Reaching for the next page of the notes he was reading, Daniel belatedly recalled his current state as the hand passed through the paper.
Turning to where Jack was crouched, he said, "Little help?"
With a heavy sigh, his friend pulled himself back to his feet. Coming over, he shoved the next page to the top of the pile and, with a put-upon air, headed back to continue searching through the latest pile of books that had been brought down from Daniel's office. This method of page-turning had slowed him down considerably...but with the small room already containing a naquadha reactor; Jack; Teal'c; a pile of books; a chalkboard and the three guys already in the room helping Sam... well, it was a little cramped for him to have his own designated page turner.
It was also pretty hard to concentrate on the translations given the conditions. After all, he couldn't take notes aside from on the Dictaphone which he needed Jack to operate. Also, he didn't normally have to bend over the translations because he couldn't actually make contact with the chair; nor contend with the fact Sam was having loud discussions with her helpers about five feet away from him... something about them not getting what she wanted them to write on the chalkboard. Plus, it was quite hard to concentrate when your friend, finding it amusing you weren't actually solid, kept throwing paper balls through you just because you kept asking him to find journals and turn pages for you every other minute. At least an over-attentive Teal'c was trying to give him a hand but, with the fact he was in the same state as himself and that they only had a single Jack O'Neill as a helper, it wasn't really speeding things up at all.
After reading halfway down the current page, Daniel was again interrupted; this time by Jack making a curious noise of discovery.
"No way... this can't actually exist."
Curiosity peaked, he looked up.
"What can't?"
Brandishing his find, Daniel saw it was one of his old purchases. A book he'd almost forgotten he owned until the name had been given a strange resonance by the Stromas incident.
Dismissively, he said, "Myths of the Chimera? That shouldn't be up here. It must have got mixed up after I was looking at it a few weeks ago."
With a strange energy to him, his friend asked, "What's this book about?"
"Well, of course you know about the Chimera..."
Looking at the blank expression on his friend's face, he said, "Okay, let's pretend you don't... It's from Greek mythology; a fire-breathing monster with a lion's head, a she-goat's body and a dragon's tail."
As if he'd known that all the time, Jack said, "Oh, that Chimera. So what's the book about?"
"Well the book looks more generally at creatures said to be composed of parts or aspects of various creatures. It looks at myths through the ages of monsters or mythical beasts that could be considered chimeric. Like Pegusus... or the Minotaur."
Teal'c, who'd been listening to the dialogue, intoned, "In our current condition, could we not be considered to be chimeric, Daniel Jackson? One creature made of many?"
"Yeah, it was after the Stromas incident that I was looking at that book and thinking about the parallels. Actually, if I had to give a one-word translation of Ha'ranas... Chimera'd probably be the closest match."
Jack was staring, dumbstruck, at the book. Daniel didn't think his friend would be one to care about how their situation had parallels with mythical beasts nor what the direct translation of Ha'ranas would be so he had no idea why it was provoking such an extreme reaction from him.
Looking up, his friend said, "Daniel, this is important, okay? Have I ever seen this book before? I mean, have you ever told me about it or been reading it when I'm there?"
For once, he could be pretty definite in his response, "No, it's been in storage for years. I only flicked through it once and you weren't there. Suppose it could've been lying in my bookcase and you saw it, though."
"Daniel, you're not gonna believe this... but I saw you reading this book before... and you told me that it'd tell me what the questions should be."
Okay, now he was confused. It felt like he and Jack had swapped their usual roles as, straightening up to look at his friend properly, he said, "What?"
Obviously Jack's brain was working too fast for common sense to kick in and tell him how nuts he sounded because he quickly said, "About what was wrong with me. You said the answers weren't in here but it might tell us what the questions should be."
Still feeling like the conversation had been surreally reversed somehow, Daniel demanded, "What? When was this?"
"When..."
Common sense finally seemed to have over-ridden his friend's excitement. His outburst had attracted the attention of Sam and her minions as well so, as he trailed off, there was a deathly silence in the room.
Clearly reading how uncomfortable the situation had just become for him, Sam gestured for her helpers to head out of the room. As they scurried obediently out, Daniel stepped closer to their friend and, softly, said, "Something you want to share with us, Jack?"
Awkwardly, his friend said, "Okay, but you're gonna think I'm nuts."
