FIC: Zymotic (2/12)
Chapter 2
Marzun was right. Before twenty-four hours had passed, Jack understood all too well. If the effects of the disease weren’t apparent enough just from Jack’s own hallucinations and disorientation, he only had to listen to the frequent screams and frightened cries coming from outside their tiny quarters to get a clue.
As much as he dreaded going out there, Jack knew that he couldn’t deny the reality of his situation forever. After a few hours of rest, Jack convinced Marzun to take him out into the colony while Derya slept.
Colony… that wasn’t the word Jack would have used to describe this place, he realized as he stepped out of the little room and looked around him. It looked more like a dungeon or a prison with its greasy stone walls and floor, dark tunnels that looked like gaping mouths opening out of the main square, thick wooden doors covered with long, deep scratch marks, and complete lack of windows. The occasional wall-mounted torch was the only source of light, and all they really did was cast eerie shadows on the walls and make the place seem even more claustrophobic and terrifying.
“What the hell is this place?” he muttered.
“This is the Colony,” Marzun said, though Jack had intended the question to be rhetorical. “This is where those stricken with the Death are sent so that we do not infect others.”
Jack snorted, thinking about the leper colonies he’d heard about back on Earth. “I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that this place is such a dump,” he said. “Your people obviously don’t believe in making someone’s last days as comfortable as possible.”
Marzun gave him an odd look. “It is not possible for us to be… comfortable,” he said, as though the idea were completely foreign to him. “They send us food and clothing, but beyond that there is nothing anyone can do. No one from the outside can enter here, or they would die. Once one of the Dead touches one of the living, they are finished.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Jack said, subconsciously rubbing the arm that the crazy guy had grabbed for no more than a second. He shuffled his feet nervously and looked around at the doors that were near their own. “So,” he said, “where is everybody?”
“It is night,” Marzun said. “They are sleeping.”
“Night?” Jack repeated. “How the hell can you tell? We’re underground, right?”
Marzun nodded gravely. “You will see once the Death progresses,” he said. “We do not need the sun to tell us the time of day. We know it instinctively.”
Jack was almost impressed for a second before he remembered what the other effects of this thing were. “So, even though you’re hallucinating and going insane, at least you’re never late for supper, right?” he said wryly.
Marzun was about to reply when a sudden eerie cry tore through the air, chilling Jack to the bone.
“Quickly,” Marzun said, pushing Jack back towards their quarters. He opened the door, shoved Jack inside, and slammed the door shut behind them. Seconds later, the sound of heavy, rapid footsteps went by, accompanied by animal-like panting and howling.
“What the hell was that?” Jack asked anxiously once all was silent again.
“That was Jumas,” Marzun replied. “If you ever hear that sound while you are outside this room… run. He does not leave his quarters very often, but when he does… he believes he is a wild animal, and he is very difficult to control.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” Jack rolled his eyes and sank back down onto his blankets. “So… this is what I’ve got to look forward to, is it?” he said wearily. “Turning into a wild animal like that guy?”
Marzun shook his head and sat down on the floor beside him. “Not everyone is as weak-minded as Jumas,” he said.
Jack studied Marzun closely in the dim light for a few moments before he spoke again. “Speaking of which,” he said slowly, “why is it that you and Derya seem so… sane? In the last five hours, I’ve had at least half a dozen hallucinations, all of which have scared the crap out of me, yet you guys have been perfectly lucid the whole time.” He glanced over at Derya, who was still sleeping soundly in his corner of the room. “And how come he can sleep peacefully through The Night of the Living Dead over there?” he added.
Marzun sighed and passed a hand over his eyes as though he was reluctant to answer. “Derya and I…” He paused and shook his head. “We have been here for many years,” he continued. “We were both stricken as youths, and we have already suffered through the hallucinations and the terror and the rage. Now our minds are calm… we are near the end.”
“You mean… this thing just… plays itself out, and then you’re fine?” Jack asked, confused.
“After many years of suffering, if one manages to survive so long, the Death offers us a few months of peace before claiming us forever.”
Jack’s heart sank down into his shoes. “So… you’re about to die,” he said.
Marzun nodded. “Yes. That is why we brought you here, Jack… to protect you from the others until you were able to fend for yourself. Caring for the newly stricken is the duty of those who have reached the peace. Once we are gone, this room will be yours.”
Jack grimaced. “Thanks, but I think I’d rather get out of here and go home.”
“You cannot go…”
“Yeah, I get it, if I leave here I’ll just make other people sick,” Jack said impatiently. “But you don’t understand… I’m not even from this planet! My people have advanced medicine, one of the things your people have been trying to trade with my people to get their hands on. If I go back to my world, chances are they’d be able to cure me.”
Marzun looked surprised and almost hopeful for a moment, but then his look of sympathy and resignation returned. “Even if this were true,” he said gently, “there is no way out of the Colony.”
“If there’s a way in, there’s a way out,” Jack said firmly.
Marzun shook his head. “The way in is protected by a force shield that only allows one-way passage. Many have tried to pass through it to freedom, but none have survived. Either the shield itself kills them, or the guards on the other side shoot them down.”
