Chapter 12: Aliens

They had adjourned for a short break, partially so Alex could get up and stretch his legs. Byrne and O'Neill had stayed behind in the conference room, but it seemed Colonel Sheppard had taken up the position of shadow, because he waved away the airman when they left the room.

Alex paced down one of the halls in a random direction, trying to shake the jitters out of his arms. There was something going on here. Something really strange. He felt both more alive and drained after the conversation, but it was also nice to finally have a name to go with the bad guys.

The Trust.

It sounded like the generic bad guy name out of a comic book. Something innocent, yet sinister.

Alex glanced at Sheppard, who looked slightly more put together after the meeting than before. Maybe he would answer some questions… "You've dealt with this Trust before?"

Sheppard looked startled for a moment, before shrugging carelessly. "Once or twice. They're not very common in… my neck of the woods."

So, not usually stationed here then. "And your neck of the woods, is…?"

Sheppard grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "A very remote base. We've had a couple of problems with The Trust, but I like to think my people are smart enough to figure things out before it gets out of hand. Besides, General O'Neill is usually very efficient at weeding out the trouble makers before he sends them on to me."

Huh.

An uptick in activity was never a good thing. But at least it didn't sound like they had their fingers in quite all the places yet.

Maybe there would still be somewhere that Byrne would let him hunker down again.

Alex could practically see any hopes of getting his degree flittering away from him. Even if he managed to graduate, with his luck, The Trust would decide that they wanted nothing more than to get their hands on him. Working a normal job, though it seemed fantastical at this point, would be completely off the table.

There were times he wished Julius had killed him, instead of the other way around.

Theo said that was fatalistic thinking and that he needed to remember how much he could still contribute to the world.

It was hard when it seemed like the world was conspiring against him doing anything that would be considered normal.

"Hey," Sheppard reached out and touched his shoulder, startling Alex out of his thoughts. "They've got a good plan. The Trust isn't everywhere."

But probably anywhere on earth he would like to live…

They kept walking down the hall, until they reached an elevator. The wall was painted with 'Level 23'.

"Just how many floors does this place have?"

Sheppard laughed, before steering him back around a corner. "Far too many. I still get lost here."

Alex glanced back over his shoulder as the elevator dinged and a group of military men got off. They headed down the opposite corridor.

"Come on, I think Dr. Jackson should be down soon."

Alex grimaced at the thought of another doctor getting involved.

Sheppard must've seen his expression, because he laughed and patted Alex's shoulder. "He's an archaeologist. Whole other level of scary."

Back in the conference room, someone had set up a tray of coffee and donuts. Alex snagged a doughnut on his way to his seat, but passed on the coffee. Dr. Lam had been quite explicit in telling him to avoid caffeine for the next 24-hours.

Yet another military grunt was setting up a projector in the room, so Alex had a feeling that whatever was coming next was about to be more in-depth.

Though he had little interest in learning more classified information, there was also that annoying part of him that was insatiably curious. The same part that had gotten him into trouble multiple times in the past several years.

Byrne had tapped out for this part of the meeting – saying he needed to keep doing damage control – but Colonel Sheppard and General O'Neill seemed to be sticking around.

For whatever this was.

O'Neill pushed a small stack of papers across the table to him. "Normally I would just leave Byrne on the hook for all this, but you're an emancipated minor, yadda, yadda, yadda. Basically, don't tell anyone what you learn here today, and we'll have no problems, capisce?"

Alex nodded, eyes already skimming over the legalese.

I understand and accept that by being granted access to classified information, special confidence and trust shall be placed in me by the United States Government.

…prohibit the unauthorized disclosure of classified information…

any unauthorized disclosure of classified information by me may constitute a violation, or violations, of United States criminal laws…

It was dry, hard reading, but the implications were that if he told the wrong people, the United States government wouldn't hesitate to make him disappear. Since Alex had no intention of telling anyone, anything – and Byrne had already given him the go-ahead for this – he went ahead a signed on the multiple dotted lines.

It felt like he was signing his life away once again, but there had been nothing that sounded like they were trying to trap him into working for them. Nothing like Blunt. He pushed the stack of papers back across to O'Neill, who shoved them inside a briefcase.

"Well, now that that's done."

