Splintered (Stargate SG1 - gen, 3220 words)
A rather late (due to one thing or another) SG1 Alphabet Soup story, which makes me happy because it's the first thing I've finished in absolutely ages....
The prompt was 'quantum mirror' and my letter was S. I did think about bringing in Sallymarina Moonbeam, (my long time Authorial Insertion) but decided she really would probably any up dead in at least three-quarters of the realities on offer, so.... maybe another time, in another less dangerous fandom :)
Splintered
No one in this or any other reality owned up to breaking it, of course.
The quantum mirror was finally stowed away in Storeroom 1313 on the lowest level of the mountain, along with other alien artifacts that no one had a current use for. Jagged cracks across the surface, oddly like a demented spider web, cut across the view into what, most of the time, looked like an ordinary reflection of the storeroom, in a place, a time, a possibility that looked just the same. Or sometimes, looked just slightly... not.
If you touched it, it would shatter and splinter into a myriad of empty little cracked panes.
The main thing was, the splinters and jagged cracks meant that no one could use it to travel to another universe, or to come from their universe to this. It was safe that way - useless, so the scientists said, but safe. People suggested more than once that they should get rid of it. Send it back to the empty planet it was found on. Throw it out into space. Just get it off this planet.
But being the military, they never did. It was just a broken-up, spiderweb view of a storeroom, after all. What differences could there be in other storerooms that really mattered?
***
I tell folk here to call me Schutz, never mind the rest, I'm just a cleaner. So okay, cleaner for the military in the most top secret of all possible top secret posts imaginable (or unimaginable, to be honest) and have a background check, a non-disclosure agreement and a paycheck to go with it. Beats any other military base I've cleaned in hands down... though sometimes the weekly 'do not touch' list handed out to all of us - military, support, medical, scientific, pretty much everyone, can get a bit off-putting sometimes.
So this mirror-thing in Storeroom 1313 isn't on the list, or at least it isn't this week. Some stuff - usually in the labs, where you need to be dead careful mopping up after the latest disaster - is there for weeks, then vanishes, maybe forgotten, then two weeks later is back in big black letters and triple-underlined. After a repeat of the disaster, usually.
Anyway, it isn't on the list this time but Braxton and me, we're giving it the side eye and a wide berth anyway while we're giving a rare clean-up to all of the lower storerooms and avoiding getting barged by the folk from the archeology labs who don't care much how clean it's not. Listening with half an ear, I gather they’re searching for something for Doctor Jackson, not that I’d understand what it was or why he wanted it, but he does and that's enough for most of them. Honestly, no one outside the labs and the teams quite knows why - not much to look at, our Head of Science, seems as mild and quiet as they come, floppy-haired, spectacled, badly dressed, so deep in his work or his thoughts you could run into him and he'd barely notice.
I mean, what do I know? It's not like he goes offworld and does all the exciting stuff like the teams. He just seems to read and study and talk a lot, talk to the General and the bigwigs and the teams and the other scientists and... not really do anything that I can see. He stays in his office, or wanders round with his books, his papers, his old stuff, and his people tagging along and getting in each others' way - and mine too, more than once. His people include those two aliens, Master Teal'c - when he's not offworld - and her.
I don't much like aliens, but she's okay. She's sort of in charge right now, looking for whatever it is Doctor Jackson has to have right this minute. Anyway, they don't even see it. You’d think they would, you'd think they'd notice that the reflection through all those cracks, may be the same room but... there's no one there.
None of them are there, though the shelves and the collection of stuff on them show up just like a reflection should. And me and Braxton and our equipment, we aren't there either. What is there is several muddy footprints heading towards and then between one of the shelf units, footprints that aren't here on this side. Creepy. I mean, not horror-movie creepy, more like... leading up to horror-movie creepy. Especially with all those cracks like a spiderweb.
And there's suddenly not no one there anymore.
He must have come out from the shelves, he's carrying books and papers and something that looks Goa'uld - I've cleaned around some of them, I know what they look like - and he's talking - though we can't hear it - to someone out of sight. He's waving one hand in a way that all of us who work here know so well, because we see it every day in the labs and corridors and Gateroom.
He's... Doctor Jackson. Definitely Doctor Jackson. Except that he's just as definitely not the same.
For one thing, he's in uniform, an off-world team uniform, with an SG shoulder patch and all, instead of his usual white coat and rumpled civvies. And he looks like it's his, like he's used to it, like he's worn it in. Like he - our civilian Head of Science - goes offworld.
There's other things about the Doctor Jackson in the mirror-thing that are wrong. He's wearing glasses, yes, but smaller, wire-framed ones. His hair is not as short as Air Force approved, but definitely not floppy; his face is different somehow, leaner, maybe a little harder, a little stronger, with blue eyes that seem to gleam with the same passion but an added.... darkness? Yeah, darkness. I don't know why - just a cleaner, remember? - but he seems sadder and colder than our Doctor Jackson ever was, like he's lost something... something important.
So yeah, he's the same and totally not the same at once, and now he's staring back straight at us in our room with its people and disarray and cleaning kit and all and no muddy footprints and... and I don't think he sees any of that. Because he's staring straight at her.
