Childhood Roulette - The Crawling Terror of Doom by voracity

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Xander was shoved into an office before Danny and the others ran off, taking David with them. He huffed, looking up. "I could've helped!" he complained loudly.

"No you can't. Steve's word is law," an amused male voice said patiently. Xander turned to look at him. "Who're you?"

"Xander." He grinned. "You're Jerry aren't you? Danny described you pretty darn well."

"I am." He shook his hand. "Why did they shove you in here?"

"Because some big boogerhead is going to try to kill everyone again," he said impatiently.

"Boogerhead is the official term?" Jerry asked with a grin.

"Well, yeah, his head is made of ectoplasm and it's even icky green booger colored." Jerry blinked. Xander grinned. "Someone summoned it to defeat a group trying to get into the local peaceful community. Steve said I can't go set it on fire, even though that's how you kill it."

Jerry stared at him then sighed and nodded. "That's a great thing to know." He sat down. "So what else do you do, Xander?"

"A lot of things. Depends on the day." He walked over to see what he was doing. "Steve said you do a lot with conspiracies."

"I do. It's a hobby." He let the kid see what he was doing.

Xander leaned forward to read, then grinned and pointed. "That's SGC, Jerry."

"Crap. I was hoping it was another program. How can only one program deal with things?"

"They have the ring thingy that opened." Xander shrugged. "It's pretty and in Egyptian."

"You've seen it?"

"Pictures of it. The Watchers Council has books with it in there. Something about an ancient war but Giles took the book from me before I got too interested because it wasn't involved in the demon that gave someone telepathy by infecting her."

"Huh?"

"Like werewolves, some demons can infect you with their blood," Xander said. Jerry nodded slowly at that. "These white, mouthless ones that Buffy was fighting once gave her telepathy that way," he said dryly. "Took a bit for us to figure it out and how to cure it before it drove her batty."

"How do you know this?"

"Before I got wish deaged I was the guy that backed her up," he said then smiled. "They did a bit of a memory thing so she doesn't think I'm still alive so it's not as painful for her."

Jerry stared at her. "You're that Xander?" Xander grinned and nodded. "Why are you here?"

"Steve's dad and my shithead donor served together so he's like a godfather. So's Uncle Jack in Colorado. Uncle Jake's actually a step-uncle but he's active duty spec ops so he's really busy for Uncle Jack."

Jerry stared at him then moaned and shook his head. "I need you to verify some things for me."

"Sure. On which subject?" He hopped up to sit on the table so he could see the screen better while Jerry was typing. "If that's Willow, she got the same memory helper since she went from 'damn it, we have to fix it' to 'I have to remove Xander from history so no one gets bothered by this' to 'wow, my addiction just slipped, oops sorry'," he said blandly.

"No, not Willow. Fred."

"I think she might still remember. She's nicely cool and all that. Only met her once but she was like Willow started out only really smart instead of just kinda smart, and she was the sort of geeky girl I would've loved to flirt with even though she's not really dangerous or deadly. Ask her if she knows where Anya's hiding so I can keep track of her?"

Jerry looked at him. "Who's Anya?"

"The girl I was dating who made the prompted wish to make me tiny again."

"That's kind of evil."

"Yeah but she has no outlet for it since she's not a vengeance demon any more."

Jerry stared at him oddly. "You dated a vengeance demon?"

"She lost her job." Xander shrugged. "She wanted to go to the prom so I took her and the sex was good. After graduation and my roadtrip she came back and the sex was still good so we ended up dating and I was going to marry that woman. Probably."

"Wow." He typed that note and Fred said to say hi. "She said hi back. Anya's in Texas sucking up to a cult of people who like vampires."

"Hmm. I heard about them but they like to sacrifice them to gain the powers they hold. I hope she'll be okay." Jerry typed that in. Xander took the keyboard to type at Fred, telling her where to look for that information. They had a branch of them in LA. She sent back a thank you, Xander, and he grinned, sending back a virtual blown kiss. He handed back the keyboard. "What sort of Sunnydale thing did you need verified?"

"Why was the military in your town?"

"To torture demons or anyone who had gifts." Jerry turned to stare at him. "Supposedly they were trying to figure out how to gain their gifts and skills to gift to military people or to recruit some species into the military for special jobs. So yeah, they tortured a lot of demons. Some people who have magic too." He took the keyboard back and got into another screen to go searching for those files. He knew where Willow had stored them all. He let Jerry have his keyboard back. "That's their stuff that Willow hacked. She put something on their system and downloaded it."

Jerry and Fred looked through it. "They tested on their own people too?"

"Yeah. Their original head was going to make a monster that was part demon and part fallen soldier. We had to do mystical stuff to get him gone. Then we raided the base." Jerry looked at him. "They had a friend the first time. That time it was time for them to go bye-bye." Xander shrugged. "Almost all of them belong under hell instead of in it, but you don't get everyone agreeing on that. Buffy defends Riley; I think he knew what those beings he captured and tazed were going to go through before they died." He shrugged again. "They were dating though."

Jerry slumped, going back to the information and telling Fred that bit. "Finn's new team is in LA to help with anything relating to the uprising recently."

"It wasn't an uprising, it was an invasion and a plot by some higher demons. To be honest, I hope the LA community will kill him for it. He deserves it for what he did."

"Have you had to torture anyone?" Jerry asked without looking at him.

"Once. He had some kids hostage so I kinda beat him a bit." Jerry turned to stare at him. "He was a bad guy. I'd never touch anything harmless. That time, those kids were going to die."

"In your town?"

"In Oxnard when I was on my roadtrip. One of the half-demon strippers had her kids taken by her husband's new friends. I got one of them and asked him less than politely to use a Danny-ism. I got them free and they weren't too banged up. Long before the sacrificial rite and all that. And no, no one heard. Those demons went down and didn't come back up. The demon they were trying to summon showed up after I got the kids free and ate them so I didn't even have to pretend to call 911 and instead get a hunter onto them."

Jerry blinked a few times. "Wow."

"Yeah but necessary. They were innocent little kids." He pointed. "Fred's panicking." Jerry moved to type at her again. "She heard?"

"Gunn heard." He looked at him. "There is that rumor mill."

Xander grinned. "I knew about that. That's half of why I played kitten poker." He smiled. "And if someone tells Buffy she'd still deny it because I'm supposedly normal."

"No you're not."

"I knew that before then." He patted Jerry on the arm. "Relax. I'd never do anything mean unless I have to so innocents are protected."

"Is that why you saved Danny's little girl?"

"Yup. She needed it."

"He know that?"

"Yup. Yelled for over an hour." Jerry winced. Someone knocked on the door. "We're magnificent but not doing anything naughty," he called. Max, the ME, walked in. "Hey, Max. What's up?"

