Trials And Tribulations 3

My Weird Ass Family

by Lady Arkin

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asl/larkin/trials03.php
Summary: His life has always been what you'd call…not quite normal. Cursed with an abnormal intelligence and an obsession to know the truth; Alex finds himself in the center of a very strange world of intrigue that seems to start and end with his father. Alex gets much more involved with the odd life that his father leads than he ever wanted too, and as far Alex can tell it was all Phil and the Empress's fault!

PROLOGUE

It began with the need to survive.

Alex wasn't scared of living on the streets. He'd done that from birth. His mother had once told him that she'd been sleeping behind a bakery near the oven shafts for warmth when she'd gone into labor. He was born in an alley, wrapped in newspaper, and suffering from so much withdrawal that the seizures had shaken him unconscious. She said that he'd looked dead. His mother hadn't noticed for the first day or so; she was too high. Her pimp had pointed it out to her that she was carrying around a dead baby. She'd always laughed at that point in the narrative for some odd reason that he could never quite understand.

Somehow, for some reason, she'd not only kept him; she'd also somehow managed to keep him alive.

He could remember more of those four years with her than he was supposed to. At least more than people thought he might. Most of the people at the state home, Daniel included, sort of expected him to forget with time. But he remembered.

He remembered: always being hungry, the acrid tang of pot or heroin burning in the air, his diaper never getting changed often enough, his mother's long absences, never crying or speaking until the panic attacks hit, being kept in the dark because of the pain of bright lights which were the only thing that really made him cry, and the daily torture of the elevated train that he lived in constant fear of.

Two years. He could remember two solid years of that train storming through his brain. It was pure trauma; daily torture that would shake him to his core and throw him aside. The sound would pierce his ears sharply. His only saving grace was an occasional hysterical deafness which would wring him out and leave him in a blissful void for days at a time.

He couldn't be sure if he'd learnt to walk to search for food, or to get away from the train. He could remember teaching himself to walk. He could remember pulling a blanket into the closet so he could hide under it in the closet when the bad noise came. It never worked; nothing ever worked. He could hear pigeons on the fire escape from the closet, the constant dripping of the kitchen sink that would eventually rot away the counter and the floor. What were a thin wall and a blanket going to do?

He always theorized that's why he broke with reality; why he killed his mom. He couldn't be completely sure. But, he always assumed that he'd had a hand in his mother's death.

Whether he did or not, it didn't matter because he couldn't do anything about it now anyway. All that mattered was that he'd wound up with Daniel, and the Empress...even with Phil. For as long it had lasted he'd had the Empress, and she had made all the difference in the world.

For a woman that had never been able to learn to form human speech, the Empress sure had a lot to say. Her autism site was one of the biggest English language sites that provided information, education, and support. He still maintained her web-site; it was a part-time job all by itself. But he couldn't shut it down; she'd felt that the site was so important, that even after the cancer and the chemotherapy had wasted her away to nothing, she'd still lay in bed carefully propped up by pillows with her laptop to tend to it.

She'd died during that awful year that Daniel had been away on his 'sabbatical.' A part of him still managed to hold on to the awful pain of betrayal that he felt at having had to go through that alone because Daniel hadn't been there. It happened while he'd been stuck at Vassar studying physics and astronomy because he'd been unwilling and felt unable to leave home and live on a campus at one of the schools that he'd actually wanted to attend; so he commuted to the closest university. One night, just before finals, he'd been sitting in bed with her. She was on her computer typing away on her site, her pillows carefully supporting her, he had his books in hand as he studied right next to her; she'd reached out.

He'd noticed her reaching for the keypad of her communicator. He picked it up for her and brought it closer where she could type easily. Her hand hesitated; it wasn't the plump hand that he'd grown up with, by then it was then a thin shadow of the soft paw that had always taken care of him. Instead of typing and speaking to him, she reached up and stroked his face. Her hand felt cold. There were tears in her eyes. She shook her head as if it were all just too much. She'd grown weaker and more sensitive to stimulation. He wasn't sure if it was the hum of the laptop, the light from it, or just that she was tired; he shut it down just the same. He laid her down and offered her the pain meds. She refused them outright; so he'd lain down next to her. It was as he'd stroked her hair that she'd passed away.

She'd been his last tie to home. Phil was a friend, but he wasn't a parent. Phil had always been good about having him around but Phil had always gotten along better with Daniel. Alex had always felt as if he were just a poor reflection of Daniel to Phil; and yet the two of them had somehow managed to make peace with that so they could watch her get sicker together until that day eventually came. Phil had been at work. She'd slipped away sometime during the late morning. Alex sat up with her for hours before calling Phil at his desk and telling him to come home. Alex knew that he didn't like interruptions in his routine, but Phil knew what it was about. All he'd had to say was, "Come home, now."

Phil came in looking broken and covered by a dark cloud. He'd started wailing the moment he entered her bedroom. Alex left quietly; it was Phil's turn.

Alex sat on the bench by the big window where he and the Empress had spent so many years next to each other contemplating life, the nature of the universe, and the intricate mechanics of reality. Alex ignored all the people who asked him questions, retreating deep into his mind to push it all away. Phil dealt with the police, the ambulance, and all the details that he didn't want to deal with...couldn't deal with.

The Empress was gone. Daniel was "presumed dead" by the military and the government; and missing by him and Phil. And life was shit for a long while as far as Alex was concerned.

CHAPTER 1 – DAILY LIFE

"Feel free to shove your fractals up your ass!" Alex offered casually as he walked out of the college cafeteria.

Alex pulled his backpack up and shrugged it on without breaking a step. He made directly for the open courtyard and then for the safety and peace under the trees. He took his usual spot. Dead center in the middle of the oldest trees on campus he slumped down onto his butt. He pulled his backpack out off and searched for his CD player.

Fractals! Fractals! Fractals! Why did they always have to bring up those stupid computer generated etch-a-sketches?

This was bad. Usually, he only needed a little something to take the edge off the tension that idiots often created; today, he needed the big guns. He flipped through his CD wallet and pulled Arthur Bliss's Colour Symphony. He turned the CD player on and opened his sketch book. He began the familiar and tranquil process of sketching as he closed off the outside world.

He closed it off the way the Empress had taught him and he did it quickly before he became upset. He opened his eyes as he slowly rocked back and forth in the shadow of the trees. A light wind blew by causing him to blink as his hair fell into his eyes.

He saw the Quantum Mechanics Moron's he'd just had words with stepping out of the building; he recognized them from the same idiotic clothes they always wore. They came towards him on their way to another building. Even under the blissful sounds of the colors he could hear them talking and laughing as they passed. He easily flipped them the state bird as he continued to commune with the universe.