Disbelievingly, Daniel chuckled, "If we were gonna think that I think we'd have passed the point of no return a while ago, Jack."
As his friend looked up to catch the grin on his face, his mood lightened slightly and he said, "All right... when you were missing I... saw you a couple of times in the Infirmary."
"You saw us, sir?"
"No, not all of you... just Daniel."
Daniel arched his eyebrows.
"You saw me?"
"Yeah... see, you told me that none of you got affected by the energy and you were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. You said this place was just my subconscious trying to tell me something. You said it was all in my head."
Glancing at Sam for a moment, he saw the same spark of realisation in her eyes as he indicated the book in his hands.
"And I was reading that book?"
"Yeah... this exact book..."
"That's fascinating, sir. It must mean that, at some level you were already aware of that fact we'd been transferred into your head. Daniel must've been some sort of manifestation of your subconscious or something. You must've seen the book on Daniel's bookshelf and made the subconscious connection. You were trying to tell yourself what was going on."
Going to nod in agreement, a thought struck him.
"Wait, hold on... Jack, you really didn't know what a Chimera was until I just told you? You weren't just playing dumb?"
"No, Daniel, surprising as it might be, afraid I skipped class the day they were talking about fire-breathing things with manes and scales and insatiable appetites for tin cans; so sue me."
Locking eyes with Sam, who the point of the comment had actually been directed to, he explained, "No, I mean, even if you did know what had happened to you on some subconscious level, how could you have drawn a parallel to a Chimera?... Even if you'd seen the book before... how could you make that connection without knowing what it was?"
"Perhaps because it was not of O'Neill's mind... but of your own, Daniel Jackson."
Both he and Jack turned to look at the Jaffa and, with one voice, said, "What?"
"You will remember, Daniel Jackson, that when you first grew unwell on the planet, you described the sensation to us."
Getting his point, he nodded, "Like I was reaching out for something out of reach. I think you might be right, Teal'c."
"Wait, what did we just figure out?"
Sam, who obviously agreed with their theory, said, "I think we just figured out that the connections between us go deeper than we were thinking they did. I mean, you were either directly tapping into Daniel's knowledge or his subconscious was somehow communicating directly with you. Sir, I think it's possible that when Grelmin said we hadn't made enough progress yet... he meant that we aren't actually as connected yet as we have the potential to be."
Obviously not liking the sound of that, their friend said, "Actually, I think we're already far too connected. And should be less connected"
As Sam glanced over at him, he said, "Don't think anyone's disagreeing with you on that one, Jack... but I think Sam's right. I mean, is it just me or are those markings on the chalkboard making more sense than before?"
He saw Jack turn towards them dismissively.
"Of course not, they..."
Trailing off, he said, "I mean, obviously a few of the equations are pretty standard but I sure as hell don't know the first thing about capacitors."
"Sir, none of those equations are exactly standard... and how do you know they have anything to do with capacitors? I haven't said anything about that."
"Because it's obvious when you look at the ratios that you're dealing with amplification and, given that you're...." As he obviously saw looks on his friends' faces, he said, "Hey, you don't know I couldn't know that already."
Daniel nodded in acknowledgement.
"No, I guess you could have known that before... but did you?"
"Um, well, obviously I did because otherwise I wouldn't have said it."
Experimentally, Daniel muttered something in Goa'uld to Teal'c who lips imperceptibly twitched upwards at the comment.
"Hey, I am not!"
He and Teal'c shared a look.
"You heard what I just said?"
"Course I did; I'm not deaf..."
Pointedly, he added, "To Teal'c? In Goa'uld?"
There was a flash of alarm in his friend's eyes before, rallying, he said, "Of course not. Doesn't take a genius to know that you were muttering something about me."
"Jack, there's no point in pretending. Something else is starting to happen to us."
Carter added, "Mostly to the Colonel, though. I mean, I felt like I should know what you were saying to Teal'c but I didn't..."
Nodding in agreement, he replied, "I didn't actually know about the capacitors either. We must just be getting vague echoes but Jack..."
Jack put up his hands defensively.
"Hey, whatever you may think, I'm not smarter than the average bear, okay?"
Daniel turned his gaze on him.
"But you do know what's on that chalkboard... and you do know what I said to Teal'c, don't you?"
