Title: Weirdly ever after

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Author’s Notes: The Disclaimer that ate Tokyo appears with Chapter I, pt i. In this installment, Thor and Heimdahl get bitten by the argument bug and Jack knocks their massive grey noggins together

Chapter II: Oblah di Oblah DOH!
Pt. iii of v in this chapter (Still PG, no smut, but lots of saucy genetics; Jack is in boxers, so think of that and go to your happy place)

“ . . . pants,” Jack finished as he materialized on the bridge of an Asgard ship.

“Greetings, O’Neill,” Thor said in his maddeningly calm voice.

“Thor!” Jack shook his cordless phone in Thor’s direction, “I . . . GAH! You have got to stop doing this.”

“Please accept my apologies, O’Neill. The situation is grave and there is little time,” Thor replied, not sounding sorry. Of course, Thor never really sounded anything.

Jack ran a hand over his hair, and set down the handset on a nearby console, “Yeah. All right then. Let’s make this quick.”

“Since Loki’s unfortunate experiments, we have been monitoring your young clone,” Thor began.

“Thor, you know that’s rude.” Jack said warningly. He waved his hand, “Besides, MiniMe’s in high school. How much trouble could he . . . ” Jack scowled, thinking back to his own eventful high school days, “So you’re monitoring him?”

“It is for his own protection, O’Neill. Loki’s experiments were completely unmethodical and poorly documented. I could not be certain that the repairs I made to ‘MiniMe’ would be permanent,” Thor explained. “I wished to be able to make further repairs if necessary.”

“That’s . . . very thoughtful,” Jack said, smiling at the Asgard’s use of his nickname for the clone and oddly touched at his concern. “So what’s up? Little scamp found someone to buy him beer?”

“He has, but there are graver issues at stake,” Thor answered, completely without irony.

“There’d better be. Have I mentioned that this is a really bad time for this?” Jack’s thoughts wandered to Sam’s warm, naked body curled up on under his very own blankets.

“I am aware, O’Neill. You and Major Carter have made a sound decision and have my congratulations.” Jack mouth dropped open. He could have sworn he could make out a sly smile on Thor’s face.

The expression, if it was one, passed quickly and Thor continued, “I would not have retrieved you at this time were the life of MiniMe and the fate of us all were not at stake.”

“Us all?” Jack asked his face turning serious.

“I am afraid it is so, O’Neill. We have only limited information thus far, but we believe that the Earth and all its allies are in grave danger.” Thor turned to a control console and began manipulating a series of stones.

A hologram of his clone appeared sitting at a stone table in a park, playing chess with an older man. Thor tweaked another stone and the frozen image stuttered into motion. For a few moments, the recording consisted of little but a rapid succession of moves by each player.

“Speed chess?” O’Neill wrinkled his nose, “This is more serious than I . . .”

Jack’s quip hung in mid-air as a blonde woman appeared in the background. She sat fidgeting on a bench a few yards behind the young O’Neill, watching him intently. In spite of the oversized dark glasses and nondescript clothing she wore, Jack recognized her immediately.

“Carter . . . ” He breathed. They watched as she glanced around surreptitiously, then pulled a Goa’uld tablet from her bag and appeared to record information with a stylus.

“It is not Major Carter, O’Neill,” said a higher-pitched, though still distinctively Asgard voice from behind them.

Jack spun around and squinted at the newcomer, “Heimdahl?” He asked tentatively. Other than Thor, the Asgard were difficult for him to tell apart.

“It is good to see you again, O’Neill.” Heimdahl inclined her head.

“Likewise,” Jack replied, turning back to point toward the projection, “But that is definitely . . .” he trailed off as MiniMe shook hands with his opponent and moved off from the table. The woman on the bench stood and began to follow, pulling her glasses off as she stepped into the heavy shade of the tree overhanging the chess table, “ . . . not Carter?”

Up close, it was clear that the woman, who appeared to be some years younger than Sam, merely bore a striking resemblance to her. She was lankier and her movements were nervous and more awkward, lacking Sam’s precise, determined grace. When she removed her glasses, Jack saw that her eyes were dark brown and her features not quite as regular, her nose being slightly too large for her face and her jaw too square to complement the soft curve of her cheekbones.

“Umm . . . Carter’s evil twin?” Jack guessed. “Nope, can’t be. No goatee.”

“We do not know who she is, O’Neill, or where she has come from,” Heimdahl replied. “However, we are fairly certain about what she is.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, “ . . . And that would be?”

“She is combination of your genetic material and that of Major Carter,” Heimdahl said quietly.

“She’s our KID?” Jack shouted. He began to pace, “Thor, where are you keeping Loki. Because I really really need to kill him.”

“This is not Loki’s doing, O’Neill,” Thor said, ignoring his agitation obvious as he moved another series of stones. The display to some kind of diagram only Carter would understand. “He has none of the resources available to him to accomplish such a task.”

“It could be . . . some wacky experiment he had going before you guys caught up with him,” Jack sputtered, his hands flailing.

“The information we have been able to obtain supports Loki’s denials.” Heimdahl gestured toward the image Thor had brought up. “Although the genetic structure of the Creation clearly borrows from Asgard cloning technology, there are deviations from it. It is as if the technology was attempted by someone with an imperfect understanding of our methods.”

