Disclaimer: Highlander: the Series, the concept, characters, and all
related events are the property of Rysher Television, Panzer/ Davis
Productions and their respective creators and producer, none of which
belong to me, but you already knew that, right? The same goes for
Star Gate SG-1 which is the property of Gecko Films Limited, MGM
Studios. La Femme Nikita belongs to USA Network and UPN. Notes: Some
references to the episode "Shadow Plays." 

 

Note: Picks up where "A Matter of Timing" ended, with a good
interval taken into consideration.

"Pipe Dreams" by Karen

Prologue

Playing in the background was an obscure Bach fugue, which Sammantha
Carter had found in the base's computer library and tweaking it so it
only could be heard inside the diagnostic lab, she found appropriate,
under the circumstances. Less than 48 hours after the aborted attempt
on General Hammond, and she was going through computer records,
retracing the steps of their intruders. Aside from Bach's musical
genius, Carter had to admit that the German composer had a talent for
incorporating a lot of hidden mathematical theories as well, if you
listened to it backwards. In the back of her mind she thought, with
some irony, that it fit her present circumstances.

"Now if there were just more clues to follow before the trail goes
cold. Whatever or whoever Section is: rogue organization or it was an
independent organization like the Navy’s NID, the less said about
that the better."‘ 

Sam shuffled her feet to restore circulation in her legs that were
slowly going numb, admitting that's Section's operatives, Michael and
Nikita, if those were their real names, credit. They had left slim to
no trace of their presence: no obvious tapering, no electronic
fingerprints, no obvious glaring security breaches or missing files,
not even the more obvious traces of a human presence.

Carter couldn’t say which was the more alarming, the electronic
presence or the lack of a human presence. Everything was clean,
efficient in its clinical ruthlessness. Now that she had to deal with
damage control she realized what a large task it would prove to be.
Carter cleared the screen and leaned back in her chair, hands resting
on the keyboard, fingers laced together in a rough tent-like shape.
"There is still a key piece of the puzzle. Now, if I could just
determine what it is." 

"I’m sorry? Daniel Jackson said, from where he was absorbed in
another report; "Did you say something?"

"Yes, and No," Carter replied. "I think I’m close to solving the
mystery, but every time it just slips out of reach."

"Any progress is better than nothing. " Daniel offered her a tired
smile.

"You’ve been at that for hours. How about taking a break? I don’t
know about you, but I’m hungry."

"I could eat, " Carter smiled. "Has Jack commandeered the chef’s
kitchen?"

"Yes, " Daniel smiled. "But he won’t tell us what he is cooking up.
It’s supposed to be a surprise. You how ‘he’ gets."

"Well, I’d hate to disappoint him. Maybe I do need a break. Come
back to is on a full stomach, a fresh perspective." Carter smiled.
"After you."

"Hey, at this point, I’ll use any excuse to get out of here," Daniel
replied.

"I’m sorry I haven’t asked this before," Sam replied, running a hand
through her tangled mop of blond hair, "but how’s that cataloguing
project going?"

"About the same rate as before, but I think I’m about half way
through," Daniel replied. "Let’s go."

Scene 2 At Section’s headquarters 

"What have we got?" Madeline asked.

"I wish you wouldn’t sneak up on people, it’s rather disconcerting,"
Birkoff, startled, shaking the module he had let drop onto the floor
when he sensed the presence looming up behind him. Not expecting an
apology or a response that she had acknowledged the incident, he
turned his attention back to his monitor.

"There are any number of ways I could answer that question," he
replied, ‘but once I had the various algorithms solved, "our friends
in Colorado are either very clever or making things harder than they
need to be."

Madeline tapped a ruby-painted fingernail on the desk’s reflective
surface where it made a muffled ringing sound in counterpoint to the
hub and whine of the machinery in the Operations room and muted
conversation. "They have something to hide. Go on."

"Well, at best its that definitely a legit operation. In fact, it’s
funded by Uncle Sam by way of the United States Air Force."

"The Air Force? Now, that is interesting. I wonder what the price
tag of such an undertaking would be. Never mind that now," Madeline
said.

"It’s all very top secret, the security clearances along must have
cost a small fortune."

"You were able to decrypt it?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied, rather insulted that after all the time
he’d been with Section, and even after the death of his twin brother,
that she would even consider questioning his skill with databases,
encryption codes and the like. "Without those clearances our filed
operatives would have never infiltrated their base."

"I’ll contact them after I’m finished here," Madeline said.

"A lot of the data and the files have to do with theoretical
physics, matching logistics and various other scientific disciplines,
" Birkoff said, unaware that he had the end of his ballpoint pen
caught up in the sleeve of his angora sweater. He had the sleeves
rolled which revealed the inkblots staining the elbows. "What puzzles
me is why they would bother using Egyptian hieroglyphics as a from of
encrypting their data."

"Hieroglyphics? No one uses that form of pictographic writing
anymore, and the only cultures that did have long since died out."
Madeline replied. "Does this project have a name?"