Another man walked into the room – civilian – with his arms piled high with books, papers, and a couple of strangely shaped objects. How he was able to see over it all—

"Oh, for the love of—Daniel!" General O'Neill managed to get up surprisingly fast and catch some of the papers when they all came tumbling down from their precarious perch, but the objects were a lost cause. Those tumbled to the floor and rolled underneath the table.

One rolled right next to Alex's foot, so he reached down to pick it up. It almost felt warm and tingly in his hands, not cold metal like he had expected. It was also a lot lighter…

Alex stared at it a little closer. There was almost a force field around it that kept it from actually touching his palm. Like it… levitated.

That was definitely some very cool technology. And he wanted to know how it worked.

"Uhh, Jack?"

Alex glanced up, letting the object hover over his palm to see the other three occupants staring at him. He tightened his grip on the object – it didn't slide out of his grasp, but it was like holding on to something bigger than it was – and felt a burst of warmth slide up his arm.

Sheppard held out his hand expectantly, an amused expression on his face, and Alex, reluctantly, passed it over. A strange expression crossed Sheppard's face as it transferred ownership, before he nodded. "McKay's going to have a field day with this. Prototype."

He didn't offer any more explanation, but the new guy was staring at Alex again. "Well, Jack, I think I just figured out why the Trust wants with him."

O'Neill – because that's who Jack had to be – looked particularly grim as he nodded. "Just what we need…" He muttered, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Uh… what?" Alex asked.

They were all clearly speaking in code.

Around topics that he didn't know anything about. Yet.

Sheppard gingerly set the device down on the table – the background hum disappeared as he did so. "It's all part of the explanations."

"Oh, right. Doctor Daniel Jackson," The new guy reached across the table to shake Alex's hand. "Happy to meet you, though I do wish it were under better circumstances."

Right, the archaeologist. Probably about the same age as Sheppard, but very obviously on the civilian side. Though how, exactly, an archaeologist fit into all of this military stuff, Alex really wasn't sure.

He was fairly sure they were still located within the states…

"I'd been telling Jack that something was off with Stadler—"

"Daniel." There was a threat of warning in O'Neill's voice this time and Jackson cut himself off. "NDAs signed and sealed, so do your thing please. Without the social commentary."

"Right, okay." Jackson pushed the bridge of his glasses further up his nose, then clicked the projector on.

A picture of pyramids in Egypt flickered onto the screen and it was all Alex could do to not shove away at once.

Burning sand.

Metallic taste in the back of his throat.

Fingers gripping together.

The explosions off in the distance.

"Uhm…"

Alex blinked back to find them all staring at him once again. "What," He struggled to find his voice, suddenly thick with anxiety. "Does that have to do with anything?" He pointedly turned away from the screen and tried to take a deep breath, fingers pressing into the tabletop until his knuckles turned white. Shoved down all the memories. Because he had thought he was beyond those affecting him, but apparently pictures of pyramids were just the right thing to set him off.

"Historical context." Jackson peered at him inquisitively. "I'm sorry, but do these have particular significance to you?"

Alex gritted his teeth together. "My… guardian was killed in Egypt." And his clone, Julius. And a handful of other people. And he had been water boarded there. Mentally tortured. Really, Egypt was the one place on earth he had no intention of ever returning. "So, yes."

"Oh…" The screen mercifully clicked off and Jackson propped his hip against the table. "Well, I suppose we can do without pictures for the first little bit."

The damage was already done, in Alex's consideration. He was going to have fun scrubbing those memories out of his mind once again.

"Erm…" Jackson cleared his throat awkwardly, then seemed to just launch into lecture mode, as if nothing had happened. "Well, the program here has ties to a discovery in Egypt, but that's about it. An ancient artifact was found in Giza in 1928 and was the find of the century – but it took almost another seventy years before we really discovered what it was and how it connected to the pyramids, and Egyptian mythology, here on earth."

And wasn't that a peculiar way of explaining things. Here on earth.

"The artifact that was found, we call the Stargate." The projector clicked back on, displaying a large circular object with various glyphs on it. Some of the glyphs looked a lot like those Alex had seen in the Trust facility. "When activated, it is capable of creating a stable wormhole that can transport individuals and objects at near-instantaneous speeds between two distant locations."

Science fucking fiction.

