Hydra Page 3

Daniel shrugged it off. He wasn’t worried about loyalties, evidently. “You’d think by now I’d be more used to this kind of thing,” he said. He was back in the Fort Daniel pose, but Jack could tell his curiosity was going to be too much for him. Jack could almost hear the high-speed whirring of his disc spinning up. Sooner or later, there was going to be fast-paced lecturing, with or without the laser pointer and the incomprehensible slide show. Jack shifted his weight, bracing for it. Daniel opened his mouth, but all he said was, “But, you know, the whole doppelganger thing, it never stops being unsettling.”

  “How do you think I feel?” Jack asked. “Like one Daniel wasn’t enough to give a guy gray hairs.”

  Daniel focused on Jack’s reflection in the glass. “I saw another you there, too, remember. So maybe we all get to have gray hairs.”

  Wrinkling his nose in distaste, Jack shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, raised his chin at the reflections of Carter and Teal’c, and said in his best singsong Dorothy voice, “And you were there, and you were there.”

  “Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe you’ll even like this one better.” Daniel lifted his fingers off his elbow and waggled them toward the double. “Maybe he loves things that explode.”

  “Maybe he likes poking sticks at Jaffa. I wouldn’t call that better.” The monitor over his head showed the same scene as the window did, but somehow Jack found it easier to look at. “Similar, but not better.”

  Speaking of poking, Fraiser was about to stick the other Daniel with one of the many needles he had to look forward to, but he put his hand on her arm.

  “Look,” he said, his voice sounding a little tinny through the speaker. “I can save you a lot of time.”

  “If you’re gonna place your bets, do it now,” Jack said, leaning forward and feeling the others do the same.

  The other Daniel was looking directly at them now. “We need to talk,” he said distinctly, like enunciating would somehow make the words carry the weight of an order. Then he pressed his thumb to a spot in the middle of his sternum.

  “Great,” Jack muttered as he looked at the blinking lights exposed when the other Daniel’s chest opened outward like a book. There was stuff there that reminded Jack of the inside of his stereo.

  Surprised, Fraiser stepped back. Then she leaned in a bit and aimed her pen light into the workings. She was reaching out a tentative, curious finger when the robot advised mildly, “I wouldn’t.” She snatched her hand away.

  Leaning back awkwardly so that she could see into the observation booth from inside her hood, Fraiser said, “Colonel, I think we can say that my services aren’t going to be relevant here.”

  “But,” Carter said, “the duplicates of us were destroyed last year, on Juna. That Daniel is — ” She looked at Daniel. “Isn’t it — he?”

  Daniel just raised his eyebrows at her and then looked at the robot. He opened his mouth and closed it again. “Well, maybe — I mean obviously — there are…more.” His eyebrows came down again in a frown, and his fingers did a little dance that Jack assumed was meant to indicate somebody making knockoffs of real people in his basement. Of course, Daniel would put it more diplomatically.

  “Harlan,” Teal’c said.

  “Harlan.” Jack’s hands made a choking motion around an imaginary neck in the air in front of him. “I do believe that I’m going to kick his jolly ass.” He went to the phone and ordered a nice, sturdy cell for their guest and, remembering the strength of the robot duplicates they’d watched expire on Juna, added a double detail of extra-burly marines for good measure.

  As he stalked out of the observation gallery, he heard the robot say, “Lock me up if you have to, but I need to talk to General Hammond. It’s important.”

  The team followed along as Jack headed down the corridor. “I knew we should’ve destroyed that equipment when we had the chance,” he muttered.

  They were in the elevator before Daniel opened his mouth to make the standard speech about respecting boundaries and sovereignty and not being the ones in charge of the whole universe and everything in it, but Jack raised his hand to silence him. Daniel faced the door with the weary sigh of the man who never gets to finish his speeches about boundaries and sovereignty yadda yadda. Jack stared at the numbers on the panel and tried not to grind his teeth.

  “All I’m saying,” Daniel blurted, because he had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, “is that we need to hear his story.”

