Setting down his tray and collapsing ungracefully down into the commissary chair, Jack felt exhausted. The last few days had been... well, draining to say the least with little reprieve except when, for about half a day, it'd amused him no end to go up to anybody who wasn't aware of his current condition and bet them he could answer any question. With Daniel and Carter in his head, it was always a pretty unfair wager and ended with him humming contentedly as he counted through his growing wad of green whilst enjoying the stunned face of the baffled mark. The base had a lot of staff so he'd probably have got some more mileage out of it if his cohabitants hadn't started facetiously answering questions wrong after he'd complained they weren't very convincing in their portrayal of him.
That, however, had been a very small ray of sunshine breaking through an otherwise stormy cloud. Firstly, once they finally managed to drift off into some equivalent of sleep at night, he had weird recurring dreams about someone tying him in front of a computer, propping his eyes open with matchsticks then downloading the entire knowledge of earth into him at high speed. So, when he woke up in the mornings, he felt almost more exhausted than he did when he closed his eyes.
This was compounded by the unsettling way they neither fell asleep nor woke up with perfect synchrony. This had led to some odd moments, like the time Carter had awoken first, got out of bed still half-asleep and made it as far as the mirror before yelping in shock at the unexpected face. This, in turn, had shocked the rest of them awake so they'd all been treated to a few moments looking like something out of Thunderbirds with hands and arms flying in all directions before totally losing balance and collapsing in an ungainly heap on the floor. This performance was made no more bearable by the fact they were still under constant observation.
Usually in an appropriately ghastly mood, therefore, he was then forced to endure a day hooked up to the neural link working as a glorified page-turner without the luxury of even being able to leave the room. Then, even in the brief breaks when they weren't hooked up, he couldn't have a break from the other three people living in his body and, god, Daniel and Carter just never even stopped for him to catch his breath sometimes. On the tenuous upside, McKay had disappeared offworld with SG-5 to go run some simulations using the actual pedestal device yesterday so at least he didn't have him to deal with as well.
People like the Doc and Hammond, who were around ‘them' for any long period of time, had become more proficient at reading his body language. Now, the Doc didn't even miss a beat when Daniel suddenly changed into Carter. And when he and Daniel had gotten into a heated debate, Hammond had walked in halfway through and still been able to cut him off, mid-flow, with, "Colonel, can we focus here?"
Food and hygiene were all still issues, however. For one thing, he had just about learned to live with the idea of Daniel, Teal'c and himself taking a rather more communal shower than normal since circumstances demanded it but with Carter in the body as well... and there were also other bodily...well, like he'd said... still issues that needed resolving.
Like keeping this body in shape. It'd seemed easy enough to let everyone take part in his gym routine right up until the point his wrist had had to be strapped up by Janet. This was due to the unfortunate episode where Teal'c had automatically reached for one of his usual starter dumbbells and left a dent in the concrete floor whilst trying to dislocate his hand from his arm and pull his shoulder out its socket.
And eating, god, eating was a damn nightmare. Take this breakfast in front of him, for example. All he'd wanted was a white coffee and a plate of oatmeal. Simple, right? Wrong. First, Carter wanted some fruit but had been too polite to say so for about a minute and, in the meantime, he'd just been aware of an odd twitching of his right hand and sporadic twitches of his eyes in the vague direction of the fruit. After she'd eventually verbalised her desire and he'd obligingly picked up a bowl of fruit, he'd gone to get the coffee and found his hand halting as he went to pour the milk in. It'd oddly been Teal'c whose only explanation was something about preferring not to consume bovine lactose. Used to having it black anyway, he'd obliged and then placed the cup on the tray. He tried to ignore the fact that it hadn't been him who had gestured for the commissary worker to ladle about double the quantity of oatmeal into the bowl than he wanted. Personally, he suspected that was also his ‘Jaffa' houseguest who'd never gotten his head around the fact that he wasn't eating for two anymore.
