|Cyber Predator's Fanfic| |Stargate Collection| |Home Page|

Author: Cyber Predator, Cyber_Predator@hotmail.com
Category: Challenge Response (#15 #83 at Heliopolis), Humour, tongue-in-cheek Angst
Spoilers: Major spoiler for Secrets. References to The Torment of Tantalus, Hathor and In the Line of Duty.
Sequel/Season Info: The story is set before A Matter of Time. It contains a reference to another of my works.
Content Warnings: This is a bizzare little humour story, so there's nothing in here that is graphic/horrific enough to prevent anyone, no matter how young, from reading it. Although someone does get punched on the jaw. Hard.
Disclaimer: This story is for entertainment only and no money has exchanged hands. Anything recognisable as not coming from the imagination of Cyber Predator remains the property of its respective copyright owner; Cyber Predator is simply putting these entities in a setting we probably won't see coming from the imagination of the copyright owners. All other entities are copyrighted by Cyber Predator as of 6-May-2000. You may neither link to nor make a copy of this document without the express permission of the author.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
The list of challenges at Heliopolis isn't getting shorter, so in an effort to put stories to those challenges I divvied up my own. We all like a good humourous short story, so here's my debut at fanfic writing!!

At the only door which allowed passage between the interior of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and the rest of Colorado, a military truck sat waiting for its final two passengers to board. One of them, civilian-clothed Captain Samantha Carter, was having a very hard time trying to do so.
"Daniel, I know that you want me to stay so you can have a few extra hands work on the plaque we found on P2M-410 but the simple fact is I need to be in New York by tomorrow!" vented the frustrated astrophysicist.
Geeky anthropologist Daniel Jackson was insistent; "Sam, please! You're not even going to New York for the military! Surely the rest of the world can do without you just this once!"
Daniel Jackson had known all week that his friend and team-mate would be going to New York, but their most recent discovery had put the Egyptologist on a research high and since Carter announced it was time for her to go to New York, Daniel had done everything save tie Samantha to a ball and chain in an effort to make her stay.
Carter shook her head; "Daniel, I know-"
"Geared up and ready to go, Captain?" called the voice of Jack O'Neil as he walked passed his team-mates to the transport that would take them to the nearest airport. The colonel's words were the only outward sign that Jack had acknowledged their presence.
"Be right there, sir!" Carter called.
Daniel continued; "Sam, please! You won't even tell me what you're going for!"
"Daniel, look....just trust me on this, OK? I need to be in New York and I have to get on this truck!" Carter insisted.
A horn beeped; "Take a picture, it'll last longer!" called the truck's impatient driver.
Carter looked up at the truck before turning back to her team-mate; "Now, is the material from two-ten decaying?" she asked.
"No," Jackson admitted.
"Does it contain a cure for AIDS?"
"No."
"Then there's no overriding reason for me to stay here. Now, I have to get on that truck!"
The driver of the transport, who at this distance couldn't overhear the conversation between the two SG-1 members, then gunned the engine of his truck and began to drive off. Carter took a few steps to leave, but then she felt Daniel grab her by the arm in a last-ditch effort to make her stay. In a heated moment of frustration, Carter raised her fist and flung a solid whack! onto Jackson's jaw. Sam ran for the truck before she realised the force of the blow had flung Daniel off the ground and caused him to fly in the air for a couple of inches before he landed back-first onto the ground, unconscious.

The fact that the truck hadn't gotten up to full speed was the deciding factor that allowed Carter to catch up to the truck on foot and board it. But the delay damage was done, and by the time she and Colonel O'Neil had reached the airport they had to run to the counter to check in and place their luggage.
"Good thing you just made it," said the Holier-than-thou blonde behind the counter; "You need to reach gate 22 in three minutes!"
"But that's on the other side of the airport!" Carter realised, exasperated.
"C'mon Carter!" O'Neil called, turning and running in the direction of the plane.
In order to reach gate 22 on time, the two members of SG-1 employed quite different tactics. O'Neil pounded through mobile racks piled high with fragile luggage, passed airport security ignoring the buzzing alarms, and trampled over swarms of Japanese tourists. Carter, who ran a little slower than her commanding officer, simply followed the trail of destruction Jack left behind. Using co-ordination no human could ever have, she was able to bob and weave around the debris and avoid any further chaos....save attracting the attention of the Japanese tourists Jack hadn't knocked down. Fascinated by the din, the tourists quickly aimed their cameras and clicked away after the speeding officers. It was like Helen Hunt running after the spiral of gale-force winds in Twister, only now being followed by a band of Japanese tourists tripping over themselves to succeed in gaining the perfect shot of this event of which they knew nothing about.
It was, in all, a very strange pursuit.

