Veil DVD Commentary: Part 2
Part 2 of the Veil DVD commentary.
Link to the original story: Veil
Link to Part 1
******************
In a red-roofed cottage at the edge of the village under the universal, ubiquitous Yu, Jack paced. It was a small room but he managed a cadence of three steps forward, three back. The shock was wearing off, downgrading back to the usual unease. On top of being truly eerie, the whole situation was just plain not good. Teal'c felt it too. He stood by the small front door, looking especially huge and especially dour. [When Teal'c is creeped out, you know you're in trouble.] Jack caught Teal'c's attention with a glance and a gesture. Keep an eye open. Be ready to leave quickly.
Teal'c nodded. Was that a frown? Not a good sign.
[This next paragraph represents *pages* of I-don't-have-time-to-write-it-dialogue, in 4 sentences. Pick your battles.]
For the moment, the brains of the team seemed to be faring well. Daniel was managing any misgivings he had, asking a regimen of questions in patented first-contact style. He and the woman, Shen Luo, were seated on the floor in the cottage's main room, before a low table. Carter flitted around the pair, offering phrases like "genetic anomaly," and "punctuated equilibrium."
Shen Luo's name went through several iterations. I'd started out liking just the sound of "Shin Lo" with thoughts of making some kind of evolved Mandarin-esque language but then I switched to straight Mandarin-- I searched similar sounds on zhongwen.com and came up with two characters:
深 -- shēn, with the radical (leftmost 3 strokes) meaning "water", and the character itself meaning deep or deeply, and
洛 -- lùo, which is defined on zhongwen.com as "the name of a river." So I named her 深洛 (Shen Luo) which in my somewhat limited translation skills I figure is close to a meaning of "Deep River". I think 洛 might be more specific as a particular river's name (The Deep Luo River?), but I think it has at least a peaceful serene feeling to it, with the hint maybe of deeper currents underneath. (Real Chinese people are probably laughing at me right now, hopefully good-naturedly.)
As Daniel continued the cultural anthropology gig, Carter came forward, arresting Jack’s pacing.
"You look apprehensive, sir," she said.
"Not in the slightest." He lifted his hat, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and through his hair. "We're offworld on a potentially hostile planet with a three-hundred-foot highwire act between us and the only way out. What possible reason do I have to be apprehensive?"
"We've been in worse first contact situations before," Carter said.
"Yes, we have. Good times." [The key, I've found, to writing Jack: Less is More.] He eyed the house, noting any form of alternative exits. One small back door, two windows, loft. "You said it, Carter, those people were scared. Fear is unpredictable-no, I take that back. Fear is predictably bad."
"Part of it is just nerves, on both sides," Carter said. "I have to admit, it's kind of bizarre."
Shen Luo poured more tea, and Jack stared, only for a second. Even her hands were abnormal, with long spindly fingers and wide palms.
"We're the strangers here," Carter continued. "We're the ones in their uncanny valley."
"No kidding." He gestured to the window, taking in the Shanguan scenery. Carter smiled.
"It’s a term from robotics, sir. We're setting off their natural aversions, just like they’re setting off ours."[shortest. definition. ever!]
"Ah. I knew that." He didn't, really.
Although the uncanny valley is usually discussed in the context of robotics and synthetics, my first instinct for this prompt was immediately a human/alien connection, akin to blurring the lines of what it means to be human (I especially thought Teal'c would bring an interesting perspective to the question). So I was always thinking about applying the Uncanny Valley to a human culture, add SG1, shake well and serve. Originally I had one story idea about biological mutation (symbiotic relationship with membranes of some kind), and the Veil story was going to be more about masks, but then Veil morphed a bit and stole the biological aspect from the other story. Also, despite being a stat nerd and attending Carnegie Mellon, I'd never heard of the Uncanny Valley until Tripoli's prompt :)
At that moment, Daniel spoke up. "Sam, come take a look at this."
Jack followed Carter back into the main room, where Daniel and Shen Luo had moved to a small cabinet at the back of the room. There, Daniel held a miniature mask made of smoothed, darkened wood. The mask itself was featureless, like an upturned bowl with small holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. The only decoration was the subtle swirling accents of the wood grain. Daniel hefted it in his hand; the wood was dense and had some weight.
"That was mine, from the zhēgài miàn," Shen Luo said. "It was carved by my father."
That brings up a lot of interesting cultural questions. Imagine, being able to basically choose what your child's face would look like.
Daniel turned it over. On the underside a tiny, familiar face was embossed, in negative relief, into the wood. High forehead, wide cheeks, and a set of three characters, carved into the grain. Jack looked up at Shen Luo, to see the same three characters on her cheeks. [I've no idea what characters they are; I didn't think about it.]
"It's you," Carter said, amazed. "You wore this as a baby?"
"It teaches the bone, before the child knows how to shape it," Shen Luo said. "Zhēn miànmù flees. The bone remembers."
Daniel set the mask back into its place in the cabinet, but as he went to close the door he stopped. He reached for the lower shelf, for another tiny, dust-coverd bowl. "What about this one?"
A delicate hand stopped him, gently but firmly guiding his arm away. "It-- was never used," Shen Luo said. Jack saw a flash of emotion pass over her face. He recognized the grief behind those words. An entire life-- hopes, fears, dreams-- was resting, deserted, underneath that empty little dome.
He tried to say "I'm sorry," but he couldn't find the words. They wouldn't help, anyway.
I like the notion of the underside of the mask containing all of a parent's hopes for their child. And that the face under that mask is undisturbed-- I wanted that to have a sacred feel to it. Jack assumes that the mask was never used because the child it was made for didn't survive. But this is also a foreshadowing of what Shen Luo is hiding. It doesn't yet occur to anyone that the mask wasn't used because the child it was made for didn't need it.
"Shen Luo," Daniel said as she closed the cabinet door. "You seem more comfortable with the true face than the others."
"It is like looking at the newborn," Shen Luo answered. "Before the zhēgài miàn. Just the newborn. The bone starts growing within days, and people forget that we all start with the true face."
I haven't quite decided how much control people have over the bone growth. Enough that it doesn't go unchecked, but nothing giving them shape-shifter powers or anything.
"But you're different," Daniel said. "You're talking with us, you're not afraid. Why?"
She raised a hard gaze and looked Daniel in the eye. Behind those foreign features, Jack could tell she was at odds with herself. Searching Daniel's face, she must have found something familiar, something she could trust.
"I will explain," she finally said. "But first you must promise, you must help--"
"O'Neill," Teal'c called. "There is activity outside."
Bad Timing; the plot engineer's friend.
Carter hefted her weapon, scientific discovery thrown to the back burner. Jack grimaced, motioning for Daniel and Shen Luo to stay where they were.
"Are they armed?" Jack asked.
"I see no noticeable weapons," Teal'c answered.
"Carter, scope out the back." Three paces and Jack was at the front window, surveying [surveying! Again! So on my list] the crowd. He recognized a few faces from earlier, but in front of them was a more quaffed procession.
"Eight underlings in gray, four bigwigs in long red robes, with long, dark faces to match," Jack said. "Do you know these guys?"
"It's the sēnyán." Shen Luo sat back on her heels, fear reflected in her porcelain face. "So soon, so soon--"
森嚴 (sēnyán) -- (adj.) Stern, forbidding. But I'm just using it as a noun or name.
"Daniel," Jack said. "They don’t look happy."
Daniel took Shen Luo's hand. "What do they want? Are they dangerous?"
"I was ill," she said. "They said I was ill. Qǐshì-- they will know I wasn't cured, they will find--"
"Shen Luo, please," Daniel said. "We can help you. We can talk to them."
"Qǐshì," she said again. She looked at Daniel. "I'm sorry."
Then, Shen Luo bolted for the door.
In fact, Shen Luo says outright here, "They will find Qǐshì"-- it's just interrupted by Daniel's dialogue. Then again, it's still hard for me to judge how much I telegraph the kid. It's a fine line, keeping it at least a bit of a mystery but putting the signposts there for the observant reader.
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This scene was titled "Teal'c and Sam together". One of the earlier pieces I'd pinned down was wanting Sam taking refuge in math, and Teal'c grounding her.
Sam is sick of the infirmary. She is sick of being in pain and not being able to do anything about it. She is sick of freaking out at the staff. Janet comes in every four hours to change the dressings on her hands and it's all Sam can do to fight the panic and keep still until she retreats to the other side of the curtain again.
"You're doing great," Janet says, every time. But Sam can't help wondering what Janet must think of her, seeing those wounds and knowing what happened. [This line hopefully resonates later in the story when we find out she tore up her own hands because of the conditioning]
She can't think of it. Janet says the effects will wear off. She just has to be patient.
"Major Carter," comes Teal'c's calm baritone from the other side of the curtain. "How are you feeling?"
She closes her eyes. "I'm bored out of my mind. I want--" I need to get out of here. "-- I want to work on my motorcycle." She can focus on that, on the piston and the chrome, nothing remotely human about it. [oddly enough, this line used to show up in Google searches on some bulletin board about motorcycles.]
There is a rustling sound on the other side of the curtain, as Teal'c rearranges some papers. "Perhaps it would be wise to wait until your hands have healed, for that endeavor."
God, her hands. For the motorcycle she'd still have to use her hands. She'd still have to look at them, and despite Janet's assurances, she doesn't know if she can stand the sight of her own body yet. Rationally, she knows there's nothing wrong, but that knowledge just doesn't help. The only thing that will help is time.
This was written out of order when I was still thinking linearly, and I was worried that, when it slotted into its place, it might give away too much about what's wrong with Sam and Daniel. Basically, the notion that it's not a physical malady but a mental one. I'm not sure it doesn't, but it's hard to write from the POV of the affected person and not at least give some form of explanation.
"I'm terrible at waiting," she says. "I can’t do anything. I'm thinking too much and it's kind of freaking me out."
"Is the effect not waning?"
Her heart skitters in her chest. Even just his voice and that shifting shadow, are enough to paint the picture of her friend in her mind. It's the strangest sensation, this visceral reaction that defies any logic her mind can throw at it. Get out of my head, she thinks. Get out and put it back the way you found it.
"Major Carter-"
"No!" she spits. "I mean, I don’t know. Maybe you should go. I just can't deal with people right now."
Sam's one who I have the opposite problem with as Daniel; I'm okay in her head at least on the scientist side of things, but her non-science voice is hard to pin down. I just write her as forthright.