He stared at the little kid. "Come identify a species please. That way we can notify them."

"Sure." He hopped down. "Want me to come back, Jerry?"

"Please. I'd like to make sure nothing like them is going on again."

"They are and I'm *so* there to help fix it," Xander quipped. "Even if I have to start doing magic myself." He followed the ME to the morgue, looking at the body. "She's human. I think. There are some species that look almost identical so it's really hard to tell. Or vampires, who used to be human."

"Not that one." He checked around before opening a drawer.

Xander got onto a chair to look at her. "That's a bad thing. She's a shape changer." He grimaced. "She's not a were, but another type, some type of flying one. That's really bad." He found his cellphone, just given to him by David that morning, and called. "Hey, Mary-Beth, it's Xander. The ME needs to talk to Hillbourough. Yeah, that ME. Thank you." He hung up. "She's free this afternoon and she's the local community records keeper."

"Do these ones naturally have shedding skin?" Max asked.

"No. And there's pelt hunters but I don't think they would've taken her kind for that."

"Hmm. Feathers?" Xander nodded, turning around to sit down. "Interesting. Any taboos about autopsies?"

"Not that I'm aware of. I can call again."

"That's fine. I can wait until this afternoon and work on the lab work for her." He looked at the body then under her shoulder. "That looks like it might have been a tattoo."

"Yeah, they have a clan marking that shows up when they're born and changes when they mate to lay eggs. Each time I think because they don't form lifetime bonds."

"Good to know. I'll ask about that then. Thank you, Xander. Let me escort you back."

"Okay." He hopped down and followed Max back. He had met some of the other officers that were in the offices down this way once when he was trying to escape Danny and Chin nagging. They weren't really nice people and thought they should've put him into a jail cell for not being escorted. "You guys are so much more reasonable than the ME in Sunnydale, who spent most of his night locked in his office just in case someone came up off the table. They made up *so* many records."

Max looked at him. "I looked up that town when Steve told us about you. Your local department was pathetic."

"They never came out of the office," Xander said dryly. "They made up results too. I think they used D&D dice to see which excuse they were going to use for each death. That's why we had so many who died by barbeque fork. It must've been 3 on the D6 die. That always came up more often for me," he said at the odd look.

"Barbeque fork?"

Xander nodded with a grimace. "Or animal attacks or chainsaws a few times a year, or gangs on PCP." Max grimaced. "They even got some of the ones that were killed by the hospital by accident."

"We should have someone look into that." He knocked and opened the door of the office Jerry was using for now. "Here you go, one miniature warrior."

Jerry waved him over. "Come look at this, kid. See if it's them."

Xander hopped up to look at the monitor, shaking his head. "No, that's a different group. They're out-sourced NID fuckers from Area 51." He looked at Jerry. "They're the people that keep trying to capture Uncle Jack."

"Charming!" He and Fred, and now someone else, was talking. "Your Uncle Jake said hi."

"Tell him I said hi back and go have some candy. He could probably use some today since I heard that there's some not-gou'ald who had gotten free of Colorado to travel."

Jerry typed that in. "He wanted to know if you meant the Tokra."

"Is that what they're called? They pretend to have a union with their snakes and don't. It can still take over."

"Yeah, that's Tokra," Jerry said after typing that in. "He'll tell someone."

"Cool. Maybe Uncle Jack and Uncle Jake can have candy together. They probably need it more than beer. A few of the groups that watch the mountain's people said that they've been drinking too many dinners and not eating enough food so they need the calories."

Jerry typed that in then smiled. "He agreed and they could use the sugar anyway." He looked at him. "Steve's on his way back."

"That's cool. Did he get the boogerhead?"

"Yes he did. He even set it on fire."

"Cool." He looked at Max since he was staring. "You have to set their booger textured and colored heads on fire to kill them but they can explode if you use higher level stuff to start the fire. I used a road flare once and had to get out of the way really fast. I hope Kono can duck really well since the thing probably was trying to flirt with her." Jerry and Max were both staring at him oddly. "They like pretty girls and they can cross-breed. We went to school with a kid who was a quarter one and he was okay until puberty then he started to leak booger liquids from his eyes and ears so he had to home school."

"Do they have a proper species name?" Max asked.

"Probably but I never saw them in any of the books Giles used to have in the school's library. Boogerhead was Buffy's name for them. We just adopted so we understood what she was talking about sometimes." He shifted in the chair. "They're generally peaceful unless they're in heat. So if one was attacking some of the community it was either high, spelled, or in heat and desperately looking for a cure since them being in heat can kill them. Hopefully without killing the other party since Spike's former porn movies showed that they leak the booger fluid during sex and it gets everywhere in mass quantities."

"Why did you end up watching the other guy's porn?" Jerry asked. He had started recording when Xander had started to talk so Fred could hear.

"Spike's a master vampire who has a chip thanks to the Initiative fuckers. Giles used to tie him up in his spare bathtub but Giles had a girlfriend coming in so I got to host him in my recliner, where I duct taped him for days on end." He grinned. "I didn't want him to do anything icky to me. He couldn't hurt a human but he could do a lot of icky things to torment us. Sometimes he poured blood into my cereal as I ate it. Sometimes he slept with my mother." Xander shrugged then grinned. "Vampires are kinda icky. I don't see how anyone can sleep with one but I guess he was good enough at it since it happened more than once."

"Eww," Max said. "Thank you for sharing, Xander." He walked off shaking his head. Maybe he'd find a compact manual so he didn't have to ask anyone what a dead body was sometimes. He saw the team coming back. Steve was covered in ectoplasmic goo. "So that's what he meant by spraying if you used too high of an accelerant."

Steve grimaced. "Yeah, probably." Danny was grinning behind his back. Steve glared back at him then at Max. "Where is the kid?"

"With Jerry hacking a government project," Max said. "I had him identify and call someone about the unusual body we found late last night."

"That's fine," Danny agreed. "He's probably seen worse."

"At least in the vampire Spike's pornography collection," Max agreed. "Spike was apparently a hostage vampire at times so he got to watch some of his tapes." He walked off. "Do I have a new body?"

"No, they took him," Danny said. "Apparently he was in heat. They have male bearing like seahorses."

"Interesting." Max went to hide in his morgue. It was much easier than thinking about demon things.

Steve looked at Danny. "Let me go clean up and then we'll talk to the kid about not sharing as much."

"Yeah, I can do that." He went down to where Jerry was hiding. Xander was sitting on the desk again so he could see the screen. "Let him have chat sex or whatever."

