folder with a dramatic slam. "This was written by Sergeant Basil Karim a few months ago. I have to wonder, though, if his judgment wasn't compromised. It doesn't seem like your dedication to that team was beyond reproach, Major, since you were the one who killed him for no apparent reason."
It was as if he had slapped her in the face. Her cheeks burned with shame as each word he spoke cut deep gashes into her heart; her breath became shallow and she felt a tightening in her chest. She had to close her eyes to try and block the world for a moment, praying that it didn't register on her face too much—it was embarrassing enough. When she opened her eyes, she saw in the men's expressions that her prayers were in vain—they'd noticed. She inhaled sharply before speaking.
"You are not wrong, sir. I was the one who gave the order that ended Sergeant Karim's life." She didn't offer any explanation or excuse—she didn't feel she deserved any consideration of attenuating circumstances. She had made a choice, perhaps the only truly informed one in the history of mankind—and she had to pay for it.
"Yes." The Prime Minister nodded, but his voice wasn't so confident as before. "And I understand that you were cleared of any wrongdoing by your own military, but you may see how we may consider it improper on your President's part to send you of all people to brief us now."
This threw her a little, and she frowned. "But, sir, surely you would rather hear about it from the source than at second hand?"
Now he looked stumped. "I don't know what you mean by that. Source?"
She shook her head. "Sir, may I ask you what exactly is the extent of the information that you already possess?"
He huffed. "Well, I understand that you managed to send one of your people into, well, the future." His words were rather reluctant and Alice wondered if he still had problems believing in Stargate and all that it entailed. "That person gathered information about, among other things, a future Wraith invasion, led by that freak, Jareth. What I am most concerned about, though, is how much intel was procured by the United States on the future events before that happens—information that could affect the entire world, influence trading markets and stock exchanges, give the US an unfair advantage over all of us!"
Alice exhaled, feeling a mixture of exasperation and relief. "Your information is partially correct, sir. And that's exactly why I am here—to tell you the truth." She paused for a moment. "Because that person you think was sent to the future? That's me, sir. I'm the one who'd seen it all."
There was silence following that dictum. The Prime Minister and his Secretaries gaped at her, speechless for the moment, and Alice couldn't help but smile mirthlessly.
"That is why the President asked me to come down here," she added after a moment. "Because he thought you'd like to hear it from me rather than someone else repeating what I had told them—and because it allowed us to limit the number of people in the chain of information. And that is also why I asked you to limit the number of people who will hear it."
The PM shook his head—more like a person trying to wake up from a reverie than that refusing something—and replied: "But the cat is out of the bag. They both know what I know, so what's the harm in telling them the rest?"
Alice sighed deeply. "It's complicated, sir, and has to do with causality. By the very fact that I had witnessed the future, and then came back, I have already changed the sequence of events. My actions, limited though they may have been to what concerns the Wraith, will have consequences beyond what I can even imagine. It's… an enormous responsibility, a burden I have to bear—and I must protect it. Because I've already learned that even acting in good faith might mess things up in ways that I cannot even begin to comprehend. It's like rings on the water after you've thrown a stone into it. They expand, collide with each other, creating even more waves… I can't control it. Nobody can. Trust me when I say it—it's better not to know. And so I prefer not to say anything, but if I must—at least limit the number of people who'll be affected."
"I'm not sure I understand," the Foreign Secretary put in. "If as you say you have already changed the current of events, what does it matter if you share it with other people?"
"It matters because we're human, sir. Knowing something might happen, even if it doesn't in the end, changes our perspective, our way of thinking, our decision process. Let me give you an example. In normal circumstances, life is unpredictable, you never know what's going to happen, so it comes at you and you react, and that's it. If you knew that crossing the street one morning would lead to an accident, you might deviate from that path and decide to stay home that day. But the car that was supposed to hit you is still gonna be there, and who's to say that it won't hit a mother and a child instead? Or that the driver won't go on to become a serial killer? Now take that and apply it to the entire world, and a timeline of forty years." She paused for a moment, allowing them to digest it. "There are also questions related to relativity of space-time continuum and the effect of knowing an event's coordinates before it forms, not to mention our total ignorance in terms of how it would affect quantum states…" She shook her head, seeing that she'd lost her audience. "Sorry. I'm a scientist and an engineer, I know this stuff pretty well and I still can't tell what possible consequences it could have on our world. The only thing I can offer is that it's better to be safe than sorry."
"Well, at least that I understand," the PM mumbled, still miffed.
"I can offer a clarification," Alice added. "I was not sent into the future—we don't have the necessary technology to use the Stargate in this way. I was simply unlucky and went through the Gate at the same moment that there was a solar flare. And the only information that I've shared with anyone was about the Wraith. I did not tell anyone anything that could influence stock markets or whatever—not even our President."
"I find that hard to believe."