Sagging in defeat slightly, his friend replied, "Okay, yeah, apparently I know a few things I shouldn't. Now, please, can we stop focusing on fascinating aspects of having our minds linked up together and concentrate on unlinking them?"
Sam settled down onto the bed and tried to blank her mind. Well, she tried to think that she had settled down onto the bed but it was more a case of being manoeuvred onto the bed by various other occupants of this body she shared.
Getting ready for bed had involved stripping certain shared bodies down to their T-shirts and boxers which, given her rather uncomfortable proximity, was not something a certain other occupant of the body was entirely happy doing. Therefore, in order to try and make it a little less uncomfortable for him, she'd tried to remain silent during the getting ready for bed stage. Certain occupants of the body had also elected to pull a pair of grey jogging pants on as well before getting into the bed.
Glancing up at the camera on the wall, she sighed and pulled on the skull cap that connected to the EEG scanner. Janet had given them leave to sleep in the Colonel's quarters rather than the infirmary on the understanding that they were under constant observation and had the scanner on to monitor their unique brain patterns whilst sleeping.
They hadn't actually slept since waking up in the Colonel's body so there was no telling what the experience would be like. Actually, she wondered if it was even possible for them to reach a state anything like natural sleep given that the Colonel's brain was overactive and sleep normally entailed brain activity dropping significantly.
She idly wondered if they would all fall asleep together or if individual consciousnesses could fall asleep whilst others were awake so long as the conscious ones didn't do anything to wake them up. She'd have to remember to ask Daniel in the morning providing they got to sleep at all. Janet was more than slightly hesitant about giving them any type of sedation to help them along.
Staring at the ceiling, she was aware of being incredibly tired. Since awakening in the Colonel's body, they'd been to the planet and back then done hours of various research and experimentation. Even so, it'd taken the Colonel physically pulling the plug on the neural link to stop her and Daniel from working on even later.
Feeling the Colonel's eyelids beginning to grow heavy, she couldn't quite believe everything that had happened since she had finally fallen asleep on Daniel's couch after the coffee had worn off. It was the last time she'd actually slept - unconsciousness, blackouts and imaginary sleep on an imaginary planet didn't really count. When she'd closed her eyes then, she'd visualised her next day as a simple mission on a beautiful planet followed by an all-nighter looking in more depth at the mineral samples then catching a few hours sleep and collecting Cass before heading on their week's vacation up to Toronto - where Cass was supposedly from but had never yet visited. But instead of taking Cass up to the sky pod of the CN tower, here she was trapped inside the Colonel's body with no sign yet of any way out of this situation. And, hell, if anyone was to blame for it; it was most definitely her.
As the eyes shut and left her staring at the inside of the Colonel's eyelids, she swore inwardly that she would find a way to fix this. She only hoped that she could do that before, as prophesied, they started to go completely nuts. Then again, she wasn't exactly at her most useful right now...
Daniel stood with translucent arms wrapped across translucent torso and tried to tell himself that he was entirely solid and this felt in no way unnerving. He spared a glance to where Grelmin's device sat atop a trolley before casting his gaze around the rest of the briefing room. Like him, Sam and Teal'c stood behind their chairs through necessity... well, okay, they could've sat down but only in that they could've walked through the chairs then crouched and given the illusion they were sitting which didn't really seem worth the effort. The reason for this briefing was something of a mystery to him given that in practical terms they'd made zero progress today. Even with the neural link keeping their conscious minds separate, the ethereal nature of these forms put severe restrictions on how productive any research could be.
As the only physically solid member of their group, Jack was sitting on the chair to the General's right. Aside from their habitual seats - which they weren't using but no-one seemed to feel right occupying in their place - the other seats were occupied by the various guys - aside from Doctor Lee, he didn't know their names - Sam had been using, without success, to try and translate her ideas into the physical world which she couldn't interact with except through the Colonel.
Breaking from his contemplation, he heard Doctor Lee saying, "So anyway, we ran the numbers three times and we got the same result."
When no actual result was forthcoming, Hammond gently probed, "Doctor?"
"Oh...sorry. Yes, the result showed that to supply power to the pedestal device it will require running the naquadha reactor at 130% of the safe levels. That is, if the device runs on the same or similar principle as the pedestal device which obviously we're only guessing until the technical team arrives back from the planet."