"Now, this device was built by an alien race we call the Ancients, but they disappeared from our galaxy over a millennia ago. When the Stargate was first activated again in 1994, we were able to travel to a neighboring planet, and discovered that most of the galaxy was dominated by a race known as the Goa'uld, who—"

Alex held up his hand and thankfully, Jackson stopped almost on command. "You're saying there's aliens out there?"

Sheppard looked particularly smug. "There's aliens here."

Alex almost glanced around the room, expecting one to jump out at him. Almost.

"While Colonel Sheppard is correct that there are some aliens living on base here, the fact of the matter is that the majority of the galaxy is populated by humans transplanted from earth by the Goa'uld. The Goa'uld just happened to take the pantheon of Egyptian gods in the process. We've dealt with Ra, Anubis, Apophis, Hathor, Klorel, etcetera, over the years. But they were mostly defeated several years ago – with only a few stragglers remaining."

"And it's those stragglers that are still causes problems," O'Neill grumbled.

The slide changed, this time to one of those snakes. Which, snakes. A sinking sensation told him that maybe, those snakes he had to deal with hadn't quite been such run of the mill snakes. It would certainly explain their looks.

"The Goa'uld are a parasitical snake-like creature, which burrows into the body of a human host and takes complete control."

Fuck.

If it hadn't been several hours since he had eaten something substantial, Alex might have thrown up. As it was, he felt supremely nauseated. Because those were the snakes he had fought off.

They hadn't wanted him dead.

They wanted him.

They wanted his body.

Ugh.

"Only a handful survive the possession and none unscathed. The Goa'uld are rather egotistical however, and tend to make some rather obvious mistakes. The last few remnants are hiding out within the Trust, so we still have to deal with them every now and then."

And they wanted him.

They were practically hunting him.

Aliens.

It would only be a matter of time.

"There are other non-human allies we have out in the galaxy, though they are not as common. And much like on earth, there are good aliens and bad aliens." Jackson spread his hands as if to ask what can you do? "We've had teams going out for a little over ten years and have made great strides in advancing research and technology in a wide range of fields – however, due to public perception, most of the work has remained classified."

Intergalactic explorers.

Aliens.

Goa'uld overlords.

"So… when Stadler was asking who my master was…?" Alex trailed off. Had Stadler really thought he was on the side of the Trust? Especially after killing all the snakes.

"Stadler remains convinced that you are working with one of the remaining Goa'uld who has ensconced himself among the upper realm of the Trust." O'Neill said. "Ba'al has been… particularly difficult to get rid of. There are multiple clones and we've yet to manage to get them all."

Clones too.

Alex repressed a wave of revulsion.

Clones. Even just the thought of them, made his skin crawl. But maybe that explained how Grief had actually made his clones. Alien technology.

It seemed so far fetched to believe.

But if Byrne had known, then why…

"Do we have spaceships?"

Dr. Jackson looked a little surprised at the interruption, clearly intending to carry on with whatever his next point was.

But Alex wanted answers.

"Uh, yes? Several in fact. One makes the twice-yearly trip to—"

"And when did we first get spaceships?"

"Umm, around 2002. Thereabouts. That one was destroyed, but—"

Alex let his head fall to his palm. "Why, the fuck, did Byrne send me to space if he had you all to just knock it out of the sky?"

"Uhh…"

"Joe was only recently read into the program," O'Neill stated, looking slightly discomforted by the direction the conversation had gone. "But what's this about going into space?"

Alex swallowed. Whoops. "There was a… wannabe space hotel. Said space hotel was going to crash land on… New York? Washington? Whatever. It was going to be bad. So, I went and… stopped it." He shrugged. It had definitely been one of the more reckless things he had been sent on, but then, he also got the dubious honor of being the youngest person in space. Or… youngest earth person…? Could he even claim that now?

"Well, damn," Sheppard breathed, then shook himself. "And my actions were considered reckless…"

O'Neill frowned. "Maybe we should be taking a little closer look at what the CIA and MI6 have been up to the past few years…"

Alex doubted that would bode well for anyone.

"Carry on, Danny."

"Right," Dr. Jackson cleared his throat. "Uh, where were we?"

"The Trust."

