Ghosts in the Machine (gen) PG-13 (3/5)
Ghost in the Machine
By Jennghis Kahn
+ + +
[ soul of the machine ]
Daniel led them into another room, this one creepy in a whole new way. It was long and narrow and dark except for the rows of reclining chairs that ran the length of the room. Each one was brightly lit and each one held a human being in a white suit, head shaved bald where wires and metal bands attached to their skin. Wires came from their fingertips and tangled together before disappearing into the control panels and machinery and even the floor and the walls. They reclined on their backs, eyes open and not seeing. They stared straight ahead, no focus to their sight. The hum was substantially louder here.
They walked down one row toward the opposite end of the room. Jack scanned the faces as they walked but didn’t see Carter in any of them. He wondered briefly if he’d even be able to recognize her if she looked like these people.
“She’s not in here,” Daniel said quietly, catching Jack’s searching gaze on the reclining figures.
He was far too somber, and Jack took no comfort in his words. He exchanged uneasy glances with Teal’c.
At the far end of the room was another door. They went through this one and then down a spiral staircase. It was stone, of the same type as the quarantine area. Old architecture. Maybe Daniel was right. When they went high tech, they just built the new around and on top of the old.
At the bottom of the stairs was another door. It opened easily. It was obvious that whatever was running this place didn’t feel security was needed. And maybe it wasn’t. It had the Interceptors to chase down pests, and it didn’t have to worry about the workers.
Inside was a small circular room with several doors. But in the center, grouped around a towering and violently humming cylinder of black metal were seven chairs.
“O’Neill!” Teal’c’s voice was thick with horror as he stared at one chair.
It took Jack only seconds to realize Carter was the one housed in it.
“Carter!” Both he and Daniel raced to her chair where she reclined as the others did, in the white suit, eyes vacant and turned inward. Her lips moved just a bit, soundlessly. Her scalp was clean-shaven except for the barest hint of fine blonde hair starting to grow back in. She had the same metal headgear stuck to her temples that Daniel had had on, and various wires and tubes seemed to be running in and out of her everywhere.
Jack felt his stomach turn.
“Sam?” Daniel reached out and turned her head slightly so he was in her line of vision. She didn’t react and didn’t look at him.
Jack licked his lips and glanced around. There was a thick torrent of wiring that swirled up to the ceiling and then massed together before sweeping up through the hole that housed the giant cylinder. There were no switches. No levers. No keyboards or buttons.
“How the hell do we get her out of this, Daniel?” Jack set his gun on the floor, and began examining the wires connected to Sam.
“You said the piece on my head, and even the chip, weren’t buried very deeply. I’d guess we just… disconnect her.”
“Does it control her heart and her lungs?”
Daniel leaned over her and pressed a hand over her heart. “I don’t think so. I think all the workers are fairly able to breathe and live on their own. It just feeds them and keeps them clean.”
Jack fingered a small wire running into her forearm. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was as good a place as any to start. He pressed his thumb to the place where it went in, and then he pulled it smoothly out. Blood smeared over the white skin of her arm. There was a sudden flickering in the room as lights came on over the doors.
“Uh oh,” Daniel muttered.
“Ignore it for now. Get her out,” Jack ordered, lifting his thumb to check the blood flow from Sam’s arm. It ran in a rivulet down to her fingers, dripping onto the floor, and he pressed his thumb back down. “Teal’c! Get the med kit from Daniel’s pack.”
Teal’c did so, as Daniel began easing wires and tubes one at a time from Sam’s body. Jack began taking bandages from Teal’c and taping them over the small wounds. He hoped she wasn’t full of some sort of anti-clotting agent, or she might be in trouble.
She made a small sound as Daniel pulled the last tube from her. Daniel stood and gripped her chin gently, turning her face toward him. “Sam?”
Jack looked up and watched her eyelids flutter a bit. Was that a good sign?
They lifted her onto the floor, and the flickering lights became more strident. Jack pulled his zat out.
“Jack!” Daniel stared at him, eyes wide.
“It’s the way I disconnected you, Daniel. Those metal plates on your head dropped off when I zatted you.”
“She’s already unconscious! It could kill her.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed.
Daniel glared at him.
“Major Carter would not wish to live this way,” Teal’c stated quietly. “You know this, Daniel Jackson.”
“She’s tough,” Jack reassured him. “It’s the only way we’re going to get her out of here and get that thing out of her. It’s in her mind, Daniel. If there was no other way out, would you want to live like this?”
Daniel slumped a bit. Of course he wouldn’t. The answer was obvious in his eyes. He shuffled back out of the way.
Jack fired.
Sam’s body jerked, and the metal headgear drooped. Daniel leaned over her to pluck it off and press his fingers to her neck. The lights above her station suddenly went out. “She’s alive,” Daniel said with relief.
Jack let himself take a small piece of solace in that.
“O’Neill. I suspect our presence will be known shortly.” Teal’c was glancing worriedly around the room at the flickering lights.
Jack agreed. This was obviously some sort of inner chamber at the heart of the system. The loss of Carter’s mind was bound to disrupt things. He quickly dug the Swiss Army knife from his pocket. “Hold her head, Daniel. I’ve got to get that chip.”
Daniel sat and pulled Sam up against him. He bent her head gently forward, and they stared at the glowing red light at the base of her skull. “Jesus… “ Daniel muttered.
Jack rested a hand along the back of her head, holding her steady. It felt odd to feel warm skin where soft blond hair should be. He slid the knife along the chip’s edge, lifting it out on the blade’s tip. Daniel taped a bandage over the cut.
Jack set the chip on the vacated chair, and glanced back at Teal’c. “We’re going to have to carry her out of here, Teal’c.”
Teal’c nodded and came forward, handing his P-90 to Jack. He hunkered down and scooped Carter up in his arms, glancing down at her with a troubled expression.
A worker suddenly appeared in the door. He ignored them at first and tried to walk around them to get to Sam’s empty chair. Jack stepped back and let him through. The worker picked up the errant chip and stared at it blankly. Suddenly he looked up and right at them, focused and eerily intent.
Jack zatted him. Then he zatted the towering black cylinder and whatever hummed inside of it, as Daniel yelled at him to stop. It didn’t matter. The zat’s swirling energy just ran along the surface and dissipated quickly. The lights didn’t even flicker.
But the door started to close.
Jack shouted even as Teal’c was through the door, Sam in his arms. Daniel leapt with him, and they squeezed through just before the opening became too narrow and trapped them. They rested briefly in the hallway outside at the foot of the spiral staircase. Jack heard an underlying rumbling starting beneath the hum.
“Now!” He shouted. “Get going!”
They charged up the stairs and into the room with the rows of reclining workers. Jack let Daniel lead hoping he’d be able to get them out faster. He kept Teal’c and Sam between them. Teal’c was moving well considering the buck thirty or so of unconscious Carter he was carrying.
They followed Daniel to the elevator where the door opened. Daniel hesitated.
“Daniel?” Jack inquired, glancing behind them just in case. The rumbling was steady now.
Daniel glanced back at them. “Jack, I’m not sure we should get in. If The System was the thing trying to close the door on us back there, then what could it do to us in an elevator?”
Jack took a brief second to think. “Alternatives?”
Daniel seemed to think rapidly and then deflate. He grimaced. “None. I don’t know if there are stairs or not.”
Jack glanced at the open elevator and then around them at the hallway. There were a few smaller lab rooms along the hall, but none of them had had extra doors inside. The room where they’d found Carter was cut off from them now. There was no choice. It was wait here or take their chances.
“Get on,” he ordered.
They filed into the elevator. Jack went to hit the button for the recycling level when the elevator suddenly started moving.
“Great,” he muttered darkly. Beside him, Carter suddenly moaned in Teal’c’s arms. Her white suit was smeared in her own blood from the shallow wounds the wiring had left.
He hit the button anyway, figuring it would do no good and The System would override it, but he felt it was worth the effort of one finger. He and Daniel stood back to back while Teal’c lowered Carter to her feet and held her up while he shifted her body and slung her over one shoulder. Jack handed him his P-90 again. It wasn’t the most comfortable position to put Sam in, but escape and survival were the new goals now. An armed Teal’c would significantly up their chances.
When the doors opened, Jack held them back for a moment. He pushed the button for the correct floor again, but nothing happened. When he peered out, he saw only white corridors. He glanced at Daniel. Daniel peered out and chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. Finally he glanced back at Jack and shrugged, shaking his head. He didn’t know where they were.
Jack stepped out carefully. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Why the hell had they been dumped out on this level?
They walked up the hallway and then went straight through the first intersection. Jack realized they were pretty much on their own now. With Daniel lost and the elevator useless to them, they’d just have to walk until Daniel recognized something or they lucked out.
When they forged through the next intersection, there was shuffling sound to their right. Jack glanced that way and was confronted with a group of black rubber-suited figures, whole-head helmets and binocular eye gear fitted over their faces. They were still a hundred feet away, but they raised long thin weapons that looked suspiciously like guns and began running down the corridor toward SG-1.