"Oh please, you don't have to guess. It's blindingly obvious that it works on the same principle."
The voice, which had come from the doorway, seemed strangely familiar to him. In the few moments it took him to turn in that direction, he caught a look of resignation on Sam's face. As the face came into view the memory hit him at the same time as Jack said...
"McKay? What the...? Who the hell called you?"
Taking a bite of the half-eaten candy bar in his hand, and heading towards the table, the civilian scientist distractedly gestured towards the blonde Major and replied, "She did."
The last memory Daniel had of Rodney McKay was the man's look of dread as they'd packed him off to Russia to help them with their naquadha reactors. And at the time, he was pretty sure that Sam's feelings towards him were along the contempt and loathing lines. He guessed that he'd missed a chapter of the story somewhere during his time ascended. That said, Jack and Teal'c also looked rather taken aback by the revelation so maybe not.
Jack turned his full disbelieving gaze upon Sam's flickering image.
"You did?"
All she could do in response was shrug in a semi-apologetic manner.
Mouth full of candy, McKay gestured at the General.
"Well, technically he did but that was because she couldn't pick up the phone."
Smiling with acidic sweetness, Sam spoke through gritted teeth.
"Siddown, McKay."
Pulling the rest of the candy bar out of its wrapper, he slid into Teal'c's customary seat. Daniel tried not to notice the way the Jaffa's back momentarily stiffened before he attempted to appear unaffected by the move.
Hammond was not looking all that pleased with being offhandedly referred to as ‘he' in his presence - hell, he was a civilian who'd been with the program seven years; who'd been at barbeques at the General's place and he still called him ‘sir' - nor with the total lack of due deference McKay was giving him and the briefing in general. Daniel idly wondered if he'd seemed that ignorant to Hammond back when he used to constantly turn up late to briefings with piles of books under his arm, slurping down on the hastily-snatched coffee, glasses shoved up in his long, unkempt hair and ill-fitting uniform hanging off him like a kid in his father's clothes.
Keeping his tone civil, however, the General said, "I believe you were making a point, Doctor."
"I was? Oh, yes, I was..."
Chewing on the last chunk of the candy bar, he said, "My point is we're not simply guessing these devices operate in similar ways. They do."
Jack said, "How could you possibly know that? You just walked in."
From her position behind her chair, Sam replied on his behalf.
"I had the General e-mail our findings so far..."
McKay cut in.
"Yeah, interesting in-flight reading; ‘specially the part where you don't seem to have put two and two together."
Every eye in the room was fixed questioningly on McKay who, after a quick glance around the table, swiftly swiped Doctor Lee's cinnamon ring doughnut to an indignant cry of ‘Hey...!'
Seeming unaware of the protest, he gestured over to where Grelmin's device sat.
"Look, you've got two devices: you've got a little device..."
Gesturing at the hole in the doughnut in his hand, he continued, "And you've got a big device with an indentation in the centre with nothing in it."
Taking a bite of his demonstration aid (to another ineffectual ‘Hey!'), he said, "Seriously, doesn't take that big a leap to think that maybe one used to fit inside the other."
Breaking the remainder of the doughnut in half then rejoining the two halves, he continued, "They don't just work in the same way; they work together..."
Taking another bite, he finished with his mouth full, "...Interface. Perfectly obvious."
As he shoved the rest of the doughnut in his mouth, Sam reluctantly said, "Actually, sir, that's a good point."
Still munching, McKay said, "I know but you shouldn't feel too bad about it. I mean we both know you're not exactly functioning at 100% right now. Also, see-through yellow? Not a great look for..."
Cutting him off, Sam urgently said, "Sir, I'm going to need to bring Doctor McKay properly up-to-speed with this situation so, with all due respect, now might be a good time to..."
Overtaking her line of thought, the General fervently replied, "Agreed, Major. Dismissed."
With that, he got to his feet and headed out through to his office. The other various scientists dispersed leaving just Doctor Lee, McKay and the four of them.
Hurt in his tone, Lee said, "You ate my doughnut."
Innocent, McKay brushed powdered cinnamon off his lips and replied, "I was making a point. Plus I'm prone to hypoglycaemia and they didn't even provide a meal on the flight here."