  “Remember the bodies, Daniel,” Jack said. “Remember the angry, angry Jaffa.”

  “Indeed,” Teal’c said. “We cannot allow such violence to be done in our name.”

  “Obviously.” Daniel wisely kept the “but” to himself.

  As they filed off the elevator on level 28, Jack stopped Daniel with a hand on his arm. “Just keep that in mind when you’re talking to it.”

  “Him.” Daniel’s jaw had that stubborn set to it that made Jack want to try out retirement again.

  “That,” Jack said, “is not helping.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  NID Primary “Hydra” Project Site, Perseus (P66-421)

  May, 2002; six months prior to invasion of Eshet

  Carlos Mendez missed his cell phone. He missed his email, and his recliner, and Sundays spent in front of the TV with a beer, watching his two favorite football teams consistently lose. He even missed his father, who hadn’t tried to understand why Carlos was going to be gone for months and had resorted to family guilt to try to keep him from leaving. Family honor was a big thing with Joe Mendez, perhaps the only thing that had ever mattered to him. Carlos had looked his dad in the eye and told him this was the most important project he’d ever been assigned. After all these months, he was actually starting to believe he’d told his father the truth.

  The base was fully functional now, all the bells and whistles in place, and more personnel were arriving every day. Most were arriving via transport from Earth or from the roundabout network of gates set up to bypass any potential conflict or interaction with the SGC’s scheduled off-world visits. The team handler was on his way and would soon be directing off-world missions, one more invisible cog in the vast network being built around Operation Hydra. He smiled at the thought of the name. Clearly someone higher up in the NID had a sense of humor. Possibly they thought this operation was the stuff of legend.

  If Carlos had his way, he intended to make it memorable as well as successful.

  He pulled a small bag out from under the desk — more of a table, really, with sturdy, ugly metal legs — and sifted through it. None of his personnel were permitted to bring personal items off-world — less chance of being identified, should their operations ever be uncovered. There was a standard party line, and all the loyal were expected to follow it. But Carlos had his own ideas about the party line.

  He pulled out a small statue of an angel, kneeling, her wings outspread and her hands clasped, and placed it on the shelf behind him, next to a stack of start-up manuals and readiness reports.

  “Guardian angel?”

  Carlos turned his head. A young man in a black T-shirt and regulation BDUs stood in the doorway. He wore an overshirt that seemed two times too large for him, and his hair was a little too shaggy. His hands were in his pockets, mostly, Carlos figured, because they were habitually fidgety.

  “Something like that,” Carlos answered. “Can I help you?”

  “Was told to report to you.” The kid — probably in his twenties, but he was still a kid to Carlos — took a couple tentative steps into the room, then moved a little faster when Carlos didn’t stop him. He pulled up short in front of the desk, almost at attention, but not quite. Just enough off the mark to suit Carlos. “I’m Mike Talbot.”

  “Ah. You’re the operations expert.” He cocked his head and gave Talbot the once-over. For someone recruited straight out of the ranks, he seemed a little off-kilter, the kind of guy who’d wear a uniform but chafe under it.

  Talbot smiled, as if he could tell what Carlos was t
hinking. “Army was a way out of where I started off,” he said. “But this is a better opportunity, where I can do what I do best.”

  “Which is?”

  “Manage people,” Talbot said. “Procuring things. That’s what I’m good at.”

  “Not good at taking orders?”

  Talbot’s smile flashed into a grin, then retreated. “Not really.”

  “Better get good at it,” Carlos said, as mildly as he knew how, and was gratified to see the smile dim a little. Not that he wanted to eat the kid for breakfast or anything, but he was not a fan of undisciplined soldiers. In his experience, they only slowed things down. Fortunately, the NID had been careful about their screening. Only the cream of the rebellious crop was coming in now.

  Talbot had a good reputation. The file said he’d served with distinction in the Army in two intelligence assignments, but he’d been languishing at Area 51 as a lackey to the scientists there. The NID had seized its chance. No one was more ready to be useful than the bored and underutilized, or so said the recruitment doctrine.