When the SG-1 members finally reached their plane, they were happy to learn that there wasn't that many people on the plane and they were able to spread out somewhat. After catching their breath from the sprint to the plane and replenishing themselves with mineral water, O'Neil asked "Just how did you manage to set this one up, Carter?"
"Well sir, it was actually the idea of a friend of mine, Mel Lenson. We were room-mates in college; I was the young and aspiring astrophysicist, she was the young and aspiring biochemist. We said that one day we'd do for women in science what George Washington did for America. We both joined the air force and were forced to go our separate ways, but we managed to get back in touch over the Internet," Carter explained.
"And?"
Carter lowered her voice; "And I found out later that she was one of the people who was trying to make a full analysis of the substance Hathor used to take control of the SGC that time. She was also keeping a watchful eye on the Internet, it turns out, because not long after the Armond Zulleg incident there was a flurry of activity at this one particular site. Mel thought this would be the best way to find out to just how much information has gotten out."
"Oh God!!" called the voice of another passenger. For a moment SG-1 thought they had been overheard on the plane, but then they realised the voice came from too far behind them for that to be so. Curious eyes watched from all sides as the stewardess approached the frightened passenger, spoke to him silently, then walked to the nearest public address system mike.
"Ladies and gentlemen," called the stewardess, "we have a minor setback. I'm afraid to say that one of our passengers smuggled an Australian diamond python aboard. The snake has now escaped and-"
Whatever the stewardess announced next was lost in the mists of time. The entire plane's passengers went into a panic upon hearing there was a snake loose on the plane and ran for the far ends of the isle. Those who were too afraid to run stood on their seats, desperately looking for anything long, limbless and scaly.
O'Neil and Carter cautiously looked under their seats, slow and careful so they didn't frighten the snake by their presence. Eventually the two worked their way out of their seats and down the isle, systematically searching each individual row of seats.
Carter had just begun to examine her next row when O'Neil called, "Carter, are Australian diamond pythons poisonous?"
Her attention more focused on searching than in a reply, Carter said "I'm not sure, but as a general rule snakes with a wide, prominent jaw bone don't have a venomous bite. Those with a small, pointy head are usually deadly."
"That's a relief," Jack muttered.
"Why?"
"Because it's coiling rather tightly around my arm!!"
Normally O'Neil was quite comfortable around animals, but since his job called for him to work around mind-controlling aliens of the same size and shape of the snake he was all but in a panic, frozen to the spot and only just able to call for Carter's attention.
Carter looked up and saw the two-meter long snake had indeed grown attached to middle-aged American air force officers whose molecules disintegrate, travel at very fast speeds and then reintegrate on a regular basis. Sam stood up slowly and examined the reptile coiled around Jack's arm, then carefully took a hold of the snake's head to stop it biting anything, then unwrapped it gently from his arm.
"Does anyone have a bag or something I can put this thing in?" Carter called to the (by now) stunned bystanders. There was no response until O'Neil found one of the plane's emergency rubber rafts, ran into the first class section of the plane and grabbed a cutlery knife, inflated the raft and then stabbed a sizeable hole in it. The raft deflated to its smaller size, so O'Neil then ran back to Carter and the captive snake. O'Neil held the hole in the raft open, allowing Carter to slowly place the snake inside the raft, making an unlikely but safe captivity area for the snake.
A young child watching the ordeal, who couldn't have been much older than eight, then said loudly of the rubber raft "Oooh, so that's what that's for!"

