Chapter 6
Chapter 6
March 17, 2004
In Valhalla Sector, the Tok'ra Malek watched as Libby half-carried Devon out of the interrogation room. General Waverly and Colonel Simmons stared at the retreating forms with disgust. Malek wanted to help Libby with Devon, but he had to stay behind. He couldn't risk revealing his true loyalties.
"Tell me, Doctor Fukizaki," Simmons asked, turning toward Malek, "have you come any closer to developing a vaccine? You've been here since the initial outbreak. One would think you'd have found something by now." There was a tinge of threat in his voice to which Chuan took offense.
Malek calmed his host down before answering aloud, in Chuan's human tone. "Yes, I believe so. I put all my findings in my reports," Malek answered blandly, revealing nothing of the inner turmoil. "The virus is unique, and keeps changing, evolving, much like the AIDS virus. There is a particular receptor that resides--"
"I don't need the specifics, Doctor," Simmons interrupted. "How much more time do you need?"
"I still don't have the key, Colonel," Malek began pointedly, since it was Simmons' job to get that key from Devon. Malek took every opportunity he could to needle Simmons, especially in front of Waverly.
*We have so few amusements,* Chuan teased him inwardly, and Malek agreed, wanting to smile.
When they had first come to Earth and were mistaken for the scientist Doctor Gordon Fukizaki, they had willingly retreated into Valhalla thinking it was the ideal location to help the Tau'ri discover the cure for the virus. It hadn't taken long to realize that the command structure was headed into corruption and saving the human race would prove more difficult than they'd first envisioned. Fifteen years had passed, and while they hadn't exactly been prisoners in Valhalla, their mission had evolved and kept them there.
A young lieutenant came bursting through the door, stopping Simmons before he could retort.
"General Waverly, sir. Colonel Simmons." The young man struggled to catch his breath. "There's a call for you from Thunder Mountain. Lee Chen's been arrested."
Waverly looked stricken, but Simmons didn't look surprised at all.
"How?" Waverly barked.
"Well, he was a little vague. I didn't really understand. Something about a big ring? And four old --" he corrected himself hastily, "Big Death survivors coming inside the mountain. But he claimed that one of them is Major O'Neill."
Malek's mind went racing. Big ring? Could it possibly be a chappa'ai? How had Thunder Mountain obtained one?
*There had to be one here on Earth long ago,* Chuan reminded him. *The stories tell of it being buried in the rebellion. The Tau'ri must have found it.*
*But how could Major O'Neill, of all people, have come through it? That's impossible,* Malek wondered, in confusion. Then he and Chuan realized with a chill of dread, at exactly the same time, something much worse. *If the Goa'uld discover it is operational, they will come. Either Ra will return to defend his territory, or someone else will try to conquer it for his own gain. The Tau'ri are not powerful enough to resist.*
Malek reined in their panic. *This is only a second-hand report. And there is nothing we can do at this time, even if it is true. But this is vital news about Lee Chen, we must listen.*
He refocused his attention outward to what Waverly and Simmons were saying.
"Chen requested O'Neill's help with a mission," Simmons mused aloud. "How does this relate to Chen's compromise? Maybe he was caught trying to meet with O'Neill."
"The captain is waiting for further orders," the lieutenant prompted.
"I'll take care of this," Simmons announced. Then he followed the messenger out of the room.
Waverly turned to Malek. "You've met Major O'Neill. Do you think it's possible he might have ingratiated himself with Markus Alexander by revealing that Lee is a spy?" he asked, obviously on a different track than Simmons.
Malek thought quickly about how much to say. General Waverly had only discussed with him Thunder Mountain and Markus Alexander in terms of being Valhalla's enemy. Alexander supposedly held a tight grip on his people, had control of advanced weaponry, and was beginning to move aggressively into his surrounding territory. But what could he offer that would convert a military officer to his side? "I don't know, General. Perhaps the colonel's man is simply mistaken. If not, could there be a strategic purpose for the disclosure?"
Waverly nodded. "Oh yes. Alexander is gathering his different factions in St Louis next week, where they're planning a coup against the United States government. We of course will not let that happen." With that last remark, Waverly strode out, leaving Malek and Chuan alone in the interrogation room.
Malek frowned, disturbed by the contradiction between what Waverly had told them before and this new information. *That cannot be correct. If he is the dictator Waverly has always claimed, why would he go all the way to St. Louis to meet with people he commands?*
*Maybe he isn't what we have been led to believe,* Chuan suggested. *After all, think of how he characterizes Devon, when we know Devon is ethically and morally superior.*
Malek agreed. Until they knew Thunder Mountain's true intentions, they were at the mercy of Waverly's propaganda as much as anyone. But now knowing that intention had become more urgent, if there was a chappa'ai within Thunder Mountain.