As even those morons slowly began to fade away for him he began to chant out his mantra: "Mathematics is the universal map. Mathematics is evident in the proportions of all living creatures. Art is founded on the history of all living creatures. History defines us. Therefore, mathematics defines us because we are living creatures."

He repeated it to himself until he was there again.

Alex could almost smell her skin. He'd lean into her wide, soft frame and stare out of the big window overlooking the trees for hours. The trees and green leaves would give way to the twilight. Twilight would gradually give way to night and then the lights would come.

Silence brought him out of his reverie. The CD had finished that meant that at least two hours and fifteen minutes had passed. His lips felt dry and he felt hot. He realized that he'd spent far too much time sitting there. It was well past noon.

Alex gathered his things and headed out. There was nothing to learn from school today.

~ ~ ~

Instead of going back to the dorms for homework, painting, or working on his theories, he went home to Daniel's place. Usually, he'd call. But the last time he'd seen Daniel he'd mentioned a 'business trip', a quaint euphemism that Daniel used so he wouldn't have to outright lie to Alex.

Whatever.

Alex walked in, dumped his backpack, and headed for the kitchen. He opened the fridge hoping that Jack hadn't beaten him to the leftover noodle stuff that Daniel had made the other night. Alex hadn't been there, but he'd called and had gotten a play-by-play of the night's dinner. Alex knew from the trend that they'd been setting that 1) Daniel would have spent a good deal of time cooking a great meal for Jack, 2) Jack would have shown up hungry, 3) that hunger had nothing to do with food, and 4) there would be plenty of better-than-cafeteria-food leftovers for Alex.

He poked his head into the refrigerator and shook his head. As per usual, everything was categorized by shelf and alphabetized from front to back. Plastic food containers were organized by lid color: blue for meat dishes, red for grains, yellow for vegetables, and white for soups.

"Noodle stuff," Alex said to himself as he estimated that it would be somewhere on the second shelf, about third back. He pulled out a container.

He was in the process of opening it when a voice from behind said, "What are you doing here?" and scared the hell out of him.

Alex whirled around and threatened the big man with the plastic container.

"Me! What the hell are you doing here?"

The big black man just stood quietly as if thinking about it. After a few seconds he merely said, "Feeding fish. Do you mean to frighten me with tuna salad?"

"Tuna!" Alex said outraged as he pulled the container out of the air and under his nose so he could sniff...just to be sure. "He said he made that noodle stuff." Alex grumbled as he turned back into the refrigerator. He moved a few things around and found another container that held promise. He opened it and sniffed. He smiled and turned towards the big black guy, "We have noodle stuff." Alex said triumphantly.

Alex went to the utensil drawer and pulled out a fork. He already had a mouth full of noodle stuff when he managed to pull out a stool at the kitchen island with a foot so he could sit.

"You have not explained your presence here," the big guy said calmly.

Alex was face down in the noodles with a particularly long bit hanging out of his mouth. He slurped them up and got cold dill infused mayonnaise on his face. He chewed and swallowed with a smile before he said, "Daniel doesn't really love for me to tell people who I am. So, who are you?"

The man cocked his head to one side and simply said, "I am Murray."

Alex thought about it for moment, "He's never mentioned anyone named Murray. Why are you feeding his fish?"

"He will be gone for a few days." The man said simply.

"Oh," Alex said quietly as he studied the man in front of him, "have I ever met you, Murray?"

It was obvious that the man was big, strong, silent, and assessing him about as much as Alex was assessing him right back.

"No." The man said.

"T," a woman called out. "I finally found the damn notebook," the female voice said as it got closer. "Turns out that it was in the nightstand after all-"

The woman stopped at the kitchen's threshold as Alex dug his fork into the noodle stuff again.

"Boy," Alex said easily, "this is really Grand Central today."

"Who are you?" The woman asked.

"This is what I have been trying to ascertain." The man said seriously.

Alex dug into his pocket and pulled out his key. He showed it to the both of them as he said, "I have a right to be here, what about you two?"

"We're friends of Daniel's," the woman said with a smile. "We just stopped by to pick up something for him." The woman said holding up the notebook in question.

Daniel had more than five active diaries at any given time. As far as Alex knew, Daniel had the: 'keeping track of Alex's behavior' diary, 'the keeping track of Daniel's behavior' diary. Daniel's current 'medications and reactions' diary, the 'my daily life' diary, and several work diaries that Daniel hadn't kept in the apartment for years. Alex recognized the book as Daniel's medication diary.

Alex couldn't help the little hysterical laughter that shook through him for a moment. Once he'd calmed himself down he stabbed the noodles harder and said, "So you're both on his team and he's been hurt."

The woman began to say, "I'm sorry. I don't know-"

"Jack isn't here. That's the big tip-off. He would have sent Jack to get that if he wasn't so bad that Jack wasn't willing to leave his side. That book in your hands is his medical diary; he'd need it if he was taking some serious drugs and wanted to record quantities, times of administration, and his reactions to the drugs. He charts the results and that's how he determines whether or not he likes whatever he's on or not. Also," Alex said looking her up and down, "you may be stacked right but you dress like a uniform. Minimal make-up, short hair, no jewelry: you're used to working in a strict environment. And," he said turning to the other one, "you've practically got the word military stamped on your forehead."

Alex was actually surprised the big guy's eyebrow went up at his words: it was more reaction than he'd expected.

The woman took a step closer, "And your name is?"

"And your name is?" He echoed. "Daniel would get upset if I told you. Besides, I haven't exactly seen your ID."

The woman didn't hesitate to pull out her wallet. The moment he saw her military ID and the name printed on it, he froze.

She was putting it away as she said, "How about if-"

"Let me see it again," he said, a bit confused.

When he reached out for the wallet she allowed him to take it. He pulled the ID out of the wallet and looked it over. The face on it meant nothing to but the name made him smile. He looked over the ID carefully looking for any tale-tale signs of counterfeiting. He didn't find any.

"You're either the real Doctor Samantha Carter or a military plant." He bit his lip and then asked, "What's the connection between wormholes, warp drive, and energy?"

She looked at him oddly for a moment and then said, "A region of space can contain less than nothing and contain less than zero energy per unit volume."

Alex smiled widely and said, "Negative energy contained in a stable matrix that would create a stable wormhole."

"Theoretically transport a traveler from point A to point B, safely and without side effects."

"But even that kick-ass ride would be limited by the amount of energy output used to create that stability in the first place." Then Alex shrugged. "Of course if you start to travel down that road you also create the ability for time travel, and then the creation of a very dangerous weapon comes into play. Why even go there?" Alex looked her up and down again before he realized that he still had her wallet and ID. He gave them both back as he said, "You are Doctor Carter...I mean Major Carter. Which do you prefer?"

"Major," She said a bit warily. "You still haven't told us who you are."