Turning to find a table, he'd felt the world spin as everyone tried to focus on a different point in the room from everyone else. Finally fixing on their usual table, he'd found balancing the tray, as usual, an inordinately difficult task. Setting it down with only a slight amount of oatmeal out of the bowl had been a minor miracle.
Looking reflectively down at the bowl of oatmeal, he shuddered at the stares he was about to get. Everyone in the body got involved in the whole eating process and, well, that wasn't a very pretty sight. Funny, certainly... but only on the outside looking in.
He felt so tired and so bereft of hope. If there'd been any indication... any indication that they were making some real progress then maybe... then maybe he'd be able to shrug off these minor inconveniences but all he could see in front of him right now was an eternity stuck like this... and just how truly insufferable it would be.
Trying to pull himself out of his black mood, he sipped at the coffee and willed the caffeine to inhibit the enzyme that broke adenosine down to give at least the illusion he was more awake. He winced to himself as he realised that contemplation involving physiological terms was not exactly something he was given to. That was that damn ‘connectedness' that Daniel and Carter loved to go on about that was so fascinating. Fascinating? Didn't they see what it meant? It meant that the ‘him' that he was sure of... the ‘him' in his head... it wasn't even really ‘him' anymore. There were other things in there too... other thoughts and knowledge that wasn't him. Maybe eventually there'd been other voices. Other voices like Daniel had heard in his head when the Stromos passengers had been in there. And then he wouldn't even be alone in his thoughts. He wouldn't... he couldn't stand that... and they'd all go nuts...
With very little appetite and a ridiculously large bowl of oatmeal to get through, he picked up the spoon and, unenthusiastically, began to eat. He got through a couple of mouthfuls uneventfully before Daniel obviously had a moment of inspiration and started speaking about something to do with the famine too suddenly for him to halt the progression of the spoon to his mouth. Consequently, half the oatmeal ended up on the lips of the unprepared mouth and the other half, along with the spoon, almost ended up down his windpipe. Choking, he wiped at his mouth and tried to ignore the fact that the conversations around him had halted or dipped in volume. Setting his head down, he continued to eat.
After a couple more mouthfuls, what had to be Carter said, "You know, I think I'm starting to get to grips with the way the crystalline webbing in the memory buffer stores information. I think there may even be a biological component."
Okay, sounded fascinating but it was too early for technobabble so he groaned in reply, "Can we leave the discussion until after oatmeal, please, Major?"
She acquiesced and the meal continued in silence for a couple of minutes before Daniel and Carter seemed to forget he'd even said anything.
"So anyway, Daniel, I was thinking about that work he did. You know, the stuff he was working on after the official reports stopped but before he restarted human trials? It was something about better fertilisation of crops, wasn't it?"
A slight twitch of his face then Daniel replied, "Yeah, I think so. I sort of skipped past that stuff. Why?"
He stole himself a mouthful of oatmeal before his female guest managed to explain, "Could you have a quick look back over those reports for me? It might be nothing but..."
Cutting her off, Daniel replied, "Hey, whatever, I can pretty much just read it now so if you're not bothered with full translations it'll only take a couple of hours..."
Daniel, as he was wont to do, was gesturing to make his point but without considering that the hand he was using to do so was also holding a spoon of oatmeal. It was an oversight that soon hit them right between the eyes.
Oatmeal dripping down his face, Jack could feel the red mist descending. He'd gotten them fruit and no milk and two helpings. He'd turned page after page after page. And all he'd asked in return... all he'd asked in return was a few moments of silence in which to enjoy his oatmeal. Instead, they'd tried to choke him, technobabbled at him and coated him in oatmeal.
As he wiped it off his face, he heard his voice offer, "Ooh, sorry, Jack... but, anyway, Sam, are we going to have the link to work through today or are you running more diagnostics on the device?"
"We're going to do some more imaging of the internal workings so think we'll have to work like this today..."
As their conversation continued, Jack felt the rage bubbling over. He tried counting to ten but it just wasn't going to work this time.
"All right! That's it!"