Chuan went on, *I would believe Lee would go over to their side before O'Neill. Lee at least seemed like he learned something from Devon when he was young.*
That was an excellent point. Lee had been close to Devon for most of his adolescence, before they'd fallen out over Lee's joining the military. *Devon has outside sources of information. I wonder if Lee is one of them. Maybe their arguments were more staged than we believed.*
*We should contrive to speak to Devon and find out what he knows about Thunder Mountain and this meeting in St. Louis.*
---+---
Time was running out. They had to leave within two days for the big meeting, yet nothing had been decided about Lee. Markus had not forced himself to go visit, though it was nearly noon. He felt sick to his stomach every time he thought about it. How much had Lee told Valhalla Sector about them? He claimed to have revealed nothing major, but could Markus believe him?
A knock sounded at his door. "Come on in," Markus called.
Sam Carter poked her head in. "Am I disturbing you? Want me to come back later?"
Markus smiled fondly at her, grateful for the distraction. He waved her in to a seat at the table, and he scooted his chair from the computer over to join her. "No, not at all. I'd welcome a break from my own thoughts."
"I came to report my progress. I've done all I can do inside the mountain, now I need--"
"You want to leave?"
She gave a little sheepish smile and nod. "Like you said, in order for us to safely power the gate, I need more energy than is currently available." She cleared her throat. "In our reality, we have a mineral called naquadah. It's not native to Earth. In fact the Stargate is made out of it."
Markus nodded his head, indicating for her to proceed.
"Naquadah is also a very efficient power source that I can use to open the wormhole."
He frowned. "Isn't that a bit redundant? You need naquadah in order to power a gate also made of naquadah."
"In a nutshell, yes. Basically, the naquadah in the gate is in the wrong form. But after I build a naquadah generator, you'll be able to use it to run the whole mountain for decades, including the Stargate if you wish. It's efficient, waste-free, and very stable when handled properly," she explained enthusiastically, trying to sell him on the idea.
He was intrigued by the idea of some unknown mineral. Had Earth gotten unlucky in the distribution of this mineral during planetary formation or was there some other reason that it didn't exist here? But he supposed that wasn't really the point. He asked, "If this mineral isn't found on Earth, how do you plan on getting some?"
She folded her hands together tightly, and looked apprehensive. "This is the tricky part. I know we've alluded to an enemy in space; one that we're fighting against in our reality. Well, they're called the Goa'uld. We suspect there's one here on Earth. His name is Seth. He'll have some, and we take it from him."
"Take, not trade?" Markus asked sternly.
She shook her head. "There is no negotiating. To him and his kind, humans exist only as slaves to use and abuse as he sees fit. The Goa'uld believe they're gods, and demand to be worshipped. Seth in particular has a biological agent - a mind-control drug -- that ensures his followers' devotion. It won't be easy taking anything from him."
Markus stood and went to look at the Stargate. For just a moment, he wished that he had never learned anything about the Stargate or these travelers or aliens. But life had stopped giving him what he wanted when he'd watched his parents die, and he'd long since realized the futility of such wishes. His only wish now was to build a better future, and he couldn't do that if he didn't know the reality of the present.
He turned back to her. "How do you plan on doing this?"
"Don't know, yet. We need to find him first, hence the reason for my intrusion. Can I have access to the big board? I need to reprogram the satellite computers a bit to look for him." Sam hesitated. "I presume you know about the big board."
Markus was torn. Only select people had access to the old NORAD control room. It was his main way of monitoring Valhalla Sector's activities, and he was very wary of allowing anyone else near it. Most people in Thunder Mountain didn't even know it existed. It was also on the list of places the council had said were off-limits to the four visitors. Normally the prohibition wouldn't concern him too much, but it wouldn't be too smart to upset Andrew and Kate right before he was about to leave, not when he was already short one supporter with Lee sitting in a cell.
"I promise not to break it," she added encouragingly.
"What exactly do you intend to do?"
"Well," she took a deep breath, "I want to access the satellites and do a search for naquadah. It lets off a form of nuclear radiation that should be detectable. In our reality, it's masked by the population. I'm hoping that here I can detect it. I know it's like searching for a needle in a haystack, but I've got to try."
He crossed to the bookshelf, making her turn in her chair to follow him. "Let's say you locate a candidate, what happens next?"
"We travel to him and get the naquadah, if it turns out our target was correct. If not, we return and try again."
"He'll give it up so easily?"
She turned faintly pink. "Well, I expect he'll resist. But we know how to deal with him."
He sat on the couch, which rested against the wall at the end of the bookshelves, leaning forward with his hands clasped loosely under his chin. "You realize that taking Jack and Murray out there is a risk. They're too old to pass unnoticed."
"Let's take it one step at a time. Can I use it?"
"Yes," Markus acquiesced. The real question was whether he trusted her alone in the room, since he had no time to watch her himself. No, the real question was whether he trusted anyone else to work alongside her, knowing there was at least one more spy. "Code 2142 will open the outer door."
"Thank you," she said with relief in her eyes. Sam must have realized he had placed his trust in her.
"Let me know what you find."