"He and Fred were making sure the Initiative idiots were gone for good," Xander said. "Because Riley Asshole Finn showed up in LA with a team to torture the demon community to go back into hiding."

"Tell Steve that, maybe he knows someone who can correct his thinking." He grinned at Jerry. "He helpful?"

"Very helpful." He smiled at the kid then at Danny. "He knows a lot about a few things that are very interesting and starting to get a lot of attention."

"Don't out the wraith yet," Xander warned. "They're super icky bad guys from Uncle Jack's project that just got back and they'll cause a panic."

"I think most of us who would out something like that decided that your Uncle Jack's people did insane things that would turn most of us into alcoholics to deal with," Jerry told him. "Some even think that they have their own special brand of psych meds for that."

Xander grinned. "Beer sometimes but not that David's said. Also, the wraith are people eaters."

"Ah!" Jerry nodded. "People will freak out about people eating aliens, yeah. We can hide those until they start to come out."

"Cool. Tell Fred I said to have some jell-o. She likes it." He bounded off with Danny following.

Jerry moaned but typed that into the chat screen. Jake laughed but said that they used regular stress reduction methods, a lot of which seemed to be native populations who needed sperm. And some beer sometimes.

Fred agreed she needed more jell-o, she was out, and she was starting to miss having a normal guy like Xander around because he'd bring down the slayer's attitude problem. Plus he was cute by what Jerry's camera had captured. He clearly needed more cookies.

Xander walked in rubbing his head and took the keyboard, typing something to Fred and told her to get Wesley to translate that since he could stop them from taking her to be a host body for an ancient demon queen. Also it would save Wesley from tangling with Angel over his son's future. Then he walked off rubbing his forehead some more.

Jerry typed in what had happened and Fred said she was already calling Wes. Jake translated it for her and she moaned but her little icon had 'yelling for a watcher' as a status now.

***

Jake carried his laptop into Daniel's office, interrupting Jack picking on him. "Hey, Jackson, is this one of ours or one of theirs?" He let him see the message.

Daniel looked her up. "Ancient demon queen apparently, not a gou'ald." He looked up. "Can they be called back?"

"Apparently." Jake shrugged. "No idea but Xander had a vision about it."

"Great. I hope they can save Fred. I like her," Jack said. "If she does get possessed that way can we end it?"

"Probably not," Daniel admitted. "I doubt a simple exorcism would work. If so, we could ask Xander but I doubt he'd know since it said to ask Wesley."

"According to Xander, she has a small cult to her that'll try to bring her back by giving her a new host body," Jake told them. That got a dual nod. "Then they'd want her to do something for them."

"Great." Jack shook his head. "If we can help with that, let us know."

"I can do that. Also, some of the conspiracy people, who was chatting with Fred before she invited me in, thought that we have a special brand of anti-psych meds around here." He grinned as he walked off.

"Not really. A lot of valium at times," Jack quipped. "But not a lot of anti-psychs. Some anti-depressants too." He walked off frowning but not really more than generally upset. He liked Fred when he had met her.

Daniel got back to work listing all the various higher ups and if they were gou'ald related or demon related. It was an important list they'd already needed a few times.

***

Steve looked around the house then at David. "Did he run away again?"

"He's hiding in the basement while I get the possessed dog out of here. I don't know why a gou'ald larva possessed a dog but Xander doesn't want to see me kill it and the docs at the mountain just groaned." He loaded his sidearm and put it onto the counter. "Did you need him?"

"Danny's mother's in."

David winced. "Great. Take the kid and I'll come get him later? Xander, you're saved from the dog," he yelled.

Xander came hopping up the stairs and took a jump into a chair then climbed onto the kitchen counter to walk around to where Steve was. "Thank you." The dog came rushing in to bite them. "You biting me won't pass you over, damn thing." He gave Steve the big eyed look. "Can we run away now? I don't like to see animals harmed."

"Me either," Steve agreed. He carried him out to the car. David shot the dog once they had driven off. He glanced over Xander. "I should've let you change."

"The damn thing was in the way of me getting anywhere else in the house. I had to hide in our mystical basement."

"That figures. Danny's mom is in and demanded we present you."

"Fuck."

Steve swatted him. "Mouth."

"Sorry." He sighed but rubbed his head. Steve pulled over. The headache look didn't ease. "Not a vision. Just a headache from some sort of broadcasting thing. Can we go on faster?" Steve nodded, driving them off. A few blocks later his headache look eased so Steve called Kono to look up what had been going on. It might be a test of a new anti-riot device but he doubted it. They got to the station and Steve walked around to let Xander out and help him inside. "We drove past something that shot sound waves at him and gave him a headache," he said quietly to Chin.

Chin looked at the kid and nodded. "Kono's got some advil, kiddo."

"Thank you." He went to bump into her since he wasn't watching where he walked. "Kono, can I bum your advil?"

"Sure, Xander. That sound thing that Steve mentioned?"

"Yeah. Huge headache. And it's starting around here. The waves of misery are starting." He took a few pills dry, accepting the bottle of water Danny handed him to gulp after them. "Thank you too." He heaved and held onto the data table. Visions on top of a headache were a sign that the PTB were truly evil beings. "That's an evil thing." He looked then at Steve. "They're military too. They followed us."

Steve went to look outside, spotting someone in camo. "Yes they are." He grimaced. "Let me go talk to them. You lay down, Xander. Danny, I didn't give him a chance to change. David was handling a possessed dog that had gotten in." Xander grimaced but headed for the bathroom to throw up. Danny followed to help the kid. Kono, Chin, and Steve went to handle the idiots with the machine.

"HPD, freeze," Steve yelled, holding up his badge. "Don't make me remember I'm a SEAL," he said when one ran for their truck. He chased them down and slammed them into the truck. Chin and Kono took on the other three, and she kicked over the machine to break it before she hit another person that was rushing over to help their people. Steve got the last two down and cuffed then stared at the mess they made. "The base is going to *adore* them," he sneered.

Kono looked at the machine. "I can't tell if it's off or not. I can't hear it."

"Xander and I both have more sensitive hearing," Steve told her. "I can barely hear it so it's still on." She kicked it a few more times, breaking it thoroughly. "That's better. Thank you. I was starting to get the same headache." He stared at them. "We're going to talk about how you're endangering people on my islands." He hauled them up and let the patrol officers take them. "Take them to separate rooms. Their little machine was sending out sound waves to distract and cause pain. They followed us from about six miles away."

"There were more than a few wrecks reported in the last hour out that way, McGarrett," one of the officers said quietly. "Could have been that?"

"Probably would have been that. It gave me a few spikes too but I was taught to drive through the migraine." That got a nod and those people were very sorry by the time they got put into chairs inside the building. The patrol supervisor came in with notes on the wrecks. Steve pointed at one. "That's probably an outlier and that light was out when I was near there."