Even if his outburst hadn't automatically cut off their conversation, it would have instantly silenced them anyway.
Clutching at his head like it was about to explode, he said, "I can't do this anymore! I can't even think!"
A concerned Carter asked, "Sir, are you all right?"
"No!"
Looking around with his hands still pressed against his head, Jack realised that every eye in the commissary was focused right on him. As if made of lead, his hands dropped and, slowly getting up from the table, he headed out of the door.
Once out of earshot of the commissary, he continued more quietly, "No, I damn well am not all right! I am tired and not hungry and fed up of people staring. I can't take this. I just want to be me again."
Carter, sounding offended, replied, "Sir, what do you think it is we're trying to do?"
He snapped back, "Not entirely sure, Major. Something along the lines of trying to drive me completely nuts?"
Daniel, sounding calm but annoyed, added, "Jack, we know this has been hard on you but we're working on it. You have to bear with us."
"Actually, I think I've done just about all the bearing with you that I can cope with right now. So how about you all just give me a few hours here?"
"Sir?"
Rage fading slightly, he replied, "Just let me at least pretend this thing belongs to me for a while. Give me today."
Annoyed more than calm now, Daniel demanded, "And just what are we supposed to do in the meantime, Jack?"
He could imagine the rest of his friend's silent protest. Do you think it's been easy for us, Jack? Do you seriously think we've been revelling in all this? Are we just supposed to sit here quietly then save your ass and ours whenever it becomes convenient for you? You think you've got it bad? Do you forget that I already did all this before and had a few much less pleasant houseguests than you have? Do you know just how much of a selfish ass you're being right now?
Despite that, he was too tired to care.
"Okay, it's not fair, Daniel, but can I please just be selfish here for a little while? I need some time out, okay?"
There was an undeniable chill in Daniel's words.
"All right, Jack."
Quietly, Carter said, "Yes, sir."
What was obviously Teal'c added neutrally, "I shall give you this day, O'Neill."
With that, his final friend fell silent.
It'd been a blessedly uneventful day. He'd spent many hours blowing up buildings on his games console and watching some classic ice hockey re-runs in his quarters then done two hours in the gym and, now, he was on his way to have himself some well-earned sustenance in the commissary. And, in all that time, not a word from the others. He was almost feeling like himself again. He winced slightly at the way he'd treated the others this morning. Felt pretty guilty about it, actually. Oh well, he reasoned, he'd make it up to them after he'd polished off the mountain of food he'd just laid onto his tray. This time, he was actually hungry.
Jack carefully picked up the fork and, gingerly, scooped up a forkful. He managed to get it to his mouth without incident. So far; so good. As he went for his second, he found that forkful also was consumed uneventfully. He was almost managing to avoid stares from those people not aware of his current condition. Hey, they might even be able to make this work. Not long-term obviously... but maybe they could just find it in themselves to get through this without going completely insane. If they just kept it together, that was. Ha, kept it together? Hard to do anything else in their current condition.
He'd made it to dessert without anyone saying anything or limbs moving that he hadn't told to do so. Small victory but he'd take it for now. Tray emptied, he got up from the table and headed back towards his quarters. It was ludicrously early but he was so exhausted all he wanted to do was lie out on his bed and watch some more of the re-runs. Expectantly, he waited for one of his geniuses to protest that the day was still young and they had lots of work to do if he was quite finished hogging the body now. Neither of them made any protest. Probably, he winced, still sulking. Making it into his quarters, he got through the necessary stuff and got into bed. Once he was lying down, he waited for someone to talk. No-one did.
After a while, he said, "Guys?"
No-one replied.
Now unnerved, he said, "All right. Seriously, you guys can talk again."
Of course it wasn't possible for no-one to reply more loudly but, as the silence continued, it felt more oppressive. Looking back at the conversation of the morning, he realised that he may have caused more than a little friction between him and his team-mates. Actually, he'd basically told them all to shut up because they were driving him nuts, hadn't he?
Wincing more deeply, he continued, "Okay, I know I've been being an ass today... but I'm sorry, okay? And this isn't funny."