She thanked him again and backed out of the room. Markus looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand, which had come out of his pocket. It was supposed to be his opening remarks for St. Louis, but it had no coherent thoughts. With a shake of his head, he rose and shoved the paper back in his pocket, deciding to confront Lee. He wanted to question his ex-chief of security in private. It was now lunchtime, so hopefully everyone was eating and they wouldn't be disturbed.
---+---
Lee sat patiently on the cot. His prison walls were the typical slate gray with bars across the front, facing an empty cell just like it. The small area outside the bars had one chair for visitors. Not that he'd had any visitors. While he was happy not to have to answer to Jeremiah, he actually felt hurt that Markus hadn't come to talk to him. He drew his knees up to his chin and contemplated his future.
As far as Valhalla Sector was concerned, he was a dead man. Could his life here at Thunder Mountain be reclaimed? Maybe not exactly as before, but something approximating useful?
The door clicked open and Markus stepped inside. For a moment, Lee had a view of the corridor and the back of someone else standing guard, then the door closed behind Markus.
"Hello, Lee."
"Markus," he returned.
Markus stood outside the bars, gazing at him intently. His face and eyes were stony, giving nothing away. "No one is here now, tell me everything. Why you betrayed me."
Lee squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them slowly. "I haven't betrayed you, Markus. I was sent to Thunder Mountain to see how much of a threat you were to them. Slowly, I began to see that your way made much more sense and I did everything I could to make sure you weren't seen as a threat. I lied about your plans, how much of the base was active, how many people we have … Even when I told the truth, I tried to shade it so Waverly wouldn't be too alarmed."
Markus' expression didn't flicker. "What do they know about us?"
"They know who you are, who your father was. They're afraid of your ideas, but as long as you stay in the mountain you pose no threat. Cancel St. Louis, please," he begged.
"No. I can't, Lee. I need to proceed from strength. If we're going to unite this country against martial rule, it has to start somewhere. And I plan to start it this week. Remember learning 'for the people by the people'? Have the military at Valhalla forgotten their own constitution?"
Lee couldn't help a snort. "They sure talk about it a lot. But I doubt any of them have read it since the Big Death. They know only power. Power over the Big Death -- power over--"
"Do they know about Meaghan?"
"No. I told you before. The reason I had the control room active was because I was hoping to discover if there's someone else here working for them. I wasn't spying on you or anybody else. I can't protect you if I don't have all the facts."
"What do they know about St. Louis?"
Taking a deep breath, Lee answered, "They asked me about it, so they heard from someone else. But it could be anyone, either in here or outside. I claimed I didn't know what day it was set, that it was all very secret."
"Answer the question. What do they know?" Markus repeated, folding his arms, and looked at him.
Lee swallowed thickly. He had never had this side of Markus directed at him before, and seen it only rarely. The compassion he usually displayed was locked down tight and replaced by pure intellect. A person could freeze to death from the chill in his eyes. The only way to get the real Markus back was to tell the truth, however painful it might be.
He answered, "That you have called together a meeting of local leaders. That you want to unite them. They take it as a direct challenge, I think. As I said, Simmons asked me if I knew the day, so I don't think they know exactly when, but certainly they know it's going to be soon."
Markus nodded once. "When we went to Danbury, did you know they were going to try and kill me?"
Lee leaped to his feet, his hand outstretched and shaking his head. "No, Markus. I didn't tell them anything about it. And I didn't know. I swear."
It about killed him to see the doubt in Markus' face. Could he really believe that Lee would have put him in a position to get killed and then tried so hard to save his life after he was shot? God, he still remembered the panic he'd felt with Markus' blood all over his hands, knowing his hope for a better future was failing right in front of his eyes.
Their eyes met, and Markus slowly nodded, the ice cracking just a little. "I believe you," he said, and Lee let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "You saved my life. You could have just let me die, and no one would ever have known. But you didn't. I suppose that's why I find the rest of this so hard to understand."
"I would never just sit there and let you die. Even before we met," Lee said softly. "Just listening to Simon, I knew that Thunder Mountain was a special place. Nobody talks about Valhalla Sector that way. And for damn sure nobody talks about Waverly or President Emerson the way Simon talked about you. At first I tried to resist, just do my job. But y'know, Devon was there for me a long time ago, and taught me what was right. That's what I saw here. But he didn't want me to tell you, especially once Jeremiah came into the picture."
Markus saw through that excuse pitilessly. "You played all three of us against each other, doling out information as you chose and keeping us otherwise in the dark. But that ends, Lee. I don't care if Devon and I are really on the same side or not, you have to choose one of us."
Lee sat heavily on the cot, making it creak. "I already did, Markus. I chose you. I should've told you. A long time ago when I figured it out. But I thought… shit, I don't know what I thought… I just got so caught up in it, thinking I knew what was best… " He rubbed his hands over his face once and then glanced back up at Markus. "I'm sorry. That's the best I can say it, and I know it sounds stupid. But it's true."