"The one before then crashed into the pole," the supervisor told him.

"Charming." He took the notes in there with the supervisor to talk to them.

Danny came in a few minutes later. "I had mini mouth look at them after I got the guy sneaking in to grab him. These three," he said. "Are the guys that they stopped. That one," he said with a point. "Is Area 51 personnel according to Jerry." He looked at the other six. "The rest of you are idiots apparently." He looked at Steve. "David's on his way in. He got the gou'ald that was improbable in it's placement."

Steve nodded once. "He didn't know why it was possessing a dog either."

The patrol supervisor cleared his throat. "What?"

"The kid our unit's watching over? His guardian is formerly SG," Steve told him. "David's handling a gou'ald that possessed a dog and was trying to attack him and the kid."

"I...why would something that sentient want a dog?" the patrol supervisor asked.

Danny shrugged. "David said that's weirder than anything he's seen."

"Uh-huh."

"He's called it in. Just in case." He smirked a tiny bit. "But he did get the snake and the dog since they couldn't save it." The patrol supervisor grimaced but nodded. "Strange thing though, he found a chip on the dog's neck. Standard pet chip. From Arizona."

"How did it get here?" Steve asked him.

"No clue. But that's weird. Right?" He smirked a tiny bit then stared at the Area 51 idiot. "That's very weird."

Steve nodded. "Incredibly so."

"You're nothing," that one sneered. "SEAL or not."

"We'll see what the president thinks about that," Steve quipped. The man gasped. Steve stared at him. "I'm pretty sure Jack O'Neill is going to have words with someone about you since you're out of your jurisdiction."

"O'Neill's message on all this was filthy followed by the machine was made off-world to react against certain types of gene carriers," Danny quipped with a grin and a pat on Steve's shoulder. "To keep warrior ATA carriers from taking over a city."

Steve looked at him. "I do have a weaker one," he admitted. "If I flew I could go join the SGC." He looked at the scientist again. He was praying for invisibility. "Interesting." One of the soldiers tried to get up but Kono knocked him back into the chair. "Is he on his way out?"

"With Jake so he can have a few minutes to play with Xander. Apparently their last team trip had a bad ending or something so he needed kid cuddles." Danny went to check and brought the soldiers back. Jake was hugging Xander, getting kid snuggles back. Clay was already sneering and glaring at the soldiers. Roque wasn't any more friendly and even Pooch looked like he was going to rip their limbs off to beat them with them.

"Boys," Steve said, handing the general the notes. "It may be that they're responsible for others having car wrecks."

O'Neill looked at the notes, nodding once. "If so, they can be charged with that as well. The federal prosecutor can work with the local ones once we've made sure of everything they've done." Jack looked at the patrol officers. "How many deaths?"

"Possibly up to three so far, General. One on scene, two were in really bad shape as they were taken away. We're having someone check traffic cams to see when they set up. That area has had a lot of accidents since about ten this morning. That's the last hour's wrecks from their arrests."

Jack looked at the small stack then at him. "Ten accidents?" The patrol supervisor nodded. "If they're responsible, we'll let Hawaii help us prosecute and let them be sued. Be damned if I want to see that happen again."

"I broke the machine," Kono quipped with a smile for him. "It was annoying Steve."

Jack grinned at her. "I like you, if you were one of my soldiers I'd let you lead your own team." She smiled back. "Boys, go help the PD search their shit for more classified things and make sure it's not boobytrapped." Pooch went with the patrol officer that got waved at. "Jensen?"

"In a minute, General. Xander's got a fever and he's still in pain."

Jack looked at him, taking him to hold and test his forehead. "You are warm, kiddo." Xander nodded, resting on his shoulder. "Hmm." He looked then at Jake. "Do you have that little light thing?" Jake pulled it out and put it onto the table, moving it around. "A full gou'ald. You Trust?" he asked dryly. Jake took Xander back and got out of there, pulling Kono with them. "McGarrett, go have some coffee."

"Sure. Just remember, if I can't torture them because they're in custody you probably can't, General." He grinned. "And I can see the local base commander waiting too."

"He can wait." Steve nodded, walking out to talk to him. Jack smirked at them. "We need to check them for stomach and neck pouches," he told the patrol supervisor. That got a nod and they took their shirts off them. He found three. One of them was sending out the wave and Jack hit him in the back of the head, knocking him out. Suddenly the kid felt better. "That helps. Great. At least it's not a queen. Then we'd have drooling men and Kono would have to handle it with the female officers."

"That's horrible from the records released, sir," the patrol supervisor said.

Roque looked at him, grinning a tiny bit. "Worse, if the queen inhabits a guy, they can still lay baby snakes."

"That's gross," the patrol supervisor agreed. Roque nodded. "Are there any of those on the islands?"

"We didn't know that these gou'ald were here," Jack admitted. "I would've said no a few hours ago."

"I can go trolling tonight," Clay said. "I do have the gift of drawing them, general."

Jack grinned at him. "You just want to hit a strip club, Colonel."

"Could help, yeah."

"If you find one, so be it. I was going to leave Jensen here until tomorrow anyway. Let us know if you find any. Roque, are you staying with them?"

"Probably should. One'll get into trouble. I don't know which one's worse." He grimaced at Clay. "If there's a female gou'ald you'll definitely draw them with the kid."

David knocked and leaned in. "I called in two gou'alds last night, General. Did you get that notice?"

"No, David," he quipped with a smile for him. "Where?"

"Two little old ladies up the street who're kinda hot but want to mother Xander to death, General." He grinned. "They're fattening him up and making sure he can grow up into a good man they can take over."

Jack blinked a few times. "Excuse me?"

"They see him like Sheppard's second coming, sir. I asked them when I tied them up. They're in female bodies but may not be fully mature females since they didn't try to broadcast at me, sir. All I know is that Xander's seen as the next higher up to ascend somehow." He shrugged but smiled. "And I did get the gou'ald whoever put into the dog and sicced on us."

"Thank you. Two different plots?" Jack asked.

"Probably. I asked one of those two and they said it'd ruin his body. He had to be close to perfect to take over for the new Ra when he ascended." He grinned. "I pointed out Ra was dead and they said his son was around in a jar waiting on a great body. He wanted an ATA carrier who was strong enough to be a warrior."

"Who had that plot?" Clay demanded.

"The jar's queen. She thought about taking Pooch but she hates bald guys. Jensen was seen as too geeky. Roque's not liked because of his scars and you drove her off. Something about not liking inn whores, Colonel." He smirked and laughed a tiny bit. "They lifted Jake's wallet and found a picture. She's stuck on getting Xander as her next husband. And she has her next body picked out plus three alternates in case Xander would hate their forms." He closed the door.