As the lack of reply continued, Jack was beginning to feel increasingly unnerved by it. Closing his eyes, he tried to reach inside his mind to look for them.
Proving fruitless, he said, "Carter, I order you to talk."
He waited expectantly for a weary ‘yes, sir' from his female passenger which would be followed by a remark from the understandably pissed Daniel about why this showed it wasn't so clever to make them all shut up just so he felt less like a freak show walking about the base. Teal'c might wade in as well with an ‘indeed' that spoke volumes.
His heart sank further when his lips stayed silent. Where were they? What the hell had he done? It wasn't possible for him to do something to them, was it? Oh god, please no...
"Carter? Daniel? Teal'c?"
His sinking heart began to race as the silence continued. Unable to contain his panic any longer, he pulled back on his discarded fatigues and raced down to Carter's lab where Gizmo's gizmo was currently situated.
As he ran, he said, "Guys, seriously, if this is a lesson to me, I swear I've learned it already!"
There was no reply. Bolting into the lab, he activated the device as he had seen Carter do; although he surprised himself that he had copied the procedure so automatically. Forgetting that, he slammed down the neural link button. He closed his eyes, not daring to see if his friends' images had appeared.
"Awareness, what are you doing?"
He opened his eyes to see Gizmo standing beside him but no trace of any of his friends. He was back in his doctor's coat again.
Looking rather pleased, he said, "Ah, finally, you are making progress, Awareness."
Ignoring him, Jack said, "Look, Gizmo, something's happened to my friends."
"Yes, they no longer speak."
He scowled at the pleased look in the scientist's eyes.
"I don't view this as a good thing."
"Oh, but it is. You are making progress, Awareness."
Grabbing him by the lapels of his white coat, Jack slammed the ‘figment' up against the wall.
"I also don't view this as ‘progress'. Now, I think we've endured enough of the cryptic unhelpfulness so unless you want me to smash your little home into a million pieces I would start giving me some incredibly straight answers. In fact, just give me one straight answer. How do I get everyone out of my head and back into their bodies?"
Struggling slightly, Gizmo replied, "I... you... wish the Ha'ran to be reversed?"
"I very much wish it."
"But... it is an honour to become Ha'ranas."
"Maybe it was on your screwed-up world. Maybe that's why they're all dead!"
"The famine killed my people."
"Then why didn't you make a device to grow food instead? That would've been a hell of a lot more useful to your people than that thing!"
"The device was already in existence before the famine came."
Jack's anger was momentarily diverted by his curiosity.
"Hold on. Daniel said the writing on the walls round the device said it had been created because of the famine. Now you're telling me the famine had nothing to do with it?"
"It proved useful during the famine but, no, its original function was not to save resources."
"Then why?"
"Even with your crippling lack of intelligence, surely you can see that to be Ha'ranas is to be better than a mere human. The knowledge, the skills... the minds of many... all brought together to make something so much more than the sum of their parts. All flaws removed. Weaknesses disposed of, strengths amplified. One Ha'ranas can do in a day what its component parts could not have done in a lifetime."
"Parts?! We're not parts; we're people."
"Obviously, I was misguided to explain these things to you before the process is complete. It has only served to confuse your simple Awareness. I will explain at a later time."
"Oh no, you don't! You'll explain right now or you won't be here at a ‘later time', got it?"
Grelmin sighed, "As you wish, Awareness. Continue with your questions."
"All right, if it wasn't about the famine then why make Ha'ranasses at all?"
"Originally, the intention when designing the process of Ha'ran was to create a superior class of warrior."
"What?"
"We fought against a rival planet with whom we were equally matched in terms of the size of our starship fleets. Our military leaders believed that our dominance might be achieved if we invaded via what you call the Stargate but the nature of the ring system made it impossible to fight in any great number. Superior numbers could not win us this war... but superior warriors?"
"How exactly does shoving four people into the same head make a superior warrior? Battle's all about being quick and decisive. Not exactly gonna happen if you have to have a committee decision on everything."