He doesn't leave. There is a long pause, and another shift of shadows on the other side of the curtain.
"I have brought some reference material with me," Teal'c says.
It is such a strange segue, she's taken completely off guard. "Reference material?"
"I have been researching this," pause, shuffle of paper "-Laplace transform," Teal'c says. "I do not understand the appeal, or the affection you have for it."
I wanted to give Sam a mathematical refuge that took advantage of her advanced background, that would be something familiar to her field that she would be able to rattle off like reciting the alphabet, but that would also have that "nifty" conceptual component that comes along with some of the cooler math concepts. I'm not an engineer or a physicist but I did remember learning Laplace Transforms in my differential equations class, and thinking that they were among the cooler concepts. They show up in signal processing and electronics, and in a lot of physics. Fourier transforms are a special form of Laplace transform, too, which are the mathematical way to translate between the time domain and the frequency domain. Think of a mathematical transformation as a different perspective that you use to solve a problem, that takes it from looking impossible to looking easy.
Integrals. Of course-- she had forgotten. She slows her breathing and offers thanks to whatever it is that makes Teal'c understand exactly what she needs. The symmetry of time and frequency is still such a beautiful thing, and alien enough to baffle the Shanguan sēnyán.
There's a lot of research out there about how we link symmetry with beauty, and while the priests may have messed around with that aspect of what Sam thinks as beautiful, there is an entirely almost alien sense of symmetry that comes about in math, not just in the more rarefied fields like number theory, but in complex analysis, differential equations, vector calculus-- all that stuff that Sam as a physicist and engineer would be very familiar with. I did give her a bit more of a mathematician sentiment toward things-- seeing the cool symmetry and "beauty" behind the equations at the same time that she uses them as tools, but I hope that's not too far-fetched.
"You really want the lecture?" she asks, smiling.
"Indeed."
"Well, to explain it thoroughly, I should start with the exponential function," she begins, relaxing into the familiar cadence of mathematics.
If you know some higher math, you will realize that this is basically the equivalent of explaining how to construct a house by starting with how to make a hammer. Teal'c's in for a long lecture.
******************
Before Teal'c could stop her, Shen Luo had opened the door and was bowing meekly in front of the priests. And before Jack could stop him, Daniel had followed her. That was when they discovered the procession was armed. Three of the underlings drew small staffs from under their gray robes, staffs that looked remarkably like Goa'uld painsticks, and pointed them nervously at Daniel. They said something, and Daniel's shoulders sagged.
"The house is surrounded, Jack," he called.
"Wonderful," Jack said, signaling Teal'c and Carter.
I originally had Jack cursing here, (something relatively mild, like "christ"), but it didn't work; I know soldiers curse and such, but I wanted to give this more of an episode feel, like something you'd see on the show, so I took my cues from that.
They lowered their arms, coming cautiously out of the house. Daniel tried the "We mean no harm, we're peaceful explorers," routine, but it didn’t get them very far. Actually, it got them on their knees, in a line in front of the four bigwigs, and staring at the ground. It didn't help that Jack couldn't read their faces, and only understood half of what was said. Out of the corner of his eye Jack could see Shen Luo sitting on her knees, practically kissing the ground at the priests' feet, pleading.
As he listened, Jack could see Daniel’s brow furrowing deeper and deeper. "That's not true," the archaeologist said. He said this a few times, but the priests ignored him. He tried a few stilted words of Mandarin before switching back to English. "We came through the gate, in the mountain. In the mural."
Daniel would argue with the Devil.
Jack raised his gaze to see the four high-and-mighties looking at them skeptically. Daniel too, tried to make eye contact, but the guards behind them forced their heads to bow again.
"Miànzǐ shì zhēn miànmù," someone said. "Keep your faces hidden."
面子是真面目 (miànzǐ shì zhēn miànmù): "Pride is the true face" (according to my translation skills)
"Daniel," Carter whispered. "What's happening?"
"What’s going on is, Shen Luo here is selling us out," Jack answered. Amazing how little of the language he had to know in order to figure that much out.
"She says we're from the far mountain villages," Daniel muttered. "She says we tried to tempt her but she was afraid and resisted."
"That’s a rotten lie," Jack muttered back. "It doesn’t make any sense."
"But it’s working," Daniel said.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because it's better than, 'We came out of the side of the big cliff.'" *snort*
A prod from one of the guards ended the conversation. Their heads were guided up, to see the four equally creepy faces of the priests in charge. Jack would have preferred looking at the ground.[<-- This is perhaps the clunkiest line in the entire story. Bleh. This is one of the last sections I wrote and it was giving me fits 2 days before the deadline; it probably could have used some more massaging.]
One priest strode forward, followed by an underling holding two small clay pots.
"Pride is the true face," the priest said in slow, accented English. A distorted scowl passed across his face, and he dipped a spindly thumb into the first pot. It came out with a coat of clear, glistening gel. "You are obviously deviant. Ill. You need treatment."
Next on Dude, WTF?, Language and Stargate SG-1. This is the only section where I mention who's talking in what language. Again, I was going with an episode feel (I was explicitly thinking of the Asian culture in 1x03: Emancipation) where they blatantly ignore language issues. If it was a novel, I'd have gone more with "Daniel has to translate everything" tack. It's a handwave, but I feel justified in that I'm paying more attention to language than they do in the show.
"Oh, that's not necessary," Jack started.
Hands held his and his teammates' heads still. The underling uncovered the second pot and the priest used his coated thumb to dab a dot of reddish-brown ink on each of their foreheads.
"We will take you to the hospital to begin the process," the priest said. "You will be much happier afterward."
Beside him, Jack saw Carter sway on her knees. "Sir--" she started, then slumped forward.
Jack's legs started feeling way too much like rubber bands [similie number 2!]. Daniel's voice carried strangely. "It’s some kind of anesthetic..."
"Ah, crap," Jack managed. Then the world grayed on the edges and faded out.
******************
This scene in my notes was titled "Teal'c contemplates". Another early conceptual scene. A very short scene, but thematically very important, and also for maintaining a balanced focus on the team in this story. These excerpts and present-day scenes gave me leeway to keep the plotty action and past-tense stuff all in Jack POV.
Teal'c lights the candles and kneels on the floor, palms upward. He slows his breathing and closes his eyes, concentrating on the subtle pinpricks of heat surrounding him. These are the pressures of the world, and kel-no-reem is the space between, the inner light. Usually, the space expands around him easily, and he sinks down into dreamless rest. But now, it is as though he can feel every flicker of flame on his face. Kel-no-reem will be elusive tonight, again.
He opens his eyes and sits back. In the evenings following their return from Shanguan, he has found it difficult to meditate. He knows why. He tries too hard; he undermines the natural communion between host and symbiote.
He has not rested in four days.
O'Neill says he is "psyching himself out." Doctor Fraiser believes it is a consequence of the plight of his teammates, that he feels responsible for them. But he knows, it is none of those things. The disruption is occurring because part of himself is surfacing, a part that needs to stay buried.
He blows out the candles and makes his way to the small bathroom sink. He washes his face in near darkness, his golden tattoo glinting in the mirror, catching his eye. The Goa'uld are truly a vain species, he thinks. Evil creatures. Their whim has sculpted so many worlds and scarred so many people. The Shanguan are one race among thousands, one race radically changed.
He looks at the mirror and thinks, he too is adorned. He too is changed.
Violated.
Teal’c draws and releases a slow breath, chasing the word from his mind and body. He cannot kel-no-reem, cannot give over even the smallest control to the symbiote, with that thought upon him. And without rest, he cannot survive.
People adapt to survive, Daniel Jackson has told him many a time. The Shanguan fought back as they could, growing new faces that the Goa'uld would not favor. And even the Shanguan, for all their covered, colorful faces, are more human than a Jaffa.
It is easiest to believe he is not human at all, and never was.
It always made me wonder, when they just out-right describe Teal'c as an "alien". He's from another world, sure, but he was born human, and though the Jaffa symbiote offers a lot of perks, it's not like he had any choice in the matter. We see how much he wants to keep Ryac from having to take a host, even though it would give him healing and longevity. And so maybe it is easier for Teal'c, who conceptually might live in that Uncanny Valley not visually but as an augmented version of something that started human, to distance himself completely, and not think about his origins.
******************
This is an action scene! Originally I'd wanted to break it into 2 scenes but I ran out of time.
"O'Neill," came a distant voice. Something was jarring him, repeatedly. Jack opened bleary eyes to see Teal'c staring down at him. His vision jittered as the Jaffa shook his shoulder.
"O'Neill, you must awaken."
"Knock it off, I'm awake," Jack answered, batting at Teal'c's hand. "Why--?"
At that moment his brain helpfully core-dumped the current situation directly to his nervous system. He sat up, alert, feeling the remnants of a headache and a need to move. "We're still on Shanguan," he said.
"We are," Teal'c answered. "I awoke in this cell a short time ago. I have not seen Daniel Jackson or Major Carter."
Jack looked around. The cell was hospital clean and hospital white, accented with red trim around the ceiling. [Economy of description here ] He did a quick scan of room and body for personal effects. Vests -- gone, weapons -- gone, sunglasses -- gone (damn it). Boots, belts, clothing, dog tags, one concealed GDO and half his team accounted for.
"Guards?" Jack asked.
Teal'c eyed the door. "I have heard none. I do not think they expect us to be awake for some time."
Jack stood up. "Feel like getting the hell out of here?"
Teal'c nodded, raising an eyebrow. "Indeed."
Breaking out was remarkably easy. The door opened with minimal force and the resulting short hallway, lined with windows on the wall opposite the door, was empty [Action scene! Note how I just gloss over the 'action' part]. Jack caught sight of tiered roofs sloping down and away from the windows, and signaled to Teal'c.
"It's a cube," he said. "Rooms in the center, lined by halls on the outside."
They formed a regular search pattern, avoiding the staff they could and quietly disabling the ones they encountered. [Action scene!] Two floors down, they hit paydirt. Peeking around the corner, Jack spotted four guards in gray surrounding a single door. Their faces suggested they were underlings of the sēnyán. And hanging on a peg beside the door were two SGC vests.
"Think we can take those guys?" Jack whispered. There was no opportunity for ambush; they had a good fifteen feet from the corner to the door.