"Right, the Trust started as an offshoot of ex-rouge NID agents. They started a smuggling ring that utilized a secondary Stargate and were stealing artifacts and devices of power from our allies. Some of our allies had greater levels of technology and were reluctant to share with a seemingly backward planet that had too much infighting, so the Trust decided to take it on their own. The Trust has morphed over the past few years to compose some of the higher echelons of society, and eventually were infiltrated by the goa'uld. Over the past year, the Trust has been implanting key individuals in the upper levels of government and has been doing their best to plunder Atlantis."

"Atlantis? Like… the lost city?"

Sheppard beamed at him from across the table. "Just a little place I like to call home."

Alex peered at him. Was he an alien?

He didn't look alien. And he was definitely an earth Colonel.

"Colonel Sheppard is the military commander of the Atlantis base in the Pegasus galaxy."

Pegasus galaxy. Alex mouthed the words to himself as if that would make it make more sense.

Where was that even?

"There has been a joint civilian and military expedition for the last five years at the Atlantis base."

"City of Atlantis," Sheppard cut in.

"Right, the city." Dr. Jackson pulled up a picture of a glittering city with towering spirals, apparently floating on some large ocean. "It's actually a city-ship designed by the Ancients who set up the gate system. Pegasus galaxy was their home for thousands of years before their enemies ran them out back to our galaxy. Atlantis is one of the few remainders of their work, but the expedition is still finding hidden outposts and caches."

"And the Trust wants nothing more than to find her secrets, but she doesn't like them." Sheppard crossed his arms rather smugly. "It helps that so far, none of their agents have the gene."

Dr. Jackson looked rather put out by Sheppard's comments. "Do you want to give the lecture?"

"Nah, just trying to fast forward to the good bits."

Alex barely suppressed a grin at that, but Sheppard's glance in his direction made it clear he hadn't really been successful.

"The gene, the Ancient Technology Activation gene, Colonel Sheppard is so kindly fast forwarding us to, is probably one of the reasons the Trust wants you." Dr. Jackson held out another of his strange shaped objects to Alex. "Just take this and think on."

Alex raised a skeptical eyebrow, but did as he was asked.

The strange hum was back.

This time though, it felt like it was in the very back of his head.

On.

The screen – because that's what it had – lit up and strange characters started scrolling across it. Slow enough that if he had actually known how to read the language, he could've had a good guess. He turned it over in his hands, looking for an on switch. For something that would have triggered such a response.

There weren't even any buttons to press.

Off.

The object immediately fell dead in his hands, but he knew it was just waiting for the next command.

Creepy.

It vibrated in his hands and Alex quickly set it down again, gingerly pushing it across the table back to Dr. Jackson.

"Ancient technology requires a specific gene to activate and control it. There is a gene therapy, but success is lower and most objects need to be initialized by someone with a strong expression of the gene. Colonel Sheppard and General O'Neill are two such examples of that—and I dare say you probably have a strong expression as well."

Alex glanced back at the object, ready for the background hum to go away again. "But if I didn't even know about that, then how did the Trust?" And why did having a shiny special gene make him so… palatable to their parasitic ways?

"That's the million-dollar question that we'll be answering," O'Neill said, pulling the device across the table and finally silencing the hum. "And you've got to really be convinced you want something off. Or it'll just keep buzzing until someone pays it attention again."

Artifacts that practically thought on their own.

Very sci-fi shit.

But it brought up the question as to why they were telling him everything. It would've been much easier to tell him some sort of cover story. Hell, they worked with aliens. They could probably all come up with cover stories in their sleep.

So, why…?

"If the goa'uld are looking for an ATA compatible host, then they are definitely stepping up their plans for infiltrating Atlantis. However, so far, they've been rather unsuccessful there—"

"My people take rather offense at someone taking over their brains," Sheppard added. "Happened a few times with non-goa'uld and let's just say… it didn't end prettily for the aliens."

He really did sound like he wasn't used to playing friendly with the earth natives.

Alex wondered just how long Sheppard had been out on his remote base. And what he was doing back on earth.

"Anything else to add Daniel?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, actually—"

"Of immediate relevance. We can give him the Stargate 101 videos to review, after all."

Dr. Jackson made a face at that – whatever the Stargate 101 videos were, he clearly did not like their existence. "No, Jack."

O'Neill clapped his hands together. "Then let's get down to the real business. First," He started ticking points off on his fingers. "We all know that the Trust is out for your body."

His mind. His abilities. His skills.

It made him shudder.

"Second, unless I lock you in a deep, dark cell, I can't really guarantee your safety from them."

