A few hours later, SG-1, Dr. Frasier, and General Hammond were standing in her lab. On a table, surrounded by high-tech machinery, sat the three and a half feet square artifact under study. Even at this close proximity, Daniel didn't feel anything.
He gave his report on what he found in the writing on the cube. Afterwards, Sam began her report. "An electronic energy pulse is coming from somewhere within the cube, but so far I haven't been able to figure out where. The strange thing is, I've found the same energy pulse coming from Daniel."
The group exchanged confused looks and a raised eyebrow from Teal'c. "Could you please explain, Major?" Hammond prodded.
Sam nodded. "Daniel told me that when two Immortals get close enough to each other, they can sense each other, as if their Quickenings react against each other in close proximity."
"When Scully looked around?" Jack asked Daniel, remembering their earlier confrontation. The Immortal nodded.
"From what Janet and Daniel have told me and the tests I've been able to run, Immortal Quickenings are made up of the same energy that the cube contains, but it is having different affects. Now when two Immortals get within range of each other, their Quickenings produce a 'buzz,' as Daniel calls it, that is felt inside their minds somehow. This feeling lasts until the two Immortals have made eye contact, or until they move out of range. I'm pretty sure this feeling is similar to what we encountered on _____. The sounds the plants emitted on that planet nearly drove SG-1 crazy, but the natives needed that sound to survive. The sound the Buzz gives off is used to detect when another Immortal is nearby."
"The cube is giving off a same 'sound' as a Buzz. But something else inside the cube is changing the pulse's affects. Instead of a mild Buzz inside the brain, Immortals feel something that is much more painful. The pain and the unusual buzz inside their minds get worse the closer they are to the cube. The modified pulse is also making them want to get closer instead of going the other way and out of the pulses' range."
"So why aren't I feeling anything?" Daniel asked, curious and worried.
"Well, apparently, the pulse only begins to work after an Immortal has been in range for several days. You haven't even been on world for more than three days in the past three weeks."
"So I will eventually be affected just like the others."
No one liked that thought. Hammond had shown them the security tape of Scully's holding cell. The Immortal had become so agitated and distraught over not being allowed to get nearer to the cube that he could no longer listen to reason. Instead, Scully paced in his cell. At one point, he even hurled the mattress at the bars and attempted to pry the metal bed out of the wall. The guards stationed around his cell had tried to stop him, and several of them ended up getting injured. None of the wounds were serious, thankfully. They ended up having to shoot Scully with tranquilizer. Now the Immortal was lying in another cell, restrained to a bed, but he was still unconscious.
"So what can we do?" Hammond asked the three doctors present.
"We could ask for Dr. Pierson's cooperation, but it's likely that we'll have the same problems with him as we did with Scully, sir," Sam answered, giving an apologetic look to Daniel. "I think the safest thing we could do right now is return to PY8-776 and look for clues on how to shut this thing down."
"Major, SG-10 was gone for two days the last time. Is it safe for all of SG-1 to go on this trip?"
"General, SG-10 didn't find a second device on the planet," Daniel replied. "I'm likely to cause less damage there than I may here."
*****
"Adam, we're going back to the planet in less than an hour," Daniel said on the answering machine. "I want you to contact General Hammond if anything happens. He'll know what to do to keep you safe until this is all over. I know it may be hard for you to trust him, but please do so just this once, okay? I don't want to lose another friend in a challenge, especially in one that wouldn't have happened in normal circumstances. I'll see you in a few days. Watch your head."
Methos threw his coat onto the chair in frustration. He'd left so many messages at Daniel's office, and then when the archeologist finally got in touch with him, Methos wasn't even there to receive the call, which left a hundred questions and curses left unsaid on the oldest Immortal's lips.
They never were very good friends, and for good reason, too. Daniel constantly got on his nerves, and occasionally, a lady or two would come between them. Daniel, however, always managed to talk himself out of nearly every situation, and they couldn't really hate each other after the way they bonded back in Egypt. That didn't mean Methos couldn't get frustrated with the younger man. He wanted to yell at Daniel for the military escort that even now stood outside his hotel room. He'd been surprised that they hadn't brought him on base yet; obviously, Daniel told them just enough not to trust him that much. Methos wished he knew how much Daniel told them.
He needed to do something. Opening his laptop, Methos turned it on and then hacked into the Watcher Database. He decided to try to find out who else was coming to town.
*****
"So, old man. Do anything interesting in your lifetime?" Jack asked. Sam and Teal'c also fell silent to listen to Daniel's answer.
Daniel groaned. Over the last fifteen miles and four hours, his friends had bombarded him with questions just to pass the time. They still had five miles to go before they reached the ruins where the cube was found. At the moment, they were hiking over grass-covered hills. Above them, a pink sun shined down in a pink and orange sky.
He smiled and shook his head in exasperation. "I think I've already answered that one, Jack. Don't tell me you're out of new questions already? You seemed to have so many only two hours ago."
Jack grimaced. "Okay, okay. No more questions, promise."