Consolingly, Sam replied, "Bill, just make sure it's one filled with lemon custard next time and you'll be fine. Also, we're gonna need to head back upstairs so could you put the reactor back to minimum and cut the link for now? Thanks."
He looked like he was going to demand retribution for a moment but, instead, the wronged scientist reluctantly nodded and went to do as instructed.
Meanwhile, his translucent friend turned to lock eyes with McKay, who was still licking sugar off of his fingers.
"Hello, Rodney."
As their eyes connected, Daniel saw some of the offhand arrogance disappear from McKay's expression to be replaced by a boyish eagerness.
"Hey, Sam. Here to help. First plane; I was on it."
Getting to his feet, Jack said, "Yeah, we heard; the one where they didn't feed you. Carter, why is he here?"
Sparing a sideways glance to McKay, she replied, "Sir, I'm really not much use right now. When the link's on, I can't touch anything or go anywhere else; when it's off, I can't really seem to follow a train of thought and Daniel and I have to negotiate over you like some sort of timeshare."
"You've got underlings; you've got Lee there. Good people..."
Doctor Lee, looking up from his task, didn't quite seem sure whether he'd just received a compliment or not but seemed hopeful he had. The hopeful look disappeared as Jack continued, "Marginally more bearable people."
Sam sighed and shook her head, "We need McKay, sir."
At the words, the scientist positively glowed with pride.
Suddenly, Daniel felt the world around him blink out altogether for a moment before appearing before him at an altered perspective. As he realised the link was cut and he was now seeing through Jack's eyes again, he heard the voice from the mouth say, "Yeah, thanks Bill but a little warning would be good."
Doctor Lee looked up.
"What? Oh, yeah, sorry, Major."
When Jack's head turned back to face McKay, Daniel saw some of the self-assurance had vanished from his gaze along with Sam's image. Rather lost, he turned towards them.
He felt Jack's mouth smile weakly as Sam said, "Hello, Rodney."
"Now that," McKay breathed, "really isn't a good look for you."
He felt Jack's glower settle upon the features before Sam pulled back control.
"Come on, I'd better show you where we're at. This way."
As they headed down the corridor, with Bill and the trolley in tow, Daniel studied McKay. Despite his tour de force in the briefing, this didn't seem to be quite the same unbearably arrogant jerk whom they'd packed off to Russia. There were definitely a few twists in the tale he'd missed out on during his time on the ‘glowy' plane.
Having recovered from the initial shock of seeing Sam disappear and reappear in Jack's body, McKay fell into step with them.
"By the way, lemon custard? Funny, really."
He could feel the Colonel's face grinning stupidly as Sam replied, "I thought so."
Then the face straightened and what had to be Jack said, "Hey, Lee. You okay showing McKay where he's going?"
Doctor Lee took a moment to absorb the unexpected question before saying, "Uh, yeah sure, I guess."
McKay went to protest but Daniel got the feeling that the expression on the face he shared brooked no argument. With another backwards glance at them, the scientist trailed away after Lee and the trolley.
Once they were safely out of earshot, Sam asked, "Sir?"
"McKay? Seriously, it had to be McKay?"
"I'm not exactly his biggest fan either, sir, but when you get down to it he's not such a bad guy."
"Just incredibly annoying."
"And condescending. And arrogant. Yes, sir, he is."
Since Sam hadn't argued his point, Jack didn't seem quite sure how to counter her response so he, himself, said, "But you need someone with expertise in the right fields that can think on your level. And that's him."
Daniel didn't know what had happened since he'd last met Rodney McKay to convince Sam that the ‘arrogant jackass' that if she never met again it'd be too soon wasn't such a bad guy. However, he knew that back then, for all her dislike of the man himself, she'd considered McKay's intellect one that was, at least, worthy of her attention. Otherwise he wouldn't have gotten to her so much.
The over-exaggerated sigh was likely Jack's and he followed it with a reluctant, "Oh, all right. But I take no responsibility if at any point ‘we're' forced to strangle him with ‘our' bare hands."
"Sir..."
Daniel cut in.
"Hey guys, speaking of strangling McKay with bare hands, don't think we should leave him alone with Doctor Lee too long. I mean, he ate his doughnut..."