“There are guards here?” Jack asked in surprise. “I thought you said nobody ever comes near the place.”
“The guards are protected by two shields,” Marzun said. “Their weapon fire can penetrate both with no difficulty. They do not need to come near us in order to kill us.”
Jack sighed and rubbed the top of his head in frustration. “Great,” he mumbled. “This is gonna be a breeze.”
“I know it is hard for you to accept,” Marzun said, laying a sympathetic hand on Jack’s arm, “but this place is now your home. These people are now your people. It may seem like a terrible place to you right now, but… there is kindness here. This is the road we all must travel before reaching the final peace.”
Jack gritted his teeth against the sarcastic retort that rose in his throat. He knew Marzun was only trying to help, but what he was saying sure wasn’t doing the trick. Staying in this God forsaken place until he came to feel that it was “home” was the last thing he planned to do. There had to be some way out, and he was determined that he was going to find it.
“We should both get some more rest,” he said, positioning himself as comfortably as he could on his pile of blankets.
He had a busy day ahead of him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jack awoke to the sound of gunfire.
“What the hell?” he muttered as he tried to regain his bearings. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was or what had happened, but then he saw them.
Replicators.
“Sir, we’ve set the autodestruct,” Carter’s voice crackled through his radio. “You have less than five minutes to tell us to override. Do you copy?”
“Roger that!” Jack yelled, his voice swallowed up by the shotgun fire all around him. He scrambled to his feet, grabbed his own weapon, and opened fire just as one of the little buggers was taking a flying leap at his head.
He kept one eye on the blast door even as he fired shot after shot at the Replicators, knowing that Daniel was in trouble on the other side. He never should have let Daniel go in there. He should have known it was a dumb idea to try to talk a robot out of doing whatever it damn well wanted to do.
“Colonel,” Carter’s voice crackled through the radio again. “I think Reese is losing control. At least one of the Replicators down here started to act on its own.”
Jack knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He headed over to the blast door, ready to charge through as soon as the hole had been cut.
“Jack? Jack, please! You must not open the door!”
“Get out of my way!” Jack shouted, shoving aside the airman who grabbed onto his arm. “Daniel’s in trouble!”
“Please, Jack… it is not real!”
Jack blinked and shook his head in confusion as the SGC and the Replicators vanished. “What…” He staggered to the side and raised his hand to his head as a wave of dizziness swept over him. “What just happened?”
“You must sit down,” Marzun said, gently lowering Jack back down onto his blankets. “It is not safe to open the door just now.”
“Why? What… was that gunfire real?”
“Yes,” Marzun said gravely. “Someone must have tried to pass through the shield.”
“What, they were hallucinating?” Jack said, suddenly feeling cold. He didn’t like to think that one day that could be him, walking unconsciously into forbidden territory and being gunned down before he had a chance to come to his senses.
“Perhaps,” Marzun said. “That is why Derya and I always stayed together - to protect each other from just such an… accident. But sometimes… it is not an accident.”
“Trying to escape?”
Marzun sighed as he settled back into his bedding. “Trying to escape the Death,” he said sadly. “Not the Colony.”
“Suicide,” Jack said blankly.
Marzun nodded.
Jack clenched his jaw and lay back down on his bed without another word. It wasn’t a pretty thought that people would rather be electrocuted and shot than live with this disease, but he knew he shouldn’t really be surprised. If he had to spend months or even years in this place he might be tempted to off himself, too, even if he had the hope of rescue and a cure always in the back of his mind.
Because there had to be a cure. The whole “curing the incurable” thing was what Fraiser did best, plus the Asgard and the Tok’ra had some pretty cool technology that just might do the trick. And even though the way into this place might not be the way out, there had to be another way. There was always a way. He’d been in worse situations than this many times and lived to tell the tale… why not this time?
“We are not pleased.”
Jack started at the sudden female voice and struggled to sit up. Something was holding him down, but it was too dark to see what it was.
Then he saw her eyes flash.
“Hathor.”
“Once host to a Goa’uld,” she said, holding the hissing, snapping symbiote over his face, “you will take the lives of your friends.”
Jack craned his neck to see past the Goa’uld and saw Carter and Daniel standing on the other side of the room looking scared and sick to their stomachs. He tried to call out to them, but his voice stuck in his throat as Hathor placed the symbiote on his chest.
“When you awaken from the joining,” Hathor continued, “you will kneel and pledge your loyalty… to us.”
Jack screamed in pain and anger as the symbiote burrowed into his neck. He could feel it wrapping itself around his brain stem and trying to take control of his mind, but he fought against it with every ounce of strength he had left.
And then it was gone.
Jack huddled under his blankets as he panted for breath and tried to bring his racing pulse back under control.
“Are you alright, Jack?” Marzun asked calmly from the other side of the room.
“I’m great,” Jack grumbled, suddenly feeling angry and somewhat jealous of Marzun and Derya’s lack of sporadic hysteria. “Just peachy.”
He couldn’t possibly get out of this place fast enough.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
To be continued...