Sam smiled before moving up to take point. Teal'c moved back to walk next to Daniel as Jack got their six. "I have one more question, Daniel Jackson," the big Jaffa Prime said. "You have told me that the Goa'uld took groups of Tau'ri from Earth thousands of years ago. Were you present during one of these abductions?"
Daniel smiled sadly. "Yes, I was."
Jack called for a break. They took seats on the ground around Daniel. Apparently all of them wanted to hear this. "So, what happened, Danny?" Jack prodded.
So the Immortal them. "I was living in a town of Carthaginian Greeks. I had a wife, Cassandra. She was my fifth one. I was a little under a thousand years old at the time, but she didn't know that. I didn't always tell my wives or friends what I was-there was always the danger that they'd treat me like a demon and try to cleanse my body of its demon inhabitant, usually with ritual sacrifice."
"Woah," Sam said, surprised.
Daniel grimaced. "Anyway, one day, um, a pyramid dropped out of the sky. All of us were convinced that Hades had come to take us all to the Underworld. But it wasn't Hades. It was Ra. We were afraid of the power he seemed to possess, and we thought his Jaffa were demons with metal heads shaped like the mythical Horus."
"Ra ordered his Jaffa to pick one member of each family. The Jaffa picked me."
He continued the story, up until the point when he and Methos managed to escape. "So then what happened?" Jack asked.
Daniel closed his eyes, remembering.
*****
Their luck did not last long.
As soon as they got outside, other Horus guards spotted them. Under fire, they ran for the nearest building. They stopped behind it, protected by its dirt walls. Then they kept running down the alley, away from the sound of the Jaffas' metal boots.
They ran until they reached the woods surrounding the Nile. They couldn't hear any Jaffa in the surrounding area, but that didn't slow them down. When they reached the riverbank, Methos directed them to a hidden boat that he claimed to own. Both of them got in and pushed off from the shore.
*****
Daniel continued the story when they started walking again. "We got to know each other on the voyage to the nearest city. It turned out that Methos didn't trust anyone normally, and he took a big risk just to trust me. He figured he'd get my help when he saw the look of hate on my face. When we got to the city, we went our separate ways. A few centuries later, when both of us happened to be in Egypt, Ra came back. Only this time, I managed to convince Methos to help me fight against him. I hated him more than Methos did, but I'm sure the Immortal would have rallied against him without my help. We got the townspeople to fight back. They kept the Horus guards busy while we snuck onboard the ship."
"We found Ra alone inside his personal quarters."
*****
There he was, the subject of Daniel's hate. He wasn't as angry as he had been once, but it was enough.
Ra stood there, glaring at him and Methos. If it weren't for the look of evil on his face, Daniel would have been fooled into believing that the demon he was looking at it was only a tall, Egyptian boy. Then his eyes glowed.
"Insolent Tau'ri!" he growled in a voice that would never be natural to Daniel.
Then he raised his left hand. A device Daniel had seen before was wrapped around it. He could remember what it could do, but couldn't stop it from doing any damage.
Ra raised the ribbon device at the younger Immortal, making him fly off his feet and backwards through the air, hitting the wall on the opposite end of the corridor.
Meanwhile, Methos gave a yell and ran toward Ra, sword raised. Ra raised his right hand. It wore metal claws. Ra's claws slashed through Methos' cheek at the same time the Immortal's sword plunged down through Ra's heart.
Ra's host slowly died as his legs gave way and he fell to the hard floor. Loosing his balanced, Methos came down with him.
Before the life left his host, Ra watched small blue lightning bolts dance over the gash in Methos' cheek, closing it before the false-God's eyes.
Ra stared, astonished, at Methos before the older Immortal turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Daniel got up slowly from the floor at the same time they heard Horus guards approach. "We have to get out of here," Methos stated. He helped Daniel up. "Can you walk?"
Daniel felt the bones in his legs re-knit. He nodded. "Yes. Let's go. The people must know that Ra is dead."
They took off down the corridor. Neither of them knew that Ra would live again, and that he would want revenge.
*****
"So Ra was aware of your Immortal status," Teal'c concluded, "and therefore, the message on the cube was about you."
Daniel shook his head. "Not exactly. I don't think Ra knew I was Immortal. He must have found out what we were, though, or else he wouldn't have known how to make that device. It also explains why he didn't recognize me on Abydos. He thought I'd died thousands of years ago, so he didn't bother to remember what I looked like."
"Heads up, guys," Sam called from her position at point. "We're at the site."
*****
(Daniel doesn't jump at the Immortal; it's a pretty stupid thing to do and, while he's absent-minded, he's not that stupid)
The site was actually an abandoned step pyramid. It was obvious that it was abandoned because of both its rundown appearance and the crumbling buildings surrounding it. A city that had been a mix between Etruscans and Carthaginians lay in ruins and tatters. Judging from his experienced eye, Daniel was sure no one had lived there for twelve hundred years at the most.
They walked past the buildings and into the pyramid. It was a permanent structure, not a ship. SG-10 had speculated that a field, empty of everything but overgrowth and located only two miles away, had been used as a landing site for any ship that didn't land on top of the pyramid.