“Move!” Jack shouted, shoving Daniel to the front of their line and tapping Teal’c to follow. Jack brought up the rear, and they ran. They’d made it about a hundred feet before Jack looked back and saw the first of the Interceptors sliding around the corner and starting down their corridor after them. Jack brought his P-90 up and then hesitated. He had no idea if the bullets would ricochet off the walls or not. He held up the zat and fired as he ran. It was a close range weapon, but the beam hit the lead Interceptor and swirled around him.
It then jumped to the next guy and dissipated. They continued pursuit without a misstep.
“Damn it!” Jack swore, awkwardly shoving the zat into his belt again. “Zats are useless,” he called forward. As Daniel suddenly flailed to a stop ahead and barged around a corner, Teal’c following, Jack dropped painfully to his knees with a grimace and slid to a stop at the edge of the wall. He whirled around brought the P-90 up, took quick aim and fired off a few short, semi-auto bursts. The rounds embedded themselves in the wall and jerked the lead Interceptor off his feet. He shook on the floor, and Jack saw a blood spray on the wall next to him. Not infallible then. Thank God.
The others ignored their fallen compatriot and charged after Jack. He leapt to his feet and ran after Daniel and Teal’c, who were now turning right at another intersection ahead. As he slowed to make the turn, there was a high-pitched whistling in the air, and something tugged at his BDU sleeve. He glanced at it, and there was a gaping hole in the sleeve above his elbow where the fabric had been cut neatly away. There was no wound on his arm, and he didn’t think he’d been hit by whatever it was. He fired another burst, but unless he was going to drop to his knees and make a stand alone, he had to run and keep up with Daniel and Teal’c.
Daniel turned left at the next intersection with Teal’c following, but when Jack was again slowing to make the turn, Daniel suddenly reappeared and darted across the intersection in the other direction, yelling, “Dead end!” at Jack as he passed. Teal’c hesitated before entering the intersection, readjusting Carter’s weight on his shoulder. Jack slipped around the corner in the corridor that Daniel had just started down, and nodded at Teal’c as he stuck the P-90 out and began laying down covering fire. Teal’c held his own P-90 with one hand and curved it over across his body to aim it down the hall, firing as he darted across the open space. It was only a few steps, but as he passed Jack and ran after Daniel, Jack heard something hitting the wall across from him just behind the Jaffa. Teal’c didn’t stop, he knew better. Jack glanced over and saw several long, very thin, wicked looking darts sticking out of the metal. What the hell?
Whatever they were, they looked sharp as hell. He backed down the hall as fast as he could without losing his balance, watching the intersection. When one of the Interceptors suddenly entered the space, Jack fired. The guy went down. The others simply charged around the corner and came after him. No finesse at all. The System told them to pursue, and that’s what they did with no concern for life or death to themselves.
Jack was suddenly yanked sideways, and he turned to find Daniel dragging him down a narrow corridor. “I found something,” Daniel reported. He pointed to a hatch in the wall. Jack glanced back at the main hallway and then at the hatch again.
“What is it?”
“Recycling.”
“What do you mean?”
“A recycling chute. It goes down to a bigger chute and into the main holding area. We can slide down.”
“Slide down?” Jack looked at him incredulously. “Daniel, are you nuts? This isn’t Star Wars!”
“It’s either that or eventually get mowed down by them!” Daniel pointed behind Jack, and Teal’c suddenly fired. Jack whirled to see two Interceptors go down in the entrance to their hallway. It slowed the others down who struggled to step over them. Jack fired, adding more bodies to the pile.
“All right, move it!” Jack ordered. These guys just kept coming.
Daniel pried open the door to the chute, and suddenly one of the Interceptors stepped out and stopped in the middle of the hall. Jack fired, but his clip let one burst out and then clicked empty. He swore, ejecting it and rapidly reaching for another one. The Interceptor raised his own gun, and Jack shoved Daniel to the floor and barked at Teal’c, “Down!”
Teal’c dropped and twisted, pulling Sam into a ball against him and shielding her with his back. Jack got down just as the darts began hitting the wall above them. The high-pitched whistle they made hurt his ears, and he fumbled around trying to find his extra clip. Teal’c yanked the empty gun from Jack’s hands and shoved his own in its place. Jack raised it and fired as a dart caught Teal’c in the upper arm. It grazed his shoulder, flaying open the fabric and skin alike before embedding itself in the wall above Sam’s head. Teal’c didn’t even wince as the tatters of his sleeve turned crimson. He used his foot to kick open the door to the chute again, picked Sam up, and he disappeared into the big hatch, feet first.
Jack kept firing as Daniel stepped in after them, and then he followed.
+ + +
[ collapsing effect ]
Daniel
The ride was slower than he’d expected. It wasn’t a strictly vertical drop, but more of a decline. It felt they were sliding down for hours when he realized rationally it was probably only seconds. He hoped he wouldn’t land on Teal’c or Sam. Or, well, anything sharp and stabby.
He could hear Jack’s voice coming from above him, swearing a blue streak that sounded tinny and echoed in the metal of the enclosed chute. It took on a different timbre as Daniel suddenly entered open air and endured a brief free fall before landing hard on his ass and sinking deep into a loose but massive pile of wire and rubber. There was a glancing blow of something slamming into his shoulder, and a grunt of pain came from beside him.
“Jack?”
Violent swearing was his reply, and Daniel would have laughed if the situation had been less desperate. He floundered in the mass of wires and tried to swim his way out. A hand grabbed his forearm and yanked hard. He was pulled from the pile by Teal’c and slid down the side to the floor. Jack soon followed.
Daniel glanced around and then climbed to his feet looking for Sam. She was propped against a nearby wall, and although still unconscious, looked none the worse for wear. He knelt down next to her anyway and smoothed a hand over her bare scalp, touching the tiny red pinpricks on her temple where the connectors had been placed. He was worried about what she would wake up to. If her mind would be whole and untouched. That would be the worst sort of damage for her. He knew that intuitively because it was the same with him.
“Where now, Daniel?” Jack bent over to take a breather and looked up at Daniel with piercing eyes. Teal’c was giving his arm a cursory examination but didn’t appear disturbed by it in any way. Daniel glanced around and then walked toward another door.
“Here.”
The door opened to a flight of stairs, and he started down them. The others followed. The control room was on the bottom level. They’d gone down several levels when the sound of a door opening far above them came floating down. It was followed by the tramp of feet on the stairs. Many feet.
Daniel immediately began to hurry down the stairs, even before Jack’s order came. Teal’c had a bit more trouble trying to keep his footing while carrying Sam, and as they reached the bottom and Daniel held the door for the rest, he offered to take Sam for a while if Teal’c was getting tired or his arm was growing weak.
“My wound is shallow,” Teal’c replied. “I will carry Major Carter.”
Daniel acquiesced with a nod and stuck his head in the stairwell to listen for their pursuers. They were still several levels up. He allowed the door to close and led the others down a short hall and finally into the control room for the recycling chute. They only needed to go through the hatch and down the narrow tunnel and get down the rope into the junkyard. As they ran across the floor though, Daniel suddenly hesitated as he saw a figure walking along the outside edge of the room. It was Bit.
“Jack!” Daniel called, pointing to the man.
“What the hell is he doing in here?”
Daniel felt a suffusion of guilt. “He must have followed us in.” He swerved off the path toward the hatch in the floor and approached Bit instead. “Bit… you have to come out with us now.”
Bit smiled for the first time. “You found a way back in!”
“No, it’s not a way back in. Not like you’re thinking. The Interceptors are coming after us.”
“The Interceptors?” Bit frowned and looked concerned.
“Daniel! We don’t have time. Let’s go!”
“Jack, we can’t leave him here!”
Teal’c was already starting down the hatch, and Jack gave Daniel a look of impatience. Daniel didn’t budge.
“Go over and activate the chute. I’ll get Bit,” Jack finally ordered him. He jogged quickly over to them, and Daniel ran to the control panel, throwing the lever. The vibration and screech of the chute opening filled the room. He turned as the Interceptors suddenly rounded the corner and came piling into the room. At the sight of them, Bit panicked. Daniel was too far away to hear what Jack was trying to tell him, but it didn’t work. Jack then tried to simply grab him and drag him toward the hatch, and Daniel quickly brought his weapon up and fired at the Interceptors, trying to give them covering fire.
The darts were whistling in the air, and Daniel crouched as he ran for the hatch. Ahead of him, Jack almost had Bit to the opening, when Bit jerked back and ran for the main hallway. Daniel shouted at him, feeling a cold dread in his chest. “Bit! No!”
The darts cut the panicked man down. They sliced into him and some of them went completely through him and into the wall behind. Daniel felt his heart drop. There was no reason…
Daniel fired toward the Interceptors, trying to reach Bit’s prone form, but Jack grabbed him and herded him toward the hatch. “Forget it!”
“He might be okay!”
“He’s not, Daniel. We have to get out of here!”
Jack wouldn’t leave him, and Daniel knew it. He dropped quickly down the hatch and onto the floor of the tunnel below. Jack dropped down after him followed by a clatter of darts ricocheting off the hard steel lip of the opening and into the tunnel.
Teal’c was opening the far door to the main chute, Sam clutched against his side. Daniel ran toward them, hearing Jack behind him. They eased out awkwardly onto the ladder beside the rope, and Jack closed the door behind them. There were thumps against the metal mere moments after.