"Oh, I wasn't kidding about Daniel not wanting me to say. I read your book. I was impressed...about where you were almost going. I know you were holding back. You almost said what you wanted to say. I was disappointed that you didn't actually say it, but given your job..." He shrugged.

"We'd like to-"

"I wrote to you," Alex continued. "I emailed you. I guess I was hoping to strike up a conversation."

"I don't get fan mail. It's screened through the military for security reasons."

"Well," he said shaking his head, "that explains a lot."

Alex reached for the container's lid and sealed it. He'd eat it on the bus on the way back to the dorms. He walked out of the kitchen licking the souvenir fork, picked up his backpack, and stopped. Without looking up he said, "Tell Jack to take care of Daniel. He's responsible." Then quietly he added, "I'm not happy with him right now."

He slung one of the backpack's straps over a shoulder and walked out.

CHAPTER 2 – PUTTING OUT A CALL

And the Empress said, "The problem with not being able to communicate on the same level as others is that that people don't always know how to communicate with you, even when you understand what they are saying to you."

"But no one understands me, even when I'm using words."

She was staring out the window with a smile on her face; she loved mornings. The weak morning light would always lighten her Irlen lens overlays to a bright pink casting a rosy color across her face that always made her look that much younger. She stopped to stroke his face once before saying. "You haven't been speaking, not in your native language. You speak mathematics, Alexander." She was the only person whom he ever allowed to call him by his full name; the only one that could get away with it. "You need to speak with that voice. Speak, and those who understand your language will answer; hold your silence and you have only yourself to blame for the stillness in your world."

Neither simple nor easy, but the doable and astute...as the Empresses' solutions usually were.

That was the day that Alex began to paint seriously. It was the day that he took all the theory that he'd gathered while interacting with Daniel and he put it all down on canvas.

He was two paintings into his first series when Daniel got him his first computer. Alex asked for a scanner next. Since he never asked for anything beyond the basics, Daniel indulged him.

Alex had all of his finished paintings professionally photographed, scanned them, and then set about learning to create a web-site so that he could post his pictures up on the web. His prints sold well. They always did. But 'the big four' never left his side. He was obsessive about keeping all of his paintings, but the four were the most valuable to him because they represented his life's work to date. Four paintings which said it all; everything that he knew, theorized, and wanted to know. Titled: 'Art is mathematics,' 'Mathematics is music,' 'Music is movement,' and 'Therefore, movement is art;' the four were the paintings that had spoken for him.

Deep inside he knew that they were what brought Hammond to him. Alex had been existing in the greater depths of hell, otherwise known as on-campus housing, at the time.

That year hadn't started out at all the way he'd planned, the way it should have. Daniel had a good job with the military. They were paying him enough that he could afford to send Alex to school. Alex passed up MIT, Oxford, Yale, and Harvard for the University of Colorado. He was less than an hour away from Daniel; it was what he needed, what he'd wanted. He was going to be living on campus in a private room, with a private bathroom, and he'd been guaranteed a southern exposure. So long as he had some privacy and could avoid the early morning and late day sun glare he knew that he could handle communal living. He accepted that it would be stressful to start new routines surrounded by so many people, but he figured that so long as he had a place of privacy that he could deal.

Then it all went to shit. Even after calling the school every other day for a solid month and being told that everything was fine they still managed to screw him over. He wound up sharing a bedroom with another person, sharing a bathroom with four other people, and the room had a western exposure. Alex got not only the anxiety of dealing with multiple people in his personal space; he also got a constant and daily headache when the sun began its trek across the length of the window. His roommate didn't like it when he put sheets over the windows and so his only escape was to hide away in the closet until the sunlight was gone or sit in the library until he could go out. Even with his Irlen lenses, the tension built up so badly that he just stopped functioning well during the day. Glare always led to headaches, nausea, and then the shifts in his mood that he often wasn't aware of until his temper began to flare. He became severely depressed and mostly spent the days in a state of morbid sulking that affected his sleep until he was only getting three to four hours a night...if he was lucky. Instead of sleeping, he spent the nights trying to catch up with all the homework that he hadn't been able to do during the day; and that annoyed him even more.

It didn't help when his bedroom door opened one day and a crew cut walked in.

"Is your name Alex Smith, son?" the man had asked.

He nodded. Speaking was too much an effort that day. All he wanted was to sit on his bed and sulk.

"My name is General George Hammond. I was a friend of your father's."

"He's alive." Alex said immediately and defensively, recognizing the past tense that the man had used and what he was implying. "He promised to help me get this mess with the school sorted out, so I can have the private room they promised me."

"Son," the man said soberly. "There was an accident-"

"No." Alex said decisively. "The last time one of you people came it was to tell me that he was dead. I tried to explain to them that he wasn't, but they wouldn't listen. Then he came back from his sabbatical and couldn't explain it to me."

"This isn't a ruse. I need you to listen to me."

"Where's his body?" Alex turned away from the painting on the bureau that he'd been staring at. "Show me a body and I'll believe you."

The distinguished looking man in the uniform shook his head as he said, "It wasn't recovered. I'm sorry."

"Okay." Alex simply said as he turned back to the painting.

He didn't have a great deal of room in which to paint. He didn't have a great deal of space in which to hang, store, or display his creations; but he couldn't part with them. He couldn't bring himself to sell them. He couldn't even take them to Daniel's place, where he knew that they'd be appreciated, cared for, and safe. Alex just couldn't let them go; it was just another unreasonable demand that he had in his life.

It was a few moments later that he realized that the uniformed man was still there. Alex realized that when he heard the man inquired, "What is that?"

"Therefore, movement is art." Alex stated as he went back to the painting.

"I don't understand." The man said.

"The name of the painting; I call it 'Therefore, movement is art.' If you know anything about higher mathematics then you know that math is the universal language in which all intelligent beings can communicate. It is fluid, alive, and able to be represented dimensionally; so that you can see, hear, and even touch it. Math is also movement in space, time, and dimension. If you don't know anything about higher mathematics...then just look at the pretty picture and be done with it."

The man chuckled quietly. "You're a smart boy, just like your dad."

Alex didn't bother to respond.

"Daniel mentioned that you were autistic-"

"No, he didn't." Alex pulled his knees closer to his chest defensively; he knew better. "Daniel probably mentioned that I'm on the autistic spectrum. Having Aspergers means that I'm prone to autistic type behaviors, it doesn't mean that I have autism."

"What's the difference?"

Alex finally bothered to look in his direction again, "Both autism and Aspergers describe something that boils down to a person who doesn't process the world the way neurotypical people do. Autistics are on the deep end of the spectrum. Aspies are on the shallow end. We can have the same kinds of behaviors, just not as bad. Most Aspies don't even know they have it."

Alex let go of his knees and swung his legs off the bed. He watched the man in front of him for a few moments before he said, "A part of my diagnosis is that I don't pick up on social cues very well. I don't know if you're nervous, anxious, fidgeting, or standing there calmly; it's all pretty much the same to me. I have an agenda or something to say and I say it or do it. This is how I relate to people."