Markus unfolded his arms, and put his hands in his pockets. He paced in front of the bars, back and forth, thinking. Then he stopped again in front of Lee. He didn't look coldly furious anymore, just determined. This Markus, Lee knew. This was the leader of Thunder Mountain.
"Tell me something I don't know, Lee. Something about them."
"Paranoia is a way of life there. Hardly anybody trusts anybody else."
"What a shock," Markus commented dryly. "What about the Big Death? Was Simon right, is there going to be a 'B' 'D' two?"
"I don't know," Lee shook his head. "They have a vaccine, or they had one they thought was working, but instead, the virus mutated and after a long lag phase it killed everyone infected. Devon told me the current focus is on containing the mutant strain. So, they have a team go out and burn everyone who might have it, or been in contact with the subjects who were forced to take the vaccine. Those are the villages that Simon and, later, Jeremiah and Kurdy found."
"The Burners," Markus murmured and shook his head slightly, shutting his eyes against the mental pictures. "God, how could they …?"
Lee felt shame and he let it show plainly on his face. Markus needed to know. "I'm not with them anymore. I'm on your side, Markus."
Markus took a deep breath and focused again on his questions. "And Devon? He's Jeremiah's father? How does he fit into all of this?"
"Devon was one of the researchers involved in the creation of the original virus. He won't tell them how to make the vaccine."
"Why?" Markus cried. "It could…" then he stopped. Lee saw the instant he understood by the sudden slump of his shoulder and how he shut his eyes, looking pained. "He can't because it would give them complete control over it."
"Yes, exactly. The other scientists there, they can't seem to crack the virus to design a vaccine or a cure. Devon holds the key, but they don't have any leverage against him, because he knows what they'll do with it." He stood up again, hunched into his jacket, and approached the bars a few steps. "That's why Jeremiah can't go anywhere near Valhalla, Markus. They would use him to break Devon, to gain the knowledge they want so badly."
Markus' eyebrows drew together and he appeared to be thinking deeply. After a moment, he asked, "What did you tell them about the four who came through the ring?"
"Nothing. But I did ask Major O'Neill to come to Millhaven so I could check out that there were really two of them."
"Major O'Neill? Millhaven?"
Lee smiled a little at the surprise on Markus' face. "Yeah, Major Jonathan O'Neill is alive and kicking at Valhalla Sector, although he's not that well liked by the brass. He kind of has his own way of doing things. Millhaven is a town northeast of here that's Valhalla's western base of operations."
"I take it you saw this major?"
"Yes, I did. There are really two of them. They're both smart-asses, that much I can tell you."
"He's close-by right now?"
"Well, no. I sent him out on a wild goose chase up to the Maclaren Base to give myself time to think. I was so sure Colonel O'Neill was a fraud, that I didn't let myself think of the possibility it could be true. Alternate realities?"
"Apparently," Markus said absently, his thoughts elsewhere. "You said before that Simmons was your boss. Talk to me about the command structure."
"William Emerson is president --"
Markus frowned. "He was a senator at the Big Death, wasn't he?"
"Right, and he's their civilian figleaf," Lee said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Elected by a majority of Valhalla Sector, for his third term two years ago. But he's not really in charge. General Waverly is -- though I'm not sure Emerson realizes it. Waverly's the official head of all the military, although he is technically Army. He's the one putting the screws to Devon to get the virus and rule the world. But the United States can't have the head of the military as the president, so he needs a front man. That's where Emerson comes in. Each past president has been hand picked by Waverly to be compliant and supportive.
"The other man in control is Colonel Simmons -- head of intel and probably the smartest guy in the whole command structure. Simmons is the guy behind Waverly, the one with all the dirty secrets, and the plans, and the ethics of a shark. He's also the one who found out this base was still functional, despite Quantrell's sob story about being the only survivor." Lee considered what he had said and decided he was being unfair. "I shouldn't give you the impression that Emerson's an empty puppet or a good man, by any means. He's a believer, too. The three of them are very happy to run the place."
"Anyone else?"
Lee shrugged. "There are officers and staff just like everywhere. They pretty much do what they're told." Then he thought of something that had always puzzled him. "There's one other person, Dr. Gordon Fukizaki. I was never sure where he fit. He runs the vaccine program, and answers to Waverly directly. He's part of the inner circle and he's even been in the same room when they torture Devon. But he's also helped Devon occasionally with medicine or to get the brass to leave him alone. Devon thinks he's okay." Lee shook his head in confusion. "I don't know; it's hard to tell. He's a quiet guy. Kind of odd. Spends his time in his quarters when he's not in the lab." Lee shrugged again.
Markus was no longer listening, Lee could tell. He had that look on his face, which meant he was taking all the bits of info and putting it together. So Lee was not entirely surprised when his next question seemed to come out of nowhere. "Is Major O'Neill coming back?"
"I'm sure. He's going to wonder why I sent him to Maclaren, when there's nothing there."
"Good." Markus looked pleased about it, though Lee wasn't sure why.
"Are you going to release me?" Lee asked hopefully.
"Not yet. We'll see."