Teal'c took half a second to look around the corridor for himself. "I believe they do not stand a chance," he said. "I will take the two on the left."
Opportunity presented itself as Jack watched, when a frantic pounding started coming from behind the cell door. He could hear Daniel's voice on the other side but couldn't make out what was being said. The guards turned.
"Now," Jack said.
The rush was over quickly. Distracted as they were, the guards fell easily, [Action scene! I, um, I have a tough time writing fights.] and Jack thrust open the cell door.
Because all of the above was really just to get to what's below-- as we telescope the timing of this scene back to a play or script scene.
"-door! I think she's-Holy jeez, Jack!"
It was not the welcome Jack was looking for. Daniel scrambled back from the door as fast as he could, tripping over a low cot and careening into a far corner. He leaned his head against the wall, eyes tightly shut, breathing heavily through his nose.
"Nice to see--" Jack started, but Daniel held up a hand.
"Don’t! Say. Anything."
"What--?"
"I mean it!" Daniel pounded a fist on the wall. [Poor Daniel. I wish I'd been able to write a bit of his POV in this story, but things didn't turn out that way. Also, as noted before, I can't write Daniel POV. I'm not bad at his voice, like in a script, but POV is an entirely different animal.]
Jack stared at his friend, sarcasm gone. Daniel was shaking, and he still hadn't opened his eyes. What the hell was wrong?
"Sam," Daniel forced out in low, measured tones. "They did something to us. Lights, more of the red stuff... I don’t know. I think there's something wrong with Sam."
"O'Neill," Teal'c called quietly from behind him. Before turning around, Jack saw Daniel grimace and sink to the floor. Then he turned toward the near wall, where Teal'c stood beside another cot. Carter was almost level with the door-- he hadn't even seen her. She sat on the cot, head bent forward, clutching a white linen that was streaked with blood. Her hands were raw and scratched, deep wounds still oozing.
Jack started. Those wounds looked self-inflicted.
"You think there's something wrong?" he exclaimed. "Would you look at her?"
Generally I try to stay away from italicized emphasis in dialogue-- like anything, if used sparingly it can have a good effect, but it can really detract if overused. Sometimes, though, there's really no good way to explain tone otherwise, unless you trust the reader has the same character voice as you in their head.
"I. Can’t!" Daniel enunciated, trying and failing to stay calm. He pressed the heels of his hands against his ears, fingers clawing at his hair.
"Jesus." Jack and Teal'c locked eyes, keeping still and silent for a bare second. When Jack spoke again he forced his tone to stay low and tempered. "Teal'c, keep an eye on the door."
He cautiously sat down next to Carter, who tried to look at him but quickly looked away, closing her eyes tightly.
"Sir, everything's wrong," she said, panicked. "You, Daniel, me. My hands-- they're not mine. They're not mine.” She started to scratch at the backs of her hands again. New blood pooled and mixed with older stains.
Foreshadowed earlier by focusing on how Shen Luo's hands were different as well. I suppose since the opening scene we've been wondering what they did to Sam, and I'd like to think this at least was a bit of a curve ball.
Jack gently took hold of her wrists and she flinched, pulling away as though he had physically hurt her. He tried again and she bit her lip, but let the touch remain. As calmly as he could, Jack lowered her hands to her lap.
"Find something that's still right, Major, and get it together," he said evenly. "That's an order."
"Okay, okay, yes sir, gimme a minute." A few seconds later a smile ghosted across her face, but the panic didn't let it stay long.
"Laplace," she said. "Laplace transforms. L of U of T is one over S. L of E to the A T, U of T is one over S plus A. L of E to the minus A T sine T, U of T is one over one plus S plus A, quantity squared. L of..."
Sam is quoting a progression of Laplace transforms, here. It gets more complicated as it goes along. I realize now, it's rather difficult to write out how we say equations, in a way that makes sense, eg: L{e^(-at)sin(t)u(t)} = 1/[1 + (s + a)^2]. I think that's one thing that makes mathematical notation so fascinating, how compact it is. But I at least had the opportunity earlier in the story to signal that these were some kind of math equation.
Whatever it was, it was distraction enough for Sam to let Jack wrap her hands in some of the torn linen. It was a crappy field job. Jack felt like a heel. He also felt like running out and murdering the next Shanguan priest he saw. [Another rough paragraph, at least to my sensibilities. It was the tail end of four rather obsessive weeks when I was writing this bit.]
Instead he asked Carter, "Can you walk?"
"Yeah," she said. "It's better. Moving is better."
"What about you, Daniel?" Jack asked. Daniel nodded, warily opening his eyes and making his way to the front of the cell, staring practically at his shoes.
"O'Neill, we must go," Teal'c said.
They made a strange procession, their two injured teammates walking haltingly in front, with Teal'c and Jack at their blindsides-- two paces behind and flanking them. Neither he nor Teal'c could get any closer than that. Stay back, don't talk, don't touch. It was the only thing they could do to make it easier for Daniel and Sam, and it was the hardest thing to do.
Meticulously, they made their way out of the hospital into the village under cover of night. They made better time in the dark, faces cloaked in the dim starlight. The trip up the stair to the gate was something new for Jack to put on his "Never again in a million years" list. But after a slow procession of stops, starts, terror and Laplace transforms, Jack had his team home.
Barring the coda, the above two paragraphs were the last two that I wrote. I wanted a much more detailed blueprint for the escape section and the recovery section too (parts of the narrative in Doctor Fraiser's excerpt below). I had some scenes I'd thought about-- but then I realized that despite the fact I really wanted to send Sam and Daniel through the wringer more, the story didn't need it. Instead I treated it like a flash fiction version of the mountains of words I wanted to write. How to distill everything down to the essentials? The above two paragraphs were the result.
******************
Excerpt from supplement to field report A2469-26:
Regarding sēnyán conditioning practice of P4X-997
Doctor Janet Fraiser, chief medical officer
Another rather tidy bit of exposition
The exact substance given to SG-1 during their encounter with the Shanguan priesthood is unknown, but the effects are clear. When coupled with a specific visual stimulus, it imprints a heightened adrenal response to the stimulus. This form of conditioning was performed on both Doctor Jackson and Major Carter, as the Shanguan attempted to "reprogram" their natural concept of the human face, instilling an aversion to what we consider a normal human face by brute force. [An early and compelling theme for the story. I really thought it would be a great way to examine the team dynamic in a team ficathon, to take the fundamental familiarity that our team has with each other and throw that on its ear.]
In a society where most people live their entire lives without seeing a single unadorned human face, the conditioning would act only to heighten fears during already stressful and unusual events. But the Shanguan did not realize that the vast majority of SG-1's experiences are formed around the so-called "true face." Therefore the effects of conditioning on Doctor Jackson and Major Carter were especially acute. Interaction, recognition, memory and even body sense were affected, and the result was an almost constant assault of physical symptoms such as anxiety, restlessness and panic. The symptoms could not be controlled by medication [yeah, that's just a bit far-fetched there. *handwaves*] and made even the simplest interactions extremely stressful.
The patients responded to isolation and limited communication, only insomuch as it allowed for the drug to be cleared from their systems. It is unknown at this time whether there will be any lasting psychological effects. A full psychological evaluation for both patients is recommended, as well as a long-term monitoring schedule.
And now, the past has caught up with the present; things go linearly from here on out. All in present tense, which I guess is a bit of an awkward transition, but there's not much to do about it.
******************
"Jack and Daniel II" in my notes.
Five days after returning from Shanguan, Daniel's jitters are mostly from caffeine. Doc had tried to tell him to stay away from it, but he accused her of being a cruel alien in disguise, and has made regular trips to the canteen for a fix since his release from isolation. Daniel insists that the coffee helps, and although Jack can't fathom how it could, he doesn't push the issue when Daniel returns from the line with his second cup.
Arg! Fanon Daniel-coffee-snob. Hey, I never said I don't get lazy from time to time.
For now it's just the two of them. Teal'c is sleeping in his quarters. Sam's reactions are mostly back to normal, but she has been spending her time alone, buried in her lab with the guts of a 1971 Yamaha Enduro [D's motorcycle; also, yes, there was a stream of months a few years ago where we were receiving quite a few parts through the mail], a reference manual, and a steady stream of parts purchased through ebay. Fraiser says the work will be good physical therapy for her hands now that the stitches are out, as long as she doesn't overdo it.
Then again, Janet also agrees with Daniel, that Shanguan is worth another look. Daniel has made this point abundantly clear.
"You know, Janet agrees with me," Daniel says for the millionth time. [That line makes me chuckle. Just the timing of it, I think.] He tips the sugar tumbler over his mug, pouring nonstop for what must be ten solid seconds.
"I know." Jack has discovered it's easier to argue with Daniel when he can't look you in the eye. "Want some coffee with that sugar?"
Daniel isn't swayed from the argument. "We need to go back. Shen Luo needs our help."
"She turned us in, Daniel."
"She didn't have a choice. And it's only a matter of time before the sēnyán comes back for her."
Jack mixes his oatmeal noncommittally [Sometimes it's really hard to explain in words what you see a character doing in the scene in your head.]. "Maybe the same treatment you got will help her lead a normal life. We don’t know."
"She wasn’t sick. She just wasn't afraid."
Jack sighs. "Those masks are normal for her. An adverse reaction to us is normal for her. What justification do we have for risking us and ours, again, to pull her out of a situation she might not even need to be rescued from?"
Daniel stirs his coffee, spoon clinking against the white porcelain mug. "Did you ever wonder why she wasn't afraid of us?" he asks. "I've been thinking about it . . ."
He trails off, staring at, of all things, Jack's bowl of oatmeal. Jack pauses, spoon halfway between the bowl and his mouth. But before he can say anything about Daniel wanting his Maypo, Daniel's head snaps up.
"Qǐshì," he exclaims. "Qǐshì, of course!"
Implicit here, which I don't spell out, is that the porcelain bowl gets Daniel thinking about the masks they saw at Shen Luo's cottage, particularly the one that "was never used." It's a giant leap of logic, to take that and a name and assume that Shen Luo is hiding a *person* who doesn't need a mask. But the thing is, TV shows make these kinds of leaps a lot; I think the trick is selling them to the audience. Luckily, as I think I've mentioned before, Daniel = Genius.
"Chee-shur is the reason?" Jack asks, dropping the spoon back to the bowl.