The smile that crept across Jack's face felt almost collective before the body's owner replied, "Point taken. All right, let's go."
Teal'c was not certain of the character of the man called Rodney McKay. He himself had spent little time with him and so his judgements must be based mainly on the reactions of Major Carter. On their first encounter, she had clearly held him in contempt but this appeared to lessen after their second encounter. He could not decide if she liked Doctor McKay but it was obvious, even upon their first meeting, that she had respected his intellect, albeit begrudgingly. That respect, he decided, he should also bestow upon him as the one man had replaced the many originally assisting Major Carter and yet they seemed to be making progress where none had been made previously.
The yellow-tinted Major said, "So if we run that backwards then..."
The scientist's hand moved in a blur across the chalkboard as he replied, "Yeah, yeah, I see..."
"Wait, no, look... right back there... see, you've changed the coefficient."
"Corrected it. Yours was wrong."
"No, it... oh."
As he continued his scrawling chalk marks across the board, she said, more to herself than to him, "How did I not notice that?"
Then, her incredulous look growing even more so, she added, "More to the point, why didn't you feel like pointing it out?"
Half-shrugging, the scientist replied, "You've got a lot on your mind."
For a moment, Teal'c caught a look of genuine affection for the scientist on Major Carter's face but she appeared to catch herself and by the time Doctor McKay had looked around, her expression was one of tolerance, at best.
He turned his attention to the man by his side.
"Daniel Jackson?"
Seemingly focused on the corner of the room, it took several seconds before the linguist absorbed and analysed the question enough to recognise it was directed at him.
Blinking as he looked up, he said, "Teal'c?"
"There is something I wish to discuss with you. It may wait if you are too busy."
Shooting a look of affectionate irritation at O'Neill, who sat in the corner, the linguist replied, "It's all right. I may as well take a break seeing as Jack's on strike."
Looking over to O'Neill, he saw their friend was reading a magazine which appeared to be dedicated to the discussion of the favourite pastime of O'Neill: fishing.
"So," his friend concluded, "shoot."
"This morning when we awoke," he began, "we discussed what we dreamt of."
It had been an odd conversation. O'Neill had described a scenario in which he had been tied to a chair with matchsticks used in such a manner as to force him to keep his eyes open. He was then made to watch a computer screen through which all the knowledge of earth was forcibly downloaded into him. Major Carter, on the other hand, had dreamt that she was in her own body but that it still lay, immobile, in that infirmary room. Both seemed at great unease upon their simultaneous awakening. He, himself, had added his tale of imagining himself to be a Goa'uld symbiote but, for the sake of his friend, had failed to mention that he had been burrowing into the neck of O'Neill. But, before telling them of his dream, Daniel Jackson had subtly shifted the conversation onto their shared experience of the act of falling asleep. He doubted the others had even noticed but he had. Given that the general consensus was dreams of a less than pleasant nature, he assumed his friend's dream ran along a similar vein. The fact that he had not felt he could share his dream worried him however.
Daniel Jackson's expression grew unsettled for a moment.
"I... dreamt... I'm not sure what I dreamt of."
The answer was obviously a lie but his friend's expression remained defiant for several seconds before he caved under his scrutiny and, lowering his voice, replied, "Okay, but don't tell the others."
After a pause, he continued, "I dreamt I was dying of radiation sickness again... but when I ascended... it was like only a part of me did and the rest got left behind on that bed and I was lying there watching this part of me disappear but I hadn't died; I was still just... there. And... it didn't stop."
Now Teal'c knew well the reason his friend had been reluctant to share the dream with the others. The fact he had ascended did not alter the fact that Daniel Jackson had not only died but endured a most prolonged and agonising death. The uncomfortable way his friend now rubbed his hands along his arms informed him that the dream had felt to Daniel Jackson as real as had his dream of burrowing into the neck of O'Neill.
His friend's eyes flicked up to meet his and, voice still low, he said, "In your dream. Jack was your host, wasn't he?"
It had not been an aspect of his dream he had wished to share but Daniel Jackson's honesty convinced him to bow his head in assent.
There was a brief, tight, smile upon his friend's face before he replied, "Can't say I'm in a big hurry to fall asleep again."
Sharing the sentiment, he inclined his head slightly, "Have you made any progress, Daniel Jackson?"