"I have to kill them very hard," Jack decided. "I thought we were done with their stupid shit." He looked at Clay. "Don't feel bad, they think I'm too old and tough. They think Carter's just pretty. Even after she blew up a solar system to get some of them."

"I wonder if we can have a vampire bite them," Clay said. "That'd make them weaker in a lot of ways plus give them some very useable weaknesses."

"Don't know. We can test one of these, Colonel." He smiled at them. "Any volunteers?" Two of the gou'ald tried to shed their bodies but Jack had people waiting to save the bodies. They had things to stun the other larva so they could be removed. Though one of the assholes wasn't snaked, he was just hateful and venting about how normal people had to be saved from ATA carriers and others who would upset their plans for humanity. So no loss there as he could be charged with all the accidents and the other things they had done that day.

***

Jack O'Neill saluted as the president looked up at his entry into the Oval Office. "Sir, you summoned me?" he asked.

"You helped arrest gou'ald in Hawaii, General O'Neill. Why?"

"Well, first because they were gou'ald. Secondly because they were terrorizing the people. They caused eighteen car accidents while waiting on a young child to come out of his house with their stolen machine. It was built off world and was meant to affect ATA carriers during a battle. Like a sonic weapon used during riots," he explained at the odd look he was getting.

"All right," the president agreed. "So they were going after your nephew?"

"Apparently there's some gou'ald queen that thinks he'll be a perfect host when he's older. They're wrong because Xander will kill them all if he has to. He's already vowed that they'd all die if he had to. Though these ones were going to take him out so he couldn't become the new host." The president sighed, shaking his head and dropping his pen onto the papers in front of him. "They weren't concerned about the four deaths that they caused or the twenty-six injured people from the car accidents they caused, sir.

"Though when Colonel Clay suggested we see if vampires can bite them, to give them a known and exploitable weakness, a few of the larva fled their hosts and got taken out that way. The hosts are still being held because two of them thought it was a great idea. One was still human when he took a dog from a pound in Arizona and forced a larva into it."

The president blinked at him. "Wouldn't the gou'ald get rejected?"

"Not totally. It was in control but not able to do more than simple things. They sicced the dog on Xander to kill him in the house. They flew it to Hawaii, commercially flew it to Hawaii, sir. They came out on an Area 51 requested military flight."

"So they risked that larva getting free of the dog and infecting someone on a plane?"

"Yes, sir."

The president sighed again, staring up at him. "Why are they doing that?"

"They're stupid," Jack said firmly. "I have no idea what made them that stupid but they're stupid, sir. Half of Area 51 is under the same blanket of stupid they rested under to be frank. It only surprised me they didn't try to kidnap the kid to test on him first."

The president nodded, rubbing his forehead. "I hate your project, General."

"It wasn't us, Sir. Area 51 is just someone we've been forced to deal with a few times. We'd all like them and the NID to fly off back to Oz to go back to their natal flying monkey form. Maybe a few of us would follow them to find their wicked witch in charge to melt her, but we'd all like them to fly off."

The president looked up at him. "What else have they done?"

"In what range of time, sir? In the last week? NID has tried to capture two of my people to torture and test on. Regular soldiers they were going to infect with a possible anti-Ori virus. That and they've tried to yet again capture myself, my clone, and Colonel Carter. Twice in her case. She went to the movies and they tried to set it on fire to get her as she fled with the others." The president held up a hand. "Area 51 has been notably only complaining this last week, sir. They wanted us to hand over samples to test on and think that us giving them sentient life forms is a good thing. We've denied them and their claim of intelligence."

"These samples they wanted?"

"Pets from a new ally we've recently made friends with. It appears one's a plant-based lifeform and they're interested."

"I see." He sighed. "Is it sentient?" Jack nodded. "Then that's not a great idea."

"They seem to have a lot of those, sir. We just walk away and tell them no. Then kick them out of the mountain."

"Aren't your people on hold?"

"Yes, sir, but that was a long running diplomatic visit that just recently returned. They had been checking in for the last month."

"That's reasonable. Are there others out there?"

"Two missions presently out and not expected back soon. The ships are considered off-base. And one's team is presently scouting a few enemies to report back on their rebuilding. Since we've seen some gou'ald recently they've went to scout the remaining ones to see what they're doing to rebuild."

"That sounds reasonable." He leaned back in his chair. "I have had a lot of complaining from the IOA, General O'Neill."

"Yes, sir, I've heard a lot of it and I've denied they have intelligence as well. Frankly, most of them are ghouls that agree with the NID about torture being good science. The rest just want weapons that are too powerful for safety reasons."

"How powerful can they be?"

"Sir, Dr. McKay was trying to make a new ZPM power module using the Ancient's machines and blew up nine-tenths of a solar system."

The president nodded once. "That's too strong for safety."

"We've figured out how to make them safely, not around here but safely, and are working on ways to let them power things like cities." Jack smiled. "They can last a thousand years each, sir. We thought it's a great thing for humanity. Just not as weapons."

"I can agree with that point. The IOA's viewpoint?"

"They only wanted weapons applications. They refused to let anyone publish anything that would let other scientists catch up to our science. There's hundreds of scientists that have no real idea that what they've been working on for their whole lives is already partially solved and they're decades behind now. All our science staff has complained and started to publish since the IOA isn't able to block it. I've got people doing lectures at their favorite colleges so we have future scientists who have some idea. McKay is foaming at the mouth about a few of those but he's found a few he might accept as later lesser flunkies that might gain to full status with him. He's kind of picky."

"I've heard. A lot actually. The IOA hates that lecture tour."

Jack O'Neill nodded but grinned. "Yes, but we've found four students who have corrected problems we've been working on. Two others that are medical researchers who have good ideas and skills we might consider recruiting later on in xenobiology."

"What if they issue another gag order?"

"Then at least people know that it's bigger than they think and they can be recruited if they have the skills." He smiled a tiny bit. "We'll need good scientists later on. Some day even McKay has to retire from Atlantis, sir."

"It would be good to have people in place to handle things if he's indisposed."

"With McKay it's more likely that someone's stolen him again. A lot of planets think that he's ownable, sir. We've had to take him back more than a few times. If they knew what he could really do, he'd be in a lot more danger."

"Would he go back to Canada?"

"He'll take Atlantis with him," Jack admitted. "She has a great fondness for him since he's the reason she gets fixed. Even with his tiny ATA gene, he's still getting the benefits of a full ATA carrier does and she does seem to enjoy him."