"The Star Gate Project."

"How romantic," Madeline sneered, arms folded over his chest. "How
did learn about this project?"

"You know the answer to that one better than I would, I’m just the
resident tech geek."

"Let me think for a moment," Madeline said, smiled a thin narrowing
of her lips, brows narrowing in concentration. After a few moments of
uncomfortable silence, she snapped her fingers. "If memory serves, I
recall a report submitted by one of our Russian field agents. A group
of scientists had uncovered an ancient artifact buried beneath the
ice in Antarctica. They claimed it was some kind of alien gateway."

"Gateway? To what?" The Ice-Age." Birkoff gave himself a quick
little shake, like a duck sloughing off water from it’s back; he
could imagine how it would feel to descend meters down into freezing
water with ice closing over one’s head, gasping for air. "Definitely
not for me. Give me the tropical sun every single time."

"I thought it a bunch of errant nonsense at the time, but maybe it
isn’t." Madeline interrupted, breaking his train of thought.

"Isn’t what?" he asked.

"Nonsense," she replied.

"During WW II the Allies codes were continually broken by the Axis
and valuable information was getting into the wrong hands. So they
brought in the ideogram language of the Native Americans, a language
that was impossible to crack."

"So what you are saying is that all those Egyptian hieroglyphs must
mean something, otherwise why use them for an encryption code. What
we need is a universal translator."

"I can check with local universities, see if they have any available
linguistics with a specialty in ancient Egyptian," Birkoff replied.

"Do it," Madeline decided. "It stands to reason that our friends in
the Star Gate project already have an expert of their own, I don’t
like playing catch up with anybody. I’ll admit to a certain
curiosity, but I we have to know more. Get on it right away."

*****

Scene 3a INTERLUDE 

Methos: Never a firm believer in an appropriate hour of the day to
drink himself into a drunken stupor, Methos did pay attention to the
blinking readout of the alarm clock. He had been tossing back his
stockpiled collection of beer all night and had no intention of
stopping any time soon. Given an Immortal’s general high tolerance to
almost everything and his own ability to drink large amounts of beer,
Methos felt very relaxed He had his booted feet propped on the
console, disturbing the stacks of carefully sorted documents,
cheerfully ignoring the mess it made. He sipped at the foamy liquid
and let it swish around in his mouth, before swallowing, enjoying the
sensation going down his throat. In the back of his mind, he blessed
whatever primeval gods/demons had given mankind the secret of
fermenting in order beer, but ‘bully for them‘, he thought.

"Better the devil you know," Methos muttered aloud, wiping the foam
from his lower lip and wondering what vapors of the air had hidden
the last of his beer cans. "I'll go question the prisoners, I'll get
to bottom or the top as the case may be of what Section really is.
Call it curiosity, but I can't let this go that easily."

***

Meanwhile, his fellow Immortal, Thoth was in the Palestra, or the
base’s gymnasium, along with the new Immortal, Teal’C. 

Thoth had his hands full, literally. It was obvious that the man
knew how to handle himself in a fight, and he had plenty of
experience if the scars that criss-crossed his coffee-brown skin were
any indication. Thoth knew he had once been a Jaffa, even a first
prime to one of the more prominent Gouald’s , Apophis, so he he’d
been a warrior long before he’d become an Immortal and had his
parasite removed, and he knew how to fight. What Thoth was having
difficulty wrapping his mind around, was how to develop a training
routine that would make sense to both himself as an Immortal who
admittedly had never been in an actual combat scenario since he’d
emerged from stasis. "Damn, Damn, and for good measure, damn again,
why isn’t Methos doing this training? I’m no good at this." 

Teal’C, standing with feet spread apart and staff with a snake’s
head perched ungainly on top of it, waited a few feet away, brow
furrowed in concentration.

"I would concur," Teal’C replied, brow furrowed in concentration.

Thoth sighed, and readied his quarterstaff in a defensive posture,
"Attack me."

"I would not wish to harm you."

"You will and you won’t, it’s all very muddled. You see Immortals
can be harmed, even killed, but we don’t die unless you remove our
heads from our bodies. Damn."

Thoth swore, letting off a long stream of invective in languages
that the former Jaffa must be intelligible to only a handful in the
mountain base, Thoth, his counterpart, Methos and Dr. Daniel Jackson.
Thoth paused for breath in between curses, looking red-faced with a
sheepish look on his narrow face. "I can’t believe Methos has let me
live this long. You see of the rules governing immortals, this one
has been around as long as anyone can remember, ‘There can be only one.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, one left in the end, it’s all part of some cosmic game
that began millennia ago, "Thoth cocked his head to one side,
thinking it through, carefully choosing his next words: "You see,
5,000 years left in on a abandoned alien world, gave me plenty of
opportunity to think. 

"And what did you conclude?" Teal’C asked.

"I decided that the entire game is a colossal waste of time. It’s
part of some plan by Guls or whomever you want, to get Immortals to
fight amongst themselves." Thoth exclaimed, raising his legs and
breaking his quarterstaff over his knees, throwing the splintered
pieces to the ground, unaware that several had broken his skin. Thoth
idly watched the blood clot and the skin heal over in a matter of
minutes, leaving the telltale fine white scars.