And that was just another nail in his coffin. If the one person who seemed to understand the most about them, doubted he could do anything, then Alex's days were numbered indeed.

"Third, you've got quite a few other people out gunning for your life and you've admittedly done quite well, all things considered."

Remnants of SCORPIA. The Snakehead. Grief's clones. Who knew who else was still kicking around.

"Fourth, Byrne is running out of resources and isn't prepared to deal with extra-planetary threats to your life."

It didn't seem fair that he had just learned about aliens and they were already trying to kill him.

"Fifth, there are—"

"We want you to come back to Atlantis," Sheppard cut in, not even sending an apologetic glance in O'Neill's direction. "With me."

Alex stared.

The other shoe was surely going to drop.

"But… isn't Atlantis exactly what the Trust wants?"

"But they don't have it yet." Sheppard leaned across the table, clearly putting full effort in pitching the idea. "And they're not going to, because I trust my people. For the most part. As it is, it's the only place I can currently guarantee the Trust doesn't have a strong foothold. We just cleaned ship last week."

Based on the grimace of distaste, cleaning ship might have been quite literal.

"New troops are rotating in, in three months, but they've all been handpicked." And then, like it was his ultimate trump card, Sheppard smirked. "And I have it on good authority that you'd like to continue your studies – we've got the best of the best in the city and already several individuals completing higher education studies while in the city."

He could… continue studying?

That seemed too good to be true.

And it still left the uncertainty of what would happen in a year or two, but…

O'Neill had clearly come in expecting a fight, an argument, but Alex saw the writing on the wall. He knew what was coming if he didn't try to cooperate.

He would be worse than dead in no time at all.

And there would be nothing that his usual sources could do about it.

"Okay."

Sheppard opened and closed his mouth, then sat back. "Huh, thought it would be a harder sell… Did I mention we have our own spaceships? Because that's definitely a selling point."

"You're more on board with this than you were earlier," O'Neill said, side-eyeing Sheppard.

Sheppard shrugged. "Figured I better practice for when I have to explain to McKay that one of his minions has a new student. A united front, and all that."

Alex glanced back at the picture of the city. That was to be his new home.

He wasn't going to ask how they were getting there.

Not yet.

"And no one's going to care that, I'm… you know." He made an expansive gesture, hoping it came across right. A teenager. An ex-spy. A Trust target.

"I think you'll find that Atlantis is quite the city of misfits," Sheppard's lips quirked. He probably would have argued with anyone else who labeled them in such a way. "No one is really going to care as long as you pull your weight – and that means no intentionally offending the locals or McKay. And maybe keep Woolsey on your side. How much or how little is told about your past is, well, going to depend on how we're trying to spin it for the IOA."

Alex blew out a long breath.

Right.

Something told him he had a lot to figure out.

As long as he survived, a year or two longer, maybe…

If it got too bad, maybe he could strike out on his own through the… stargate? It seemed almost too fantastical to imagine.

"Right," O'Neill clapped his hands together, getting up from his chair. "That's all decided. I'm sure you have things you need to wrap up in, San Francisco?"

Alex nodded hesitantly. At the very least, he needed to clear out his flat.

"Perfect." He turned to Sheppard; smirk firmly plastered on his face. "Colonel Sheppard, I'm so sorry to hear about the family emergency that will be taking you off base. You have a week of leave. I'll make sure Paul checks out a vehicle for you, since you need to make some stops on the way."

"Uh, sir—"

"Oh, and take our visitor with you. Make sure he stays parasite free. Try to keep it low-key. No speeding." O'Neill turned and walked toward the door. "Oh, and Daniel, my place. At five."

The three of them stared at each other for a long moment, before Dr. Jackson laughed. "Looks like you just got reassigned. Good job on getting out of the remaining IOA meetings – I'm sure there will be gnashing of teeth."

Sheppard's startled posture relaxed and he gave Alex a lazy grin. "San Francisco, eh? You had better not be living near one of the slums."

Alex shook his head mutely.

Though, perhaps it was for the best.

He could just pump Sheppard for information. After all, it was best to get it directly from the source.

A/N: The big reveal. Though John arguably "fast forwarded" through some pretty important Pegasus galaxy information to know…Let me know what you think and predictions for what hijinks they might get up to on their little trip to San Francisco.