"The city's sentient?" the president demanded, standing up.

"She has a very sentient AI, yes, sir." Jack stared at him. "She can't fully communicate, but she can move things to where they're being worked on, open doors, and a few other benefits. Usually she'll do it to help full ATAs she likes. She pampers a few of the scientists that fix her and one of the botanists that take care of her native plants. She moves them near her so she can fuss over them easier. Also, can they take the cloak off the city? The ships are still under orders to shoot Atlantis into component atoms, sir."

He flopped back into his chair. "I'll send that order tonight, General O'Neill. I would like some sort of oversight authority over your program. There's no telling what you could bring back."

"We have standards in place, sir. For both human interactions and later medical checks as soon as they get back, and when we bring back samples so they can be safely checked then studied."

"Your people walk through most of the mountain to get to the infirmary. What if they're contagious and don't know?"

"We have a nurse on hand in the gateroom to check them for things like fevers before they step foot out of the gate area, sir. We have containment boxes on hand for any non-living samples and we have bubbles handy for any living samples. Originally we didn't but Hammond had to deal with that situation once so he made sure we had something on hand after asking someone our doctor cleared at the CDC, sir. They still check our containment protocols every year for us. They wanted us to move the infirmary but it wasn't an available option without digging out a whole new corridor. The current ones don't have the plumbing, clearance, circumference, or the ability to put in even a single exam room. Retrofitting was looked at but it'd be even more complicated than digging out a new area. If I remember right, General Hammond said that it was so expensive to retrofit that we should just build a new mountain area."

"Where is General Hammond now?"

"Died a few years back, sir. We miss him, he kept us sane for years."

"That's why no one could ask him about the program." He nodded, making that note. "I would still like to have someone in as oversight. That way everyone can't hide things."

"Sir, I only hide bad ideas that we've turned down."

"Sending replicators to the Ori?" the president asked dryly.

"That was the IOA," Jack said firmly. "They tried it with my former team on the ship and were found out then. Danny boy nearly spaced them for it."

"They said it was your team's plan," he said, handing over that file.

Jack looked it over. "No, sir, I was in charge of the mountain at that time." He handed it back. "May I call Carter here?" The president waved a hand and pulled out other files from a box. Jack pulled out his phone. "Carter, I need you in the Oval Office. The IOA is trying to say that we were doing things they did. Right now, please. Fine, get redressed." He hung up. "She's in the gym so give her about ten minutes, sir."

"That's fine. I doubt she wants to stand around being sweaty." He let Jack have those files. "Yours?"

Jack sorted three out. "They were ours but the only option at the time." Carter was beamed in and saluted.

"As you were, Colonel. Explain these to me please?"

She put her tablet on the corner of the desk and pulled over the files. "These two were ours, this was Atlantis and not totally their idea. It was started by a native species." She pulled up those files for him. Jack handed her the other files while the president read those others.

The president looked up. "We blew up a solar system on purpose?"

"That or an invasion, sir. That was the best option we had. I don't like I had to do that, but it was necessary."

The president looked at her then at Jack. "Were these those ZPM things?"

"No, sir, we had no idea about zero point modules at that point or I wouldn't have built a super nuclear weapon to use on that sun," Sam Carter told him.

"That was nuclear?"

"And an explosives capable material we found on a few worlds, yes, sir. Naqquadah has that capability so I merged them. We use naqquadah for things like long term generators on Atlantis as well."

"You turned something that you blew up a sun with into a battery?"

"Like any energy, sir, it has multiple uses. I don't brag or like that I had to blow up that sun but we didn't have the capability to hold off a space invasion at that time. Those were the two options."

"All right. I'll let some generals look that one over."

"The full Joint Chief's panel has open records from all our groups, sir," Jack O'Neill said. "They've done a full review and are going to probably be giving comments and yelling in a few days. Probably the end of the week they said."

"That's good to know. I wish they had told me." The president made that note and went back to it.

Jack looked at her. "The gou'alds in Hawaii?" he asked quietly.

"I've checked the dog's remains and the larva's remains. David did a good job of a clean kill and we did find the solution they created to slightly subvert the larva into a less capable state. It's not much off what we do when we take them from an infected person, sir."

"Good to know. They got it from us?"

"It appears so. The doctors agreed that it was a weaker form and less stable form of what we use when we remove them. They've preparing a report."

"Thank you." He looked at the staring president. "It's something we're looking into, sir."

"I'd like to hear that as well," the president told her and got back to the files. He huffed at the end of one of them. "This file is incomplete, Colonel?"

She looked. "No, sir, it's got a link." She clicked on it. "That was the summary. We changed the format for reports when Jack took over because he said it was too cumbersome."

"It reduced the paperwork by ten pages," Jack said with a slight nod. "It also allowed the scientific reports to be added as machine reports instead of a written one. That way no one has to find a former scientist to see what the actual results were."

"We liked that as well," Sam Carter agreed. "We advised on what we needed the new system to hold, sir."

"That's fine. I find that reasonable." He looked at Jack.

"I hate paperwork, sir."

"I realize that you're more action oriented, O'Neill." He got back to the file, shaking his head at it. "I can see why you all hate the NID."

Sam looked then grinned at him. "That was them being nice, sir. We have a lot of reasons why we hate them. That's a very minor one." The president shuddered but went back to going over those files. She looked at Jack, then at the doorway. "General," she said, saluting him. Jack saluted as well.

"Come in, General. Who called you?"

"Rumors, sir. You had called O'Neill here about some files and we were going to steal him to talk about the review we did."

"I'd like to hear about that. The IOA said that these were all their fault, not anyone else's."

Sam handed over the files. "Here, sir."

"Thank you, Carter." He went over them, grimacing. "Some we had questions about but the files we have from the program are slightly different than these, sir."

"I'm seeing that." He looked up. "Do you think they could use some oversight?"

"Yes, I do, but I think they already have it in place. Not under Landry but under O'Neill they had some oversight in place that worked well." He looked at him.

"Not the IOA," he said dryly.

"No, not them. The people you had to advise you, O'Neill."

"That was basically my teammates unless I had to go ask someone what the reports meant. I admit I'm not scientific in the least, sir."

The head of the Air Force smiled. "We know, O'Neill. What about a dual head? You and perhaps Jackson?"

"We have a lot of arguments about the objectives of missions," Sam Carter told him. "Including the science versus military objectives, sir."

"Can you do both?" he asked.

"We try even when we're not supposed to," Jack admitted. "General Hammond switched it over when the gou'ald threat got worse."

"Which we understood but there was a lot of...complaining about the lack of studying in other areas. We lost a lot of possible allies and information thanks to that, sirs."