"Then they could you use your race as potential slaves/hosts for the
gul larvae." Teal"C found the entire incident fascinating, wondering,
not for the last time, now that his own gul parasite had been
removed, if such a thing would also occur in his own body when he
sustained a energy, fatal or otherwise.

"Exactly." Thoth murmured. "You do not need me to teach you how to
fight, you knew that already. I guess the conclusion of this lesson,
watch your head. Teal’C, you’ll need it.

"I shall take your lesson to heart, Ancient One," Teal’C replied.

Scene 4a 

Meanwhile inside the brig, Michael sat on the floor with his legs
crossed tailor fashion. His eyes were closed and his breathing was
the required breaths per minute of one of his favorite meditation
techniques. He hadn’t moved or said anything in the last 48 hours
since he and his partner had been apprehended and brought to the
brig. The fact alone, irritated the duty officer assigned to act as
guard. 

Nikita paced the narrow room like a caged cat, aware that not only
made her guard nervous, it also irritated Michael, even though he
affected to be meditating and oblivious to what happened around them,
he really had all five senses of high alert, and when broke out of
his heightened awareness he would lecture her for wasting energy.
"Let me yell all he wants, sometimes I get to do exactly as he want,
no rules, no secrets, no pretenses. Section does not rule my life,
well, not completely, I’ve got some latitude to be myself, come hell
or high water. So, let me choke on that. Even if he is incredibly
handsome; brooding dark eyes, sensual lips. Hell, listen to yourself
Nikita, going on about a man your barely know outside of the
department, and you’re carrying on like a sappy romantic heroine. Get
it together.’ 

**

***

Scene 4b Methos/Nikita/Michael

Michael stood, stretching to relieve the tension of his self-imposed
meditative state. Aware as he was unaware of the guard’s shifts, the
condensation on the metal walls from where the heating and plumbing
was uneven, and Nikit’as constant pacing. He had an acid comment to
make to her on the futility of pacing. She had been with Section long
enough to know better than that, but he knew her better than anyone
and sometimes her pacing resembled that of a caged panther, it help
her restlessness, help clear her thoughts,’ Michael decided that for
once, he would let it slide.

"What do you want?" Nikita demanded when she the man who had once
tried prevent her attempt on General Hammond’s life. Unarmed and
dressed only in bath towel, he had wrestled her gun out of her hand.
Either he was insane or over-confident, Nikita still had determined
which alternative was better. For her own peace of mind she would
have preferred to write off the incident and forget about it, but
those dark eyes and features kept haunting her, as if she had seen
them somewhere before, but the memory proved elusive, like she was
trying catch snow-mice while wearing mittens.

"What do I want?" Methos mused, pausing half-in and half-out of the
open doorway of the brig, shouldering aside the guard. "That could
cover a whole range of possibilities."

"You’re drunk," Nikita observed, not impressed.

"I am not, but I wish I were," Methos sneered. "Not all problems can
be washed away at the bottom of beer can, I should know. I’ve had
lots of practice at it."

"Misery loves company, " Michael observed. "Care to share some of
that beer?"

"No. I only share my beer with people I like, and that’s a very
short list compared to the list of what I want." Feel like talking?"

"Not really," Michael replied.

"Too bad. I’m not going away until you do, " Methos replied, closing
the gap between the door and the cell in a swift strides. He wrapped
one hand around the bars. "You see, something doesn’t add around
here. Your so-called mission and this affiliation of yours, Section,
were entirely too pat. I don’t like easy answers."

"Too bad. We don’t like easy answers either," Nikita replied,
shrugging.

"What is Section? Is it legal?"

"Oh, it’s legal all right. The only difference is that the people
who run it, the powers that be, work from the assumption that the
ends justify the means," Michael replied.

"Why did they leave you here, if you’re some of their best
operatives?"

"That isn’t the type of question I’d expect from a military officer
if you’re really operating with the approval of the United States Air
Force," Nikita said.

"How do you I’m not?" Methos smirked.

"So it’s going to be like this? A game of 20 questions? I’ve been
interrogated before, some where good, some were downright pathetic,
you’re just crazy," Nikita said.

"Humor me," Methos smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant one.

"What is the Star gate project?" Michael said.

"A fancy title for a research and development project?" Methos
replied.

"Too easy, try again," Nikita said.

"Why was Section interested in it?" Methos asked, ignoring Nikita.

"Curiosity. And what makes you think our people will just leave us
here locked up in your brig?" Michael snapped.