"Sounds difficult."

"It can be," Alex stood up and looked at the man. "I have a theory. Actually...I have several."

Alex walked over to the painting and removed it from the bureau where it was displayed. Upon removing it he uncovered 'Music is movement.' He brought that down and displayed it next to 'Therefore, movement is art.' Then he made sure that 'Mathematics is music,' and 'Art is mathematics' were also displayed.

"My first theory involves the 'Art is mathematics.' There is a symmetry to all living creatures, a visible, deliberate, mathematical tempo in the creation of all life; there is serious continuity in what we are meant to be, almost as if we are evolving from a previously evolved form. 'Mathematics is music' represents the relations between sound and that mathematical tempo, magnetism, and energy; all equations exist, we just have to find them and figure out what they mean. 'Music is movement' is stability, energy, matter, and movement in one direction. 'Therefore, movement is art' is a culmination of all three, basically it means faster than light travel."

"What does it all mean?"

Alex smiled. "What does it all mean?" Alex repeated with the same inflection, pitch, and accent.

For half a second he considered not answering, but finally he ran his hands over the watery texture of the painting. To him it seemed to almost ripple, like a standing body of water. "Simply stated that there is more then meets the eye." Alex stared for a second longer before turning back to his bed and sitting in the middle of it. "Daniel has some crazy theory that the Egyptian language is based on a much earlier language. If you look at his research it's methodical, thorough, and extremely impressive. But then that's how his mind works. He's able to jump from one completely unrelated topic to another and figure out a solution that no one else in the world would ever see. Me? All I have is supposition and a bunch of mathematical equations that I can't put into practice because we don't have the raw materials for the kind of energy conduction that I'd require. And if we did, most people consider me nuts any way, so why would they let me near them?"

"What kind of energy conduction?"

"Extreme by our measures. Travel from point A," he said grabbing a point in space with his hand, "to point B" he said taking that with his other hand, "is not only probable, it's possible. The only reason that we can't do it yet is because we haven't got the energy requirements needed to achieve it."

There was a silence for a few minutes as Alex slipped back into staring at his paintings.

"What did you hope to achieve with these paintings?"

"Attract the attention of someone, anyone that could understand what I was trying to say."

"Did it work?"

"Some," Alex said with a shrug. "There are very few mathematicians that could even understand. Though, one of your people come close...really close."

"One of my people?"

"One of my people," Alex echoed before he realized that he'd even done it. "If I remember correctly the bio on the book said that 'Carter, Samantha Elenore, PhD. in astrophysics and quantum mechanics and is currently serving in the United States Air Force as a Major.' She wrote a book on wormhole theory that I found rather cute. She came real close in a lot of places, but it felt like she wasn't saying a lot of what she wanted to say. I contacted her, even sent her an email of these pictures."

"Did she respond?"

"Yes and no. She sent me a pat on the head; and a thank you note. She didn't see what I was trying to say."

"Let's pretend for a moment that I can see what you're saying, what would you do then?"

Alex turned to look at him as the confusion filtered across his face, "Not sure."

"Tell you what? How about if after your father is laid to-"

"He's not dead." Alex snapped, as the frustration seeped out.

There was a silence.

"How about if you just do some work for me and I'll see if I can get you another room."

"Southern exposure with a private bath: that's what they promised me. They said that it was first come, first serve. I submitted all the paperwork in time, but they gave my room to someone else!"

"Okay, calm down. I know someone on the University's board. I'll make it happen. I'll send a car for you on Friday. Maybe you can come and take a look at something for me."

"What?"

"You'll know when you get there."

Then the General left.

The next day Alex got his room. It had the southern exposure and even had a big tree covering the window. Any and all thoughts that he had been harboring about dropping out of school evaporated that day. He could close his door off and shut out the world. His sleeping immediately improved, as did his appetite and his ability to study.

The car eventually did come. The crew cuts did, too. Alex didn't mind it too much, at first; he was taken to a too bright florescent-lit office building. Five steps into the building he stopped completely; there were a total of six lights humming above his head. There were people everywhere. He actually turned around and ran right into the uniform that was escorting him. He was then taken to a room with big windows with horizontal blinds created a fragmented light effect in the entire space that immediately drew his eye and made him feel dizzy.

"Come over here." Someone said.

Alex turned and saw another uniform, "And who are you?"

"Take off the goddamned glasses and sit down."

"Well I'll sit," Alex stated. "But I don't go without my goddamned glasses in sunlight, or florescent light; and you still haven't told me who you are."

"I'm General Hammond; we've met."

"Here's a heads-up, I have a bit of prosopagnosia." Alex said walking in farther. He dumped his backpack by the chair that the blue uniform had indicated. "Otherwise known as face blindness." He ignored the people; the only interesting thing about the room was an equation on the chalkboard. The problem on it was interesting enough to catch his attention. "I could meet you a hundred times and I wouldn't recognize your face."

He spent a few minutes working the equation out in his head before he bothered to turn to face the General.

"So what are we doing today?" Alex asked as he picked up a piece of chalk.

"We have a problem for you to solve."

"Good." Alex said as he wrote in the answer to the equation on the board. When he was finished he turned and said, "I like a good challenge. Where is it?"

There was an immediate silence in the room.

"You just solved it," another faceless uniform said to him.

"Oh," Alex said, disappointed, "well, if you're all just going to waste my time I'm going to leave."

Alex got up and picked up his backpack. As he shrugged it on he said, "Hey, General. How about you do me a favor? Next time, can we find a place with halogen lights? Fluorescents bother my eyes and give me headaches."

The next time wasn't much better.

The General, in his infinite wisdom, choose some kind of a hanger. Alex had to be driven in by some guy in a jeep. The moment they passed within a thousand yards of a taxiing air plane Alex began to freak out. Alex grabbed his ears and started screaming the moment the head splitting noise choked the thought right out of him. When he became aware of what he was doing, his head was in a uniform's lap as he held on to the man's legs, screaming. It took a while to get past the panic attack.

For a while he just sat in the jeep crying as he repeated the words: "Mathematics is the universal map. Mathematics is evident in the proportions of all living creatures. Art is founded on the history of all living creatures. History defines us. Therefore, mathematics defines us because we are living creatures."

Alex calmed himself down as much as he could but when another uniform came up and introduced himself as General Hammond and asked if he was alright; all Alex wanted was to go home.

"We just need you to come in-"

"No." Alex as he wrapped his arms around his backpack. "I want to go home. There'll be another plane. You didn't say there'd be planes!"

He couldn't help the tears.

"Are you scared of planes?" Hammond asked.

"Noise. Very loud noise hurts; I can't. I want to go home."