“I’ll jump,” Jack said between gritted teeth. You’ll have to lower Carter down to me. We only have a few seconds.”
“There is no time,” Teal’c replied, and he wrapped both arms around Sam and stepped off the edge, letting himself fall feet first into the pile below. Daniel felt his breath catch, and he stared down, watching as Teal’c hit the pile, sank in up to his knees, and then twisted around so he fell backward, Sam protected and on top of him.
“Go!” Jack said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Daniel jumped and Jack jumped with him. He hit and fell forward, rolling down the side of the pile and feeling several small, sharp pains digging into his back. He ignored them and climbed immediately to his feet, the world righting itself again.
Jack and Teal’c were both dragging Sam along between them, heading for one of the exits. Daniel ran around the pile toward them just as one of the Interceptors jumped down on top of the heap and began firing at him. He put his head down and ran for all he was worth.
+ + +
[ insurgent ]
Jack
The trucks rolled out soon after they hit the street. Jack was worried about the thermal imaging or whatever sort of vision the Interceptors had installed in their helmets. The church wouldn’t prevent them from being found in that respect, and he didn’t dare hide them behind a simple energy transformer again. He was pretty sure the search this time would be much more thorough.
The few Interceptors that had braved the jump to the junkpile to follow them had been easily taken out of the picture with a few well-aimed shots as they exited the yard, but Jack knew there’d be a whole lot more swarming the city soon.
“We need someplace to hide,” he panted as they ran, sticking close to the walls of the black buildings. We need to stay away from the church or it’ll be useless to us after today.”
Daniel’s voice suddenly came from the back. “Bit’s place. The shelter he showed me might be okay. It’s underground.”
“Lead!” Jack ordered, dropping back behind Teal’c to pick up the rear as Daniel ran up to take point. Daniel led them toward the church and then suddenly veered away on a trajectory toward Bit’s house. They had to slow their run to a jog as they ran past the long, narrow buildings completely encased in metal. They could hear the trucks at the other end of these buildings, and sometimes had to wait for a crew to pass on the other side before running through the gap to the next.
The day grew darker quickly, and eventually they came to the row of old, battered houses that Bit had called home. Daniel passed by and entered a house a block over. They thundered down the stairs into the basement, and Daniel pried up a piece of scrap metal on the floor to reveal a trap door.
Jack glanced at it nervously. “Is there more than one entrance and exit?”
“Of course,” Daniel replied, sounding a little indignant. “What use would it be as a shelter if it didn’t?”
Jack shot him a dry look, but was a little proud of the guy. He’d come a long way over the years. Jack liked to think he was responsible for some of that. They climbed down into the hatch and Daniel used the flashlight to lead them down a long, ancient tunnel. It was dirt and stone and supported with wooden beams that made Jack wince a bit. Some of them were rotting away, and he didn’t trust the integrity of the ceiling.
At the end though, they walked through a door into a vast chamber. Stacks upon stacks of crates and boxes filled the room. Shelves lined the walls, and Jack saw preserved food, clothing and other things he had no idea about. The floors were littered with scrap and dusty odds and ends. More junk. They walked through until they found a smaller room with pallets. Daniel grabbed some of the clothing and found a few blankets to spread out so they could lay Sam down.
Jack and Teal’c took a walk to find all the exits and get the layout in their heads. There were numerous rooms. Many of them for sleeping, some simply strewn with long-petrified garbage. There were two doors on the main level, but they found a second level, deeper, where several tunnels seemed to converge. They all seemed to have seen no use for years. That was reassuring at least.
Teal’c took up a post there in case the Interceptors knew of the tunnels and had only been ignoring them for lack of reason the past few years. Bit hardly seemed a threat they’d have worried about. Until he met SG-1, of course, Jack thought with a wince.
Jack set himself up in the main level between the two doors, occasionally sticking his head into the tunnels to listen for intruders. Daniel stayed with Sam.
As the hours crept by, Jack began to relax a bit. Daniel brought him a ration bar, and said Teal’c had heard nothing yet. He’d gotten Sam to take some water, but she was as mindless as he’d been when Jack had disconnected him and dragged him back to the church.
Jack hoped she’d recover just as fully as Daniel had. They’d need her brain to get out of here, and he really couldn’t think about the possibility that she might be lost to them. That was unacceptable right now. None of them were expendable in his eyes. Never were, never would be. Ever.
He settled back to wait again. The long night was soon over, but the long day had yet to begin.
+ + +
[ piety ]
Teal’c
The balcony on the church was a favorite place to be alone for each member of the team. They all knew this, and therefore some privacy was afforded there. If you ventured out without telling the others, you could be assured that no one would join you for a while at least. Teal’c liked that. He appreciated it. He was not a talker by nature, even when he still lived with his family back on Chulak. He preferred to listen and watch and consider everything around him.
He stood to one side of the balcony on the night watch and listened to this planet that had captured them so easily. That low-level hum that permeated everything made his senses prickle with warning again and again. He disliked it immensely. It felt cold and hard and evil.
They’d left the shelter the night after rescuing Sam from The System. He and O’Neill had ventured out to see what was happening, and all had been quiet. They’d remained undiscovered. There’d been evidence that the Interceptors had come inside of the row of battered houses though, so Jack had decided that they’d remain in the church, which had been untouched, doubtlessly because they had not been there to find.
Teal’c liked the church. It was possibly the most defensible position in the city with its location on the hill. They could see the enemy coming long before he arrived. They weren’t waiting underground for a surprise.
It had been two days since the rescue, and Sam had most definitely turned the corner and was getting better. She’d been unconscious for another 12 hours after they’d moved her into the church, but since then had slowly regained her faculties and her memory. In fact, Teal’c’s had been the first face she’d recognized in her brief and drowsy periods of lucidity. Teal’c had felt a warm wave of affection when she’d said his name and her eyes had focused clearly on him. O’Neill had been a little put out that it wasn’t him, and Teal’c had not been able to hide his amusement. Or so he’d thought… none of the others had seemed to notice, even when looking directly at him.
Humans.
They all eagerly awaited her return to health, and Teal’c knew that O’Neill was basing most of their hopes for escape on her. It was a difficult burden that Sam and Daniel shared on SG-1. O’Neill had every reason to rely on them for miracles. They’d delivered time after time. But Teal’c could see the pressure in their eyes and the pain they both endured when they failed. He wished he could spare them that, but they all had their jobs to do, and the defense of Earth, the freedom of the Jaffa, would not wait.
He ducked through the hole in the wall of the church and walked silently back into the loft. O’Neill had felt that they needed to post a guard for a few days to make sure the Interceptors were done with their search, and Teal’c had concurred. They’d gone back to the shelter and brought back some of the more appetizing food and a few of the pallets.
For the time being though, Daniel slept with Sam on the big pallet. She was much better and staying awake for longer periods of time, but the withdrawal from the mind control had been painful for her. Teal’c stood over them as they slept side by side, Sam softly snoring into Daniel’s shoulder. The two of them could find comfort in each other where O’Neill and himself could not.
He called them Sam and Daniel in his mind. He knew they would both be pleased to hear him use the names out loud, but that he could not do. Not yet. He called Sam by her rank because she had earned it in front of his eyes and he granted her that honor. He called Daniel by his first and last name out of respect for the archeologist’s father who gave him his surname and was so missed by the young man. When the wars were over and the rank and protocol could be dropped, he would do so and hope they’d still be as honored to have him use their more familiar names.
Until then…
He stepped over O’Neill’s prone body, hearing him snort in his sleep. O’Neill was simply O’Neill to him because they understood each other. Brothers in arms. He could never be anything less than simply “O’Neill”. It was a name with power in the universe these days.
Teal’c was satisfied that his adopted family slept well. He returned to the balcony and lowered himself to rest on his heels as he stared out across the black landscape. They would escape and return home. Of this he was certain.
O’Neill had told him so.
+ + +
[ revive ]
Sam
Sam took a bite of the ration bar and then set it back down as she opened the odds-and-ends kit. The small metal box was battered and even had scorch marks across its side, but it had saved their skins more than once in the past and it wouldn’t be retired until it actually fell apart.
The roof of the old church creaked suddenly and she glanced up into its shadowed depths. The guys wouldn’t be back for a while yet, and although she knew no one was there, she moved the P-90 a little closer on the table.
She was still suffering some fatigue and confusion. Effects from the total mind control of The System. For the most part though, she felt as if she’d just awoken from a long, deep sleep. Her body ached from atrophy, her brain stumbled as it revved back up to speed, and she spent long moments staring into space as she tried to sort the memories of her servitude in her mind. The colonel said she’d been out, off and on, for nearly three days after they’d carried her out. It was almost five days after she’d woke for good now, and she was finally starting to feel more normal.
She took a needle from the pack they kept in the odds-and-ends kit, and then took the magnet from its box. In the cloudy light from the big stained glass window, she carefully stroked the magnet down the length of the needle repeatedly.