Despite SG-10's insistence that the pyramid was abandoned of all living souls, SG-1 moved cautiously inside. The walls were what they'd come to expect inside a Goa'uld building. They were made of gold and covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The ceilings were deep in shadow above the high walls.
"I'd love to meet the designer of these Goa'uld ships," Jack quipped. "I have a lot of questions for him. Like, 'How many of these things to do you have to design each month?' and 'do you get two or three weeks of vacation every year?'"
Sam and Daniel shook their heads at that. A smile and a raised eyebrow came from Teal'c.
A few turns in the corridor later, the team came to the room where SG-10 found the cube. They entered it to find a laboratory of sorts. Tools and other equipment were scattered around the room, and a few data tablets and page turning devices lay on a table.
Daniel walked over to the table and picked up one of the tablets and a page-turning device. Oddly enough, the writing on it was that strange combination of Etruscan and Carthaginian.
He put the devices in his bag, intending to take them back with him for study. He turned away from the table. "I've got everything-"
The Immortal Buzz rang through his skull, overriding all thoughts in his mind and drowning out all sounds that tried to reach his ears. Daniel froze, glancing around at the room and the door uneasily.
The Buzz weakened as he grew accustomed to it. The buzzing sound in his ears decreased until he could reasonably hear what Sam was trying to ask him. "Daniel, are you all right?" She, Jack, and Teal'c looked at him in concern.
"There's another Immortal here," Daniel informed them.
"What?" Jack exclaimed, remembering that sixth sense thing Carter told them about earlier. He looked around uneasily. "Where?"
"From down the hall."
Jack took up a position on one side of the door, and Sam got on the other side. Jack peered out into the hall, then made the 'all-clear' sign. He motioned for Carter to follow him in the direction the Immortal was, and Daniel and Teal'c would bring up the rear.
Before they stepped out into the hall, they heard footsteps. Daniel suddenly wished he'd through to bring his sword. So did Teal'c and Jack, although the latter had a nice, sharp knife that he was pretty sure would, if it came down to it, do just fine.
They watched as a dark-skinned figure appeared around the bend in the corridor. He wore the uniform of one of Ra's Horus guards, but without the helmet. He clutched a battered-looking staff weapon in one hand as he looked around. The other arm...was missing.
Daniel looked again. Now that he was looking for it, he could see that one of his eyes was missing, too.
They pulled back when he got close, but Daniel knew from experience that you couldn't hide while in range of a Buzz.
Jack met their eyes and motioned for them to shoot the guy if he tried to come in the room. True to form, the half-gone alien Immortal turned and entered the science lab.
He was met by a zat blast. It knocked him on his back. He landed half way in the hallway, but he didn't stay down for long. He tried to bring his weapon up to fire at Sam. Daniel pushed her out of the way and grabbed the staff weapon, pushing it into the hallway.
A blast shot out of the staff, making a scorched dent in gold hieroglyph wallpaper. Daniel stomped down on the Immortal Jaffa's hand, making him cry out in pain before he released the staff weapon. With a cry of rage, the Jaffa got up and launched himself at Daniel.
They went tumbling back and landed on the laboratory floor. The Jaffa produced a knife and held it to Daniel's throat, making him gasp.
Daniel heard another zat energy blast. Purple energy surrounded the Jaffa's body, knocking him off Daniel and onto the ground next to him. The Jaffa once again tried to get up, and Daniel hurriedly rolled out of his way.
Another zat blast from Jack's area hit the Jaffa. The Immortal collapsed to the ground, dead for now. Jack shot him again and his body evaporated, gone from the face of the Earth.
Daniel stood up and stared at the place where his body had been, waiting. After several seconds, no Quickening came.
"Everyone all right?" Jack asked.
"Yeah," Sam answered.
"I am fine," Teal'c inputted.
"What about you, sir?" Sam asked the colonel.
"Never better," Jack responded, the usual sarcasm in his tone. He turned to Daniel. "Danny?"
Daniel looked up from the floor, greatly confused and disturbed. "There's no Quickening. When he evaporated, he left nothing behind."
None of them knew how to answer that one. "We'll theorize about it later," Jack promised. "Right now, let's get those tablets and go."
They moved toward the door with Teal'c in the lead. Jack waited patiently for Daniel to follow behind Carter. Daniel stared down at the floor for one final time before he began to move.
Teal'c and Carter were already moving down the corridor. Daniel stepped through the doorway.
What felt like thousands of spikes were suddenly driving into his body, sending his nerve endings on fire. He screamed.
"Daniel!" Jack cried.
Jack pushed him and Daniel went sprawling into the corridor. He gasped, his whole body quaking. "What the hell was that?" he asked.
"A force field ceased you when you passed through the doorway," Teal'c replied.
"It must be because you've got those tablets," Carter said, "Although SG-10 didn't say anything about encountering any force fields when they took the cube."
"Just our luck," Jack muttered.
to be continued