“Like, say, Loki? C’mon! Thor even said this guy’s a major screw up! It’s why you took his mad scientist toys away in the first place!” O’Neill shouted.

“Nonetheless,” Heimdahl continued, her voice as calm and even as ever, “Apart from the differences indicating lack of knowledge of our technology, there are curious cellular markers unlike anything the Asgard use.” Twitching a stone, Heimdahl zoomed in on a section of the image depicting a green, faintly glowing cluster, “This is a scan of the Creation’s brain. I’ve focused in on the hippocampus, which as you can see, consists of 50% GFP-positive cells, and 50% GFP negative.”

“Hippos? GFP?” Jack closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, “Just . . . never mind. Someone, please, just explain to me why the hell anyone would want to make a kid---a glowing kid---from me and Carter, grow it up quick, and make it spy on the other me?”

“The Creation is not a ‘kid’ in the conventional sense, O’Neill.” Heimdahl turned to him, “A child is the joining of haploid gametes by means of sexual reproduction. This woman is an amalgam of your cells and those of Major Carter.”

“And that’s different?” Jack squinted.

“Yes, it . . .” Heimdahl rushed to explain.

Jack cut her off, “I’ll take your word for it. Still need to know why, though. And what’s the point? This . . . thing . . . is gonna have the same problems as MiniMe, right? On account of that doohickey Thor put in my DNA?”

“I believe that whoever created this combined Major Carter’s genetic material with yours specifically to bypass the safeguard,” Thor offered.

“And I believe,” Heimdahl cut in sounding almost testy, “That High Commander Thor is wrong.”

An awkward silence fell. Jack had the uncomfortable sensation of a kid stumbling on to an argument between his parents.

“It is quite clear,” Heimdahl continued with something approaching a glare in Thor’s direction, “That the creator is simply capitalizing on an obviously formidable combination to accomplish a short-term goal. The fate of the Creation is irrelevant once the information is obtained.”

“It is not logical to assume that such a substantial amount of effort would be discarded so easily. The creation clearly will play a role in the implementation of the information!” Thor actually raised his voice. This was serious.

“Hey, don’t make me separate you two!” Jack snapped his fingers to get their attention. “What ‘formidable combination’? And what information?”

“If High Commander Thor will permit me . . .” Heimdahl bowed to him with a touch of sarcasm. Thor nodded and Heimdahl continued, “I believe that The Creation is simply a footsoldier, if you will---an exploitation of the proven strength of your team---designed with the goal of retrieving the knowledge of the Ancients from your clone. After that goal is achieved, I believe that whoever created her is counting on the safeguard to destroy all evidence of her and confound any attempts to trace The Creation or the knowledge.”

“The Ancients? But you took that stuff! I don’t have it anymore and neither does MiniMe, right?” Jack protested, probing the back of his head as if he expected to find the Ancient’s database oozing out of his scalp.

“We did, indeed, remove the knowledge and can only speculate that whoever is behind this believes that they will be able to recover it somehow,” Heimdahl explained.

Jack stared blankly, remaining silent for a moment, “Why us? I mean why me and Carter? Why isn’t there a Teal’c/Daniel glowing kid . . .” His eyes widened, “Please tell me there’s no glowing Teal’c/Daniel monster out there.”

“To our knowledge, no.” Thor replied, “As for ‘why you’ . . . we do not have the answer to that question. It is likely that the creator wishes to exploit the evolutionary step that you represent and hopes that combining it with Major Carter’s genetic material will represent an even greater leap.” Thor paused, then could not seem to resist adding, “Perhaps resulting in a being who can make use of the knowledge of the Ancients.”

Heimdahl seemed eager to resume their argument, but O’Neill jumped in before she could respond, “Ok. So, I’m guessing there’s some reason you haven’t just beamed this . . . Not-Carter . . .up?”

“We only discovered the presence of The Creation relatively recently. We thought it best to allow her free movement for the moment in the hopes of obtaining information about the intentions and identity of its creator.” Heimdahl said, replacing one of the stones on the console, changing the display once again to scenes from the life of MiniMe and his new shadow.

Most were completely mundane: A younger version of himself hanging out on the steps of the high school; several chess games in the park; a trip to Charlie’s grave produced a lump in O’Neill’s throat, giving way to confusion as Not-Carter, as he had begun to think of the woman, lingered to kneel in front of the headstone for a few moments, allowing his younger self out of his sight for the first time in any of the images.

Jack shifted uncomfortably, “Hey, do we have to . . .” he broke off as a new segment began. His younger self knelt by the side of an older man, clutching his hand helplessly. The man’s torso had been slit open from navel to sternum and the flesh pushed aside as if someone had rooted around inside. In spite of the bloody mess of crushed bone and flesh where his nose should have been, Jack recognized the man as MiniMe’s chess partner. “What the hell?” Jack breathed as he watched in horror.

“This is the second victim of The Creation. These images came to us only last night. Naturally, we tried to transport her immediately to this ship so that we might confine her. However, our efforts failed for reasons we do not yet fully understand.” Thor admitted.

“Well,” Jack exhaled slowly, “That explains why the police are after me. My DNA and fingerprints are all over that place.” He paled, “Shit! Carter’s will be, too.”

Continue on to Chapter II, part iv