Her first day or two back were sort of a blur. She’d been full of information, and still was, but Jack had been merciless in his demand for intel. She’d tried to give him what she could because she knew it was important, but her mind had been such a jumble… It had pained him to see her like that, she could tell, and he’d had to walk away from her several times to cool down before he commanded a meaningless mission against an enemy too vast to beat.
“It’s a computer,” she’d told him, trying to decide how best to explain it all. Daniel had also been hooked in, but he hadn’t been in The System itself, and he had a harder time recognizing all he’d seen. It was much clearer in Sam’s mind.
“What do you mean… it’s a computer? What part? The part that you were hooked up to?”
“I mean all of it,” she’d said grimly. “This whole city. It’s all one big computer.”
“Jesus… “ Daniel had stared at her from across the table. “All of it? I thought maybe a hive mind of some sort.”
She’d screwed up one half of her face in thought. “Sort of… but in a hive mind all the members are conscious of the others’ thoughts. Not so with this. Here, we were all hooked into the central consciousness and it gave us programming and told us what to do.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“I fixed code.”
“What does that mean, Carter?” Jack was supremely frustrated, and she didn’t blame him.
“Look,” She’d sighed and laid her hands on the table top. “’The System’ is an accurate description of this thing. It’s a sentient computer entity. It was likely made by humans, but I don’t think it’s run by humans anymore. Somewhere along the way, it learned to grow and run on its own and use humans to achieve its goals.”
“Which are?”
“To survive and expand. That’s it.”
“Stay alive and reproduce,” Daniel had said, meeting her gaze. “That’s the prime instinct of any life form.”
“It’s not alive if it’s a computer!” Jack had barked angrily.
“It’s not evil, sir,” Sam had said gently. She was used to his outbursts and knew that both her and Daniel could push him much further than anyone else would be allowed. “But it does consider us expendable. We’re of no consequence to it other than as a resource. It doesn’t recognize life or the right to exist for anything except itself. It doesn’t even understand the concept. I think that qualifies as an ‘us or them’ situation.”
Jack had stared at her. “So, how do we stop it?”
“Stop it?” She’d been surprised. “We can’t. It’s huge, sir. I don’t think you realize the true scope of what has been created here. This is a computer that has enslaved humans and expanded, at least somewhat, across a planet. The sheer amount of code that was required to run the minute-to-minute operations was staggering. All I did was fix code and write new code so that things would keep running and it could survive.”
“Power,” Jack stated. “It has to run on power.”
“Vast amounts, yes. The shield that covers the city would require a huge amount by itself.”
“We could just unplug it.”
She’d smiled at him, and his jaw had tightened in response.
“One of the sub-systems was named Power Field, but I have no idea where that’d be or how it generated enough energy to keep itself running. I doubt it’d do much anyway. There are back-up systems.”
Jack had glared. “How about that building we found you in? That thing you were hooked up to? We find something explosive and we blow it to hell.”
“No! That’s The System’s master block!” She’d been so alarmed, she’d reached out and grabbed his sleeve to make sure he paid attention. “Colonel, the stargate is in there!”
Being at one with The System had left an indelible map of parts and programming in her mind, and that included the knowledge of the stargate, deep inside the The System’s master block.
“How the hell did we get sucked into this anyway?” Daniel had asked. “I barely remember even coming through the stargate. Shouldn’t the MALP have detected some of this?”
“No. The gate was in a shielded, enclosed room. When we sent the MALP through, it showed this, but nothing else. General Hammond still thought it was suspicious except that then the MALP started relaying a code back to us that was being broadcast at the gate.”
“What manner of code?” Teal’c asked curiously.
“The most readily recognizable kind,” Sam had answered. “Mathmatical.”
Jack had waved his hands impatiently. “I don’t care how we got here anymore. I want to know how to get home!”
Sam had thought about that. “I don’t know, sir. It’s still a bit hard for me to think. Maybe in a day or two… “
It hadn’t been what Jack had wanted to hear, but he’d given her shoulder a squeeze and ran his hand over the bristle of hair on her head in reassurance. “It’s okay, Carter. Good job. Get better and then we’ll get our asses home.”
Sam had felt a rush of loyalty and affection for the man then. He pushed her hard when he had to, but he also knew when to step back and let her breathe. She wanted to give him what he needed to get them home. Maybe just a few more days…
Sam took the needle she’d just magnetized and tested it against the metal of the odds-and-ends box. It stuck readily, and she smiled.
She and Daniel had spent a lot of that first day talking and comparing notes. He’d told her what had happened so far with him and Teal’c and Jack, and how they’d disconnected her from The System and gotten her out of the master block. He’d told her about the Interceptors and the shelter and about Bit…
Bit, who’d survived being obsolete when no one else had. Bit, who’d given them food and information even though he didn’t quite understand what was happening. Bit, who’d been shot by the Interceptors inside the master system block, and they’d had to leave him behind.
His body had appeared on the pile of junk in the recycling yard the day before.
Daniel had been angry and upset. Bit hadn’t been dead long so it was likely he’d survived his initial wounds and expired later, perhaps after the Interceptors had interrogated him.
Today, they went to retrieve the body and find a place to bury him. Sam suspected Jack and Teal’c might not have bothered, but Daniel had needed the act of contrition. He felt guilt for leaving the man behind. Sam had not known Bit, but had felt sadness all the same. He’d survived so long, and he’d been so alone. Just cast out when he wasn’t useful anymore. She could only imagine…
But her lingering fatigue had convinced her to stay behind and let the guys say goodbye in their own way. She needed the time alone with her thoughts anyway.
She pushed the needle halfway through a little bit of wood she’d chipped off one of the old fire pits down on the floor of the church. She took the shallow plastic bowl she’d found in the corner and poured an inch or so of water in it from the canteen. When she dropped the wood and needle into the water, it floated and spun and finally twitched back and forth for a moment before settling into a straight line. When she moved the dish or twisted it, the needle stayed firmly in its line.
Magnetic north.
Or… south.
Or a building that was exuding magnetic properties.
There was really no way to tell.
But Jack had moaned three times since she’d woken about his lack of a compass, and if she couldn’t give him an escape plan yet, she could give him this. Useless as it was.
She heard a voice outside, and then the familiar sound of the door being pushed open on the main level of the church. Boots crunched over broken glass and rotten wood as the guys walked through the church and then up the stairs to the loft.
She watched them as they came into view. Teal’c greeted her with a nod of his head and then grabbed the container they used for water and went back down the stairs again. Daniel met her gaze without a smile, but she didn’t expect one on this somber occasion.
“Hey Sam, how’re you feeling?”
“Good,” she answered softly. He gave her a faint smile and then disappeared through the hole in the wall and out onto the balcony. She watched the dark shadow of his body through the stained glass as he stood for a moment and then slid down to sit in the far corner.
Hands suddenly encompassed the top of her head and rubbed at the short, fuzzy hairs growing from her scalp. She stifled a snort of laughter and grinned. “Hey, sir.”
The hands disappeared. “Hey, Carter. Feeling better?”
“Yeah.” She turned to smile at him. The soft, bristle-stiff, new growth of her hair was a novelty to the rest of the team, who had only ever seen her with her blond hair styled and fashionably mussed. They’d started the fascination by staring at her scalp while she talked, and then Daniel had finally given in and rubbed her head with the palms of his hands, feeling the texture and the spiky softness and giving her a teasing grin. The colonel had apparently only been waiting for someone to start the festivities and hadn’t wanted to be the first. They’d cajoled Teal’c into a cursory touch, but he’d frowned at them in long-suffering confusion. When they weren’t looking though, she’d sometimes feel Teal’c’s huge hand run quickly over the spikiness of her hair and she’d turn to find a glint in his eye.
It was to the point now where it was simply a part of their day and she barely noticed. She’d just go on talking as if there weren’t hands rubbing on her scalp and pulling her head slightly to the side so she had to look up through the corners of her eyes at the person she was speaking to. Teamwork. You just wouldn’t get it unless you’d been a part of it.
“How was it?” she asked tentatively.
Jack glanced out the window to where Daniel’s dark form was standing on the balcony. “All right. We had to bury the body in the tunnels of the shelter. There isn’t anywhere else to find bare ground. We tried to reassure him that he had no choice, but… you know Daniel.”
She did. She knew.
“Hey, what’s that?” Jack was looking curiously at the homemade compass on the table in front of her.
She gave him a faint smile. “Um, it’s a compass.”
He stared at her.
“Really,” she protested. “I magnetized a needle and anchored it in wood so it would float and set it adrift in some water. That’s all a compass is… basically.”
Jack grinned at her. “Carter! You made me a compass?”
Sam felt the red rise in her cheeks. “Well, I mean, it’s not really useful in a practical sense, sir. We know nothing about this planet and whether the poles are magnetized or are north south or whether the buildings in this city are emitting any sort of radiation or magnetism that would mess with it. Plus, it’s not really something you can carry with you…”
Jack was leaning down and flicking at the floating needle with his finger, watching as it swung back to its original position each time. He gave her a sidelong smirk. “It’s good to have you back, Major.”
“Thanks, sir. Thanks for getting me out of there,” she replied sincerely.
“Yeah, well… no one gets left behind on my watch. Besides… how else are we going to find the stargate?”
She smiled, but sighed. Frankly, she had no idea.