"It means 'enlightenment,'" Daniel says. "Qǐshì, enlighten the masses, but in certain dialects--" The words tumble out faster and faster until he's practically tripping over them. "--I mean-- I thought it was just an expression."
"And it's not. So what?"
"So it's not a what, Jack. It's a who." Daniel stands up, abandoning the rest of his coffee. "We need to go back, right now."
啟示(qǐshì): I found this listed as a boy's name on one of the links from zhongwen.com and I thought it was a fitting name for Shen Luo's son. I think by now most of the audience has a pretty good idea of what's coming, though I'd hope that Daniel's 'aha' moment is at least timed well. It's kind of a cool twist, the existence of the boy, and I really wanted it to be woven into the story and to ring true to the theme while still being at least a bit surprising, almost like a coda. It takes almost the whole story to figure out what happened to Sam and Daniel, but we can't forget that not everything is resolved, even now.
The last sentence is barely out of his mouth before he's gone, leaving Jack at the table with coffee, oatmeal, and a whole lot of catch-up. Jack finds Daniel in the hallway, already half-way to Hammond’s office, and finally coaxes an explanation out of him.
"Are you in?" Daniel asks afterward.
"Yes, of course I'm in," Jack says. Before Daniel can respond, he holds up a hand. "Ah, ah, ah. On one condition."
"Jack, I can't believe you're going to argue when--"
Jack cuts him off with a glance, and continues. "This time, we use the back door."
On dialogue and description: I try to go with the school that says the words around dialogue are generally signposts-- it doesn't matter if you say "says" or "said" a few times in a row, or don't put too much variety in names vs. pronouns, etc. If you write the dialogue correctly, the reader won't really parse those. I'm not sure how true that is-- I think a well-placed verb other than "said" can be very helpful, especially in humor writing. But often I'll try to convey meaning or tone through some kind of description-- how a person moves or what they focus on or if they scratch their nose or something like that.
******************
This excerpt is pretty transparent science-y handwaving. I apologize for nothing!
Excerpt from Addendum to field report A2469-35:
Regarding gate travel to P4X-997
Major Samantha Carter, SG-1
Colonel O'Neill's suggestion of "reversing the polarity" was actually quite close to the true solution for accessing the orbiting gate. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the original path of naquadah tracers was redoubled between the main gate and the ksang'ai. This weak spatial fold was caused by the tracer's residual negative energy pooling planetside, and it was also concrete evidence that the main gate did still exist. Adding a positive energy component to the tracer balanced the signal and allowed for a lock on the main gate. We speculate that it was abandoned by Yu in orbit when it could not be de-coupled from its twin on the planet.
All those years of watching Star Trek:TNG must have made their mark, because I rattled the above technobabble-ry off in about a minute and a half. I've no idea what Major Carter is talking about.
Dr. Lee assures us that the gliders recovered from P29-366 are up to specs. Dr. Chen has devised an ingenious method for using the planetside DHD remotely to access the orbiter, and has retro-fitted the glider crystals appropriately.
Take that, unnecessary expositional techy dialogue scene that I didn't write! I just trust that Doctors Chen and Lee know their stuff. Thus, we can fly gliders through the orbiting gate. And I can finish this story in something under 2 years time. PS: please don't think too hard about this bit. I'd started out with them using an al'kesh somehow, which fbf poked more holes in than a strainer. Moving on...
******************
I think this is probably my favorite section. It wasn't the last one I wrote, but it was originally going to end the story.
They approach from the south, keeping the swell of the mountains between the low-flying gliders and the inhabited section of the valley. They set down just before dawn in a tiny clearing under the looming cliff, two miles from the village. Carter's hands still aren't a hundred percent, and as she's currently favoring the company of machines over people, she stays behind to guard their rides. Meanwhile Jack, Daniel and Teal'c don some native camouflage in the form of gray hooded robes. They've foregone the idea of masks; the look is for long distances only, and besides, this time Carter's got their backs if they run into trouble.
Awful lucky of them to have gliders lying around... *handwaves*
The trip to the outskirts of town is quiet; even their footsteps are muted in the morning mist. They reach Shen Luo's cottage without setting eyes on another soul. The house itself is dark and silent.
"Inside," Daniel says, and they enter cautiously.
The house looks as though it was abandoned quickly. A few dishes sit on the table, the cushions in the main room are untidy, and every few steps Jack catches the remnant scent of a meal that smells like chicken casserole. [a writing guide told me to remember the other senses aside from sight when you describe something] Daniel and Teal'c start searching, while Jack keeps an eye out for any nosy neighbors.
By now I figure everyone knows what we're looking for, at least in theory, that we're looking for a person...
They find the child in the loft, in a small bedroom disguised behind a false wall. He is young, maybe five years old. Old enough to know to be cautious, and to be taught how to go to ground. The boy looks up at them, with large almond eyes and no hint of zhēgài miàn on his face. Whatever gene or mutation caused the covered faces of the Shanguan, this child didn't have it. [...A person who doesn't have the mutation. I imagine an extremely cute kid here.]
"Qǐshì," Daniel says, approaching cautiously. "My name is Daniel. We’re here to help you."
"Dà zǐnǚ!" the boy says, followed by another stream of Mandarin. Daniel laughs.
大子女(dà zǐnǚ): "Big kids", though probably not the best translation. 子女 is the character for boy and the character for girl, meaning "children" as the website suggests but it's probably closer to "sons and daughters", also as the website suggests. 孩子,(hàizi) would be better, maybe?
"What did he say?" Jack asks.
Daniel offers his hand to the boy. "He says we're the largest children he's ever seen."
Of the three of them, Qi-shi takes to Teal'c the most. He sits quietly in Teal'c's lap, playing with the fabric of his robe as he describes how Shen Luo left with the priests two days before. How they were planning for a trip, to go to the mountains, but when the priests came for her, he needed to stay hidden and wait for her to return. How he waited, even when it got dark and he was scared.
"You were very brave," Teal'c says, patting the boy's side. Qi-shi smiles shyly and buries his face in Teal'c's arm. The big Jaffa beams. [My list of things to write included a scene or snippet just labeled "Teal'c and the child".]
"The priests are afraid of him," Daniel says. "They're afraid of people like him. But without Yu's descendants to drive their evolution, the face of Shanguan is changing." [This is so something Daniel would say. Or, perhaps, it is so something a Stargate TV writer would write Daniel to say]
"You believe there are others like Shen Luo and the child, Daniel Jackson?"
"I do."
"Well, come on then," Jack says. "We're no use to anyone, lounging around here."
They leave for the clearing as the sun rises over the far side of the valley, illuminating the cliff and glinting off of Lord Mighty Stick House and his fabulous décor [I really like that line]. As they hit the edge of the village Teal’c lifts the boy up on his shoulders, taking the path in long strides. Qi-shi holds tight, scared and excited like it's the highest he's ever been in his life.
Sam's face lights up when she sees the boy, and Jack knows for sure that she'll be okay.
I don't think I've ever heard Jack call Carter "Sam" on the show-- here I used it for effect, that he's thinking about her at a friend/personal level. Next stop: batshit insane shipping! Or, um, not.
"So," Jack surveys the gliders, and then waves to the tiny child perched on Teal'c's solid shoulders. "Let's go get your mom."
***************
I was ready to end the story as above, but point 6 from fbf was basically, "no. you need a better ending." And I said, "I don't want to write any more. I'm done!" And fbf said, "No you are not! stop whining and write a real ending!" I might be paraphrasing a bit. But anyway, at the last minute I wrote these last few paragraphs, and then posted it. And I'm glad it gave me an opportunity to put one of the first impression-y half-formed ideas I had for this story into the text (my notes went something like, "masks, body alterations, Asian influence, Shin Lo's child is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen").
For the first time in her life, Shen Luo is not alone.
It will not be easy, the lǎowài explained. The sēnyán is not something that can be stopped overnight. But she already knows, in the center of her heart, that this is true. It does not hurt as much as she thought it would. Nor does packing their lives into one small suitcase, or closing her door for what may be the last time. Because she also knows, in the center of her heart, that they will win. And that makes it feel not so much like running away.
This is as close as the story came to satisfying the "secret society" requirement. A bit more literal take on the term, probably, than what tripoli was looking for. Literally, a sub-culture or sub-section of the society that lives secret lives, or that has been overlooked.
News of the foreigners has traveled, beneath the ears of the priests, over the eyes of those who do not want to see. News of her plans, to move to her uncle's abandoned farm in the mountains, has also traveled. Today Shen Luo travels with a group of strangers, strangers whom she thought she had known. Libo [another co-student's name] the calligrapher's assistant, a solitary young man who astonishes her by pressing a well-hidden release behind his ear and removing the hand-crafted zhēgài miàn to show his true face underneath. Ming and Guan-yin who live behind the butcher's shop, who look at Qi-shi and see the face of their own daughter, lost many years ago to the drugs and failed growth experiments of the early sēnyán. Others she does not recognize, yet. But she knows all of them, zhōng xīn. In the center of her heart.
衷心 (zhōngxīn) Wholeheartedly, heartfelt. That's the dictionary definition but I like the literal translation too-- center of the heart, it's seems such a Chinese way of saying things. When my office-mate was trying to explain 中 (zhōng) to me-- it means middle or center-- that was one of the examples she used. "You know, like the center of your heart". As if it was just the most common phrase. And the word for "center" is also zhōngxīn, but 中心; it's not heartfelt unless you use 衷.
When the lǎowài came back for her she was amazed. When they forgave her for betraying them she was heart sick, because it was in that moment she realized how much they would give, for her, and how much they had suffered for her reckless fear. She held Qi-shi to her heart [ack! one too many hearts; I should really change that...] and cried with joy, and then it was the lǎowài who were amazed.
"The sēnyán," Daniel had said. "How can you--?"
But O'Neill knew, she was sure. At the edge of the group, unseen to any of the others, he had smiled. He had known what she would answer, zhōng xīn. [This structure just kind of appeared out of the blue as I wrote this, but I really liked how it worked.]
"He is my child. He will always be the most beautiful thing in the world."