"I get that problem," the general agreed. "It's one thing we need to look at." He looked at O'Neill. "All of us on the review are really impressed you're still sane."

Jack smiled. "Hockey games help that, sir."

"I bet." The president was staring at them again. "Sir, that's really not the most bad of what's happened. They even managed to cover up an actual invasion from space at one time."

"Where?"

"Southern hemisphere," Jack admitted. "I was in the Antarctic chair while we had people flying our specialized planes to defend us."

The president slumped, staring at them. "Why didn't that come out before?"

"We never got that many years in, sir. You stopped us at year four."

"That's right, I did. Thank you for reminding me." He looked at the general. "When you're doing the review I will be there."

"Yes, sir, we're doing it on Saturday morning so we know no one's busy."

"I can be there. Make sure my assistant knows when and where."

"Yes, sir. Need me for more of this?"

He handed Carter back her tablet. Then the files. "Summarize those for me and the others." She nodded, taking the box and repacking it. "O'Neill, you're in charge for now. Pending the review."

"No, sir, he's not going to be facing more than some bitching about not telling us. Even though it was president's eyes only, we're a bit upset about that. A few other things as well. We would've helped a lot if we had known. Now that we do, they're getting some specialized teams faster."

Jack shook his head. "Most of ours are specially trained for our needs. We do a six-week boot camp and training then we put them on rookie status with an experienced team. The last team we poached, Colonel Clay's team, is going good but they're not like other teams."

"I've heard. We're going to be talking about specialized training as well. That'll be after the review. We have no idea how to prepare regular soldiers in case the space evils get past your people." He clapped him on the back. "We'll be talking Saturday and probably on Sunday as well."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Nice to see you, Carter. Where is your father?"

"He was a host of a Tokra until he died," she said quietly.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Jacob was a pain in the ass sometimes but he was good at it." He clapped her on the back and left, pausing to tell the secretary about the meeting.

The president sighed. "Do I want to know?"

"No," Carter said, shaking her head. "It was a great help but the Tokra are...complicated."

"And they think we're little kids," Jack added. "They no longer talk to us."

"I'll hear more about that later as well. Dismissed so I can take something for my headache." They saluted and were beamed out at Jack's call. The president sighed, finding his headache medicine and taking some with the tea his assistant brought him. It knocked him out but he was used to that. He didn't even see the ones who snuck in to 'help' his thinking. His assistant walked out to leave them alone.

The general from earlier showed up with a formal notice of the meeting to hand over. "For his records, ma'am." He caught sight of someone and looked. "Guards!" he called. "There's people using mind machines on the president!" She shot him but there were guards already rushing their way. The ones in the office were trapped and killed themselves instead of being arrested. So did the assistant. "Call O'Neill," the general moaned. "That's their machine thing. NID stole some earlier." One of the guards looked up who that was and called them back to explain what was going on.

O'Neill showed up with his head doctor, who rushed over. "Leave Doctor Lam alone. She's SG's head doc." He looked at the machine, kicking it. "That's to download memories. Not sure if they've altered it to do more than read them or show them." He walked over to the bodies, pointing. "Area 51. Him too. That's an IOA member." He heard a whine and looked. "Lam, mechanicals."

"Here," she said with a point. "It's coming from that one."

Jack moved to look at that one, finding the device and turning it off. "Not a bomb." The guards sighed in relief. "It's to have them beamed off though. They shouldn't have access to a ship." He looked at the guard staring at him. "May I?"

"Do what?"

"Calling the ship. This is not what should be here."

"We'd rather you not," one of the guards said. "We're in lockdown."

"That's fine." He pulled out his phone. "I'm emailing Colonel Samantha Carter. We were here earlier talking about the IOA lying about who's idea some problems were." That got a nod and she came back with the box. They jumped a bit when she appeared. "Sorry." He stared at her. "I told you not to show up."

"Sorry, sir, and gentlemen, but there's a reason." She handed over the empty box. "This is the box that the president handed me files in." She pointed. "That device is a tracking and hacking module."

"That's interesting. Who are you, ma'am?"

"Colonel Samantha Carter, SGC's head scientist and part of SG-1." She held out her tablet. "The president was handed files on these reports that were altered to make us look worse.

"All right. Are you armed?"

"Just my sidearm," she said, pointing at it. "I'll submit to a search." They patted her down and took her sidearm, and Jack's, but they didn't arrest them. She pointed. "That one's IOA, formerly since they were disbanded." She pointed at another one. "That one was responsible for a lot of problems in Hawaii earlier."

The guards looked but Jack pointed. "That's the file on that. I presented it earlier when asked."

The guards looked it over. "Good thing he's dead."

"Lam, gou'ald taint?" Jack asked.

"No, sir, not that I've seen on the president. The scanners say that his brain waves aren't fully normal but it's evening out as time passes. His other vitals are showing he's sedated." She looked up. "He doesn't need more than monitored but if you want, he could go to the ER. Others who have had their memories downloaded by that machine usually report a mild headache and some tiredness. If they were trying to overwrite his memories by forcing new ones in, I'm going to assume more of a headache."

"His personal doctor is on the way, Doctor Lam."

She smiled. "That's fine. As long as he's a good doctor I have no problem with that." The one that walked in she pointed. "He was infected with a gou'ald last year." They stopped him and checked him.

Carter grimaced. "He's infected again, Carolyn." That guy glared at her. She smiled. "Hi. I can tell."

The man's eyes lit up. "You are an evil influence on these people. You should not be here," his altered voice said. "You and all yours."

"Watch me ask a demon to eat you," Jack O'Neill quipped. "We've talked to a few near the mountain and they know of a species that would *adore* having the larva." The infected doctor shrank away from him, looking horrified. "It wouldn't bother us any if the larva were taken care of and out of the way of harm. Much safer for humanity."

"People," one of the guards said. "How do we get him uninfested?"

Carolyn Lam looked up. "We have a way to stun them and then support the body so it won't be killed when the larva gives up and crawls out. It's successful eighty percent of the time. I'd need some things from my infirmary at the SGC." Someone rushed in. "Brad." She smiled. "I know you're a neurologist."

"I am. Nice to see you again, Carolyn. What are you up to now?" he asked as he knelt beside the president.

"Head doctor at the SGC. Someone was using one of our memory reading machines on the president." She showed him the scanner's results.

He frowned. "When do the rest of us get those?"

"When we get someone to make more," Jack quipped. "Right now we're not allowed."

"We're hoping in the next year," Carolyn said more gently with a smile. "And a work around for those without the ATA gene."

"Ah, one of those machines." He looked then nodded. "What does that machine do?"