Eyes haunted by twisted memories took on a grateful sheen at the welcome change of topic.
"Actually, yeah, there's some stuff I wanna talk over with Sam when she's finished what she's doing."
A voice behind him volunteered, "That'd be now."
Stepping past him, the flickering yellow form of Major Carter stood next to them.
"What is it, Daniel?"
"Sam? Aren't you..."
An uneasy expression on her face, she replied, "Hate to say it but, right now, McKay can manage without me. In fact, I'm sort of slowing him down. I can't concentrate right. I know what I want to do but I can't see the strings of equations in my head like I normally can and I'm getting calculations wrong that I could do in my sleep."
A look of deep empathy passed between his two friends. He knew both were finding the severe restrictions on their ability to think almost unbearable.
"So," she pushed the conversation on, "what did you want to talk over?"
"Well, I've been reading through Grelmin's notes and there're some files..."
Going to rifle back through the papers, Daniel Jackson appeared to remember his ethereal state and, after a defeated glance in the direction of O'Neill, he sighed, "...somewhere in that lot...which seems to be a series of reports on the early human trials."
"Great, do they go into the methods used in detail?"
"Some, yes. I'll translate it all properly onto the Dictaphone and get it transcribed for you to see if there's anything that'll help you out."
"That'd be great, Daniel. The more data we have on the actual procedure; the more likely it is we can find a way to reverse it."
As he nodded in agreement, however, she asked, "Daniel, these trials... did they include outcomes?"
With an expression similar to that he had worn when asked to confess his dream, Daniel Jackson said, "The first several attempts, the machine failed altogether. Then... it started to work... sort of."
"Sort of?"
"It's hard to dissect it all. These reports seem to have been written for the benefit of whoever funded his research so they put a positive spin on everything but... from what I can make out..."
Sparing a glance towards O'Neill, he turned back and lowered his voice, "Of the ones I've read over, the outcome was death in almost half the cases... and they seem to be the lucky ones."
"What?"
"The process sometimes malfunctioned midway and the subjects remained as individuals but with what sounds to me like severe brain damage. Aspects of their personality were disrupted, memories almost completely wiped. In some cases, they were left in a near vegetative state."
Shaking her head, the physicist said, "Why would they keep pursuing a process with such negative outcomes in the trials?"
"Actually, I'm not so sure they did. Like I said, the trials all seem written to please financial backers for the project. But the final one I've found has some sort of official stamp on it which says the recommendation is for immediate termination of the project. And after that, all the official reports I can find seem to be work on some sort of advanced fertilizer."
"So he stopped working on it?"
"That's what I can't work out. I mean, it's not easy when I can't touch anything but I did a little cross-referencing with what seems to be one of his personal lab books that has dated entries. I found a description of what sounds very like the trial in the final report and there's a big gap after it but he definitely restarts human trials again."
"Any idea why?"
"I'm working on it. Slowly."
His two friends shared another empathetic look before the linguist asked, "So you been making any progress?"
Shrugging slightly, she replied, "Well, looks like McKay's right. Looking at the data collected by the tech team, it seems pretty much a given that they were originally designed to work in unison with his device acting as some sort of memory buffer. It seems Grelmin cannibalized his own technology to create a place to store his consciousness."
"Any idea why?"
Shaking her head, she replied, "That's a question we can ask him if he ever decides to appear again. Meantime, we're working from what information the tech team managed to bring back."
"Well, if I find anything else in amongst this that I think could help then..."
"Thanks, could use all the help I can get. If this thing was Ancient or Goa'uld I might have a chance to understand it but we're speaking about a whole different breed of technology; one that I only have two examples of and one of them I can't even activate until I figure more about how it works. And the whole sharing a head thing really isn't helping."
Daniel Jackson shook his head and looked to the ground.
"If this really is reversible... we're not getting back into our own heads anytime soon, are we?"
It was most clearly a statement of fact in the guise of a question but Major Carter chose to shake her head by way of reply.
"We're not even close to understanding how to make that thing run forward yet. I mean we could be talking... I don't even know what sort of timescale we're looking at here yet."
All three of them shared a look then turned to where O'Neill sat reading his fishing magazine.
Voicing their shared thought, Daniel Jackson said, "How 'bout we don't tell Jack that?"