Following the snake-in-a-rubber-raft ordeal, Jack and Sam then enjoyed the rest of their flight in first class. The good news was that the plane had to circle over the airport for about half an hour extra, allowing the two to enjoy their newfound benefits for just that little bit longer. The bad news was that when they finally landed, Jack and Sam yet again had to stampede their way through the airport in order to catch their connecting flight. And when they finally got there, the plane was so full and the SGC personnel so late that they had to sit all the way at the very back of the cattle car.
"I think I liked the last flight better," Carter muttered to herself.
"Why, because you got to see me being eaten alive by a snake?" O'Neil asked.
The bulk of Jack and Sam's cramped flight was passed by debating over whether or not being attacked by a snake that acted a lot like a Goa'uld symbiot so they could get a free upgrade to first class was a good thing, and so it seemed a mere 20 minutes between take-off and the approach to JFK airport.
Just when it seemed the rest of the day would go without incident, a male voice came over the plane's PA system; "Mayday, JFK tower. Mayday, this is Trans-Con flight two-one three calling mayday. Pilot has suffered an apparent heart attack and co-pilot has been incapacitated with suspected salmonella poisoning. Mayday, JFK tower. Mayday...."
Not surprisingly, the entire plane went up into a panic. No-one knows if the stewardesses even tried to keep order, with the only abled person in the cockpit being an engineer who didn't know the difference between a two-way radio and a public address system, but what is known is that those who weren't frozen to their seats stood up and ran around in random directions, creating a lot of noise.
"Sir, we have to do something!" Carter realised, only just able to think over the racket.
O'Neil's only idea was to grab Sam by the arm and, with her in tow, charge his way through the crowd of panicking civilians to reach the cockpit. When they got there, they found one stewardess performing CPR on the fallen pilot and another trying to reassure the co-pilot, who was lying on the floor next to a small pool of vomit and clutching his abdomen in agony.
The technician who 'radioed' the airport tower was still next to the PA mike calling for help. When he saw Jack and Sam, he looked up and asked "What are you doing here? What's going on back in the cabin?"
O'Neil explained, "Airman, let me make to you a suggestion. You use this radio to contact the tower and that intercom to make announcements to the entire plane!!"
Sheepishly, the technician realised what he'd done. "So that's what that's for," he muttered, redirecting his SOS call to the correct microphone.
O'Neil then realised that Carter had taken to the controls of the plane, guiding it gently down towards the airport.
"Carter, are you sure you can handle this plane?" Jack asked.
"Sort of, sir. It can't be any worse than making a seven-G bombing run simulation. And....my friend from Nasya did have a little flying experience," she explained, trying to word the reply so that civilians wouldn't know what she was talking about.
"Where's Nasya? I don't believe we fly there," asked the same guy who screwed up the distress call to JFK.
"All right then, how do we land it?" Jack asked, ignoring the tech.
"Well sir...." Carter muttered, trying to hold the images Jolinar of Malkshur saw as she piloted a Goa'uld Death Glider. "We need to find the tachyon flux," Sam blurted without thinking.
"The what?" asked every 100% human in the cockpit.
Sam didn't hear them, instead her hand was guided by instinct to where the flux control would stand on a modern Death Glider. A pre-recorded female voice then announced "Autopilot landing sequence engaged."
"So that's what that's for," Sam muttered.
"Thank God for tachyon fluxes!" Jack added.

Jack and Sam's trip from the airport to their destination didn't go much better than their flight. It could hardly be kept secret that the two managed to miraculously land the plane, so everyone on the crowded plane wanted to pat them on the back. The two officers had to run through the crowd just to get off the plane. Once they reached the interior of the airport, they found the local media were waiting; again, SG-1 had to run the gauntlet just to reach their bus, and even then they had to run after it because they were more than a little late.
Of course, no-one can travel through the streets of New York City on a Friday night without getting caught in gridlock. This of course happened to the two off-duty Earthers, who then had to run from the bus down into the subway and charge through a crowd so large it seemed the entire population of the city was crammed into one tiny space. After making the crampt, stuffy trip along the New York underground, Jack and Sam exited the subway station only to find it had started to monsoon and they were still a fifteen minute walk away from their destination.
When the two soaking wet officers finally reached the reception hall which marked their rendezvous point, they found it already filled with their guests. The guests were happy to point Jack and Sam in the direction of Mel Lenson, the event's organiser.
Lenson's first reaction when she saw her former room-mate was "Sam, what the devil happened to you?"
"Gave an otherwise nice guy a couple of loose teeth, learned just what a tachyon flux is for, and lots of running," Carter explained.
"Oh. All in a day's work, then," Lenson reasoned.
Carter introduced O'Neil and Lenson, then making sure everyone was up to speed on the current situation: Armond Zulleg, small-time tabloid reporter desperate for a big break, somehow learned of the Stargate project and threatened to write a story about it; Lenson, USAF research and development biochemist while not privately planning ways to have world leaders getting caught with their pants down (metaphorically and literally), had managed to round up a group of prominent Internet figures in a sting designed to reveal just what they knew.
"I sure am glad I could have you aboard for this one, Sam," Mel explained, "I know the exact capacities of that 'telescope' in Cheyenne Mountain, but I don't have the sort of detail that an insider can bring. Only you and Colonel O'Neil will be able to gauge what kind of damage has been done."
Carter nodded.
O'Neil asked, "So just what is the cover story?"