***

Scene 5 Back at the SGC Plans

In the briefing room, Hammond stood with his hands laced behind his
beck, his mouth in a firm line. The scar that puckered the left side
of his face now nothing but a thin white line after Dr. Frasier had
treated it and it pronounced it ‘not serious.’ He supposed after all
his years of military serious he should be used to such things as
coming with the territory, there had probably other attempts on his
life, but he honestly could not remember them. In the back of his
mind, he thought; <’Dodged a bullet there, literally. I should thank
my lucky stars for that.’>

 

Colonel Jack O’Neil came in then, looking rumpled and alert as
usual, his uniform sleeves rolled up to the wrists, Major Carter and
Dr. Jackson following along on his heels. Teal’C came in moments
later in the company of Thoth. Methos, or as he preferred to be
called, Adam Pierson was conspicuously absent.

"Where is he?" Hammond demanded of everyone in the room as they took
their seats at the rectangular conference table. "Last I checked he
was in general quarters getting roaring drunk," O’Neil replied.

"Drunk?" Hammond echoed, the practical military side of his mind
unable to quite grasp the idea that any one of his personnel would
deliberately drink them selves into oblivion, while on duty. First
off it was a completely foreign concept to him, on his off duty hours
maybe he save a swig or two of whiskey or perhaps gin for a special
occasion. While the regulations did not expressly forbid his officers
and enlisted men from indulging in strong drink. As long is it
happened while they were off duty. With these thoughts running
through his head, Hammond glared at Colonel O’Neil. "I don’t care
what condition he’s in, just get him in here."

"Yes, Sir," O’Neil saluted and went to carry out his orders.

"While Colonel O’Neil rounds up our ‘missing link’, Major if you
could open this meeting with a summary of your findings thus far. I
for one, would rather deal with the damage control before the NID or
anyone else gets wind of our ‘break in." 

"Understood, Sir." Carter replied. "Section is good, very good. I’m
still entirely certain that their a legitimate outfit, but they
certainly have an agenda, and that agenda seems to be information
gathering for the purpose of securing their position so that they are
almost untouchable."

"That isn’t exactly reassuring?" Jackson muttered.

"Anything else?" Hammond pressed.

"As far as any lasting damage, we didn’t lose anyone, the attack on
you, General, while it may have been pre-motivated, now was merely a
distraction. One member of the infiltration team would draw away all
attention, while the other member, in this case, Michael, posed as
one of the junior officers, hacked into our database and downloaded
as much usable information as they could. Before they were discovered."

"Any idea what they want that information for?" Hammond asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Carter shrugged. "Taking a wild
stab in the dark, somebody out leaked intelligence about what we’re
doing on this mountain and it attracted Section’s attention. Now, I
guess they’re trying to figure out how it benefits them."

"Will this Section make another attempt on Hammond’s life?" Teal’C
asked.

"I doubt I," Thoth murmured. "I’d have to guess, is that we are
dealing with the type of people who need to keep their identity and
activities secret. They either don’t tolerate or can’t risk failure. 

Carter smiled a thin narrowing of her lips. "I agree with Thoth."

"What are our options?" Hammond asked.

"Question our prisoners again." Carter nodded.

"I doubt they will be any more forthcoming than they were before, "
Jackson said. "It’s worth a shot."

***

At that instant the door to the briefing room banged open and a
young soldier with Colonel O’Neil all but tripping on his heels burst
into the room.

"Our prisoners have escaped." The young officer clenched his fists,
his face turning red. "It was my watch. I’m sorry, General. I should
have done more to prevent this from happening."

*******

Scene 6a Flashback Methos/Silas/Nikita

The Naquda Reactor Project

 

The rapid movement of the vicious liquid in the vat was mesmerizing.
The mirror of its surface broken at regular intervals by bubbles
rising to the surface, lingering for a short time before the air
pressure caused them to pop. A blonde woman wearing a white lab coat
and goggles found it as fascinating as she had been led to believe.
The room that housed the project was circular and kept bare of
clutter. Nikita or rather the alias she had assumed for this mission,
Sarah Greeley, combed her considerable memory for the name given to
the project "Quicksilver’ sounded right, but it didn’t quite fit.
Compared to other metals it would serve as a poor conductor of heat,
but a better one for electricity. "Mercury is the only common metal
that is liquid at room temperature, and this stuff is hot.. 

Monitors hooked up by wires and cables monitored the progress and
made sure that all systems where within the program’s specified
parameters. Any change, no matter how slight, would be recorded in
the session logs. The program was currently house inside of a large
building whose location was not on any map, and given the highly
sensitive nature of their research and the high likelihood of
reactor’s exploding, it was best that way. 

At that instant Nikita could feel the fine hairs on the back of her
neck bristle, and turned around in time to see another of the project
scientists enter the room. He was medium-built, skinny as a switch
and tall, with lank red-hair constantly falling down into his big
green eyes.

"Sara," he greeted, ‘how are you?" 

"Hello, Aaron. I’m fine," she replied. 

The redhead wiped his brow, unaware that it left a dirty streak on
the skin, his hands were ink-stained and the skin below the nails
were filthy. "No change, in case you were wondering about the ‘old
man. He’s just the same as he ever was. I’ve been with the project
from day one and Dr. Silas was always considered eccentric by his
colleagues in the scientific field of theoretical physics, but never
like this."