"That is why there must be a supreme awareness. As you have just become."
"What?!"
"Your awareness is the strongest. You have dominated all other awarenesses and now shall take your place as sole Awareness of this body."
"If you're talking about my friends... I'm their leader: they follow me by choice; I don't dominate them."
"If you had not done so; it would one of them that I would be talking to."
Releasing Grelmin, Jack thought back to his actions earlier today. He'd bullied them all into silence. And they'd submitted. Had that been it? Had he really dominated them all in the name of an uninterrupted few hours?
Unheeding of his misery, Grelmin continued, "As leader, the concept of Ha'ran should be familiar to you. Those under your command have skills and knowledge but it is you who must exploit those skills to their best advantage. The only alteration is that now it is you, yourself, who possesses the skill and knowledge."
"Yeah, but what you don't seem to get is that I look at my team and I don't see three exploitable sources of skill and knowledge. They're people. I don't need their knowledge or their skills. I need them."
"Individuals have autonomy and the ability to disobey. Now that you are Ha'ranas, you shall never have to worry about their loyalty to you."
"Hey, their loyalty was just fine."
"Through your time spent linked to this device, I have witnessed your impatience with the Occupiers. You often fought with the one called Daniel and the one called Samantha questioned your orders."
"Look, much as I'd maybe like it sometimes, a real team doesn't work unless there's an opportunity to disagree with each other."
"Inefficient."
"Yeah, sometimes it is... but sometimes I act like an idiot and don't realise. Sometimes I need a ‘with all due respect, sir' or a ‘Jack, don't be an ass' or a ‘this does not seem wise, O'Neill' to make me stop and take a look at myself. I need them."
"You need not worry about that. When I enhance your awareness you will never be an ‘idiot' again."
"IQ points've got nothing to do with being an idiot. Hell, Daniel's been an idiot plenty of times. I've met whole races of super-intelligent idiots. And I get the feeling I'm talking to a member of another one!"
"I do not understand why you react so negatively to your enhancement, awareness."
"I react so negatively because I don't want enhancement. What I want is you to bring back my friends."
"That would be quite impossible... but, if you wish, I could expedite matters."
Jack didn't like the sound of that.
Miserably, he hung his head.
"It was my fault, wasn't it? If I hadn't made them give me control for so long, you'd never have been able to do this."
"It was best that you ended the conflict quickly. If such conflict continues for too long the mind itself becomes damaged from the exertion. If you had used your advantage earlier, the transfer would have been smooth. Now, it shall take time. You are only lucky the other occupiers did not attempt to dominate you whilst they had the chance. All had power and could have usurped you had they attempted it."
Another nasty piece of the puzzle fell into place.
"That was who you were telling me to prepare for? My friends? That was why you didn't want me sedated? Because it let them surface?"
"Now, you must not be upset, my Ha'ranas. You have succeeded despite your errors in judgement. You have dominated and we shall soon see you reap the rewards."
Not willing to listen to another word of that, he raced back to the device and slammed it off. Gizmo disappeared. Rushing out of the room, Jack collapsed against the wall in the corridor and tried to hold back the feeling of panic that threatened to overwhelm him. The others... oh god, there had to be a way to get them back... there had to be some way to get them back...
Sliding down to the floor, he brought his trembling hands up to his temples. He'd never thought it would feel so sickening to feel in total control of his own body. He willed his eyes or hands or anything to move without his say so. A flicker of his eye or a twitch of a finger to tell him they were still there somewhere. But there was nothing...
Unsteadily pulling himself back to his feet, he made his way toward the Infirmary. He'd destroyed them... oh god, he'd destroyed his friends...
The world began to spin uncontrollably and, careering heavily into the wall, Jack looked down to the ground to try to focus. He wasn't quite sure how long he stood watching the ground grow and contract as it seemed to shift below him... but, as the world began to slow again, he became aware that the floor below him seemed to be rushing up to meet him. Then, suddenly, the whole world turned black.