The seats were arranged in a circle, with a total of thirteen attendants including the three who knew the true purpose of this meeting. The ten who were here because of the cover story were looking a little unconfortable, but would still respond truthfully if their attempts at playing small failed.
Lenson took the chair of the group: "Everyone, I'm so glad you could make it this evening. I know that the circumstances upon which we're gathered here may seem strange, but I'm sure we all know the importance of bringing to light the darker side of our nature before it ultimately overtakes us."
Sam had to admit it, Melanie had not lost her gift for lying. She remembered in particular one time in college when an obnoxious lawyer's son threatened to have the two locked up if they insisted on disturbing his study with their loud exchange. The fact was Mel was testing Sam's knowledge for an upcoming exam, and in defence Mel launched into a war of the words lasting a full half-hour. The lawyer's son got in a mere ten minutes of talking as Mel attacked his arguments, twisted his facts and caught him in a dozen lies.
All the while, Mel noted the information sources her opponent used, then quoted other statistics they'd published....which Mel had just made up. What few truths she included was stuff any idiot could get watching bad cop dramas, with only her body language and tone of voice lending any credibility. Mel paused no longer than two seconds to gather her thoughts during that exchange, and never again were the two disturbed from their study.
Lenson continued; "We all share a common good, an interest that is the ongoing legends that is Stargate. Let's face it, it is the only piece of fiction that can come anywhere near Star Wars calibre, and with no production company yet owning the rights it is still possible for the people to make their own decisions about the saga without any copyright reprisals. It is for this reason that Stargate is the greatest on-going 'Net serial of all time!!"
Everyone in the room nodded, agreeing with eagerness the truth of Mel's words. Surely, they all thought, this was a person who truly cared about their problem. Not that they thought what they had was a problem....
"What we're here to discuss," Mel continued, "Is the character of Danny. We all know Danny, the geeky anthropologist who's the butt of at least one joke during everyone's story. But this fun-loving thing has gone onto far worse, people. It's come to the point where many of the more adult stories are actually killing him, seemingly having a competition to find out who can kill him in the most idiotic way. This is not entertainment, people, this is shock tactics trying to win a few votes to get the Fanfic of the Month badge!!"
Suddenly the entire crowd realised their wrongs. They had gone way too far. Yes, of course they had a very bad problem. Would this nice young woman be talking about them like this if they didn't?
"Would anyone like to start the inaugral meeting of Danny Whumpers Anonymous?" Mel asked.
O'Neil and Carter silently exchanged sour looks. This was how Mel Lenson, one of the greatest biochemists in the world, had gotten these people here?
The group looked around at each other shyly. Finally a young olive-skinned, black-haired man put his hand up.
"Yes, you sir. First name only, then you have to say it."
The man stood up. "My name is Ethan, and I'm a Danny whumper."
"Tell us about your first whump, Ethan."
"It started a few months ago, when the first Stargate site went up. I read about it when they first opened the Stargate and went to the first planet, Heliopolis. He....he was just the eptimone of the high school geek. I love picking on high school geeks!"
O'Neil, on the pocket notepad he had in front of him, made a note. The first ever Stargate mission was to Abydos, not Heliopolis. Heliopolis was the planet which stored an archive built by four different races, which apparently contained the meaning-of-life-type stuff.
Why do you think you have such an affinity to picking on high school geeks, Ethan?" Mel asked.
"I think....just because they know everything. I was never really good in school. Whenever I should've been doing homework, I'd write fanfic so I could escape from the real world and cast myself as the hero so I could live in a better world. The geeks kept reminding me of what I could never be, so I thought they should suffer like the rest of us."
"Here, here!" called a couple of people in the crowd.
Ethan continued, "But the whumping controls you! One fanfic is never enough!! So when the Stargate Alpha team left the Yukon and get their medals in Ottowa, I just...."
"Say it out loud!"
"I had to write in all those times of Danny getting lost! Konked on the head and being really out of it! I just couldn't help myself!!"
Jack and Sam were starting to get a little on-edge that Ethan was on the verge of tears with what he was saying. They were also seeming to really believe what was happening.
On the other hand, everyone seemed to think the Stargate project was based in Canada's far north. No-one was correcting Ethan on his 'mistake', which meant that if anyone did go looking for the Stargate project's headquarters they'd be blown way off-course.
Ethan's wailing continued on and on, with the other members cheering him top bare his soul before the group. Finally a group member name Cynthia stood up to stem the tide.
"I own a Stargate fansite....and we have a really big fanfic archive....and....I have this award....and it's to whoever gives Danny the longest science ramble...."
O'Neil jotted down that the world apparently had Daniel Jackson and Captain Carter reverse.
"What's the record?" someone asked.
Before Cynthia could answer, Mel Lenson told them otherwise. "We're here to try and quell the menace, not encourage it."
O'Neil whispered to Carter; "Something tells me this is going to be a long night."