  “You’re being given an enormous responsibility,” Carlos said. “You’ll be the handler for up to ten operational teams. Their every communication will be through you. You’ll be their lifeline, their point of contact. They’ll come to trust you.”

  “But they’re robots, right?” There was an interesting light in Talbot’s eyes, a spark of deep curiosity. “That’s what I was told.”

  “Not exactly. They’re duplicates.” Carlos handed Talbot a thick file. “Study up. These are your best friends from now on.”

  Talbot opened the file and turned pale. “These are…I met Major Carter, once. She’s…I…” He shifted the file, as if it had suddenly become heavier. “You made a robot of her?”

  “Duplicate,” Carlos said, in a tone he hoped would convey that he didn’t want to have to correct Talbot again. Talbot swallowed and nodded. Carlos pushed in his chair and came around the desk. “Your handle will be Piper. That’s the only identifying name you need. Understand?”

  “Yeah.” Talbot closed the file but tucked it under his arm.

  “Mr. Mendez?” He turned toward the urgent call. One of the technicians, Peterson, stood in the doorway, clipboard clutched tightly to his chest. “We’re about to activate the alpha team, sir. I think you should be in the observation room when it happens.”

  Carlos gave Talbot — Piper — a quick glance. “Study up quickly on your new project. You’ll be meeting them in just a few minutes.”

  Piper swallowed hard, but fished the file back out and began flipping through it. The look of intense, earnest concentration on his face made Carlos think back to his own early days with the military, when he still thought doing a good job was what counted.

  “Let’s go,” he said, pointing at the door.

  Carlos followed Peterson down the narrow corridor of the building, Piper behind him. He wasn’t sure what this place had been before they took over the abandoned structure, but clearly their architecture wasn’t about space and light. Everything was damp and dark and reminded him of concrete bunkers. It served its purpose, however. They wouldn’t be there forever.

  “By the way, stop calling me ‘sir,’” Carlos said, offering Peterson what he hoped was a less scary smile than the one his superior often gave him.

  “I’ll try,” Peterson said, eyeing him.

  “The technology is operating properly?” Carlos asked, as Peterson shoved open the steel door separating the duplication lab from the rest of the facility.

  “With some minor bugs.” Peterson waited for Carlos to pass him, then slowly pushed the door shut. “We still don’t understand all the proprietary code, but it hasn’t been an issue. We do understand the programming, and that’s been a simple matter to change.”

  Carlos nodded. The danger of any stolen technology was hard to see until they began using it. This technology had been one of the NID’s best steals, even if its operatives took several years to get around to it. No question, Jack O’Neill’s intervention two years before had set back off-world operations a decade or more — so many personnel lost, and others gone underground until the smoke cleared. It gave Carlos some satisfaction to think how O’Neill would react to the knowledge his duplicates would be doing the work he’d tried so hard to undo. Eventually they’d figure out how to make new duplicates, instead of using the stored patterns from SG-1 again and again, but it was all a useful experiment; they were nearing the day they’d be able to completely control the programming.

  “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

  When Jack opened his eyes, he blinked at the bland white ceiling tiles overhead, their long expanse broken by suspended fluorescent lights, and knew he wasn’t anyplace where he should reasonably be flat on his back unconscious. Where the hell had they just been? Were they off-world? Why couldn’t he remember what they’d been doing? He twisted his head experimentally. Nothing seemed to be out of alignment. No reason not to sit up and look for his team.

  Except for the skinny guy looming over him, squinting at him the way someone might clinically examine a bug. “Take it easy, Colonel,” Squinty said.

  Jack took one quick glance around the room: glass windows on two sides looked only into other rooms pretty much the same, consoles doing that blinky thing consoles did. Security forces were scattered around at strategic locations, their weapons lowered, but they were watching Jack carefully. Their posture was entirely military, their uniforms devoid of identifying patches or ribbons. All of them were too far away to make grabbing for a weapon very practical.