He tried to coax Alex out but the headache was bad. The pain behind his eyes was annoying and all he wanted was to get back to the dorm and crash in bed.

The next time he'd been called it was to another place. He'd been wary when the uniforms came to get him, but he went. He took his earplugs, just in case, even if they didn't do much to stifle the noise. He'd been called late at night. The building was quiet, and there were no people around. It looked like some kind of an office building; Alex was taken to a big conference room with halogen lighting.

Alex's first words were, "Much better."

He wandered in farther towards the uniforms.

"I'm General Hammond." One of the uniforms said.

Alex passed him and went right for the chalkboard.

"We have a problem Alex; it's not the equations."

"Then why are the equations wrong?" Alex said as he picked up the chalk.

He made his corrections before turning around and taking the papers from the General's hand. As he reviewed the information on the pages he realized that the Air Force was building a plane; no not just a plane, a plane capable of space flight.

Several uniforms all started speaking to him at once and Alex quickly lost the conversation. He became confused almost immediately. He wasn't sure who had said what, or what the meaning of their words were. It felt like a jumbled picture in his mind that he couldn't put together, so he dismissed what they'd said altogether.

The men in uniform had moved around so that he had to ask, "Which one of you is Hammond again?"

"Here," The second uniform over said.

Alex went right to him and said, "What do you plan on making this ship out of?"

"Ship?" The General asked.

"Yeah," Alex said looking back down to double-check. "This isn't for a plane. This is for a space ship. Small, fast, and given the kinds of speeds that these equations are theorizing you're making them for serious running speed. Since we don't have a lot of interstellar drag racing, I'm just going to assume it's a fighter of some kind. So, I'm going to ask again. What kind of material are you going to be making this baby out of so I know what kind of stressors it can take?"

There were a few moments of silence.

It was during that silence that Alex noticed that there was a humming noise coming from one of the lights. He looked up and realized quickly that it was going to annoy the hell out of him for his entire visit. He walked over to where the noise was definitely coming from and looked up.

Alex pointed up as he said, "Can we get this fixed?"

"What?"

"The light is humming." He closed his eyes and concentrated on the exact pitch that it was making. "Hmmmmmm. It's very distinct. Very consistent. Very...annoying."

"Sergeant Siler, call maintenance and have someone come up and change the light out."

"Sir," the man said in the background.

Alex took a seat at the conference table and pulled out his sketch book and his tin of pencils. He turned to a fresh page and began sketching. He was aware of the General coming to sit next to him. Alex had only seen the equations once, but that was all he needed. Flight calculations were easy. Space flight wasn't harder, just temperamental, edgy...in need of tender loving care.

He pulled his CD player out and put on something nice so that he could begin sketching what he saw in his mind. He reproduced the equations sitting on the paper in the General's hands in one corner for reference. Then he sketched an aerodynamic ship silhouette that made sense to him, while altering the equations to increase the speeds by two-fold. Even though he really didn't consider himself an engineer, he included a few notes about the engine. The increased speed would affect all of the ship's systems. The engines were the best place to start compensating.

When he was done he put his CD player away before he looked at the sketch again.

"Space is a lot like females." Alex said as he adjusted his sketch. "You have to have a great deal of respect for it. It takes a great deal of investment in the relationship in order to see the progress that you'd like. But in order to get to where you ultimately want, you have to be ultra prepared. If you have adequate protection you can go far; if your protection fails then you're screwed...and not in a good way."

Alex worked out a new equation in his mind a second time making sure that it flowed properly before he said, "I just designed for you a new and improved Trojan Magnum, Mega Extra-large size, tapered at the base for a more secured fit, Ultra-ribbed, lubricated silky smooth with spermicidal jelly, textured for her satisfaction and comfort, and I even included a special reservoir tip - for extra safety." Alex held up the sketch as he looked at the General and said, "Any takers? Going once!"

Alex wasn't at all shocked when one of the uniforms rushed up and snatched it from his hand before scurrying off to discuss it with his friends.

"Of course," Alex said still looking at the General. "Those equations are only good if you have a metallic skin that can withstand the stressors that will be placed on it. I'd say something in the neighborhood of a hundred times the strength of titanium. But then, I'm sure you have something up your sleeve."

Alex turned towards the uniforms at the other end of the room that were busy whispering to one another about top secret this, and engine specs that.

"Hey guys," Alex called, "I have hyper-sensitive hearing. I really can hear you whispering all the way over here. You might want to keep that stuff to yourselves until I'm actually out of the building."

"How much do you know exactly?" General Hammond asked. "I know your father's petrified of your getting involved with any of this, I know he wouldn't tell you-"

"Just like him I have my own theories, General. I spoke in a painting. You recognized what I was trying to say. Therefore, I know that you know that I know. The question is what exactly do we know? You need my help to smooth out the rough spots in your project. I seek truth."

"Truth?"

"I like a good mystery, General. And I'm having a blast, so don't spoil the ending for me."

With those words Alex gathered up his pencils and tucked them back into their tin. Then he packed away his tin and his sketch book and left without another word. Hellos and goodbyes always seemed like such a waste of time to him, that he rarely bothered with anyone that wasn't Daniel.

CHAPTER 3 - THE EMPRESS'S NITTY-GRITTY

Even years after the Empress's death Alex couldn't bring himself to part with her speech facilitation keyboard. He turned it on like he usually did when he was missing her.

He typed in the words: "Mathematics is the universal map. Mathematics is evident in the proportions of all living creatures. Art is founded on the history of all living creatures. History defines us. Therefore, mathematics defines us because we are living creatures." When he was finished he pressed the play command and closed his eyes. The electronic voice, that had been hers for years, said the words out to the world.

He smiled.

She never liked lengthy explanations. She lost the conversation easily. She demanded simplicity. Over the course of a week he'd narrowed the interests of his youth into a thirty page essay. It wasn't good enough. She demanded shorter. After another week, he'd produced a one page synopsis of his interests and general beliefs. The Empress typed in the words 'Ha, Ha!' so she could play it back for him on a loop.

Then she said, "No, try again. Shorter."

What did he come up with?

"Mathematics is the universal map. Mathematics is evident in the proportions of all living creatures. Art is founded on the history of all living creatures. History defines us. Therefore, mathematics defines us because we are living creatures."

This she finally accepted: A series of simple one-liners which boiled the world down into obscure random little phrases...until you looked just beneath them and attached the meanings together.

The Empress was forever looking for patterns in things. She liked continuity. She liked routine and predictability. Those were the two traits that he and Daniel had most definitely taken from her; the safety, tranquility and reliance on routine. And it was through this search for pattern that she brought him step-by-step to his life's mission.