Doctor Jackson's wife. Our Doctor Jackson's wife, the alien Sha're, and probably his wife too, why not? - except there is something in his face, in those eyes that makes me not want to know...
He drops everything he's holding and they clatter to the floor, but we don't hear it. His lips move, we still don't hear it.
"Danyel -?" Sha're Jackson breathes, though anyone can see he is not her Dan- I mean, Doctor Jackson. Except that he is.
Or not. It can't be.
He reaches out with one shaking hand. So does she, though a little slower... and then freezes. It's not him, and she knows it. We all know it. Then as he touches the glass, and as someone appears behind him - oh god, it's Colonel O'Neill, and isn't he, well, dead? - it fritzes, and sparks and shoots blinding light, and the surface breaks...
The mirror-thing will be back on the 'do not touch' list by morning, I'd be willing to bet... but what do I know? I'm just a cleaner.
"Sha're?" Daniel stared with blind, unbelieving eyes at the mirror, at another universe, fragmented by the web of cracks on the mirror's surface. He'd known - he'd always known - that there had to be some realities where she did not get taken, did not suffer, did not die..
Which was good, and helped, and softened the pain that was still raw somewhere deep inside... but not much. Not now.
He reached out, unthinking, but even as his fingers touched the icy surface it sparked and shimmered and spat light, and that place, her lovely face, her lovely living face, dissolved into a myriad of instantly-there-and-gone might-have-beens. He knew it would, he knew it always did when anyone touched it. He needed to wait and see... but he knew it, and she, wouldn't come back.
"Daniel?" Jack sounded wary, but then he hadn't seen, that much was clear. "Whatcha doing? That old thing's broken, you know that."
Daniel paused, staring at the surface as it slowed and settled... and all he could see was a storeroom like this one. And there was no one there anymore.
***
Name's Sam Sotomayor, Sergeant Sam Sotomayor, US Marines. That's right man, a jarhead, not paid to think - leastways, not till I make it to an offworld team. That's where the action, and the alien crap, and the thinking, goes on.
It doesn't go on in Storeroom 1313, anyway. So how the hell Sandoval and I are gonna explain this one to the brass is anyone's guess.
But hey, I've heard weird things about that damn mirror-thing before it got busted and shoved down here out of the way... and a few things just as weird afterwards. And equally weird things about half the stuff on this level. Some of the wussier types around here won't set foot on this level, and that's a fact.
Okay okay, some of our geeks - and damn it, this project has a lot of them - ain't wusses either, but most are civilian and supposed to be nerdy brainiac types, and yeah, they're mostly wusses with degrees and authority. Or they're just too damn lazy to come down here themselves when they've got us Marines to call on, which is why me and Sandoval get sent down here to fetch and carry some Goa'uld crap for one or another of them.
Fetch and carry. Escort in and escort out. Watch and guard. Occasionally shoot up the Gateroom. It's a living.
So here we are fetching and carrying, and god only knows what the geek in question wants with this whatever-the-hell-it-is, but Sandoval drags it out from the corner and wants me to help him carry it. I give him crap about being too puny to take it himself and wait for the usual smartass reply and...
He drops it. On his own foot. And doesn't even curse the pretty damn mandatory blue streak. Mandatory because hell, it musta hurt, mustn't it?
The fact that both of us are looking at a dead man looking out from the splintered mirror image of Storeroom 1313 probably isn't much of an excuse. I mean, I was there when the gate overloaded and Siler - and his wrench - got barbecued before anyone could even say a word. Siler's dead, man. Deader than dead. But there he is, as much emotion as the wrench in his hand, the same one that was melted to a massive blob of metal. Yeah, it's creepy, but jarheads aren't supposed to get creeped out.
He looks at us.
We look at him.
And these two jarheads? - yeah, we're officially creeped out.
But Sandoval, he's not creeped out enough that he doesn't have to go and reach out and touch the thing, is he? We're not paid to think, true, but we're not paid to be idiots either. It sort of explodes into a million sparks and lights like the Gate did before it overloaded and did for Siler...
We're not paid to get killed (at least not without orders) so we scramble back and it fades. Dead or alive, he's not there anymore.
And me, I'm not paid to think up how to explain this to the brass and make sense.
Siler stared at the broken surface of the mirror for a moment, then shrugged and turned to leave. With any luck, he wouldn't have to make an official report, which would take far more time from his work than warranted, on seeing two piss-scared marines staring back at him from one of the alternate worlds Doctor Lee had told him about... in detail, since he'd been foolish enough to pass a comment when working.
He hefted his wrench - he would find out who borrowed and left it here later - and set out for the Gateroom, deciding as he did to mention it to someone in authority later. Much later. After all, the mirror was safe, broken but safe, and the Gate did need his attention right now, it kept threatening to overload one of these days...
***
I'm Doctor Shumate - Doctor Shania Shumate - and yes, I do like to emphasize the 'Doctor'. All that study and work and titles got me here, after all, a place where I work with the best and biggest scientific minds around, and with the biggest and best - if alien - toys, and maybe make a difference even if I can't see it.