+ + +
Part 4
By Jennghis Kahn
+ + +
[ soul of the machine ]
Daniel led them into another room, this one creepy in a whole new way. It was long and narrow and dark except for the rows of reclining chairs that ran the length of the room. Each one was brightly lit and each one held a human being in a white suit, head shaved bald where wires and metal bands attached to their skin. Wires came from their fingertips and tangled together before disappearing into the control panels and machinery and even the floor and the walls. They reclined on their backs, eyes open and not seeing. They stared straight ahead, no focus to their sight. The hum was substantially louder here.
They walked down one row toward the opposite end of the room. Jack scanned the faces as they walked but didn’t see Carter in any of them. He wondered briefly if he’d even be able to recognize her if she looked like these people.
“She’s not in here,” Daniel said quietly, catching Jack’s searching gaze on the reclining figures.
He was far too somber, and Jack took no comfort in his words. He exchanged uneasy glances with Teal’c.
At the far end of the room was another door. They went through this one and then down a spiral staircase. It was stone, of the same type as the quarantine area. Old architecture. Maybe Daniel was right. When they went high tech, they just built the new around and on top of the old.
At the bottom of the stairs was another door. It opened easily. It was obvious that whatever was running this place didn’t feel security was needed. And maybe it wasn’t. It had the Interceptors to chase down pests, and it didn’t have to worry about the workers.
Inside was a small circular room with several doors. But in the center, grouped around a towering and violently humming cylinder of black metal were seven chairs.
“O’Neill!” Teal’c’s voice was thick with horror as he stared at one chair.
It took Jack only seconds to realize Carter was the one housed in it.
“Carter!” Both he and Daniel raced to her chair where she reclined as the others did, in the white suit, eyes vacant and turned inward. Her lips moved just a bit, soundlessly. Her scalp was clean-shaven except for the barest hint of fine blonde hair starting to grow back in. She had the same metal headgear stuck to her temples that Daniel had had on, and various wires and tubes seemed to be running in and out of her everywhere.
Jack felt his stomach turn.
“Sam?” Daniel reached out and turned her head slightly so he was in her line of vision. She didn’t react and didn’t look at him.
Jack licked his lips and glanced around. There was a thick torrent of wiring that swirled up to the ceiling and then massed together before sweeping up through the hole that housed the giant cylinder. There were no switches. No levers. No keyboards or buttons.
“How the hell do we get her out of this, Daniel?” Jack set his gun on the floor, and began examining the wires connected to Sam.
“You said the piece on my head, and even the chip, weren’t buried very deeply. I’d guess we just… disconnect her.”
“Does it control her heart and her lungs?”
Daniel leaned over her and pressed a hand over her heart. “I don’t think so. I think all the workers are fairly able to breathe and live on their own. It just feeds them and keeps them clean.”
Jack fingered a small wire running into her forearm. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was as good a place as any to start. He pressed his thumb to the place where it went in, and then he pulled it smoothly out. Blood smeared over the white skin of her arm. There was a sudden flickering in the room as lights came on over the doors.
“Uh oh,” Daniel muttered.
“Ignore it for now. Get her out,” Jack ordered, lifting his thumb to check the blood flow from Sam’s arm. It ran in a rivulet down to her fingers, dripping onto the floor, and he pressed his thumb back down. “Teal’c! Get the med kit from Daniel’s pack.”
Teal’c did so, as Daniel began easing wires and tubes one at a time from Sam’s body. Jack began taking bandages from Teal’c and taping them over the small wounds. He hoped she wasn’t full of some sort of anti-clotting agent, or she might be in trouble.
She made a small sound as Daniel pulled the last tube from her. Daniel stood and gripped her chin gently, turning her face toward him. “Sam?”
Jack looked up and watched her eyelids flutter a bit. Was that a good sign?
They lifted her onto the floor, and the flickering lights became more strident. Jack pulled his zat out.
“Jack!” Daniel stared at him, eyes wide.
“It’s the way I disconnected you, Daniel. Those metal plates on your head dropped off when I zatted you.”
“She’s already unconscious! It could kill her.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed.
Daniel glared at him.
“Major Carter would not wish to live this way,” Teal’c stated quietly. “You know this, Daniel Jackson.”
“She’s tough,” Jack reassured him. “It’s the only way we’re going to get her out of here and get that thing out of her. It’s in her mind, Daniel. If there was no other way out, would you want to live like this?”
Daniel slumped a bit. Of course he wouldn’t. The answer was obvious in his eyes. He shuffled back out of the way.
Jack fired.
Sam’s body jerked, and the metal headgear drooped. Daniel leaned over her to pluck it off and press his fingers to her neck. The lights above her station suddenly went out. “She’s alive,” Daniel said with relief.
Jack let himself take a small piece of solace in that.
“O’Neill. I suspect our presence will be known shortly.” Teal’c was glancing worriedly around the room at the flickering lights.
Jack agreed. This was obviously some sort of inner chamber at the heart of the system. The loss of Carter’s mind was bound to disrupt things. He quickly dug the Swiss Army knife from his pocket. “Hold her head, Daniel. I’ve got to get that chip.”
Daniel sat and pulled Sam up against him. He bent her head gently forward, and they stared at the glowing red light at the base of her skull. “Jesus… “ Daniel muttered.
Jack rested a hand along the back of her head, holding her steady. It felt odd to feel warm skin where soft blond hair should be. He slid the knife along the chip’s edge, lifting it out on the blade’s tip. Daniel taped a bandage over the cut.
Jack set the chip on the vacated chair, and glanced back at Teal’c. “We’re going to have to carry her out of here, Teal’c.”
Teal’c nodded and came forward, handing his P-90 to Jack. He hunkered down and scooped Carter up in his arms, glancing down at her with a troubled expression.
A worker suddenly appeared in the door. He ignored them at first and tried to walk around them to get to Sam’s empty chair. Jack stepped back and let him through. The worker picked up the errant chip and stared at it blankly. Suddenly he looked up and right at them, focused and eerily intent.
Jack zatted him. Then he zatted the towering black cylinder and whatever hummed inside of it, as Daniel yelled at him to stop. It didn’t matter. The zat’s swirling energy just ran along the surface and dissipated quickly. The lights didn’t even flicker.
But the door started to close.
Jack shouted even as Teal’c was through the door, Sam in his arms. Daniel leapt with him, and they squeezed through just before the opening became too narrow and trapped them. They rested briefly in the hallway outside at the foot of the spiral staircase. Jack heard an underlying rumbling starting beneath the hum.
“Now!” He shouted. “Get going!”
They charged up the stairs and into the room with the rows of reclining workers. Jack let Daniel lead hoping he’d be able to get them out faster. He kept Teal’c and Sam between them. Teal’c was moving well considering the buck thirty or so of unconscious Carter he was carrying.
They followed Daniel to the elevator where the door opened. Daniel hesitated.
“Daniel?” Jack inquired, glancing behind them just in case. The rumbling was steady now.
Daniel glanced back at them. “Jack, I’m not sure we should get in. If The System was the thing trying to close the door on us back there, then what could it do to us in an elevator?”
Jack took a brief second to think. “Alternatives?”
Daniel seemed to think rapidly and then deflate. He grimaced. “None. I don’t know if there are stairs or not.”
Jack glanced at the open elevator and then around them at the hallway. There were a few smaller lab rooms along the hall, but none of them had had extra doors inside. The room where they’d found Carter was cut off from them now. There was no choice. It was wait here or take their chances.
“Get on,” he ordered.
They filed into the elevator. Jack went to hit the button for the recycling level when the elevator suddenly started moving.
“Great,” he muttered darkly. Beside him, Carter suddenly moaned in Teal’c’s arms. Her white suit was smeared in her own blood from the shallow wounds the wiring had left.
He hit the button anyway, figuring it would do no good and The System would override it, but he felt it was worth the effort of one finger. He and Daniel stood back to back while Teal’c lowered Carter to her feet and held her up while he shifted her body and slung her over one shoulder. Jack handed him his P-90 again. It wasn’t the most comfortable position to put Sam in, but escape and survival were the new goals now. An armed Teal’c would significantly up their chances.
When the doors opened, Jack held them back for a moment. He pushed the button for the correct floor again, but nothing happened. When he peered out, he saw only white corridors. He glanced at Daniel. Daniel peered out and chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. Finally he glanced back at Jack and shrugged, shaking his head. He didn’t know where they were.
Jack stepped out carefully. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Why the hell had they been dumped out on this level?
They walked up the hallway and then went straight through the first intersection. Jack realized they were pretty much on their own now. With Daniel lost and the elevator useless to them, they’d just have to walk until Daniel recognized something or they lucked out.
When they forged through the next intersection, there was shuffling sound to their right. Jack glanced that way and was confronted with a group of black rubber-suited figures, whole-head helmets and binocular eye gear fitted over their faces. They were still a hundred feet away, but they raised long thin weapons that looked suspiciously like guns and began running down the corridor toward SG-1.