"I feel a little like I came in the middle of the third reel of a
movie," she replied. "Could you fill me in?"

"Oh, Sara, I’m sorry. It had completely escaped that you were just
brought in, You see Dr. Silas had worked in the field for many years,
and it was only recently that he felt he had truly made a
breakthrough," Aaron replied.

"Let me guess, he presented his discovery along with documented
research and when he presented to his colleagues they shouted him
down and told him he Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, right?" 

"It’s an interesting analogy, that’s all," Aaron said, nodding his
head. "Like all scientists determined to prove that he’d been right
all along. Doctor Silas went looking for outside sources to provide
the funding and the lab in which to conduct his experiments." Aaron
sank down into a nearby chair, picking up a pitcher of water and
drank down the contents in one gulp. Looking around the round like a
startled rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, he
looked up her, the lines around his green eyes deepening," You think
he can hear us in here?"

"Relax," Nikita coaxed, coming over to sit beside," It’s a sound-
proof room." 

"Then what happened?" she prompted.

"We lucked into funding from an interested third party that came
through a university in the Northwestern United States," Aaron said.

"Quite generous, our anonymous donor, then?" Nikita asked. "What
that part of the agreement in order to get the funding, or did that
come later?"

"I’m sorry, I’m exhausted, " Aaron muttered. "I don’t why I said
that, or why I said so much, it must be nerves."

"Get some sleep," Nikita suggested, smiling at Aaron. "I am just
finishing the end of my shift, and I don’t need much sleep and you
do. So I’ll take yours as well. Deal?"

Aaron mustered up a tired smile of his own, "Okay, Sara. Deal." Then
offered his own hand to shake, which she returned. "See you around."

**

Scene 6b

Nikita was up at the crack of dawn engaging in her morning routine,
a series of tai chi stretching and breathing exercises followed by a
light jog around the park surrounding the facility, then a shower
followed by breakfast in the communal kitchen. 

Aware that none of the other inhabitants stirred until the sun was
high in the sky she fully intended to use the time to her advantage.
She took her plastic tray to the kitchen sink and sloshed it around
in hot water before placing it back on the high shelf above where she
had found it. She toweled dried her hands and straightened the loose
sleeves of her white lab coat. 

Leaving the kitchen she headed for the psych ward, making notations
of the clipboard that she carried with her. She did not spend any
time analyzing her motives for going to see an announced crazy man,
and even her colleague, Aaron., had all but said as much. In the back
of her mind, she thought to herself, ‘Is it simple curiosity or is it
duty, just part of the fact-finding mission, or do I really want to
find out if he’s insane, and if he is, what caused it?"’

*

She found Doctor Silas huddled in the center of the narrow room,
bedraggled and hunched on the top of his bed, his white lab coat in a
bundle at his feet. He was a tall, angular man with black hair and
glasses that he wore attached to a plastic cord. Several days of
going unshaven had left with a heavy beard that shadowed most of his
face.

She keyed in the access coded and entered the small room, ready for
anything. Silas looked up at her, and all she saw in his dark eyes
was the look of a man, a man with nothing left to lose. Nikita was
reminded of her days on the streets as a young girl, even as an
adult, if she had seen that look in the eyes of anyone, her first
instinct would either have been fight or flee. Nikita felt odd, the
fine blonde hairs at the base of her neck prickle and a tension
headache make itself known. 

"Dr. Silas," she began quietly. "I’ve come to talk you."


He looked up at her, his moving, trying to form words but something
was gravely with his larynx or he had gone so long without speaking
to anyone except the nurses and doctors that had forgotten. He
surprised her then, uncurling and sitting up street. "You wish to
know if I am insane. Am I correct?" They also wish to know this, to
know if the naquada material has driven away my senses. Well, the
answer is both yes and no. Water."

Nikita looked over and saw a pitcher of water on a small table along
with white paper cups, she filled on for him and one for herself. 

"Here you go. When did it happen?" Nikita found it hard to believe
that this man had lost his senses, he sounded surprisingly lucid to
her.

"Like all experiments, we’d had our share of setbacks," Dr. Silas
nodding in acknowledgement of her giving him water. "You see, I
really felt I was on the verge of a breakthrough, but something went
wrong."

"What?" Nikita prompted.

"We did. We could not contain the solvent and it got out," Silas
snapped, and refused to say another word.

*end flashback"

****

Scene 7a Interlude Methos/Nikita 

Present Day

Methos gunned the motor of the car he had found in one the
Cheyenne’s mountains cavernous underground motor pools, it was a gray
coupe and shiny with a recent wash like it had just come off the
assembly line. He had lost his quarry’s trail a turn or so back,
given the nature of the mountain side road, it switched back and
forth, and he couldn’t risk hurtling down the road or driving on the
shoulder. He had made the mistake once already of looking out the
passenger side window and staring down into ravine. As soon as the
guard had announced that the prisoner’s were gone, Methos couldn’t
have said how they got away when he had been in the adjacent room
stewing over what they had revealed, or more accurately hadn’t
revealed. Before he could blink or yell, a canister of gas had been
tossed negligently into his vicinity, it took longer, but it achieved
its purpose, knocked unconsciousness, maybe it would have taken
longer to kick in if he had been sober. It was no fun being sober. 