Alice opened her arms in a I can't help that gesture. "I can see that you don't trust me, sir. All I can do is to tell you the truth, you'll have to decide whether or not you believe me. If you feel uncomfortable with me personally, I can ask the President to assign someone else to brief you."
He shook his head. "That won't be necessary." He then paused for a long moment, looking at Alice in a calculating manner. "Alright, I'll take your compromise. The Foreign Secretary will leave."
"I will?" The man asked, obsequiousness mixed with indignation in his voice.
"Yes, you will. Now." The PM threw him a significant look, and the Secretary huffed, but then rose and left the room without so much as a goodbye.
"Happy, now?"
"It's better that way," Alice assured him.
"Alright. Your turn, now. Tell me everything."
Alice nodded, sighed, and then began speaking. She didn't go into such details as when she was relating her story for the President—they didn't have time for that, and anyway the President ordered her to keep to the highlights only. She glossed over the events that happened to her—the initial confrontation with the Wraith Darts, the discovery of the masses of dead bodies in Washington, her stint at the hospital in Baltimore, the incident at the Pentagon, the damage made to the Jumper and the subsequent walk to the underground military compound. She didn't mention the identity of the future president at all—she didn't think it was relevant, and it would've sounded very odd. She described with a little more detail the information on the Wraith raise to power in the galaxy, and the following invasion and its consequences. She finished by quickly going over the operation to retake the Wraith Hive ships, the Ancient intervention that had saved her life and how Viviane helped her come back to her own timeline—and planted the coordinates where they found Jareth.
"So you see, the decision that I faced wasn't just about our lives," she added, her voice hoarse from speaking for a long time—and from a swell of emotion that the retelling of the story had brought. "At that moment, it was either risking that Jareth will destroy the Gagarin—and giving Sergeant Karim a chance to escape at the same time—or killing them all, but saving our ship and all the people on it. But that choice had bigger repercussions, and I was the only one who knew it—that if we failed to destroy Jareth's ship, and the ZPMs with it, he would've followed the path that I'd seen—one that culminated in our whole galaxy being wiped out, humanity at the brink of total destruction, just hanging on by a thread." She looked down at her hands, clenched into fists, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms painfully. She tried to relax them, but it was hard; her entire body was tense, seized up by emotion and adrenaline that seemed to have come out of nowhere, making her relive the events she was describing rather than just retell them.
"I see," the Prime Minister said, his voice sounding very different than at the beginning of their conversation—rather small and shaken, now.
No, you don't, Alice thought. Because you don't know even half of it, and what you know, you can't really comprehend. And that was before one even considered the private dimension of the choice she had made—even if they knew about her relationship with Karim, they wouldn't have understood just how much she had sacrificed that day. Not just the man she loved—but a whole future together, years and years of happiness, children that would never be born now…
"And all that really happened?" The Defense Secretary asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Yes, sir. For the most part, you have only my word—but there is evidence to back it up, too," she explained, looking back up at the two men. "There is telemetry data from the future Earth saved in the Jumper's log, sensor readings, location history, that sorta thing. The uniform I wore when I got back is made of fabric that hasn't been invented yet and it has a camo pattern that is not used anywhere in the US military. And of course there's the note on my tablet left by Viviane, the Ancient who had helped me, and the fact that it led us straight to Jareth."
The Prime Minister sighed deeply. "Well, all of it is horrifying—especially that it was all in vain. Jareth escaped."
Alice nodded soberly. "Yes, sir. But I don't believe that it was a complete waste. First of all, we did destroy his ship and the ZPMs, that means he will not be able to create a cloning facility. And secondly—we know he's out there, and we're actively chasing him. There are three SG teams, mine included, whose sole purpose is to look for Jareth, and while the others continue with their assignments, they, too, have their eyes and ears open for any clues. It's hard to say whether that will be enough, but personally I plan to do everything in my power to get that bastard and end him." Her voice was so cold and her expression so determined that it made the PM raise his eyebrows.
"Right. Is it true that you're the only person who can resist his mind-bending powers?"
She nodded reluctantly. "The only one we know of, yes, sir."
"Alright. Then I guess I'm glad you're out there looking for him. I think—" He stopped, as a knock on the door interrupted him mid-sentence.
Chandra Simms looked in. "Sorry, sir, you're late to your next appointment."
He looked at his watch and nodded. "Will be there in a moment." Then he turned back to Alice. "Is there anything else?"
"No, sir, except to implore you both to keep all this to yourselves."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it." He rose, prompting Alice to jump up as well. "Well, Major, thank you for the briefing, it has been fascinating and alarming in equal measure, but I am glad to be on the same page once more. Please give your President my regards." And he extended his hand to her. She shook with him, and then with the Defense Secretary.
"Thank you for the opportunity, sir."
"Chandra will see you out. Goodbye, Major."
"Goodbye, sir."