And I sort of owe it to her, don't I? She recruited me, persuaded me that working on the first Gate project so long ago was not a waste, and just taught me so much. She then made sure I was contacted when it started up again, had the chance to say at least say no, at least at first. She was the main reason I didn't say no, I left comfortable, oblivious academia and came here.
She was the brightest and the best, and it's hard to know she's gone, vanished, as good as dead, and the people at the SGC don’t remember or miss her or even really care.
Oh, no one says it, but I guess they don't think they really remember her anymore, it's been too much time and pain and bad memories. They don't see who she was. Even Daniel doesn't, though to be fair he barely knew her. But a few of us did, and a few of us still do.
As I said, I owe it to her.
Oh well, all that study and work and titles, they don't save us from gruntwork round here. I'm down in the lower storerooms searching for something mentioned in an early SG-1 mission report, something Colonel O'Neill vaguely called 'a sort of Goa'uld doohickey' and which Major Ferretti even more vaguely implied might be some sort of weapon. Or a medical device, or even the equivalent of a household appliance. (And then there was Daniel Jackson's alarmingly serious suggestion, an alien sex toy). None of them wanted to talk about it, given that it was a 'souvenir' of their encounter with Amonet, and the hatred there is... well, I can understand it. I share it, even if I've never met the Goa'uld queen. But each and any 'doohickey' has to be studied, has to be exploited if possible, has to be...
I turn to start on a fresh set of cluttered shelves, and all at once I know - oh yes, I know - that the mirror is doing what O'Neill calls its 'party trick'.
Mostly, it's not much of a show, but then it never is. Just this same storeroom, filled with the same artifacts, alien and ancient objects - though I can see - and am pretty sure a little part of my brain is cataloguing - things that aren't. Artifacts, on shelves that are bare here, that we don't have and can't use, and empty shelves where our finds we can't use sit and wait. That little part of the brain wishes we could just reach out...
The rest of me is in shock, staring, wanting to cry or scream or run, because the rest of me is staring straight into Amonet's blue eyes. Amonet's there, she's in their reality, she's on their base, she might for all I know have attacked and conquered and killed and destroyed and...
She's wearing fatigues.
That's not right. That can't be right.
Amonet wouldn't be seen dead in fatigues, even if they were dripping gold. We all read the mission reports, see the mission footage. Amonet's a typical Goa'uld, she almost drips gold and silver and jewels.
But there Amonet is, standing in this SG1 storeroom looking at me. She's not done up in all that overdone Goa'uld qeen makeup, her golden hair is short and neat, she's relaxed, alert, curious, maybe a bit wary; those eyes are clear and questioning, and she's saying something and of course I can't hear the words but somehow I know if I could it wouldn't be with that awful, overlaid symbiote echo. And she's wearing fatigues.
She looks at me and I look at her. Not at Amonet, at Sam. Captain Sam Carter. Somewhere - well, that somewhere - she must have made it through that first mission, not been taken, not been lost. Not just be seen though eyes that just see the Goa'uld and hate her for it.
I cried when they came back, and I think I'm going to cry now. What did they do to save Sam from this that our people didn't? What might they have that we don't because they did bring her back when we didn't? Who did they lose that day, was it someone else important, or no one who counted? Or no one at all?
She tilts her head and her fingers reach out to brush the mirror. Big mistake, that small part of my brain says, maybe they don't know if but even as I go to say a warning she won't hear.... she touches it. Light and jagged flashes and a millions spinning tiny realities, one for each tiny pane in the web of cracks...
I close my eyes and wonder if anyone here in my reality would care if I reported it. She's Amonet here, even if she's still Sam in other realities. She's an enemy here. A lost colleague. As good as dead.
Gone but not gone.
So I will tell them, I will tell them that maybe they didn't have to lose our brightest and best. After all, I owe it to her.
Sam shook her head; that had been a newbie, a novice blunder, touching the glass like that, and with that touch, she'd lost...
No, lost nothing to be honest. She was a scientist; she'd studied the mirror when whole and then broken, and knew as well as anyone that just being able to see a broken and distorted alternate relativity was no good if you couldn't contact it, interact with it, learn from it.
If you couldn't see something other than that same storeroom, what difference could it make?
Though... Sam paused. The woman in the lab coat, who had stared at her with... what? Fear, horror, anger -? she vaguely recalled her - Doctor, what was it, Shumate? - from the original gate program, before they'd got it working. She'd tried to bring several of her staff from that time into the SGC, with mixed results.
She remembered that Doctor Shumate had been good, really good, but hadn't seen a reason to leave the comforts of academia for a military project. Obviously that reality's Sam had come up with a better reason, a better way to convince her and maybe the others.
Whatever.
She would think about it later.
Right now, she still needed to find the Colonel's alien 'doohickey' - that 'souvenir' of an early encounter with Apophis - and see if it was a weapon, a medical device, a household appliance, or as Daniel had suggested, a Goa'uld sex toy...
the end
And yes, S stands for all of my OCs, Sha're, Siler and Sam Carter ( didn't exactly think I could ignore her...)