"It reads and downloads memories. It can be programmed to show someone some. One of ours used it to help his dying best friend be in a virtual reality flight in a jumper. It won't show which use it was for."

"That's good to know. So overwriting memories?" Brad the doctor asked.

"Yes, possibly," Carolyn agreed. "It was reverse engineered from a device that stored information and downloaded it into someone's brain."

"That limits what sort of damage it could've done," Brad decided. He looked at her. "You use these?"

"Not often," she admitted. "For things like an unconscious soldier we have to figure out what happened to. I've only seen them used three times in the last few years."

"Even better. That's scary."

Carolyn nodded. "But useful if you get an unconscious person that has an unknown injury and possibly an infection from a virus we don't naturally have."

"That's a great reason. I can see uses in the ER," he agreed. "Even as the personal VR system it's not a bad idea. If that other function could be blocked off I'd like it a lot better."

"Not sure how we'd do that," Sam Carter admitted. "Can being shown memories over the ones you currently have alter them?"

"Possibly," Brad said. "We'll have to see when he wakes up."

"I told them they could monitor him here or take him in," she told him. "Usual side effects are headaches and some tiredness."

"I'd like to keep him here so it doesn't hit the press," he told the guards. Who all nodded. "The readings on the scanner show he'll be waking up in about an hour." He looked at his former friend. "Are you staying?"

"If you want me to." She smiled slightly. "I have an excellent staff under me in the infirmary and we're not expecting any injuries to come in today."

Jack looked at his phone, typing out a text message. "The only three today are from Atlantis for follow ups to post-combat surgeries. Your second-in-command can handle that and she said she'd send the files on that machine to Carter's tablet." She nodded, getting into it. She let the doctors have the tablet.

Brad looked it over, nodding at what he saw. "It looks like it's a fancy VR machine with downloading capabilities. I can see why they'd have headaches." He looked at Carter. "Why did you make this machine?"

"To reverse what the one that downloaded memories into someone did. Before it made his brain turn to mush."

"Ah." He nodded. "That's a problem I guess."

"I had ten thousand years of information downloaded into my brain," Jack told him. "Yes, I was swelling, had bleeding, all that. They downloaded it from me."

"That's a good reason," he assured him with a slight smile. "It's inventive and clearly worked, General." He handed the tablet back. His patient had just groaned. "Sir, you're in your office. You have myself and Doctor Lam here to help you. You're just fine, sir. Just relax." The president groaned and moved to hold his head. Carolyn let him then gently put his hand back down. She scanned him again. "I like that thing," Brad admitted.

She smiled. "It came from Atlantis." He shivered. "We like it in the infirmary."

"Tell me when it's on the market so I can be a tester." She smiled and nodded. "You really work at the SGC?"

"I really do. My father ran it for a few years." She smiled at him. "I have a lot of interesting cases, Brad. Everything from weird diseases in the natives we're just meeting to new plants that have weird effects on us to weird poisons to interesting injuries from ancient weapons at times. It's a lot of cutting edge work and a lot of mediaeval work at times. You have no idea how much damage a sword can do."

He shook his head but was smiling. "That's nuts."

"Many days," she agreed. "And then I get a weird virus brought in."

The president groaned, blinking at her. "Who're you?" he asked quietly.

She smiled. "Doctor Carolyn Lam, sir. I'm the head doctor at the SGC. They were using one of our machines. Can you tell us what they were showing you?" He shook his head slowly. "That's fine. Do you know Doctor Bradley Emmers?"

"I do," he admitted. "My daughter thinks he's hot."

Brad smiled. "She's too young for me, sir." He helped him sit up. "Headache? Any other aches?"

"No, just an astounding headache that I remember from a few frat parties in college." He looked at the other two. "You two left."

"Yes, sir," Jack agreed with a nod. "And then the other general from earlier found you being attacked by the memory machine."

"Great." He looked around then at the guards. "Them? Arrested?"

"Killed themselves somehow, sir," one reported.

Carolyn pointed. "That swelling there means that they had a kill switch device that punctured an artery." The guards all stared at her. "I have to do some autopsy work sometimes, people."

"Most of the ones in use down here are drug related," Jack said, thinking about it. He looked around. "No one's noticed a worm looking thing, right?" They all shook their heads. "That's good. Not gou'ald." He looked at Carter, who pointed. "Point. Trust?"

"No idea, no one's asked him," she quipped.

"True." He looked at the gou'ald in custody. "Are you with the Trust conspiracy or another one?"

"None of your business. You'll find out," he sneered back.

"That's fine. We'll debrief him once you're out of him. We're very good at it now." The man seized and Carolyn hurried over, calling for a removal kit from the ships. One was beamed down for her. Brad came over to help. They managed to save the man's life. The larva was captured by a guard and put into a trash can that he tied the bag shut in. "That'll keep it for hours," Jack assured them. "Not that it'd be a shame for it to die. I can see if the local demon council has someone who can talk to it if you want."

"We'll ask them if we need to," one of the guards said. They got the other doctor stabilized and moved to an ER under watch of agents. He helped Carolyn Lam up. "How do we keep others from beaming in here?"

She pointed at Sam. "That's her job. She and McKay know more about beaming than I ever will."

He looked at her. "Colonel?"

"There's a few methods of blocking out a beaming person. Most of them would take some construction work for specialized insulation. There's a few blockers but they're very localized. I haven't been able to expand them past twenty feet. It hasn't been a high priority but I've been tinkering with it since we came up with it. I recently expanded it from five to twenty feet in just the last six months. We're looking at a few different conductors to see which one would expand it the best."

"Please do keep us informed, Colonel. It's a high priority for us."

"Of course, I fully understand," she agreed with a slight smile. "I'd worry about it too. We're insulated by the mountain itself. The white house has no such shielding. I'll pull together all the materials we have for the review meeting on Saturday if you want."

"Please. What review?"

Jack coughed. "The Joint Chiefs have done a review of all the SGC's files. They're going to complain and yell at us Saturday."

"We can attend with the president, General O'Neill. Thank you for your help today." He handed back their guns and Carolyn her scanner. "We'll see you Saturday?"

"Of course," Carolyn said with a smile. "If I have to show up I can." She wrote her number on the notepad on the desk. "That's my direct line at the mountain if you need me about this or another machine of ours shows up." She smiled and they got beamed out.

The guards shared a look. That number got noted and shared with others on the guard team. Doctor Brad shook his head. "That's so weird."

"Yet they save us all," the president said dryly. "I'm told they even hid an invasion once."

"Glad it's not me. I like my sanity," Brad said, helping him up. "Let's get you settled, sir. I'll check on you in a few hours." The president nodded, being escorted up to his bed. The guards could ask him about anything he had been shown later.

***

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