He'd been on a tangent that entire day talking incessantly in a long and never ending digression that swung from one topic to another. He'd somehow managed to go from electric current and mechanics, to electrostatics to motion, vibration and harmonics, movement, and most important of all how Daniel's theories might fit in. It was the Empress who planted the seed of belief in Alex's mind that all life was connected; that all things are connected. It was her first issued challenge which forced him to connect his work with Daniel's.

Perhaps she'd been trying to bridge their work to bring them closer? Maybe she'd been hoping to interest Alex in Daniel's interests? Whatever the case, she'd opened his mind to new and greater possibilities with the words, "State Daniel's current theories regarding history."

Alex shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pocket before saying, "Daniel believes that-"

He heard her typing and waited.

"State it in the most concise manner possible."

He thought about it for a few moments and then said, "Egyptian language, one of the oldest of this planet, dates back farther than the archeological community realizes. It's based on an already pre-existing language."

"Implications?"

"One of several. Possibility one: human civilization previously progressed and was destroyed at some point but managed to survive in isolated places. Humanity not only persevered but once again continued to develop."

"Probability of possibility?"

"Slim. Historians are an anal lot, they don't miss much. Something would have been found to indicate this possibility."

"Next possibility."

"Possibility two: we are not alone. We've been visited by civilizations from other planets."

"Probability of possibility?"

"Better than the first, but there's no way to prove it."

"Not true." Something outside the window caught her attention.

Alex turned and listened hard as he tried to figure out what it might be. After a few seconds, he realized that there was a song bird outside in the yard sitting in the oak tree out back singing. It was pretty. They both listened: she because she loved to listen to them, and he because he knew she'd be distracted until the bird went away.

When the bird finally left, Alex recapped their conversation so she wouldn't lose her place.

She smiled and repeated, "Not true. If our world has been contacted then the established dogma of your discipline is as wrong as that of Daniel's."

"So if space travel was made possible by another race, then it should be for us too."

"You just haven't connected all of the dots in the sky yet." She moved over making room for him on the bench and pointed up.

Dutifully, he sat and looked out the window with her.

"It's impossible for an object to move faster than light in space-time." He said after a long time of contemplation.

"It is possible to step into a tub of water without spilling or jostling the water or the tub."

"Distort space-time?" he translated. "It's possible; at least it is in theory."

Alex considered the many theories and possibilities that came with the topic, "But in order to do it you'd need super dense matter, like from the middle of neutron star and formed into two rings. One at point A where you are and one at point B where you want to go. It would have to be charged up with an incredible amount of power and then you would need to spin them about as fast as the speed of light. That would theoretically create a wormhole, but-"

The Empress laughed, and then she typed. "My mother used to buy magazines with pretty dresses inside. She'd look at the dresses and then made her own because we couldn't afford the ones in the magazine. The end result was a pretty new dress." She smiled patiently before saying, "Try again professor."

Alex couldn't help but chuckle; he knew what she meant.

"Okay." He said as he thought about it. "So we can't afford to buy the really good dense stuff, so we need another substance. It has to be a stable superconductor, in the shape of a ring. It would be nice if it would be able to excite electrical particles so that we don't have to feed enough energy to power a small city every time we turn it on, but that feature is negotiable. We have to be able to spin this sucker, but spinning it to the speed of light is impractical. The only way to get around this requirement is if the superconductor has elemental qualities that would amplify the spinning speed somehow, and I mean right to the atomic level."

Alex got up and began walking around. "The distance of travel would still be dictated by the amount of energy used. We wouldn't be able to leave our own galaxy. But this mode of travel only holds true if you only have two rings. If you have more than two rings you'd need a way to call up each specific ring, otherwise you might jump rings, essentially going to the wrong one."

"Interesting," The Empress said, "traveling the stars by stepping through a doorway."

"But doors are usually marked. You'd have to be able to find your way to each doorway or it could be like playing Russian roulette."

The Empress was still for a moment, "Planets have destinations in space, don't they?"

Alex smiled brightly. "I thought I was the one studying astronomy? Yes, they do. Actually, everything has an address in three dimensional space. All you need is six points of reference...seven if you plan on charting a course. Of course, once a stable wormhole is possible then theoretically so is...warp drive."

"Now that you've summarized Daniel's work and postulated a probable reasoning for its possibility of truth. Summarize yours."

Alex looked away and quietly said, "I think you just did it for me."

Then the Empress did say, "I baked bread, you slice, and I'll find the bologna."

His life's work handed to him in the span of a conversation at sixteen. Only the Empress could have done it; no other creature in nature had the forbearance both of him and his ideas to take him on that journey.

CHAPTER - HEIR FUHRER AND PHIL

Alex was waiting for the phone call that would summon him downstairs. He went to the mirror and checked himself for the thousandth time, just to be sure. He'd started to get ready at five. He'd showered and made all the ablutions necessary to get himself going. He'd spent fifteen minutes comparing socks, just to make sure that he had the right ones for the occasion, that they were the same kind, it was also important that neither was more stretched out than the other... the usual. After going through most of his wardrobe he finally decided on a pair of navy slacks with matching shoes and belt. The shirt was a pale blue long sleeve dress shirt that was currently lying on his bed.

He'd been staring at it for almost twenty minutes as he tried to decide if he should wear it out, or if he should take a second shirt on so he could change in the car. He felt a surge of panic well up inside; he pushed it aside and tried hard to calm himself down. He couldn't have a panic attack over this, here, now: he had to get ready. Alex wiped his forehead and decided to bite the bullet. He put the shirt on immediately hating the feel on his skin. The shirt's tag dug into his back and he hated it. By the time he finished buttoning the shirt his fingers were trembling. He tucked and fixed his pants and felt like an idiot. He immediately went to his dresser and pulled out a tee shirt; he liked his tee's - they had no tags, were all cotton, and the colors always calmed him.

He decided that he could deal with the dress shirt for an hour...for Phil. Phil was always trying to get him into one. It would make Phil's decade; to see him dressed up.

The phone call came. Alex dashed for the phone and answered, "I'll be down in a minute."

"We're right out front," his father said.

"Cool. One minute."

He hung up and went to his dresser for the Empress's urn. He picked it up and realized with a hard swallow that he really would be losing them both today. He pushed the thoughts aside as the tears started. He grabbed his glasses and shoved them into a pocket, picked up his extra shirt, and walked out.

He put his glasses on at the dorm's entrance and walked up to the waiting limo. It was Jack that got out. Alex was sure it was Jack; the bird on his shoulder and the name tag on his uniform gave him away. In full dress blues, Alex decided that the man was much more intimidating than he had originally thought. He certainly didn't seem it when Alex had last seen him in jeans.

Without a word Alex stepped in and took a seat in front of Daniel. He noticed instantly that Daniel had Phil's old tobacco can balanced carefully in his lap. Jack got back in and sat next to Daniel. Jack's hand went right to Daniel's arm and stayed there. Daniel was staring out of one of the windows.