Methos couldn’t afford to give the problem the proper attention at
that second; when his senses warned of approaching danger, an 18-
wheel rig approaching from the direction he was currently facing.
Methos yanked on the wheel, making the car’s tires screeching with
the sound of animal in mortal agony. Methos would have laughed if
wasn’t so concerned with keeping himself and the car in one piece.

Once more in the clear, he saw the license plate numbers of the car
Michael and Nikita used as their getaway vehicle.

***

"This breakaway is Not going according to plan," Nikita muttered,
her hear hammering in her chest and the adrenaline in her system
making the seatbelt feeling constricting and as confining as the cell
they had escape from only hours earlier.

Michael drove like a madman on a straightaway, all too aware that
Methos had not only recovered from the exposure to the knockout gas,
but had the wherewithal to get up, follow them, and continue to
pursue. And Nikita had the sneaking suspicion that that ‘one’ was not
doing so out of a sense of loyalty, duty, or for the sake of a job
well done, no, it was a instinctive need to chase down his prey.
Hell, he’d make a could Section operative, ‘Maybe we could recruit
him.’ she thought idly, then tossed the thought aside. "No."

 

 

 

 

Encounter

"We should abandon the car," Michael said. "It was the only
available option at the time, but it’s one of theirs. I’ll lay even
odds that it will be tracked either by the plate or the registration
number."

"Madeline is going to be really ticked off about this," Nikita
replied, unlatching her seatbelt and levering open the passenger side
door.

"Let her," Michael sneered. "She’s as much responsible for the
fiasco this mission turned out to be as us." Michael got out as well,
leaving the car in idle and watching as the car spun into a nearby
ditch, where the back end wheels spun for a seconds before grinding
to a halt.

"You really believe that?" Nikita muttered, getting at a pile of
rocks with one booted foot.

"Doesn’t matter now." Michael scanned the nearby scenery, the stand
of pine trees along the edge of the road, the scraggly brush still
clinging to the bare rock and paved tar, snow blanketing the area is
light patches. "I’ll give him credit. He’s persistent."

"You don’t happen to have any concealed weapons on you?" Nikita
asked, more for something than anything else.

"I was counting on the neuro toxin gas to get him out of the
picture, and when don’t know if had time to warn his superiors. If he
did, then it will take them some time to scramble a search and
retrieval unit. By that time, I want to be well away from Colorado or
anything in the vicinity."

"How do you think he recovered so quickly from the gas?"

"I don’t know and I don’t care," Michael tossed over his shoulder,
trying to make a much distance as possible from the car wreck as
possible. "Just keep walking."

"We’ll call for back up," Nikita suggested, and fell into step
beside him.

*****

Later

Methos found the car in the ditch and cursed, shaking a fist up at
the cloudless blue sky. His curses were drowned out in the
unmistakable grinding sound of a helicopter’ blades cutting through
the crisp winter morning air. "Just about bloody perfect. He dodged
out of the way, the wind from the backlash of the choppers’ blades
ruffling his dark hair, sand and grit getting into his eyes.

The copter landed and the members of the SG-1 team disembarked.

Colonel Jack O’Neil looked at him, looked at the scene of the car
crash. "I like initiative from members of my squad as much as next
command officer, but not when they run off on half-baked suicide
mission. Don’t ever do it again."

"Come again?" Methos sputtered.

"You heard him," Carter smiled. "

Doctor Daniel Jackson stood behind and slightly to the left while
the Jaffa’ Teal’c remained seated in the copter. "Consider yourself
lucky, Methos. I think you’re getting off pretty easy. Jackson cocked
his head to one side, thinking something through. "Considering
everything we’ve been through, I got thrashed worse than that for
some of stunts I’ve pulled. Just wait until this is over and we get
you back to the base."

"I’m ecstatic," Methos muttered.

"Get every one onboard. I want these people caught, and I want
answers," O’Neil said.

Scene 8a Confrontation 

**

Meanwhile

"We’re within visual range of our quarry," Carter announced, a note
of finality and satisfaction in her voice. "I’d see we should have
them in a matter of minutes."

"About time," Thoth said, fingers clenched around the armrest of his
seat. "

"At last, something we agree on," O’Neil replied.

"I want first crack at the woman," Methos demanded, folding his arms
over his chest.

"Why," At that instant Carter gave a shout of mingled excitement and
surprise. "We found them! But they have friends in high places.
Incoming hostiles."

"Some kind of energy pulse interfering with the electronic guidance
systems." O’Neil muttered, looking up from the readouts on the
console in front of him. "I’ll evade them, no problem."