***************
Request was: offworld, secret societies, The Uncanny Valley
And that's a wrap! Thanks for listening to me talk about my story :) I'm pretty proud of it. It was one of the faster things I'd written, considering some of my previous fics, but I did have a good time piecing things together and I'm very glad I found a way that I could write it as a coherent whole. It makes my day when I get a random comment on it here and there. :)
Link to the original story: Veil
Link to Part 1
******************
In a red-roofed cottage at the edge of the village under the universal, ubiquitous Yu, Jack paced. It was a small room but he managed a cadence of three steps forward, three back. The shock was wearing off, downgrading back to the usual unease. On top of being truly eerie, the whole situation was just plain not good. Teal'c felt it too. He stood by the small front door, looking especially huge and especially dour. [When Teal'c is creeped out, you know you're in trouble.] Jack caught Teal'c's attention with a glance and a gesture. Keep an eye open. Be ready to leave quickly.
Teal'c nodded. Was that a frown? Not a good sign.
[This next paragraph represents *pages* of I-don't-have-time-to-write-it-dialogue, in 4 sentences. Pick your battles.]
For the moment, the brains of the team seemed to be faring well. Daniel was managing any misgivings he had, asking a regimen of questions in patented first-contact style. He and the woman, Shen Luo, were seated on the floor in the cottage's main room, before a low table. Carter flitted around the pair, offering phrases like "genetic anomaly," and "punctuated equilibrium."
Shen Luo's name went through several iterations. I'd started out liking just the sound of "Shin Lo" with thoughts of making some kind of evolved Mandarin-esque language but then I switched to straight Mandarin-- I searched similar sounds on zhongwen.com and came up with two characters:
深 -- shēn, with the radical (leftmost 3 strokes) meaning "water", and the character itself meaning deep or deeply, and
洛 -- lùo, which is defined on zhongwen.com as "the name of a river." So I named her 深洛 (Shen Luo) which in my somewhat limited translation skills I figure is close to a meaning of "Deep River". I think 洛 might be more specific as a particular river's name (The Deep Luo River?), but I think it has at least a peaceful serene feeling to it, with the hint maybe of deeper currents underneath. (Real Chinese people are probably laughing at me right now, hopefully good-naturedly.)
As Daniel continued the cultural anthropology gig, Carter came forward, arresting Jack’s pacing.
"You look apprehensive, sir," she said.
"Not in the slightest." He lifted his hat, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and through his hair. "We're offworld on a potentially hostile planet with a three-hundred-foot highwire act between us and the only way out. What possible reason do I have to be apprehensive?"
"We've been in worse first contact situations before," Carter said.
"Yes, we have. Good times." [The key, I've found, to writing Jack: Less is More.] He eyed the house, noting any form of alternative exits. One small back door, two windows, loft. "You said it, Carter, those people were scared. Fear is unpredictable-no, I take that back. Fear is predictably bad."
"Part of it is just nerves, on both sides," Carter said. "I have to admit, it's kind of bizarre."
Shen Luo poured more tea, and Jack stared, only for a second. Even her hands were abnormal, with long spindly fingers and wide palms.
"We're the strangers here," Carter continued. "We're the ones in their uncanny valley."
"No kidding." He gestured to the window, taking in the Shanguan scenery. Carter smiled.
"It’s a term from robotics, sir. We're setting off their natural aversions, just like they’re setting off ours."[shortest. definition. ever!]
"Ah. I knew that." He didn't, really.
Although the uncanny valley is usually discussed in the context of robotics and synthetics, my first instinct for this prompt was immediately a human/alien connection, akin to blurring the lines of what it means to be human (I especially thought Teal'c would bring an interesting perspective to the question). So I was always thinking about applying the Uncanny Valley to a human culture, add SG1, shake well and serve. Originally I had one story idea about biological mutation (symbiotic relationship with membranes of some kind), and the Veil story was going to be more about masks, but then Veil morphed a bit and stole the biological aspect from the other story. Also, despite being a stat nerd and attending Carnegie Mellon, I'd never heard of the Uncanny Valley until Tripoli's prompt :)
At that moment, Daniel spoke up. "Sam, come take a look at this."
Jack followed Carter back into the main room, where Daniel and Shen Luo had moved to a small cabinet at the back of the room. There, Daniel held a miniature mask made of smoothed, darkened wood. The mask itself was featureless, like an upturned bowl with small holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. The only decoration was the subtle swirling accents of the wood grain. Daniel hefted it in his hand; the wood was dense and had some weight.
"That was mine, from the zhēgài miàn," Shen Luo said. "It was carved by my father."
That brings up a lot of interesting cultural questions. Imagine, being able to basically choose what your child's face would look like.
Daniel turned it over. On the underside a tiny, familiar face was embossed, in negative relief, into the wood. High forehead, wide cheeks, and a set of three characters, carved into the grain. Jack looked up at Shen Luo, to see the same three characters on her cheeks. [I've no idea what characters they are; I didn't think about it.]
"It's you," Carter said, amazed. "You wore this as a baby?"
"It teaches the bone, before the child knows how to shape it," Shen Luo said. "Zhēn miànmù flees. The bone remembers."
Daniel set the mask back into its place in the cabinet, but as he went to close the door he stopped. He reached for the lower shelf, for another tiny, dust-coverd bowl. "What about this one?"
A delicate hand stopped him, gently but firmly guiding his arm away. "It-- was never used," Shen Luo said. Jack saw a flash of emotion pass over her face. He recognized the grief behind those words. An entire life-- hopes, fears, dreams-- was resting, deserted, underneath that empty little dome.
He tried to say "I'm sorry," but he couldn't find the words. They wouldn't help, anyway.
I like the notion of the underside of the mask containing all of a parent's hopes for their child. And that the face under that mask is undisturbed-- I wanted that to have a sacred feel to it. Jack assumes that the mask was never used because the child it was made for didn't survive. But this is also a foreshadowing of what Shen Luo is hiding. It doesn't yet occur to anyone that the mask wasn't used because the child it was made for didn't need it.
"Shen Luo," Daniel said as she closed the cabinet door. "You seem more comfortable with the true face than the others."
"It is like looking at the newborn," Shen Luo answered. "Before the zhēgài miàn. Just the newborn. The bone starts growing within days, and people forget that we all start with the true face."
I haven't quite decided how much control people have over the bone growth. Enough that it doesn't go unchecked, but nothing giving them shape-shifter powers or anything.
"But you're different," Daniel said. "You're talking with us, you're not afraid. Why?"
She raised a hard gaze and looked Daniel in the eye. Behind those foreign features, Jack could tell she was at odds with herself. Searching Daniel's face, she must have found something familiar, something she could trust.
"I will explain," she finally said. "But first you must promise, you must help--"
"O'Neill," Teal'c called. "There is activity outside."
Bad Timing; the plot engineer's friend.
Carter hefted her weapon, scientific discovery thrown to the back burner. Jack grimaced, motioning for Daniel and Shen Luo to stay where they were.
"Are they armed?" Jack asked.
"I see no noticeable weapons," Teal'c answered.
"Carter, scope out the back." Three paces and Jack was at the front window, surveying [surveying! Again! So on my list] the crowd. He recognized a few faces from earlier, but in front of them was a more quaffed procession.
"Eight underlings in gray, four bigwigs in long red robes, with long, dark faces to match," Jack said. "Do you know these guys?"
"It's the sēnyán." Shen Luo sat back on her heels, fear reflected in her porcelain face. "So soon, so soon--"
森嚴 (sēnyán) -- (adj.) Stern, forbidding. But I'm just using it as a noun or name.
"Daniel," Jack said. "They don’t look happy."
Daniel took Shen Luo's hand. "What do they want? Are they dangerous?"
"I was ill," she said. "They said I was ill. Qǐshì-- they will know I wasn't cured, they will find--"
"Shen Luo, please," Daniel said. "We can help you. We can talk to them."
"Qǐshì," she said again. She looked at Daniel. "I'm sorry."
Then, Shen Luo bolted for the door.
In fact, Shen Luo says outright here, "They will find Qǐshì"-- it's just interrupted by Daniel's dialogue. Then again, it's still hard for me to judge how much I telegraph the kid. It's a fine line, keeping it at least a bit of a mystery but putting the signposts there for the observant reader.
******************
This scene was titled "Teal'c and Sam together". One of the earlier pieces I'd pinned down was wanting Sam taking refuge in math, and Teal'c grounding her.
Sam is sick of the infirmary. She is sick of being in pain and not being able to do anything about it. She is sick of freaking out at the staff. Janet comes in every four hours to change the dressings on her hands and it's all Sam can do to fight the panic and keep still until she retreats to the other side of the curtain again.
"You're doing great," Janet says, every time. But Sam can't help wondering what Janet must think of her, seeing those wounds and knowing what happened. [This line hopefully resonates later in the story when we find out she tore up her own hands because of the conditioning]
She can't think of it. Janet says the effects will wear off. She just has to be patient.
"Major Carter," comes Teal'c's calm baritone from the other side of the curtain. "How are you feeling?"
She closes her eyes. "I'm bored out of my mind. I want--" I need to get out of here. "-- I want to work on my motorcycle." She can focus on that, on the piston and the chrome, nothing remotely human about it. [oddly enough, this line used to show up in Google searches on some bulletin board about motorcycles.]
There is a rustling sound on the other side of the curtain, as Teal'c rearranges some papers. "Perhaps it would be wise to wait until your hands have healed, for that endeavor."
God, her hands. For the motorcycle she'd still have to use her hands. She'd still have to look at them, and despite Janet's assurances, she doesn't know if she can stand the sight of her own body yet. Rationally, she knows there's nothing wrong, but that knowledge just doesn't help. The only thing that will help is time.
This was written out of order when I was still thinking linearly, and I was worried that, when it slotted into its place, it might give away too much about what's wrong with Sam and Daniel. Basically, the notion that it's not a physical malady but a mental one. I'm not sure it doesn't, but it's hard to write from the POV of the affected person and not at least give some form of explanation.
"I'm terrible at waiting," she says. "I can’t do anything. I'm thinking too much and it's kind of freaking me out."
"Is the effect not waning?"
Her heart skitters in her chest. Even just his voice and that shifting shadow, are enough to paint the picture of her friend in her mind. It's the strangest sensation, this visceral reaction that defies any logic her mind can throw at it. Get out of my head, she thinks. Get out and put it back the way you found it.
"Major Carter-"
"No!" she spits. "I mean, I don’t know. Maybe you should go. I just can't deal with people right now."
Sam's one who I have the opposite problem with as Daniel; I'm okay in her head at least on the scientist side of things, but her non-science voice is hard to pin down. I just write her as forthright.