“Move!” Jack shouted, shoving Daniel to the front of their line and tapping Teal’c to follow. Jack brought up the rear, and they ran. They’d made it about a hundred feet before Jack looked back and saw the first of the Interceptors sliding around the corner and starting down their corridor after them. Jack brought his P-90 up and then hesitated. He had no idea if the bullets would ricochet off the walls or not. He held up the zat and fired as he ran. It was a close range weapon, but the beam hit the lead Interceptor and swirled around him.
It then jumped to the next guy and dissipated. They continued pursuit without a misstep.
“Damn it!” Jack swore, awkwardly shoving the zat into his belt again. “Zats are useless,” he called forward. As Daniel suddenly flailed to a stop ahead and barged around a corner, Teal’c following, Jack dropped painfully to his knees with a grimace and slid to a stop at the edge of the wall. He whirled around brought the P-90 up, took quick aim and fired off a few short, semi-auto bursts. The rounds embedded themselves in the wall and jerked the lead Interceptor off his feet. He shook on the floor, and Jack saw a blood spray on the wall next to him. Not infallible then. Thank God.
The others ignored their fallen compatriot and charged after Jack. He leapt to his feet and ran after Daniel and Teal’c, who were now turning right at another intersection ahead. As he slowed to make the turn, there was a high-pitched whistling in the air, and something tugged at his BDU sleeve. He glanced at it, and there was a gaping hole in the sleeve above his elbow where the fabric had been cut neatly away. There was no wound on his arm, and he didn’t think he’d been hit by whatever it was. He fired another burst, but unless he was going to drop to his knees and make a stand alone, he had to run and keep up with Daniel and Teal’c.
Daniel turned left at the next intersection with Teal’c following, but when Jack was again slowing to make the turn, Daniel suddenly reappeared and darted across the intersection in the other direction, yelling, “Dead end!” at Jack as he passed. Teal’c hesitated before entering the intersection, readjusting Carter’s weight on his shoulder. Jack slipped around the corner in the corridor that Daniel had just started down, and nodded at Teal’c as he stuck the P-90 out and began laying down covering fire. Teal’c held his own P-90 with one hand and curved it over across his body to aim it down the hall, firing as he darted across the open space. It was only a few steps, but as he passed Jack and ran after Daniel, Jack heard something hitting the wall across from him just behind the Jaffa. Teal’c didn’t stop, he knew better. Jack glanced over and saw several long, very thin, wicked looking darts sticking out of the metal. What the hell?
Whatever they were, they looked sharp as hell. He backed down the hall as fast as he could without losing his balance, watching the intersection. When one of the Interceptors suddenly entered the space, Jack fired. The guy went down. The others simply charged around the corner and came after him. No finesse at all. The System told them to pursue, and that’s what they did with no concern for life or death to themselves.
Jack was suddenly yanked sideways, and he turned to find Daniel dragging him down a narrow corridor. “I found something,” Daniel reported. He pointed to a hatch in the wall. Jack glanced back at the main hallway and then at the hatch again.
“What is it?”
“Recycling.”
“What do you mean?”
“A recycling chute. It goes down to a bigger chute and into the main holding area. We can slide down.”
“Slide down?” Jack looked at him incredulously. “Daniel, are you nuts? This isn’t Star Wars!”
“It’s either that or eventually get mowed down by them!” Daniel pointed behind Jack, and Teal’c suddenly fired. Jack whirled to see two Interceptors go down in the entrance to their hallway. It slowed the others down who struggled to step over them. Jack fired, adding more bodies to the pile.
“All right, move it!” Jack ordered. These guys just kept coming.
Daniel pried open the door to the chute, and suddenly one of the Interceptors stepped out and stopped in the middle of the hall. Jack fired, but his clip let one burst out and then clicked empty. He swore, ejecting it and rapidly reaching for another one. The Interceptor raised his own gun, and Jack shoved Daniel to the floor and barked at Teal’c, “Down!”
Teal’c dropped and twisted, pulling Sam into a ball against him and shielding her with his back. Jack got down just as the darts began hitting the wall above them. The high-pitched whistle they made hurt his ears, and he fumbled around trying to find his extra clip. Teal’c yanked the empty gun from Jack’s hands and shoved his own in its place. Jack raised it and fired as a dart caught Teal’c in the upper arm. It grazed his shoulder, flaying open the fabric and skin alike before embedding itself in the wall above Sam’s head. Teal’c didn’t even wince as the tatters of his sleeve turned crimson. He used his foot to kick open the door to the chute again, picked Sam up, and he disappeared into the big hatch, feet first.
Jack kept firing as Daniel stepped in after them, and then he followed.
+ + +
[ collapsing effect ]
Daniel
The ride was slower than he’d expected. It wasn’t a strictly vertical drop, but more of a decline. It felt they were sliding down for hours when he realized rationally it was probably only seconds. He hoped he wouldn’t land on Teal’c or Sam. Or, well, anything sharp and stabby.
He could hear Jack’s voice coming from above him, swearing a blue streak that sounded tinny and echoed in the metal of the enclosed chute. It took on a different timbre as Daniel suddenly entered open air and endured a brief free fall before landing hard on his ass and sinking deep into a loose but massive pile of wire and rubber. There was a glancing blow of something slamming into his shoulder, and a grunt of pain came from beside him.
“Jack?”
Violent swearing was his reply, and Daniel would have laughed if the situation had been less desperate. He floundered in the mass of wires and tried to swim his way out. A hand grabbed his forearm and yanked hard. He was pulled from the pile by Teal’c and slid down the side to the floor. Jack soon followed.
Daniel glanced around and then climbed to his feet looking for Sam. She was propped against a nearby wall, and although still unconscious, looked none the worse for wear. He knelt down next to her anyway and smoothed a hand over her bare scalp, touching the tiny red pinpricks on her temple where the connectors had been placed. He was worried about what she would wake up to. If her mind would be whole and untouched. That would be the worst sort of damage for her. He knew that intuitively because it was the same with him.
“Where now, Daniel?” Jack bent over to take a breather and looked up at Daniel with piercing eyes. Teal’c was giving his arm a cursory examination but didn’t appear disturbed by it in any way. Daniel glanced around and then walked toward another door.
“Here.”
The door opened to a flight of stairs, and he started down them. The others followed. The control room was on the bottom level. They’d gone down several levels when the sound of a door opening far above them came floating down. It was followed by the tramp of feet on the stairs. Many feet.
Daniel immediately began to hurry down the stairs, even before Jack’s order came. Teal’c had a bit more trouble trying to keep his footing while carrying Sam, and as they reached the bottom and Daniel held the door for the rest, he offered to take Sam for a while if Teal’c was getting tired or his arm was growing weak.
“My wound is shallow,” Teal’c replied. “I will carry Major Carter.”
Daniel acquiesced with a nod and stuck his head in the stairwell to listen for their pursuers. They were still several levels up. He allowed the door to close and led the others down a short hall and finally into the control room for the recycling chute. They only needed to go through the hatch and down the narrow tunnel and get down the rope into the junkyard. As they ran across the floor though, Daniel suddenly hesitated as he saw a figure walking along the outside edge of the room. It was Bit.
“Jack!” Daniel called, pointing to the man.
“What the hell is he doing in here?”
Daniel felt a suffusion of guilt. “He must have followed us in.” He swerved off the path toward the hatch in the floor and approached Bit instead. “Bit… you have to come out with us now.”
Bit smiled for the first time. “You found a way back in!”
“No, it’s not a way back in. Not like you’re thinking. The Interceptors are coming after us.”
“The Interceptors?” Bit frowned and looked concerned.
“Daniel! We don’t have time. Let’s go!”
“Jack, we can’t leave him here!”
Teal’c was already starting down the hatch, and Jack gave Daniel a look of impatience. Daniel didn’t budge.
“Go over and activate the chute. I’ll get Bit,” Jack finally ordered him. He jogged quickly over to them, and Daniel ran to the control panel, throwing the lever. The vibration and screech of the chute opening filled the room. He turned as the Interceptors suddenly rounded the corner and came piling into the room. At the sight of them, Bit panicked. Daniel was too far away to hear what Jack was trying to tell him, but it didn’t work. Jack then tried to simply grab him and drag him toward the hatch, and Daniel quickly brought his weapon up and fired at the Interceptors, trying to give them covering fire.
The darts were whistling in the air, and Daniel crouched as he ran for the hatch. Ahead of him, Jack almost had Bit to the opening, when Bit jerked back and ran for the main hallway. Daniel shouted at him, feeling a cold dread in his chest. “Bit! No!”
The darts cut the panicked man down. They sliced into him and some of them went completely through him and into the wall behind. Daniel felt his heart drop. There was no reason…
Daniel fired toward the Interceptors, trying to reach Bit’s prone form, but Jack grabbed him and herded him toward the hatch. “Forget it!”
“He might be okay!”
“He’s not, Daniel. We have to get out of here!”
Jack wouldn’t leave him, and Daniel knew it. He dropped quickly down the hatch and onto the floor of the tunnel below. Jack dropped down after him followed by a clatter of darts ricocheting off the hard steel lip of the opening and into the tunnel.
Teal’c was opening the far door to the main chute, Sam clutched against his side. Daniel ran toward them, hearing Jack behind him. They eased out awkwardly onto the ladder beside the rope, and Jack closed the door behind them. There were thumps against the metal mere moments after.