"You wore a dress shirt." Daniel said after a long while.

"For Phil."

"He'd like that."

"Before or after he complained that he had to die to get me to wear one?"

Daniel faced him already laughing, his shoulders jerking, but it quickly ended in tears. Daniel fell over until his head landed on Jack's shoulder.

Alex was sorry he'd said anything at all.

"It's okay," Daniel said. "I've been like this all day. Pixie dust aftereffects."

Alex carefully fingered the urn in his hands. "I don't know if I want to do this Daniel."

"It was their wish. We have to obey."

Alex didn't bother to reply. Instead, he dropped deeper into the thick leather seat and tried to disappear.

The tag in his shirt was bothering him. The shirt itched. The cuffs felt as if they were rubbing him raw. And, he didn't want to do this. Instead of saying anything, he sulked.

When the car stopped Alex felt lost, but he got out when the others did. Like some mindless dance he followed behind them. The climb up was steep and rocky but they went up steadily until they'd reached the apex. Alex went up to join Jack and Daniel by the railing. He looked out and saw the setting sun just coming over the rocky peaks of the Colorado Mountains. The wind was coming in off their backs; it was perfect for what they had to do.

"Daniel," Alex said feeling the tears in his voice, "let's go home. We can do this later."

Daniel shook his head and quietly said, "They didn't let anyone tell them how to live, where to live, or how to do anything over the course of their lives. They didn't let anything stop them, not disease, person, or situation." Daniel looked up at the horizon and said, "Phil was the first person to ever tell me that I wasn't crazy, that I could do great things with my life." Quietly Daniel said, "I believed him. I believed everything he told me. Everything was possible to him; and that was amazing."

Alex clutched the urn closer as the tears fell. "The Empress was everything. Phil was a friend, but she was my mom. She was brilliant!" He declared. "She could see things that no one else could. I could talk to her about my work and even if she didn't get it she still made observations that only she was capable of. When she died, I lost that. And, I miss it."

"I think I even miss stealing fruit for Phil," Daniel said with a snicker.

"You didn't have to deliver the mustache wax...bastard. I missed out on dessert for a year."

"Taught you to think for yourself, didn't it?"

Alex looked away and gave one nod. "Don't make me do this."

"Do you have anything else you need to say?" Daniel asked gently.

Alex shook his head as the tears washed down his face.

Daniel held the old tobacco can out on the wooden railing that protected the outlook's ledge from the ravine below. "On three."

The wind swirled up and Alex felt his hair flying around his head before it fell into his eyes.

"One."

Reluctantly, Alex held out the Empress's urn as he held the lid tightly in his fingers.

"Two."

Another wind blew past them creating a white noise in his Alex's ears.

"Three."

Alex lifted the lid as Daniel did. Daniel tipped the old tobacco can far easier than Alex did the urn. But he managed to send her ashes off into same gust that Phil's left in. It was through blurry vision that Alex watched the grey dust fly up and away on the currents of wind. Far too quickly the dust spread and dissipated to join the landscape.

"In sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to the Almighty God our parents Phillip Mortimer Tyson and Agnes Nadine Brown; and we commit their bodies to the earth; earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless them and keep them, the Lord make their face shine upon them and be gracious unto them and grant them peace. Amen."

Alex stared out for a long time. Long after his tears were dry, long after the sun had come up and blared hotly in his face, long after he felt Daniel take the urn out of his hands. It was Jack that came up behind him and put his arm around Alex.

"Come on kid." Jack said as he pulled Alex close to him. "We're leaving."

Alex didn't argue. He turned mechanically and marched down. By the time he reached the limo he'd taken the shirt off and discarded it along the rocky path. He climbed into the limo and reached for his tee shirt. He felt better after he was able to slip it over his head, even if it skewed his glasses. He hated that but at least the tag wasn't in his way any longer.

Sometime later on the drive back, Daniel said, "We were thinking of going to get some breakfast-"

"Go without me, I just want to lie down."

No one tried to cheer him up, and he was immensely thankful for it.

~ ~ ~

Alex was called in by the General that night. His driver knocked on his bedroom door. Alex opened it to find a uniform.

"You're needed."

Alex rolled his eyes. He didn't want to go anywhere; all he wanted, in order of progression, was to sulk, pout, and lie in a depressed heap in the middle of his bed. He didn't get his wish.

He stalled as long as he could, but then he had to 'get your ass in the car!' At first Alex thought that he was being taken to the dark office building that they'd met last time, but they missed the turnoff. Instead of a building, Alex was taken to a complex of some sort.

"Are there airplanes!?" Alex half-shouted.

"No," the uniform said calmly.

Alex was driven to the door and told, "Get out and go in through those doors. You'll find a check-in station there. Someone will escort you in."

Alex did as he was told. The moment he walked through the door a man greeted him, "Hello Alex, it's nice to see you again."

"Who are you?" Alex responded warily.

"Sergeant Siler. I've been instructed to take you to the General."

"Right," he said, a little lost. He was signed in and given a visitor's pass.

"You need to stick with me. Don't touch anything unless you're told it's okay. These two guards will be with you your entire stay. Don't go anywhere without them."

"Okay," Alex said, a bit unsure where this was going.

Alex was taken down in an elevator, and then he went down again to an even lower level. He wanted to ask questions, but didn't.

He was taken to a big conference room. Alex walked past all the uniforms and went straight to the chalkboard. Instead of aeronautical information, equations, or theoretical designs, he found a board filled with binary code. He saw several problems almost immediately.

Alex turned to the room and asked, "General?"

"Over here son," the man at the head of the table said.

Alex walked over with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He sat down next to the man, put his backpack in his lap and hugged it as he asked, "What happened?"

The General was silent at first. Then he said, "I was looking over your file-"

"I have a file?"

"Everyone who works for me has a file. You got into trouble a few years ago for hacking-"

"No. I got into trouble a few years ago for fixing a problem. The state promised Crandon House a grant and they never delivered, all I did was fix a problem."

"And you hacked the state treasury computer to do it. You misappropriated a large sum of money-"

"Ten thousand, five hundred, thirty-seven dollars and fifty two cents, the exact amount that they were supposed to send to finish removing asbestos from the nursery wing and do repair work on our roof. We had kids sleeping in the hallways for almost a year because they were dragging their feet!"

"Calm down," the General said simply. "I'm not accusing you. I'm just quoting from your file."

"Wasn't that stuff sealed? I was a minor. Aren't people supposed to make excuses for the poor autistic kid that does bad things?"

"When it comes to national security, I make it my business to unseal all kinds of things." The General paused and asked, "Exactly how good are you with computers?"