He doesn't leave. There is a long pause, and another shift of shadows on the other side of the curtain.
"I have brought some reference material with me," Teal'c says.
It is such a strange segue, she's taken completely off guard. "Reference material?"
"I have been researching this," pause, shuffle of paper "-Laplace transform," Teal'c says. "I do not understand the appeal, or the affection you have for it."
I wanted to give Sam a mathematical refuge that took advantage of her advanced background, that would be something familiar to her field that she would be able to rattle off like reciting the alphabet, but that would also have that "nifty" conceptual component that comes along with some of the cooler math concepts. I'm not an engineer or a physicist but I did remember learning Laplace Transforms in my differential equations class, and thinking that they were among the cooler concepts. They show up in signal processing and electronics, and in a lot of physics. Fourier transforms are a special form of Laplace transform, too, which are the mathematical way to translate between the time domain and the frequency domain. Think of a mathematical transformation as a different perspective that you use to solve a problem, that takes it from looking impossible to looking easy.
Integrals. Of course-- she had forgotten. She slows her breathing and offers thanks to whatever it is that makes Teal'c understand exactly what she needs. The symmetry of time and frequency is still such a beautiful thing, and alien enough to baffle the Shanguan sēnyán.
There's a lot of research out there about how we link symmetry with beauty, and while the priests may have messed around with that aspect of what Sam thinks as beautiful, there is an entirely almost alien sense of symmetry that comes about in math, not just in the more rarefied fields like number theory, but in complex analysis, differential equations, vector calculus-- all that stuff that Sam as a physicist and engineer would be very familiar with. I did give her a bit more of a mathematician sentiment toward things-- seeing the cool symmetry and "beauty" behind the equations at the same time that she uses them as tools, but I hope that's not too far-fetched.
"You really want the lecture?" she asks, smiling.
"Indeed."
"Well, to explain it thoroughly, I should start with the exponential function," she begins, relaxing into the familiar cadence of mathematics.
If you know some higher math, you will realize that this is basically the equivalent of explaining how to construct a house by starting with how to make a hammer. Teal'c's in for a long lecture.
******************
Before Teal'c could stop her, Shen Luo had opened the door and was bowing meekly in front of the priests. And before Jack could stop him, Daniel had followed her. That was when they discovered the procession was armed. Three of the underlings drew small staffs from under their gray robes, staffs that looked remarkably like Goa'uld painsticks, and pointed them nervously at Daniel. They said something, and Daniel's shoulders sagged.
"The house is surrounded, Jack," he called.
"Wonderful," Jack said, signaling Teal'c and Carter.
I originally had Jack cursing here, (something relatively mild, like "christ"), but it didn't work; I know soldiers curse and such, but I wanted to give this more of an episode feel, like something you'd see on the show, so I took my cues from that.
They lowered their arms, coming cautiously out of the house. Daniel tried the "We mean no harm, we're peaceful explorers," routine, but it didn’t get them very far. Actually, it got them on their knees, in a line in front of the four bigwigs, and staring at the ground. It didn't help that Jack couldn't read their faces, and only understood half of what was said. Out of the corner of his eye Jack could see Shen Luo sitting on her knees, practically kissing the ground at the priests' feet, pleading.
As he listened, Jack could see Daniel’s brow furrowing deeper and deeper. "That's not true," the archaeologist said. He said this a few times, but the priests ignored him. He tried a few stilted words of Mandarin before switching back to English. "We came through the gate, in the mountain. In the mural."
Daniel would argue with the Devil.
Jack raised his gaze to see the four high-and-mighties looking at them skeptically. Daniel too, tried to make eye contact, but the guards behind them forced their heads to bow again.
"Miànzǐ shì zhēn miànmù," someone said. "Keep your faces hidden."
面子是真面目 (miànzǐ shì zhēn miànmù): "Pride is the true face" (according to my translation skills)
"Daniel," Carter whispered. "What's happening?"
"What’s going on is, Shen Luo here is selling us out," Jack answered. Amazing how little of the language he had to know in order to figure that much out.
"She says we're from the far mountain villages," Daniel muttered. "She says we tried to tempt her but she was afraid and resisted."
"That’s a rotten lie," Jack muttered back. "It doesn’t make any sense."
"But it’s working," Daniel said.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because it's better than, 'We came out of the side of the big cliff.'" *snort*
A prod from one of the guards ended the conversation. Their heads were guided up, to see the four equally creepy faces of the priests in charge. Jack would have preferred looking at the ground.[<-- This is perhaps the clunkiest line in the entire story. Bleh. This is one of the last sections I wrote and it was giving me fits 2 days before the deadline; it probably could have used some more massaging.]
One priest strode forward, followed by an underling holding two small clay pots.
"Pride is the true face," the priest said in slow, accented English. A distorted scowl passed across his face, and he dipped a spindly thumb into the first pot. It came out with a coat of clear, glistening gel. "You are obviously deviant. Ill. You need treatment."
Next on Dude, WTF?, Language and Stargate SG-1. This is the only section where I mention who's talking in what language. Again, I was going with an episode feel (I was explicitly thinking of the Asian culture in 1x03: Emancipation) where they blatantly ignore language issues. If it was a novel, I'd have gone more with "Daniel has to translate everything" tack. It's a handwave, but I feel justified in that I'm paying more attention to language than they do in the show.
"Oh, that's not necessary," Jack started.
Hands held his and his teammates' heads still. The underling uncovered the second pot and the priest used his coated thumb to dab a dot of reddish-brown ink on each of their foreheads.
"We will take you to the hospital to begin the process," the priest said. "You will be much happier afterward."
Beside him, Jack saw Carter sway on her knees. "Sir--" she started, then slumped forward.
Jack's legs started feeling way too much like rubber bands [similie number 2!]. Daniel's voice carried strangely. "It’s some kind of anesthetic..."
"Ah, crap," Jack managed. Then the world grayed on the edges and faded out.
******************
This scene in my notes was titled "Teal'c contemplates". Another early conceptual scene. A very short scene, but thematically very important, and also for maintaining a balanced focus on the team in this story. These excerpts and present-day scenes gave me leeway to keep the plotty action and past-tense stuff all in Jack POV.
Teal'c lights the candles and kneels on the floor, palms upward. He slows his breathing and closes his eyes, concentrating on the subtle pinpricks of heat surrounding him. These are the pressures of the world, and kel-no-reem is the space between, the inner light. Usually, the space expands around him easily, and he sinks down into dreamless rest. But now, it is as though he can feel every flicker of flame on his face. Kel-no-reem will be elusive tonight, again.
He opens his eyes and sits back. In the evenings following their return from Shanguan, he has found it difficult to meditate. He knows why. He tries too hard; he undermines the natural communion between host and symbiote.
He has not rested in four days.
O'Neill says he is "psyching himself out." Doctor Fraiser believes it is a consequence of the plight of his teammates, that he feels responsible for them. But he knows, it is none of those things. The disruption is occurring because part of himself is surfacing, a part that needs to stay buried.
He blows out the candles and makes his way to the small bathroom sink. He washes his face in near darkness, his golden tattoo glinting in the mirror, catching his eye. The Goa'uld are truly a vain species, he thinks. Evil creatures. Their whim has sculpted so many worlds and scarred so many people. The Shanguan are one race among thousands, one race radically changed.
He looks at the mirror and thinks, he too is adorned. He too is changed.
Violated.
Teal’c draws and releases a slow breath, chasing the word from his mind and body. He cannot kel-no-reem, cannot give over even the smallest control to the symbiote, with that thought upon him. And without rest, he cannot survive.
People adapt to survive, Daniel Jackson has told him many a time. The Shanguan fought back as they could, growing new faces that the Goa'uld would not favor. And even the Shanguan, for all their covered, colorful faces, are more human than a Jaffa.
It is easiest to believe he is not human at all, and never was.
It always made me wonder, when they just out-right describe Teal'c as an "alien". He's from another world, sure, but he was born human, and though the Jaffa symbiote offers a lot of perks, it's not like he had any choice in the matter. We see how much he wants to keep Ryac from having to take a host, even though it would give him healing and longevity. And so maybe it is easier for Teal'c, who conceptually might live in that Uncanny Valley not visually but as an augmented version of something that started human, to distance himself completely, and not think about his origins.
******************
This is an action scene! Originally I'd wanted to break it into 2 scenes but I ran out of time.
"O'Neill," came a distant voice. Something was jarring him, repeatedly. Jack opened bleary eyes to see Teal'c staring down at him. His vision jittered as the Jaffa shook his shoulder.
"O'Neill, you must awaken."
"Knock it off, I'm awake," Jack answered, batting at Teal'c's hand. "Why--?"
At that moment his brain helpfully core-dumped the current situation directly to his nervous system. He sat up, alert, feeling the remnants of a headache and a need to move. "We're still on Shanguan," he said.
"We are," Teal'c answered. "I awoke in this cell a short time ago. I have not seen Daniel Jackson or Major Carter."
Jack looked around. The cell was hospital clean and hospital white, accented with red trim around the ceiling. [Economy of description here ] He did a quick scan of room and body for personal effects. Vests -- gone, weapons -- gone, sunglasses -- gone (damn it). Boots, belts, clothing, dog tags, one concealed GDO and half his team accounted for.
"Guards?" Jack asked.
Teal'c eyed the door. "I have heard none. I do not think they expect us to be awake for some time."
Jack stood up. "Feel like getting the hell out of here?"
Teal'c nodded, raising an eyebrow. "Indeed."
Breaking out was remarkably easy. The door opened with minimal force and the resulting short hallway, lined with windows on the wall opposite the door, was empty [Action scene! Note how I just gloss over the 'action' part]. Jack caught sight of tiered roofs sloping down and away from the windows, and signaled to Teal'c.
"It's a cube," he said. "Rooms in the center, lined by halls on the outside."
They formed a regular search pattern, avoiding the staff they could and quietly disabling the ones they encountered. [Action scene!] Two floors down, they hit paydirt. Peeking around the corner, Jack spotted four guards in gray surrounding a single door. Their faces suggested they were underlings of the sēnyán. And hanging on a peg beside the door were two SGC vests.
"Think we can take those guys?" Jack whispered. There was no opportunity for ambush; they had a good fifteen feet from the corner to the door.
Teal'c took half a second to look around the corridor for himself. "I believe they do not stand a chance," he said. "I will take the two on the left."