Less hopefully, Lee tried, "You're not going to St. Louis, are you?"
"Everything you've told me makes it more important than ever that we unite against Valhalla Sector."
Lee slumped back in defeat. Markus was heading to disaster, and he couldn't do anything to help.
---+---
Markus left the brig, to find Daniel behind him.
"Can I help you?"
"I want to go to the meeting in St. Louis. Jack said I had to get your okay."
Markus studied him, surprised. "Last I heard he didn't think it was a good idea at all."
"I badgered him about it," Daniel admitted, with a mischievous look.
"I bet. You must be the only one not trying to talk me out of going." Markus sighed. "Jack's right. It's not a good idea. I appreciate that you're interested. It's even sort of flattering. But this isn't your world."
"It might become our world if we can't leave," Daniel pointed out. His blue eyes were very earnest, open and innocent in a way that Markus had never seen in the children of the Big Death. "This is what I do, Markus. I learned how to fight, use a gun, all those things, but I'm still a historian at heart. I want to understand how this horrible thing happened and how your generation learned to cope, and then see what happens next."
Markus regarded him for a moment, impressed by the enthusiasm but amused by the naivete. Daniel seemed to think he could do an anthropological study on "The Development of Post-Big Death Culture and its Movement toward Civilization", even though most of the world Outside would sooner stab him for his shoes as answer his questions.
But at the same time, he realized he wouldn't mind Daniel's company in St. Louis. Talking to him was a little like talking to Meaghan -- they were both older with greater experience and a desire to share it.
"All right, I'll make you a deal," he answered finally. "First, you talk to Jeremiah and Kurdy about what it's like Outside. And then I'll think about bringing you along."
Daniel opened his mouth to complain about the unfairness of the "deal" but Markus just gave him a look, not in a mood to put up with whining. "That's my offer. I am not going to bring you along if I think you'll make my job harder. Deal?"
Daniel seemed to understand that the offer wasn't going to get better. He hesitated only a moment and then nodded. "All right. Thank you. And I'll be able to help you."
"Do what? Be my body guard?" Markus teased. He was rather amused by how quickly and deeply Daniel flushed at the suggestion. The archaeologist looked guilty, strangely enough.
Then he saw one of his recon teams emerge from the stairs into the corridor ahead of him. "Now, excuse me Daniel, I need to talk to them." He hurried after them, calling, "Brian! Steve!"
Daniel took the hint and let him go, with a little wave.
At the end of the corridor, Markus turned his head to see Daniel still loitering there, as if he didn't know where to go. But when he turned back to Steve and Brian, all thoughts of Daniel and his odd behavior went out of his thoughts. "I've got a job I'd like you to attend to. You've seen Jack, right?"
They nodded, and so he told them his plan.
---+---
Sam put her chin on her fist and waited as small red lights began to come up on the map of the world that took up one wall of the NORAD facility. She knew she was going to have to wait for the satellites to complete the necessary number of passes to cover North America. There wasn't, she'd decided, much point in paying any attention to the rest of the world. There was no way to get there, even if she found something.
At first, she'd done a run-through on bases that were still operational. That only took a few minutes. Markus had given her the series of commands for that, since it was something he watched closely himself. Then, she had run a list of active satellites to find something she could use. Several satellites were dead and there were even more whose orbit had shifted. Calculating the differences took the better part of an hour, but once she'd been able to correct the orbital changes, she was able to start the modifications for her own search.
For the first sweep she eliminated the known bases and concentrated on general power usage. This should give her background consumption. While that was in progress, she began imputing the parameters for a radiation scan.
Rather to her surprise, the computer system had worked efficiently for its age. Even the printer had given her a sheet, after she had unthinkingly ordered a printout. It was dot-matrix and the ink was light, but it still worked. This was one system she didn't need to concern herself with. Yet why and how it ran so smoothly piqued her interest.
Popping off the housing for the terminal, she found that someone had replaced several of the circuit boards with homemade ones. She traced the pathways of the old-fashioned nature of the wires and transistors with a finger, admiring the spare elegance of the work. Nothing was wasted; everything was precise. Even more impressive, it worked. These child-survivors of the Big Death might have lost skills, but as she had also learned while working on the power system, Thunder Mountain was expert at improvising and making the most with what they had.
But there was only so much examination of circuit boards even a tech-head like herself could take. So now she waited.
She sipped at her cold coffee, and began taking notes on the back of the printout as each light came up on the radiation scan. As night fell, she was going to look for artificial lights, though she wished she had access to one of the more precise modern recon satellites.
The door creaked behind her, and Sam turned to see Markus enter. "I came to see how you were doing," he said, standing only a few paces in from the door. He folded his arms and looked up at the big board with a meditative expression on his face. Sam couldn't tell if he was really seeing it, or thinking about something else entirely.
"The radiation scan is in progress," she reported.
Markus glanced at the readout in the corner that identified the satellite in use and frowned. "Alpha particle radiation? But every nuclear source and even old uranium mines will put that off."