Jackson’s gaze wasn’t on the conversation-taking place inside the
helicopter; rather he had been staring out the landscape rushing by
in patches of dark gray and green blurs. They had flown for unmarked
length of time, and passed over the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky
Mountains. Then across the breadbasket of the Midwest, from an
altitude high enough to be above most radar detection systems, but
not too high to risk losing track of the escapees. He couldn’t put
his finger on exactly what was making the fine blond hairs on his
nape prickle, but he could have sworn they were missing something,
‘But what," he muttered aloud. 

O’Neil landed the helicopter a small distance away from the series
of buildings that Michael and Nikita had pulled up to and then
disappeared inside.


The building, a dull metal gray, was blocky and situated on rocky
hill with a commanding view in all directions. By mutual consent,
under the circumstances it was better to approach on foot. Going
armed sounded like an even better idea.

**
Inside the complex, it was dim, but enough light came through the
windows to allow them to see the hallways that branched off from
each, leading to still more hallways. Either the place had been built
for strictly one purpose, with no frills in mind, or someone had
hired an architect with no blueprints and just with strict geometry.
The place looked deserted, but they were aware that appearances could
be deceptive.

They moved down the hallways in pairs with Teal’C and Thoth acting
as rear-guard.

The unmistakable crackle of a gun prepped to fire sounded, and
Methos snarled and shoved Teal’C out of the way. "Yeah you’re big and
strong, but sometimes you just make a big dumb target."

Teal’C nodded and calmly slid the snake-headed staff and prepped,
the red sockets of the snake head glowing in the dim lighting. "I
shall remember that. Turning to Thoth, "Was this one of things I
should remember, Ancient One?"

"Stop calling me that," Thoth snapped.

"We’ve been made," O’Neil shrugged the incident aside. "Hey, given
our luck so far with Section, they probably had us pegged before we
even landed." As if to emphasize the point alarms shrilled through
out the complex.

"I would still like to know how they scrambled the copter’s
systems," Carter remarked.

At that instant Michael appeared from behind a sliding door panel,
emerging from the shadows. "Shall we play another round of 20
questions? If I recall, from our brief acquaintance that you were
found of that game."

Methos ground his teeth, "Should have killed that bastard when I had
the chance."

"I’m ‘not’ disagreeing with you," O’Neil muttered. "And in case you
didn’t notice, we outnumber you."

"Don’t feel like playing anymore," Methos added.

"Neither do I," Nikita stated, tilting her head to one side, and the
sizzle of powering up electrical systems filled the close air with
ozone and sweat.

O’Neil braced for the opening salvo, crouched in a hunter’s stance,
his own gun ready to fire, so when the hot red ribbons of laser
appeared, the bullet hit the laser beam and disintegrated. "Figures,"
he muttered and kept firing off shots until the clip was empty.
Tapping Teal’C on the shoulder, "Bit of on obstacle here. Would you
mind clearing a path?"

"Of course, O’Neil." Teal’c pressed the trigger on his snake-head
staff launching a hot white stream of laser energy, aiming it at the
grid of laser beams. Upon collision the beams sizzled, contracted and
disappeared.

"You’ve seen too much and heard far more than is strictly health,"
Nikita said. "I feel it’s only to inform that we have been authorized
to use lethal force." 

"Hey, no fair stealing my thunder," O’Neil snapped, "That’s my line.
Seriously, though if your superiors are pulling strings and targeting
government officials in positions of authority, that grinds my gears." 

"Someone is going to pay," Carter nodded.

"Now we’re getting somewhere," Jackson said.

"You’re angry about what happened back on your base, and you have a
right to be. If it’s any consolation, it wasn’t personal. It was just
part of the mission." Nikita glided away to a nearby wall panel and
hit a button that activated an explosive device. 

The shock of the explosion knocked the small group off their feet.
Carter was thrown up against the wall, the impact causing a small
gash to open out on her forehead right below the hair line. Jackson
staggered into her left side at the same instant that she raised a
hand up to wipe the blood flowing into her eyes. Daniel blue eyes
were glassy, and understood in a matter of seconds when she saw the
small black needle of a poison that had been inserted into his left
arm. She couldn’t keep herself upright and keep him from collapsing
to the metal floor, and they both went down in an ungainly heap. 

Meanwhile Thoth, feeling much like a third well, stood over the
prone bodies of Carter and Jackson, doing his best to try and revive
them. Methos sneering in the back ground. "You could help?" Thoth
glared up at Methos, dropping Carter’s limp wrist where had just
checked for a pulse. It was there and steady, she just wasn’t
responding to anything he tried.

***

"We don’t want you dead," Nikita remarked, "just incapacitated.

"I feel ‘so’ much better now," O’Neil snapped, crossing the distance
to where she stood, swinging his arms in a roundhouse punch and
feeling the blow blocked by Michael, they locked and O’Neil surprised
by the coiled strength of the other man. Breaking the lock and taking
Michael out of the picture was not going to be as easy as O’Neil
thought it would be. Michael countered the stalemate but hitting
O’Neil in the kidneys, and O’Neil crumpled to the ground. Groaning
more than was necessary, O’Neil returned the favor by introducing his
booted feet under Michael and knocking him down, grabbing the loaded
gun.