Opportunity presented itself as Jack watched, when a frantic pounding started coming from behind the cell door. He could hear Daniel's voice on the other side but couldn't make out what was being said. The guards turned.
"Now," Jack said.
The rush was over quickly. Distracted as they were, the guards fell easily, [Action scene! I, um, I have a tough time writing fights.] and Jack thrust open the cell door.
Because all of the above was really just to get to what's below-- as we telescope the timing of this scene back to a play or script scene.
"-door! I think she's-Holy jeez, Jack!"
It was not the welcome Jack was looking for. Daniel scrambled back from the door as fast as he could, tripping over a low cot and careening into a far corner. He leaned his head against the wall, eyes tightly shut, breathing heavily through his nose.
"Nice to see--" Jack started, but Daniel held up a hand.
"Don’t! Say. Anything."
"What--?"
"I mean it!" Daniel pounded a fist on the wall. [Poor Daniel. I wish I'd been able to write a bit of his POV in this story, but things didn't turn out that way. Also, as noted before, I can't write Daniel POV. I'm not bad at his voice, like in a script, but POV is an entirely different animal.]
Jack stared at his friend, sarcasm gone. Daniel was shaking, and he still hadn't opened his eyes. What the hell was wrong?
"Sam," Daniel forced out in low, measured tones. "They did something to us. Lights, more of the red stuff... I don’t know. I think there's something wrong with Sam."
"O'Neill," Teal'c called quietly from behind him. Before turning around, Jack saw Daniel grimace and sink to the floor. Then he turned toward the near wall, where Teal'c stood beside another cot. Carter was almost level with the door-- he hadn't even seen her. She sat on the cot, head bent forward, clutching a white linen that was streaked with blood. Her hands were raw and scratched, deep wounds still oozing.
Jack started. Those wounds looked self-inflicted.
"You think there's something wrong?" he exclaimed. "Would you look at her?"
Generally I try to stay away from italicized emphasis in dialogue-- like anything, if used sparingly it can have a good effect, but it can really detract if overused. Sometimes, though, there's really no good way to explain tone otherwise, unless you trust the reader has the same character voice as you in their head.
"I. Can’t!" Daniel enunciated, trying and failing to stay calm. He pressed the heels of his hands against his ears, fingers clawing at his hair.
"Jesus." Jack and Teal'c locked eyes, keeping still and silent for a bare second. When Jack spoke again he forced his tone to stay low and tempered. "Teal'c, keep an eye on the door."
He cautiously sat down next to Carter, who tried to look at him but quickly looked away, closing her eyes tightly.
"Sir, everything's wrong," she said, panicked. "You, Daniel, me. My hands-- they're not mine. They're not mine.” She started to scratch at the backs of her hands again. New blood pooled and mixed with older stains.
Foreshadowed earlier by focusing on how Shen Luo's hands were different as well. I suppose since the opening scene we've been wondering what they did to Sam, and I'd like to think this at least was a bit of a curve ball.
Jack gently took hold of her wrists and she flinched, pulling away as though he had physically hurt her. He tried again and she bit her lip, but let the touch remain. As calmly as he could, Jack lowered her hands to her lap.
"Find something that's still right, Major, and get it together," he said evenly. "That's an order."
"Okay, okay, yes sir, gimme a minute." A few seconds later a smile ghosted across her face, but the panic didn't let it stay long.
"Laplace," she said. "Laplace transforms. L of U of T is one over S. L of E to the A T, U of T is one over S plus A. L of E to the minus A T sine T, U of T is one over one plus S plus A, quantity squared. L of..."
Sam is quoting a progression of Laplace transforms, here. It gets more complicated as it goes along. I realize now, it's rather difficult to write out how we say equations, in a way that makes sense, eg: L{e^(-at)sin(t)u(t)} = 1/[1 + (s + a)^2]. I think that's one thing that makes mathematical notation so fascinating, how compact it is. But I at least had the opportunity earlier in the story to signal that these were some kind of math equation.
Whatever it was, it was distraction enough for Sam to let Jack wrap her hands in some of the torn linen. It was a crappy field job. Jack felt like a heel. He also felt like running out and murdering the next Shanguan priest he saw. [Another rough paragraph, at least to my sensibilities. It was the tail end of four rather obsessive weeks when I was writing this bit.]
Instead he asked Carter, "Can you walk?"
"Yeah," she said. "It's better. Moving is better."
"What about you, Daniel?" Jack asked. Daniel nodded, warily opening his eyes and making his way to the front of the cell, staring practically at his shoes.
"O'Neill, we must go," Teal'c said.
They made a strange procession, their two injured teammates walking haltingly in front, with Teal'c and Jack at their blindsides-- two paces behind and flanking them. Neither he nor Teal'c could get any closer than that. Stay back, don't talk, don't touch. It was the only thing they could do to make it easier for Daniel and Sam, and it was the hardest thing to do.
Meticulously, they made their way out of the hospital into the village under cover of night. They made better time in the dark, faces cloaked in the dim starlight. The trip up the stair to the gate was something new for Jack to put on his "Never again in a million years" list. But after a slow procession of stops, starts, terror and Laplace transforms, Jack had his team home.
Barring the coda, the above two paragraphs were the last two that I wrote. I wanted a much more detailed blueprint for the escape section and the recovery section too (parts of the narrative in Doctor Fraiser's excerpt below). I had some scenes I'd thought about-- but then I realized that despite the fact I really wanted to send Sam and Daniel through the wringer more, the story didn't need it. Instead I treated it like a flash fiction version of the mountains of words I wanted to write. How to distill everything down to the essentials? The above two paragraphs were the result.
******************
Excerpt from supplement to field report A2469-26:
Regarding sēnyán conditioning practice of P4X-997
Doctor Janet Fraiser, chief medical officer
Another rather tidy bit of exposition
The exact substance given to SG-1 during their encounter with the Shanguan priesthood is unknown, but the effects are clear. When coupled with a specific visual stimulus, it imprints a heightened adrenal response to the stimulus. This form of conditioning was performed on both Doctor Jackson and Major Carter, as the Shanguan attempted to "reprogram" their natural concept of the human face, instilling an aversion to what we consider a normal human face by brute force. [An early and compelling theme for the story. I really thought it would be a great way to examine the team dynamic in a team ficathon, to take the fundamental familiarity that our team has with each other and throw that on its ear.]
In a society where most people live their entire lives without seeing a single unadorned human face, the conditioning would act only to heighten fears during already stressful and unusual events. But the Shanguan did not realize that the vast majority of SG-1's experiences are formed around the so-called "true face." Therefore the effects of conditioning on Doctor Jackson and Major Carter were especially acute. Interaction, recognition, memory and even body sense were affected, and the result was an almost constant assault of physical symptoms such as anxiety, restlessness and panic. The symptoms could not be controlled by medication [yeah, that's just a bit far-fetched there. *handwaves*] and made even the simplest interactions extremely stressful.
The patients responded to isolation and limited communication, only insomuch as it allowed for the drug to be cleared from their systems. It is unknown at this time whether there will be any lasting psychological effects. A full psychological evaluation for both patients is recommended, as well as a long-term monitoring schedule.
And now, the past has caught up with the present; things go linearly from here on out. All in present tense, which I guess is a bit of an awkward transition, but there's not much to do about it.
******************
"Jack and Daniel II" in my notes.
Five days after returning from Shanguan, Daniel's jitters are mostly from caffeine. Doc had tried to tell him to stay away from it, but he accused her of being a cruel alien in disguise, and has made regular trips to the canteen for a fix since his release from isolation. Daniel insists that the coffee helps, and although Jack can't fathom how it could, he doesn't push the issue when Daniel returns from the line with his second cup.
Arg! Fanon Daniel-coffee-snob. Hey, I never said I don't get lazy from time to time.
For now it's just the two of them. Teal'c is sleeping in his quarters. Sam's reactions are mostly back to normal, but she has been spending her time alone, buried in her lab with the guts of a 1971 Yamaha Enduro [D's motorcycle; also, yes, there was a stream of months a few years ago where we were receiving quite a few parts through the mail], a reference manual, and a steady stream of parts purchased through ebay. Fraiser says the work will be good physical therapy for her hands now that the stitches are out, as long as she doesn't overdo it.
Then again, Janet also agrees with Daniel, that Shanguan is worth another look. Daniel has made this point abundantly clear.
"You know, Janet agrees with me," Daniel says for the millionth time. [That line makes me chuckle. Just the timing of it, I think.] He tips the sugar tumbler over his mug, pouring nonstop for what must be ten solid seconds.
"I know." Jack has discovered it's easier to argue with Daniel when he can't look you in the eye. "Want some coffee with that sugar?"
Daniel isn't swayed from the argument. "We need to go back. Shen Luo needs our help."
"She turned us in, Daniel."
"She didn't have a choice. And it's only a matter of time before the sēnyán comes back for her."
Jack mixes his oatmeal noncommittally [Sometimes it's really hard to explain in words what you see a character doing in the scene in your head.]. "Maybe the same treatment you got will help her lead a normal life. We don’t know."
"She wasn’t sick. She just wasn't afraid."
Jack sighs. "Those masks are normal for her. An adverse reaction to us is normal for her. What justification do we have for risking us and ours, again, to pull her out of a situation she might not even need to be rescued from?"
Daniel stirs his coffee, spoon clinking against the white porcelain mug. "Did you ever wonder why she wasn't afraid of us?" he asks. "I've been thinking about it . . ."
He trails off, staring at, of all things, Jack's bowl of oatmeal. Jack pauses, spoon halfway between the bowl and his mouth. But before he can say anything about Daniel wanting his Maypo, Daniel's head snaps up.
"Qǐshì," he exclaims. "Qǐshì, of course!"
Implicit here, which I don't spell out, is that the porcelain bowl gets Daniel thinking about the masks they saw at Shen Luo's cottage, particularly the one that "was never used." It's a giant leap of logic, to take that and a name and assume that Shen Luo is hiding a *person* who doesn't need a mask. But the thing is, TV shows make these kinds of leaps a lot; I think the trick is selling them to the audience. Luckily, as I think I've mentioned before, Daniel = Genius.
"Chee-shur is the reason?" Jack asks, dropping the spoon back to the bowl.