Sam was surprised by the depth of knowledge betrayed by the comment. "Yes, that's true," she agreed slowly. "That's why I'm going to cross-check it tonight against places where the lights are too bright. Seth likes to be comfortable, so he'll be using artificial lights. From what I've heard there's not a lot of electricity usage out there. But how did you know about the type of radiation?"
He shrugged, and didn't take his eyes off the board. "I'd be a poor steward of this place if I didn't know its capabilities, wouldn't I?"
She smiled, realizing he had a point. "I suppose that's true. I don't generally expect my teammates to know what I'm talking about -- I'm surprised that you do."
"I had a very different childhood," he said, sort of an answer to her unspoken question. Sam knew there was a lot of deliberate understatement in those words. But then, even though she had lost her mother around the same age he'd lost both of his parents, she simply could not imagine losing every adult on the planet at the same time. But she could see that he had been driven not to lose their knowledge and had educated himself to a rather impressive level, considering the circumstances.
"That's for sure," she agreed. "None of you could really be children anymore after the Big Death."
He glanced at her quickly and his lips parted as if to speak, but he changed what he was going to say. "No," he agreed. "Not in here, and not Outside."
"But still," she patted the terminal with a smile, "I'm impressed by how much you've saved. I peeked in here and I found circuit boards someone made. And yesterday there were some relays and a junction box that really shouldn't have been working at all, except one of your engineers had cobbled together something really amazing. I think it had been there quite awhile too. You've got some talented people here."
"I'll be sure to pass that along," Markus said. "If there's nothing you need, I should be going."
"No, I'm fine." She glanced up at the map and couldn't help a sigh. Only a third of the passes were complete. "I just have to wait."
"I'm told dinner will be meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We grow very nice potatoes, Sam. Don't miss them," he advised and headed out.
Sam rolled her eyes at his back. It seemed that no matter what universe she was in, someone was always nagging her to leave her work and go eat.
Some forty minutes later, she had a list of some forty-six possible sites scattered across the fifty states, Canada and Mexico. She muttered something from basic training, and took another sip of coffee.
She spat it back into the cup. It had gone from disgusting to foul. She considered getting another cup, but she'd have to go to the commissary. And around here, the commissary was all the way at the bottom of the mountain. That was too far.
Resigning herself to a lack of coffee while she finished collecting data, she started to go through her list. The colonel would probably be able to help identify some of the sites -- she suspected that some of them were old ICBM silos that had been decommissioned in her reality.
The door opened behind her again, and she turned, expecting one of her teammates or Markus. But it was none of them. Elizabeth smiled in greeting as she pushed the door open with her shoulder, balancing a tray. She had a wonderful kindness in her face that Sam had warmed to the moment they'd met at dinner yesterday.
"Hi. I brought you dinner. Markus said you probably weren't going to come down, so someone should go up to you with a tray. I also brought coffee."
Sam stood up and cleared a space on the desk for her to bring the tray, grabbing the coffee. "You are an angel. Thank you. Please, would you join me?" she invited. "I've been stuck in this room all by myself with no one to talk to for a couple of hours."
Elizabeth plucked one of the two apples off the tray and settled down into one of the gray roll-around desk chairs. "I already ate, but I brought dessert, just in case you wanted company."
"Perfect." Sam smiled back at her and settled down to her dinner. "So tell me, where does the mountain get meat? Is there a level with a herd of cows I haven't seen?"
Laughing in delight, Elizabeth shook her head. "No, no cattle. Though there are chickens on level ten."
Sam stared at her, trying to imagine chickens instead of the labs and offices of the floor. It couldn't be true. "You're kidding me."
"No, I'm not. Really, we have a dozen or so. For eggs," she explained. "I think it was about ten years ago, when we first began to venture Outside, Markus thought about getting some. We've been breeding them ever since. We eat the extra roosters. All the rest of the meat we get by trade or hunting parties in the mountains. And of course we have huge freezers, so it all keeps a long time."
Sam ate her mashed potatoes thoughtfully, reflecting that Markus had been right, they were quite tasty. "The more I learn about this place the more impressed I am. Honestly, I've gone to work in this place for the last seven years and I can't even imagine trying to run it when I was a teenager. I take it you're one of the original residents?"
Nodding, Elizabeth finished off her apple, core and all, leaving only the stem, which she put on the tray. "My dad was one of the sergeants here." She glanced up at the display, her gaze distant. "He wasn't supposed to, but he brought me in. I was seven." She frowned, thinking back. "I don't remember much before the Big Death anymore. It's like some weird dream."
"I can understand that. You were pretty young." Sam finished her dinner and used her utility blade to section her apple. "Still, I was just saying to Markus how amazing it is that you managed to keep this place up and running. When I volunteered to help upgrade the systems, I thought things would be in much worse shape. There's some talented engineers around here."
Elizabeth laughed and shook her head. "You don't know, do you?" She leaned forward as if confiding a secret. "Sam, Markus is the one that kept this place going. He doesn't do it so much anymore, since now we've got engineering teams, but in the early days if anything broke, we'd bring it to him and he'd fix it. Or if he couldn't fix it, he'd get something to work in its place."