Nikita, meanwhile, had taken shelter behind a half open doorway,
muttering under her breath, and cursing how nothing during this
entire mission and its aftermath had according to plan, while she
dodged and weaved to avoid the energy blasts from the snake-headed
staff carried by the large black man, Teal’C. "We are so dead." she
whispered.

**

Scene 9a Conclusion

On the other side of the hallway Doctor Silas waited, as he had been
doing for a very long time. Longer than even he could remember. He
watched the exchange of fire, the angry heat wave of emotions coming
from the small group in exterior hallway, and shook, the eyelid of
his left eye twitching uncontrollably. A submerged memory came to the
forefront; he ‘knew’ one of the man, a tall, angular man with narrow
cheekbones, dark hair, and eyes. He once called this man’ Brother’
and the memories associated with that relationship had nothing to do
with science, and chemistry, and secret societies, and alien energy
reactors: they were of place of wide open spaces, and mountains, and
riding on horseback clad in leather battle gear. Silas, was insane,
these thoughts going through his head were the products of his
particular insanity, brought on by seeing a stranger as a brother.

The insane had their privileges, even by all lights most of those,
like creature comforts, food, clothing, shelter were provided. One of
the benefits of being thought by all those he had trusted, those who
had been with him on the naquada reactor project from the beginning
and those who had been brought in later, thought his madness was
irreversible, at least someone, knew he had lucid moments. Silas did
not know or care what Section was, but when that women, she called
herself Madeline, arranged his escape from the asylum, he was
grateful, and a little surprised, but he would take what he could get.

"Doctor Silas," Nikita said, in tone not of inquiry but surprise at
recognizing the disheveled man in the white coat, much less that he
had been brought into Section and was running around loose.

Methos gazed at the madman, feeling the vaguest stirrings of
recollection. Had he ever met this man before. After 5,000 years a
lot of memories blurred into each other. In the back of his mind, he
shuffled all the separate pieces of his memories and his experience
when he stored them in neat compartments. Nikita had called him Dr.
Silas, not an unusual name, but still. While these thoughts went
through his head, Methos shoved the man aside, he found disagreeable
to have a certified lunatic hurl himself bodily at him, call him
‘brother,’ and proceed to fawn all over him. Aside from that, it was
embarrassing, and everyone was staring at him. "Just what is
everyone’s problem. Is insanity contagious?" I don’t know or care
what’s he’s talking about, just forget about it? Okay?"

"The reactor," Silas babbled, grasping onto the hem of Methos’
uniform pants, sweat coating his face. "It’s hear. It got out, but
Section contained it. The possibilities are endless. Brother, don’t
turn away from me…" Silas’s stream of inane chatter ended on a choked
gurgle, as Michael placed a dagger in between the lunatic’s ribs.
"He’s expendable."

O’Neil turned to face Carter and glancing sidelong at her, "Did he
say ‘reactor’.

"He did." she whispered.

"Refresh my memory, the only reactor that has anything to do with
our project specs, a naquada reactor. Well, come hell or high water,
we’re screwed."

"So they have a reactor?" Methos shrugged. "So what?"

"That’s classified," Carter replied, feeling a bit groggy but
otherwise alert after the 

"We’re not your enemy. You may not agree or condone how Section
operates, but that’s tough, " Michael replied, "and even if you do
manage to kill or otherwise incapacitate the two of us, you won’t
shut us down. It’s like a weed, it keeps on going."

"I hate this guy," Thoth muttered.

"How could you?" Jackson yelled, crossing the gap, unaware of his
own continued safety. "He was crazy, but that’s no reason to kill him!"

"No reason that you are aware of, but he’s served his purpose." 

"We had a go ahead?" Nikita

"I feel sick," Thoth whispered, pleased that Carter and Doctor
Jackson had recovered, but also shocked by how cold-bloodedly Michael
had dispatched the unfortunate Doctor Silas.

"Oh, stop whining, Thoth. I am beginning to understand these
people," Methos said, "As much as it pains me to say this, one rule
above all, ‘success by any means possible. And I think that whatever
they’re stated intentions, all their protestations to the contrary,
they’re fanatics."

"They bring you along to psychoanalyze your enemies?" Nikita
snapped, out of patience.

"No. I’m just good at reading people," Methos replied.

"Damn, and just when I thought we really had a chance to win this
one." O’Neil snapped. "I hate that."

"At last something we agree on, Colonel," Nikita replied.

"Why do I get the feeling that short of killing you and carting you
back to base in a body bag, you’ll won’t let us take your prisoner,"
Carter asked.

"I will tell this much," Michael smiled, showing all his perfect
white teeth. "As man sows, so shall he reap. In novels such men are
sometimes converted, in real life, they do not change their natures
until they are converted to dust." 

"I really hate this guy," Thoth stated, but was ignored. 

. I wanted to find out the answers to all these questions," O‘Neil
said, "Now I just want to leave." O’Neil said.

****