"It means 'enlightenment,'" Daniel says. "Qǐshì, enlighten the masses, but in certain dialects--" The words tumble out faster and faster until he's practically tripping over them. "--I mean-- I thought it was just an expression."
"And it's not. So what?"
"So it's not a what, Jack. It's a who." Daniel stands up, abandoning the rest of his coffee. "We need to go back, right now."
啟示(qǐshì): I found this listed as a boy's name on one of the links from zhongwen.com and I thought it was a fitting name for Shen Luo's son. I think by now most of the audience has a pretty good idea of what's coming, though I'd hope that Daniel's 'aha' moment is at least timed well. It's kind of a cool twist, the existence of the boy, and I really wanted it to be woven into the story and to ring true to the theme while still being at least a bit surprising, almost like a coda. It takes almost the whole story to figure out what happened to Sam and Daniel, but we can't forget that not everything is resolved, even now.
The last sentence is barely out of his mouth before he's gone, leaving Jack at the table with coffee, oatmeal, and a whole lot of catch-up. Jack finds Daniel in the hallway, already half-way to Hammond’s office, and finally coaxes an explanation out of him.
"Are you in?" Daniel asks afterward.
"Yes, of course I'm in," Jack says. Before Daniel can respond, he holds up a hand. "Ah, ah, ah. On one condition."
"Jack, I can't believe you're going to argue when--"
Jack cuts him off with a glance, and continues. "This time, we use the back door."
On dialogue and description: I try to go with the school that says the words around dialogue are generally signposts-- it doesn't matter if you say "says" or "said" a few times in a row, or don't put too much variety in names vs. pronouns, etc. If you write the dialogue correctly, the reader won't really parse those. I'm not sure how true that is-- I think a well-placed verb other than "said" can be very helpful, especially in humor writing. But often I'll try to convey meaning or tone through some kind of description-- how a person moves or what they focus on or if they scratch their nose or something like that.
******************
This excerpt is pretty transparent science-y handwaving. I apologize for nothing!
Excerpt from Addendum to field report A2469-35:
Regarding gate travel to P4X-997
Major Samantha Carter, SG-1
Colonel O'Neill's suggestion of "reversing the polarity" was actually quite close to the true solution for accessing the orbiting gate. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the original path of naquadah tracers was redoubled between the main gate and the ksang'ai. This weak spatial fold was caused by the tracer's residual negative energy pooling planetside, and it was also concrete evidence that the main gate did still exist. Adding a positive energy component to the tracer balanced the signal and allowed for a lock on the main gate. We speculate that it was abandoned by Yu in orbit when it could not be de-coupled from its twin on the planet.
All those years of watching Star Trek:TNG must have made their mark, because I rattled the above technobabble-ry off in about a minute and a half. I've no idea what Major Carter is talking about.
Dr. Lee assures us that the gliders recovered from P29-366 are up to specs. Dr. Chen has devised an ingenious method for using the planetside DHD remotely to access the orbiter, and has retro-fitted the glider crystals appropriately.
Take that, unnecessary expositional techy dialogue scene that I didn't write! I just trust that Doctors Chen and Lee know their stuff. Thus, we can fly gliders through the orbiting gate. And I can finish this story in something under 2 years time. PS: please don't think too hard about this bit. I'd started out with them using an al'kesh somehow, which fbf poked more holes in than a strainer. Moving on...
******************
I think this is probably my favorite section. It wasn't the last one I wrote, but it was originally going to end the story.
They approach from the south, keeping the swell of the mountains between the low-flying gliders and the inhabited section of the valley. They set down just before dawn in a tiny clearing under the looming cliff, two miles from the village. Carter's hands still aren't a hundred percent, and as she's currently favoring the company of machines over people, she stays behind to guard their rides. Meanwhile Jack, Daniel and Teal'c don some native camouflage in the form of gray hooded robes. They've foregone the idea of masks; the look is for long distances only, and besides, this time Carter's got their backs if they run into trouble.
Awful lucky of them to have gliders lying around... *handwaves*
The trip to the outskirts of town is quiet; even their footsteps are muted in the morning mist. They reach Shen Luo's cottage without setting eyes on another soul. The house itself is dark and silent.
"Inside," Daniel says, and they enter cautiously.
The house looks as though it was abandoned quickly. A few dishes sit on the table, the cushions in the main room are untidy, and every few steps Jack catches the remnant scent of a meal that smells like chicken casserole. [a writing guide told me to remember the other senses aside from sight when you describe something] Daniel and Teal'c start searching, while Jack keeps an eye out for any nosy neighbors.
By now I figure everyone knows what we're looking for, at least in theory, that we're looking for a person...
They find the child in the loft, in a small bedroom disguised behind a false wall. He is young, maybe five years old. Old enough to know to be cautious, and to be taught how to go to ground. The boy looks up at them, with large almond eyes and no hint of zhēgài miàn on his face. Whatever gene or mutation caused the covered faces of the Shanguan, this child didn't have it. [...A person who doesn't have the mutation. I imagine an extremely cute kid here.]
"Qǐshì," Daniel says, approaching cautiously. "My name is Daniel. We’re here to help you."
"Dà zǐnǚ!" the boy says, followed by another stream of Mandarin. Daniel laughs.
大子女(dà zǐnǚ): "Big kids", though probably not the best translation. 子女 is the character for boy and the character for girl, meaning "children" as the website suggests but it's probably closer to "sons and daughters", also as the website suggests. 孩子,(hàizi) would be better, maybe?
"What did he say?" Jack asks.
Daniel offers his hand to the boy. "He says we're the largest children he's ever seen."
Of the three of them, Qi-shi takes to Teal'c the most. He sits quietly in Teal'c's lap, playing with the fabric of his robe as he describes how Shen Luo left with the priests two days before. How they were planning for a trip, to go to the mountains, but when the priests came for her, he needed to stay hidden and wait for her to return. How he waited, even when it got dark and he was scared.
"You were very brave," Teal'c says, patting the boy's side. Qi-shi smiles shyly and buries his face in Teal'c's arm. The big Jaffa beams. [My list of things to write included a scene or snippet just labeled "Teal'c and the child".]
"The priests are afraid of him," Daniel says. "They're afraid of people like him. But without Yu's descendants to drive their evolution, the face of Shanguan is changing." [This is so something Daniel would say. Or, perhaps, it is so something a Stargate TV writer would write Daniel to say]
"You believe there are others like Shen Luo and the child, Daniel Jackson?"
"I do."
"Well, come on then," Jack says. "We're no use to anyone, lounging around here."
They leave for the clearing as the sun rises over the far side of the valley, illuminating the cliff and glinting off of Lord Mighty Stick House and his fabulous décor [I really like that line]. As they hit the edge of the village Teal’c lifts the boy up on his shoulders, taking the path in long strides. Qi-shi holds tight, scared and excited like it's the highest he's ever been in his life.
Sam's face lights up when she sees the boy, and Jack knows for sure that she'll be okay.
I don't think I've ever heard Jack call Carter "Sam" on the show-- here I used it for effect, that he's thinking about her at a friend/personal level. Next stop: batshit insane shipping! Or, um, not.
"So," Jack surveys the gliders, and then waves to the tiny child perched on Teal'c's solid shoulders. "Let's go get your mom."
***************
I was ready to end the story as above, but point 6 from fbf was basically, "no. you need a better ending." And I said, "I don't want to write any more. I'm done!" And fbf said, "No you are not! stop whining and write a real ending!" I might be paraphrasing a bit. But anyway, at the last minute I wrote these last few paragraphs, and then posted it. And I'm glad it gave me an opportunity to put one of the first impression-y half-formed ideas I had for this story into the text (my notes went something like, "masks, body alterations, Asian influence, Shin Lo's child is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen").
For the first time in her life, Shen Luo is not alone.
It will not be easy, the lǎowài explained. The sēnyán is not something that can be stopped overnight. But she already knows, in the center of her heart, that this is true. It does not hurt as much as she thought it would. Nor does packing their lives into one small suitcase, or closing her door for what may be the last time. Because she also knows, in the center of her heart, that they will win. And that makes it feel not so much like running away.
This is as close as the story came to satisfying the "secret society" requirement. A bit more literal take on the term, probably, than what tripoli was looking for. Literally, a sub-culture or sub-section of the society that lives secret lives, or that has been overlooked.
News of the foreigners has traveled, beneath the ears of the priests, over the eyes of those who do not want to see. News of her plans, to move to her uncle's abandoned farm in the mountains, has also traveled. Today Shen Luo travels with a group of strangers, strangers whom she thought she had known. Libo [another co-student's name] the calligrapher's assistant, a solitary young man who astonishes her by pressing a well-hidden release behind his ear and removing the hand-crafted zhēgài miàn to show his true face underneath. Ming and Guan-yin who live behind the butcher's shop, who look at Qi-shi and see the face of their own daughter, lost many years ago to the drugs and failed growth experiments of the early sēnyán. Others she does not recognize, yet. But she knows all of them, zhōng xīn. In the center of her heart.
衷心 (zhōngxīn) Wholeheartedly, heartfelt. That's the dictionary definition but I like the literal translation too-- center of the heart, it's seems such a Chinese way of saying things. When my office-mate was trying to explain 中 (zhōng) to me-- it means middle or center-- that was one of the examples she used. "You know, like the center of your heart". As if it was just the most common phrase. And the word for "center" is also zhōngxīn, but 中心; it's not heartfelt unless you use 衷.
When the lǎowài came back for her she was amazed. When they forgave her for betraying them she was heart sick, because it was in that moment she realized how much they would give, for her, and how much they had suffered for her reckless fear. She held Qi-shi to her heart [ack! one too many hearts; I should really change that...] and cried with joy, and then it was the lǎowài who were amazed.
"The sēnyán," Daniel had said. "How can you--?"
But O'Neill knew, she was sure. At the edge of the group, unseen to any of the others, he had smiled. He had known what she would answer, zhōng xīn. [This structure just kind of appeared out of the blue as I wrote this, but I really liked how it worked.]
"He is my child. He will always be the most beautiful thing in the world."
***************
Request was: offworld, secret societies, The Uncanny Valley
And that's a wrap! Thanks for listening to me talk about my story :) I'm pretty proud of it. It was one of the faster things I'd written, considering some of my previous fics, but I did have a good time piecing things together and I'm very glad I found a way that I could write it as a coherent whole. It makes my day when I get a random comment on it here and there. :)