For a moment Sam stared at her in amazement and mushrooming dismay. "Oh God," Sam put her face in her hands and groaned. "I'm sure he thought I was condescending to him when I told him what a nice job someone had done with the computer. Why didn't he tell me to shut up?"
"Well, first, because he's usually not so rude," the amusement in Elizabeth's tone made Sam lift her head. "And second, because he was playing a trick on you. He knew you didn't know, and I'm sure he thought it was funny." She shrugged and rolled her eyes, exactly like an exasperated sibling would. "Markus has sort of an odd sense of humor sometimes. We've all learned to live with it."
Sam looked at the computer at her elbow with new eyes. Without her training and classes in physics and engineering, she doubted she could have done the same; she didn't have the innate mechanical aptitude. She had known an auto mechanic who had dropped out of school at eighth grade but who could fix any engine. This was similar, but she suspected it was really something else. There had to be more, something she wasn't seeing. Something that connected Markus to the Tok'ra Malek in her reality. The Tok'ra wouldn't have bothered with a Tau'ri engineer, no matter how talented.
"You've known him a long time," Sam said, gently probing for information.
"All my life. Or so it seems, anyway."
"And has he always been like this?" Sam asked. "I mean, he came to check on me two hours ago, and he's got to have more on his mind than my little project."
Elizabeth nodded. "He likes to know what's going on. He takes his responsibilities very seriously. Always has." She thought for a moment then smiled. "A little too much maybe. Sometimes we have to make him let other people help, since he'd do it all himself otherwise. But he doesn't brag about what he can do, he just does it." She laughed and shook her head. "Not that he doesn't have an ego that barely fits through the door. He thinks he's always right, and he's completely insufferable when he has to say 'I told you so' to anyone." Elizabeth shot a glance at the door, to make sure Markus wasn't coming in and confided, jokingly, but with a serious undertone. "The five percent of the time he's wrong make it possible to live with him."
Sam chuckled. Elizabeth stood up and gathered the tray. "I'll take this. But please return the cup to the cafeteria."
"Of course. Thanks for visiting with me."
"Sure. I hope you're successful with…" she glanced up at the big board, "whatever you're doing here."
Sam watched her leave and then sipped her coffee, thinking. Elizabeth had given her some interesting tidbits of information. But none of it explained how or why Malek had found Markus in her reality.
"Or did Markus find Malek?" she wondered, speaking aloud. The second Stargate had been operational for almost three years. Had Markus found a way off Earth through the other gate and become Malek's host in space?
She shook her head, deciding it didn't matter, until and unless they could get home. Getting home was the priority now.
Turning to the computer she started to input the parameters for the next sweep. With any luck the cross match of electricity and general power usage with the presence of radiation would narrow the field significantly.
---+---
General Waverly smashed his fist into the wall. Damn that Lee Chen. How could that young man have been so careless as to let himself get caught?
"Sir, the satellite network is moving again. Thunder Mountain is looking for something specific, yet I can't figure out what it is."
The General began pacing, back and forth behind the communications officer. "How narrow is their search?" he asked.
"North America. I wonder if they're trying to find us?" the sergeant asked rhetorically, then turned back to his screen. "Although they're looking at each corner, not only the east. But I can't understand how they were able to unlock the codes to the network, sir, unless someone gave it to them."
But who? The question echoed inside his head. O'Neill? A troublemaker, yes, but loyal all these years. And what about his partner Kawalsky? The captain hadn't mentioned him at all, but the two were peas in a pod and never went anywhere apart. Maybe Gordon was right and this was a mistake.
He needed to know what had happened in Millhaven. Had O'Neill really ratted out Chen? Or had Chen turned traitor, and sought to recruit O'Neill and Kawalsky? Waverly nodded to himself. The latter made more sense. O'Neill and Kawalsky were career soldiers. They complained about their commanders and their orders, but they obeyed them anyway, mostly. They certainly had given no indication of an intent to go AWOL or of support for Thunder Mountain's rebellion. But someone with Chen's slyness might believe that they were ripe for recruitment.
In any case, there were too many questions to leave them loose.
He turned to his aide. "Airman, send a message to Millhaven. I want both O'Neill and Kawalsky picked up and detained for questioning."
---+---
Daniel carried his dinner tray over to where Kurdy and Jeremiah were finishing up their meal. "Mind if I join you?" he asked.
Although Jeremiah looked as if he might object, Kurdy waved him to the seat beside him. "Plenty of space. Elizabeth just left to take one of your friends dinner."
"Thanks." Daniel sat down and unfolded his cloth napkin. It looked like it had been cut out of curtains, since it was a large violet and green floral pattern. "I've been wanting to talk to you. Markus said that you two know a lot about the outside world."