“I’ll jump,” Jack said between gritted teeth. You’ll have to lower Carter down to me. We only have a few seconds.”
“There is no time,” Teal’c replied, and he wrapped both arms around Sam and stepped off the edge, letting himself fall feet first into the pile below. Daniel felt his breath catch, and he stared down, watching as Teal’c hit the pile, sank in up to his knees, and then twisted around so he fell backward, Sam protected and on top of him.
“Go!” Jack said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Daniel jumped and Jack jumped with him. He hit and fell forward, rolling down the side of the pile and feeling several small, sharp pains digging into his back. He ignored them and climbed immediately to his feet, the world righting itself again.
Jack and Teal’c were both dragging Sam along between them, heading for one of the exits. Daniel ran around the pile toward them just as one of the Interceptors jumped down on top of the heap and began firing at him. He put his head down and ran for all he was worth.
+ + +
[ insurgent ]
Jack
The trucks rolled out soon after they hit the street. Jack was worried about the thermal imaging or whatever sort of vision the Interceptors had installed in their helmets. The church wouldn’t prevent them from being found in that respect, and he didn’t dare hide them behind a simple energy transformer again. He was pretty sure the search this time would be much more thorough.
The few Interceptors that had braved the jump to the junkpile to follow them had been easily taken out of the picture with a few well-aimed shots as they exited the yard, but Jack knew there’d be a whole lot more swarming the city soon.
“We need someplace to hide,” he panted as they ran, sticking close to the walls of the black buildings. We need to stay away from the church or it’ll be useless to us after today.”
Daniel’s voice suddenly came from the back. “Bit’s place. The shelter he showed me might be okay. It’s underground.”
“Lead!” Jack ordered, dropping back behind Teal’c to pick up the rear as Daniel ran up to take point. Daniel led them toward the church and then suddenly veered away on a trajectory toward Bit’s house. They had to slow their run to a jog as they ran past the long, narrow buildings completely encased in metal. They could hear the trucks at the other end of these buildings, and sometimes had to wait for a crew to pass on the other side before running through the gap to the next.
The day grew darker quickly, and eventually they came to the row of old, battered houses that Bit had called home. Daniel passed by and entered a house a block over. They thundered down the stairs into the basement, and Daniel pried up a piece of scrap metal on the floor to reveal a trap door.
Jack glanced at it nervously. “Is there more than one entrance and exit?”
“Of course,” Daniel replied, sounding a little indignant. “What use would it be as a shelter if it didn’t?”
Jack shot him a dry look, but was a little proud of the guy. He’d come a long way over the years. Jack liked to think he was responsible for some of that. They climbed down into the hatch and Daniel used the flashlight to lead them down a long, ancient tunnel. It was dirt and stone and supported with wooden beams that made Jack wince a bit. Some of them were rotting away, and he didn’t trust the integrity of the ceiling.
At the end though, they walked through a door into a vast chamber. Stacks upon stacks of crates and boxes filled the room. Shelves lined the walls, and Jack saw preserved food, clothing and other things he had no idea about. The floors were littered with scrap and dusty odds and ends. More junk. They walked through until they found a smaller room with pallets. Daniel grabbed some of the clothing and found a few blankets to spread out so they could lay Sam down.
Jack and Teal’c took a walk to find all the exits and get the layout in their heads. There were numerous rooms. Many of them for sleeping, some simply strewn with long-petrified garbage. There were two doors on the main level, but they found a second level, deeper, where several tunnels seemed to converge. They all seemed to have seen no use for years. That was reassuring at least.
Teal’c took up a post there in case the Interceptors knew of the tunnels and had only been ignoring them for lack of reason the past few years. Bit hardly seemed a threat they’d have worried about. Until he met SG-1, of course, Jack thought with a wince.
Jack set himself up in the main level between the two doors, occasionally sticking his head into the tunnels to listen for intruders. Daniel stayed with Sam.
As the hours crept by, Jack began to relax a bit. Daniel brought him a ration bar, and said Teal’c had heard nothing yet. He’d gotten Sam to take some water, but she was as mindless as he’d been when Jack had disconnected him and dragged him back to the church.
Jack hoped she’d recover just as fully as Daniel had. They’d need her brain to get out of here, and he really couldn’t think about the possibility that she might be lost to them. That was unacceptable right now. None of them were expendable in his eyes. Never were, never would be. Ever.
He settled back to wait again. The long night was soon over, but the long day had yet to begin.
+ + +
[ piety ]
Teal’c
The balcony on the church was a favorite place to be alone for each member of the team. They all knew this, and therefore some privacy was afforded there. If you ventured out without telling the others, you could be assured that no one would join you for a while at least. Teal’c liked that. He appreciated it. He was not a talker by nature, even when he still lived with his family back on Chulak. He preferred to listen and watch and consider everything around him.
He stood to one side of the balcony on the night watch and listened to this planet that had captured them so easily. That low-level hum that permeated everything made his senses prickle with warning again and again. He disliked it immensely. It felt cold and hard and evil.
They’d left the shelter the night after rescuing Sam from The System. He and O’Neill had ventured out to see what was happening, and all had been quiet. They’d remained undiscovered. There’d been evidence that the Interceptors had come inside of the row of battered houses though, so Jack had decided that they’d remain in the church, which had been untouched, doubtlessly because they had not been there to find.
Teal’c liked the church. It was possibly the most defensible position in the city with its location on the hill. They could see the enemy coming long before he arrived. They weren’t waiting underground for a surprise.
It had been two days since the rescue, and Sam had most definitely turned the corner and was getting better. She’d been unconscious for another 12 hours after they’d moved her into the church, but since then had slowly regained her faculties and her memory. In fact, Teal’c’s had been the first face she’d recognized in her brief and drowsy periods of lucidity. Teal’c had felt a warm wave of affection when she’d said his name and her eyes had focused clearly on him. O’Neill had been a little put out that it wasn’t him, and Teal’c had not been able to hide his amusement. Or so he’d thought… none of the others had seemed to notice, even when looking directly at him.
Humans.
They all eagerly awaited her return to health, and Teal’c knew that O’Neill was basing most of their hopes for escape on her. It was a difficult burden that Sam and Daniel shared on SG-1. O’Neill had every reason to rely on them for miracles. They’d delivered time after time. But Teal’c could see the pressure in their eyes and the pain they both endured when they failed. He wished he could spare them that, but they all had their jobs to do, and the defense of Earth, the freedom of the Jaffa, would not wait.
He ducked through the hole in the wall of the church and walked silently back into the loft. O’Neill had felt that they needed to post a guard for a few days to make sure the Interceptors were done with their search, and Teal’c had concurred. They’d gone back to the shelter and brought back some of the more appetizing food and a few of the pallets.
For the time being though, Daniel slept with Sam on the big pallet. She was much better and staying awake for longer periods of time, but the withdrawal from the mind control had been painful for her. Teal’c stood over them as they slept side by side, Sam softly snoring into Daniel’s shoulder. The two of them could find comfort in each other where O’Neill and himself could not.
He called them Sam and Daniel in his mind. He knew they would both be pleased to hear him use the names out loud, but that he could not do. Not yet. He called Sam by her rank because she had earned it in front of his eyes and he granted her that honor. He called Daniel by his first and last name out of respect for the archeologist’s father who gave him his surname and was so missed by the young man. When the wars were over and the rank and protocol could be dropped, he would do so and hope they’d still be as honored to have him use their more familiar names.
Until then…
He stepped over O’Neill’s prone body, hearing him snort in his sleep. O’Neill was simply O’Neill to him because they understood each other. Brothers in arms. He could never be anything less than simply “O’Neill”. It was a name with power in the universe these days.
Teal’c was satisfied that his adopted family slept well. He returned to the balcony and lowered himself to rest on his heels as he stared out across the black landscape. They would escape and return home. Of this he was certain.
O’Neill had told him so.
+ + +
[ revive ]
Sam
Sam took a bite of the ration bar and then set it back down as she opened the odds-and-ends kit. The small metal box was battered and even had scorch marks across its side, but it had saved their skins more than once in the past and it wouldn’t be retired until it actually fell apart.
The roof of the old church creaked suddenly and she glanced up into its shadowed depths. The guys wouldn’t be back for a while yet, and although she knew no one was there, she moved the P-90 a little closer on the table.
She was still suffering some fatigue and confusion. Effects from the total mind control of The System. For the most part though, she felt as if she’d just awoken from a long, deep sleep. Her body ached from atrophy, her brain stumbled as it revved back up to speed, and she spent long moments staring into space as she tried to sort the memories of her servitude in her mind. The colonel said she’d been out, off and on, for nearly three days after they’d carried her out. It was almost five days after she’d woke for good now, and she was finally starting to feel more normal.
She took a needle from the pack they kept in the odds-and-ends kit, and then took the magnet from its box. In the cloudy light from the big stained glass window, she carefully stroked the magnet down the length of the needle repeatedly.
Her first day or two back were sort of a blur. She’d been full of information, and still was, but Jack had been merciless in his demand for intel. She’d tried to give him what she could because she knew it was important, but her mind had been such a jumble… It had pained him to see her like that, she could tell, and he’d had to walk away from her several times to cool down before he commanded a meaningless mission against an enemy too vast to beat.