  Jack pushed up, forcing Squinty to quickly back up a few paces, like he didn’t want to be within reach. Smart man. He was wearing basic fatigues, no name tag. His hair was a little long around the ears, and he seemed both nervous and eager. No clues as to who he was, though he was speaking unaccented English. No epiphanies about where they were came fast enough for Jack, so he stood up. Better to have his feet under him, whatever was going on. His naked, oh so very naked feet, at the end of his naked legs, which were below his naked —

  “Damn,” Jack said, trying to approximate clothes by artfully arranging his hands. Which were too small. There was a joke in that. For some other time. Meanwhile, his assets were hanging out.

  “Uh, we have these for you,” Squinty said. He held out a blue plastic bag at arm’s length, an expression of embarrassed sympathy on his face. Jack snatched it from him, dumped the contents on the floor, and picked through them: one black T-shirt, skivvies, a pair of olive BDUs, a belt, some socks, and some slipper-looking things. The skin on his back was prickling, and he did his best to keep everyone in sight, backing up against the bed while he yanked the clothes on as fast as humanly possible and stood up again, twitchy at having started out vulnerable and not even noticing for a half-minute. Squinty wasn’t actually staring; he seemed to be trying hard to look everywhere but at Jack. Even so, the level of Squinty’s interest gave Jack the heebie-jeebies.

  Jack stepped out from the bed a little way. Although they made no overt movements, he could feel the soldiers tensing, practically hear their heartbeats kick up a notch. “Who the hell are you?”

  Squinty shifted his weight from foot to foot and offered a small smile.

  “I’m Piper.”

  At the left edge of Jack’s peripheral vision, Carter sat up, rubbing at her eyes. Jack diplomatically lifted his gaze to her face, the better to not see her. She wrinkled her nose, eyes darting from Squinty to Jack, just as Daniel crashed up and out of his own bed on her right. He was blinking like an owl. They caught sight of each other and turned away, saying in identical tones, “Oh, boy — sorry,” before noticing their own nakedness.

  “All right, there, Carter? Daniel?”

  “Fine, sir,” Carter answered, hands flying up to her own assets, though she sounded confused. Waking up naked in a room full of strangers would do that to a person. A couple of guards tossed bags to Daniel and Carter, who disappeared out of Jack�
�s line of sight for a minute to throw on their own clothes.

  Jack contemplated asking another question, but with his team in various states of undress, maybe waiting would be best. Instead he measured the distance from where he was standing to the only door he could see — 20 feet — and estimated the odds of taking out enough of the guards to make it that far. Not good.

  Daniel moved closer to Carter, hair flopping in his face. He raised a hand to adjust his glasses and, since he had none, ended up staring at the hand for a second like it belonged to someone else. “Jack? Where are we?”

  “Don’t know.” Jack pivoted back to Piper. Behind him, some guy in a white lab coat was furiously making notes on his clipboard, pen going a mile a minute. To both of them, Jack said, “How about it? A little explanation?”

  Lab-coat guy flinched, as if startled to have been addressed by Jack, and raised his eyebrows at Piper, who said, “You bet. As soon as…” He looked significantly past Jack’s right shoulder, to where Teal’c was now sitting up, only to be met by a guard roughly his size, holding a bag.

  “O’Neill,” Teal’c said. “I am without a symbiote.”

  The full implications of that rattled around in Jack’s head and sorted themselves out into the simple conclusion that someone didn’t care much if Teal’c lived or died. That upped the stakes of whatever game this was considerably.

  “Please follow me,” Piper said, making it sound like a pleasant picnic invitation.

  Jack fixed Piper with a narrow gaze. “Lead the way.”

  Piper gestured to one of the guards, who swiped a card across the access panel. “Through there,” he said, stepping aside as the door slid slowly open. Jack collected his team with a glance.

  The corridors were military gray. Jack felt like he’d been in a hundred bases just like this one. It was a pretty good approximation of standard issue military quarters: lots of closed doors marked with numbers, few windows that opened only into other rooms. The others were quiet. Jack could practically feel Teal’c getting ready to pounce, given the right opportunity.