After their not-so-long but rather humourous investigation, Colonel O'Neil and Captain Carter spent the night at a hotel Mel Lenson had booked for them. Lenson had brought a laptop computer, allowing the three to type out their report and send it to their superiors. There was some satisfaction in the knowledge that the public information leak about the Stargate project was a lot less accurate than first anticipated. Jack and Sam were fortunate enough to get a flight back to Colorado the next day.
The exact details of Jack and Sam's return journey are probably better left unexplored, but rest assured it didn't involve animal smugglers, lost Goa'uld-like creatures or incapacitated pilots. What it did involve was closed subway tunnels due to a terrorist threat, blocked streets due to the New York Marathon, the two heroes wondering how they would ever make it to JFK airport with their feet the only available method of transportation, and lots of running.
Finally the two reached the familiar comfort of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. They were wondering how they would possibly explain the situation to General Hammond when one of SGC's surgeons, Captain Natalie MacNamara, called them to the infirmary.
Still in civilian clothing, O'Neil and Carter came in to find a woozy Daniel Jackson lying on a bed. "Danny-boy, what happened?" was O'Neil's first reaction when he walked in.
"Anybody get the number of that cement truck?" Jackson mumbled.
MacNamara spoke up; "It wasn't a cement truck, it was your fist, Captain Carter!"
"What?" asked the two conscious SG-1 members.
Natalie continued; "The guards saw you slug him at the gate when you were leaving for your New York weekend. How did that go, by the way?"
"Carter, exactly how hard did you hit him?" O'Neil demanded.
Samantha was only just taking all of this in. "I didn't mean it, sir! It's just that I had to catch the transport off the base and he was bugging me and...."
O'Neil shook his head. "Sam, you really should go back to that next Danny Whumpers Anonymous meeting."

Ten at night, and all of Cheyenne Mountain slept.
All of Cheyenne Mountain, that is, save Captain MacNamara after having just finished her rounds. She changed into her PJs and prepared her bed. At the moment it was deserted, since her room-mates were currently on shift making sure all was well with the casualties at SGC's infirmary.
The phone beside Natalie's bed rang. She picked it up. A male voice advised who the caller was and checked if Natalie was on a secured line. Natalie punched the code into the phone to secure the transmission. A beep signalled the male speaker was gone and that Natalie was free to speak with her caller.
"How did it go?" asked the voice of Melanie Lenson.
"Believe it or not, I think your plan might actually have worked!" Natalie advised.
"Crazy, I know, but I got the idea from my cousin. He's one of those twenty-nine-year-olds who still don't know Star Trek is fake."
The two women shared a laugh, and with their conversation over said goodbye and hung up the phone.
Natalie allowed herself a smile. Her employer would be pleased to learn that SG-1 had at least toned down their efforts in hunting for the public information leak within Stargate Command.