"Yeah, we grew up out there," Kurdy said. He finished his food, pushed his tray to the side, and put his elbows on the table. "Didn't find this place 'til about a year ago. To the folk outside it's a legend, the place where the water runs, and the lights are bright. They call it the End of the World."
Jeremiah snorted. "Which sounds all romantic and shit, until you know that the mountain's recon teams purposefully spread the story to get ready for the big day that Thunder Mountain would come roaring out of its hole to save the world."
He said the words sarcastically, but Daniel had enough experience with reading Jack's true meaning to hear the belief underlying the words.
"So what's it like out there?" he asked.
"Tough," Kurdy answered. "People are gettin' by, scraping up the last bits of the old world. Cans of food are like gold, hoarded, used as trade, but rarely opened and eaten. Some people burn books to keep warm. And all our clothes are pretty much falling apart. A few places have started over, planting crops and stuff, but not many."
"A guy with friends and some guns can rule a town," Jeremiah added. "It's like the wild west from the old movies, but without any sheriffs."
"They're not all bad," Kurdy went on. "Some places are organized, kind of like this place -- they've got their leaders, some infrastructure and planning. But only on a town-by-town basis."
Daniel nodded thoughtfully. "Since you say that resources are getting scarce, I imagine there's fighting over them." The other two gave him a 'well, duh' look. Daniel decided to shift to something more useful to the mission to get home. "I presume also there are a whole bunch of religions and cults that have sprung up."
Jeremiah and Kurdy exchanged a look. "Yeah," Kurdy agreed. "You'd be right."
"Do you know of any Egyptian-based ones?" Daniel asked. He smiled when they both gave him a puzzled look. "I'm an Egyptologist by training," he explained. "I'm curious if any of that has come back into popularity."
Jeremiah shook his head and shrugged. But Kurdy seemed to be thinking about it a little more. "Egypt. Yeah, there was something…. They had a thing for cats, right?"
"Yes. Their gods were Ra. Apophis. Hathor. Osiris. Seth." Daniel reeled off the names, looking for recognition in either of their faces.
"Seth," Kurdy blurted. "Someone talked to us about Seth."
Jeremiah straightened, memory pricked by the same name, and glanced across at Kurdy. "No, man, it wasn't us. Remember? It was in Simon's journal. Some girl in a slinky dress and eyeliner talked to him about worshipping Seth."
"Really?" Daniel couldn't hide his excitement. "What else?"
But neither of them remembered anything more about the entry, so Daniel asked, "Can I see this journal?"
"Markus keeps it when we don't have it," Kurdy said, suddenly wary. Daniel wondered why the journal was so special. "You'll have to ask him."
"I will. Thanks." Daniel decided that was enough. He'd have something to report to Jack about Seth, and hopefully between the information in this journal and whatever Sam could find out, they'd have a clue about Seth's location. At the very least he could confirm that Seth was active.
"Where're the rest of your buddies?" Jeremiah asked after a moment, to break the silence.
The real answer was that Sam was up in NORAD, Jack was on Markus-watch, and Teal'c was resting, to prepare for his shift of Markus-watch that night. But Daniel shrugged, not sure how much he could say. "Around."
In a quieter voice, Kurdy said, "Jeremiah told me about how you guys found proof against Lee. That was good work."
"Well, it's not done yet," Daniel said.
Kurdy frowned, until Jeremiah gave him a significant look. "I told you, Kurdy. What Erin said."
"Oh yeah. That sucks." Kurdy twisted around to glance up at the window of Markus' office. The lights were on up there, though the angle was such that no one could see anything but the ceiling from the cafeteria floor. Then he looked around at the thinning crowd eating and chattering at the tables around them with suspicion in his dark eyes.
Daniel made a decision to let them in on the plan. With Sam busy upstairs, they could use a couple of extra bodies. Lowering his voice to a murmur, he said to his meatloaf, "She asked us to watch out for Markus. She's afraid someone here might come after him, now that Lee's out of the picture."
Kurdy's eyes widened. "No shit."
Daniel nodded. He drank some water and wiped his mouth before answering. "Jack's upstairs right now, keeping a watch on the corridor outside his office."
Jeremiah chuckled in disbelief. "And he's actually allowing this?"
"He doesn't know."
Kurdy's bark of laughter caused quite a few heads to turn. The three of them were quiet until the attention turned away again. Then Kurdy leaned forward. "C'mon, Daniel, he doesn't know about it? And here I thought that nothing happens in the mountain without him knowing about it." He laughed again, more quietly.
"We're trying to be subtle," Daniel said. "But it'd be a lot easier if we had some help. You two interested?"
Kurdy didn't hesitate and didn't look at his friend before answering. "I'm in," he said, his tone and expression abruptly very serious.
Jeremiah's brows drew together sharply in a frown, and his thoughts obviously were not good ones. Then he gave a brief shrug. "I watched somebody shoot him once. I'd rather not see it again. I'm in."
"Great. I'll go tell Jack, and we'll coordinate a schedule." He piled his dishes back on his tray and stood. "Thanks, guys."
INDEX or Chapter 7