“It’s a computer,” she’d told him, trying to decide how best to explain it all. Daniel had also been hooked in, but he hadn’t been in The System itself, and he had a harder time recognizing all he’d seen. It was much clearer in Sam’s mind.
“What do you mean… it’s a computer? What part? The part that you were hooked up to?”
“I mean all of it,” she’d said grimly. “This whole city. It’s all one big computer.”
“Jesus… “ Daniel had stared at her from across the table. “All of it? I thought maybe a hive mind of some sort.”
She’d screwed up one half of her face in thought. “Sort of… but in a hive mind all the members are conscious of the others’ thoughts. Not so with this. Here, we were all hooked into the central consciousness and it gave us programming and told us what to do.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“I fixed code.”
“What does that mean, Carter?” Jack was supremely frustrated, and she didn’t blame him.
“Look,” She’d sighed and laid her hands on the table top. “’The System’ is an accurate description of this thing. It’s a sentient computer entity. It was likely made by humans, but I don’t think it’s run by humans anymore. Somewhere along the way, it learned to grow and run on its own and use humans to achieve its goals.”
“Which are?”
“To survive and expand. That’s it.”
“Stay alive and reproduce,” Daniel had said, meeting her gaze. “That’s the prime instinct of any life form.”
“It’s not alive if it’s a computer!” Jack had barked angrily.
“It’s not evil, sir,” Sam had said gently. She was used to his outbursts and knew that both her and Daniel could push him much further than anyone else would be allowed. “But it does consider us expendable. We’re of no consequence to it other than as a resource. It doesn’t recognize life or the right to exist for anything except itself. It doesn’t even understand the concept. I think that qualifies as an ‘us or them’ situation.”
Jack had stared at her. “So, how do we stop it?”
“Stop it?” She’d been surprised. “We can’t. It’s huge, sir. I don’t think you realize the true scope of what has been created here. This is a computer that has enslaved humans and expanded, at least somewhat, across a planet. The sheer amount of code that was required to run the minute-to-minute operations was staggering. All I did was fix code and write new code so that things would keep running and it could survive.”
“Power,” Jack stated. “It has to run on power.”
“Vast amounts, yes. The shield that covers the city would require a huge amount by itself.”
“We could just unplug it.”
She’d smiled at him, and his jaw had tightened in response.
“One of the sub-systems was named Power Field, but I have no idea where that’d be or how it generated enough energy to keep itself running. I doubt it’d do much anyway. There are back-up systems.”
Jack had glared. “How about that building we found you in? That thing you were hooked up to? We find something explosive and we blow it to hell.”
“No! That’s The System’s master block!” She’d been so alarmed, she’d reached out and grabbed his sleeve to make sure he paid attention. “Colonel, the stargate is in there!”
Being at one with The System had left an indelible map of parts and programming in her mind, and that included the knowledge of the stargate, deep inside the The System’s master block.
“How the hell did we get sucked into this anyway?” Daniel had asked. “I barely remember even coming through the stargate. Shouldn’t the MALP have detected some of this?”
“No. The gate was in a shielded, enclosed room. When we sent the MALP through, it showed this, but nothing else. General Hammond still thought it was suspicious except that then the MALP started relaying a code back to us that was being broadcast at the gate.”
“What manner of code?” Teal’c asked curiously.
“The most readily recognizable kind,” Sam had answered. “Mathmatical.”
Jack had waved his hands impatiently. “I don’t care how we got here anymore. I want to know how to get home!”
Sam had thought about that. “I don’t know, sir. It’s still a bit hard for me to think. Maybe in a day or two… “
It hadn’t been what Jack had wanted to hear, but he’d given her shoulder a squeeze and ran his hand over the bristle of hair on her head in reassurance. “It’s okay, Carter. Good job. Get better and then we’ll get our asses home.”
Sam had felt a rush of loyalty and affection for the man then. He pushed her hard when he had to, but he also knew when to step back and let her breathe. She wanted to give him what he needed to get them home. Maybe just a few more days…
Sam took the needle she’d just magnetized and tested it against the metal of the odds-and-ends box. It stuck readily, and she smiled.
She and Daniel had spent a lot of that first day talking and comparing notes. He’d told her what had happened so far with him and Teal’c and Jack, and how they’d disconnected her from The System and gotten her out of the master block. He’d told her about the Interceptors and the shelter and about Bit…
Bit, who’d survived being obsolete when no one else had. Bit, who’d given them food and information even though he didn’t quite understand what was happening. Bit, who’d been shot by the Interceptors inside the master system block, and they’d had to leave him behind.
His body had appeared on the pile of junk in the recycling yard the day before.
Daniel had been angry and upset. Bit hadn’t been dead long so it was likely he’d survived his initial wounds and expired later, perhaps after the Interceptors had interrogated him.
Today, they went to retrieve the body and find a place to bury him. Sam suspected Jack and Teal’c might not have bothered, but Daniel had needed the act of contrition. He felt guilt for leaving the man behind. Sam had not known Bit, but had felt sadness all the same. He’d survived so long, and he’d been so alone. Just cast out when he wasn’t useful anymore. She could only imagine…
But her lingering fatigue had convinced her to stay behind and let the guys say goodbye in their own way. She needed the time alone with her thoughts anyway.
She pushed the needle halfway through a little bit of wood she’d chipped off one of the old fire pits down on the floor of the church. She took the shallow plastic bowl she’d found in the corner and poured an inch or so of water in it from the canteen. When she dropped the wood and needle into the water, it floated and spun and finally twitched back and forth for a moment before settling into a straight line. When she moved the dish or twisted it, the needle stayed firmly in its line.
Magnetic north.
Or… south.
Or a building that was exuding magnetic properties.
There was really no way to tell.
But Jack had moaned three times since she’d woken about his lack of a compass, and if she couldn’t give him an escape plan yet, she could give him this. Useless as it was.
She heard a voice outside, and then the familiar sound of the door being pushed open on the main level of the church. Boots crunched over broken glass and rotten wood as the guys walked through the church and then up the stairs to the loft.
She watched them as they came into view. Teal’c greeted her with a nod of his head and then grabbed the container they used for water and went back down the stairs again. Daniel met her gaze without a smile, but she didn’t expect one on this somber occasion.
“Hey Sam, how’re you feeling?”
“Good,” she answered softly. He gave her a faint smile and then disappeared through the hole in the wall and out onto the balcony. She watched the dark shadow of his body through the stained glass as he stood for a moment and then slid down to sit in the far corner.
Hands suddenly encompassed the top of her head and rubbed at the short, fuzzy hairs growing from her scalp. She stifled a snort of laughter and grinned. “Hey, sir.”
The hands disappeared. “Hey, Carter. Feeling better?”
“Yeah.” She turned to smile at him. The soft, bristle-stiff, new growth of her hair was a novelty to the rest of the team, who had only ever seen her with her blond hair styled and fashionably mussed. They’d started the fascination by staring at her scalp while she talked, and then Daniel had finally given in and rubbed her head with the palms of his hands, feeling the texture and the spiky softness and giving her a teasing grin. The colonel had apparently only been waiting for someone to start the festivities and hadn’t wanted to be the first. They’d cajoled Teal’c into a cursory touch, but he’d frowned at them in long-suffering confusion. When they weren’t looking though, she’d sometimes feel Teal’c’s huge hand run quickly over the spikiness of her hair and she’d turn to find a glint in his eye.
It was to the point now where it was simply a part of their day and she barely noticed. She’d just go on talking as if there weren’t hands rubbing on her scalp and pulling her head slightly to the side so she had to look up through the corners of her eyes at the person she was speaking to. Teamwork. You just wouldn’t get it unless you’d been a part of it.
“How was it?” she asked tentatively.
Jack glanced out the window to where Daniel’s dark form was standing on the balcony. “All right. We had to bury the body in the tunnels of the shelter. There isn’t anywhere else to find bare ground. We tried to reassure him that he had no choice, but… you know Daniel.”
She did. She knew.
“Hey, what’s that?” Jack was looking curiously at the homemade compass on the table in front of her.
She gave him a faint smile. “Um, it’s a compass.”
He stared at her.
“Really,” she protested. “I magnetized a needle and anchored it in wood so it would float and set it adrift in some water. That’s all a compass is… basically.”
Jack grinned at her. “Carter! You made me a compass?”
Sam felt the red rise in her cheeks. “Well, I mean, it’s not really useful in a practical sense, sir. We know nothing about this planet and whether the poles are magnetized or are north south or whether the buildings in this city are emitting any sort of radiation or magnetism that would mess with it. Plus, it’s not really something you can carry with you…”
Jack was leaning down and flicking at the floating needle with his finger, watching as it swung back to its original position each time. He gave her a sidelong smirk. “It’s good to have you back, Major.”
“Thanks, sir. Thanks for getting me out of there,” she replied sincerely.
“Yeah, well… no one gets left behind on my watch. Besides… how else are we going to find the stargate?”
She smiled, but sighed. Frankly, she had no idea.
+ + +
Part 4