Alex chewed his lip. He turned back to look at the code written on the board. "A couple of years ago the Empress and I were theorizing warp drive and wormholes. She gave me a great idea for combining my research with Daniel's." Alex looked away and rubbed his hands together nervously. "I know that Daniel serves on a team of some kind. I know that Colonel Jack O'Neill serves with him; I know he's hard core military. I know that Carter and Murray are on the team too. Funny combination, two big military guys, a theoretical astrophysicist, and an archeologist; and if I'm not mistaken they work here under this mountain." Alex leaned back in his chair, "Daniel comes home hurt a lot. I know Jack takes care of him, but he still gets hurt. Daniel wouldn't risk his life for just anything."

Alex got up and walked to the chalkboard, "I can write binary code in my sleep. It was a hobby for a while. This to me says, long-distance communication problem. Long, long, l-o-n-g distance. Wormholes," Alex said holding out one of his hands, palm up. "A possible first contact team," he said weighing the matter with the other hand. "Space ships," he said weighing both hands. "You can stop me at any point."

"Your father," the General calmly said, "probably won't forgive me for this."

The General nodded and a uniform brought over a laptop. It was turned towards Alex who walked closer to it.

"This was the last contact with had with the team," the General said, "you're about to see Major Carter speak."

The image on the screen came in fuzzy, as a massive amount of interference hit the signal.

"...stuck...have dug in. Defendable position. We're surrounded by ...forces. The 'Gate doesn't work...control has been over-ridden. Can't dial out...the DHD and 'Gate checked out on our end. The problem isn't here. I think that the...problem...is in the ..." the rest was unintelligible.

"That's it?" Alex said flatly.

"My people can't figure out what the hell is going on. Our equipment checks out. We can sustain a wormhole for only a few seconds and then it disengages. The problem is specific to this 'Gate." The General looked around unhappily. "They have a whole lot of ideas but nothing helpful. I was hoping that maybe a pair of fresh eyes-"

"I need all the raw data that you have available on this problem-"

"And," the General said loudly, "you have to understand that this is a top secret facility. What happens here effects national security. You will be expected to adhere to certain legal matters, and you will do so as soon as my aide gets here with the paperwork."

Alex rolled his eyes and brushed it off as he continued his earlier train of thought, "Don't bore me with the derivative information on the...'Gate, just the problem. This code says that problem is a lost signal, possibly even interference."

Another uniform stepped up, "We've already looked into that. We've had 'Gate signals jump from one 'Gate to another, but we've already ruled it out."

"You missed something," Alex said flatly. "Give me what you know as provable fact and I'll find it."

He didn't really mind the slow, painful, and excruciatingly methodical work that was involved, because his first order of the day was to reestablish contact with the other 'Gate where Daniel's team was stuck. The first time that Jack's voice was heard over all the static and interference Alex let go of a very tight and deep breath. Jack reported that everyone was okay, then the sounds of bullets firing cut him off, and then the transmission was cut off. In the next six days Alex heard the voices of the 'SG-1' eleven times. They were rationing food, water was running low, and then on the tenth day Daniel had been reported as 'being hit.' It was Carter's voice that reported it; it was also Carter that said that Daniel had been hit in the leg by a 'staff blast,' they were doing what they could for him, he'd live, but they needed rescue ASAP.

The General assured him that Daniel would live. No one would explain what staff blast meant, and Alex decided quickly that he didn't want to know. He retreated back to the lab where all of his paperwork was laid out and he continued to work the problem. For all intents and purposes they locked him up in a lab, not that he really noticed since he was having the time of his life.

CHAPTER 4 - I, AXIS

"Here! Let me explain it so that even you can get it! I'm right! And you are wrong!" Alex jumped behind the other uniforms that were trying to keep the guy from killing Alex as the situation kept escalating.

One of his personal guards grabbed Alex and was trying to drag him out of the lab, while the other one tried to calm down the irate technician who seemed hellbent on getting his hands around Alex's neck.

"Smelly little, no dick, ass-wipe!"

Alex just looked at the guy as seriously as possible when he said, "Funny, your mother didn't have anything but nice things to say to me last night when I was done with her."

"That's enough," one of the guards snapped. "Both of you!

"What's happening here?"

The face meant nothing, but Alex was getting better at deciphering General Hammond's uniform from the rest; he was the only one with the two little stars on each of his shoulders.

"Sir," the angry uniform snapped. He got a handle on his tone before he said, "This little arrogant...person...has done nothing but hinder our progress and create problems-"

"It's not hindering progress when you've solved the problem!" Alex retorted as he walked towards the General. He held out a CD and gave it to the man. "I keep trying to explain to them that the equipment is fine. Our end isn't a problem. Carter's confirmed that the other end isn't a problem. The problem is somewhere in the middle. These," Alex said in disgust as he looked around, "morons can't quite grasp it." Alex turned back to the General. "There is something blocking the 'Gate's signal. Like a tree branch standing in the way of your satellite. The dish and satellite are still there but you're not getting your HBO! I think that there's a computer uplink that's diverting the signal, selectively."

Alex turned back to the other uniforms in the room. "We can establish a wormhole but the moment we do they track it back to the origin and then cut it off if it's ours. We need to punch a hole in that process and create a stable wormhole long enough to disable the remote link."

Alex couldn't tell by the General's face if the man was paying attention or not, and he didn't care. He stepped up and said, "All I need is five minutes and your main computer; if I'm wrong I'll leave, nice and quiet. I won't mess with your egg-heads...at all!"

The General laughed. "I'll give you your five minutes. If your CD doesn't fix the problem you come back here like a good boy and you pay attention, you add in your two cents, and you do as they say."

Alex felt the confidence fade at the terms but he knew he was right. "Okay." Then he went over to get his backpack...just in case.

The General took him to a different level. This time, instead of just getting information about it, he actually got to see what everyone had referred to as the 'Gate. It was bigger and far more impressive than he could have imagined. As he stood in the control room he realized that he recognized the symbols on the 'Gate.

"Is that Orion?" Alex said pointing to the symbol near the top of the ring's arch.

"Just do your thing and leave," the General stated simply.

"Antlia, Canis Minor, Cygnus, Virgo," Alex said with a bright smile, "Andromeda, Mensa, Ursa Major...it's so elegant." He nodded. "Yes, simple and direct. Keeping each 'Gate's point as a seventh symbol, you could use the constellations in each galaxy in multiple combinations without running out."

Alex took a step back as it finally hit him. "There are hundreds of thousands of worlds out there. My god, millions."

"Alex!" The General snapped as he handed him the CD back.

Alex took it. Another uniform abandoned a work station for him. Alex offered a half smile and opened the CD drive and slipped his disk with his dialing program inside. With a press of a button the drive closed; the hum told him that it had started.

"Your system is about to re-boot." Alex said as he looked out into the 'Gate's room. "Those soldiers down there-"

"I can't explain anything to you."

Alex looked at the General, "Oh, I get that. My point was that, if they're there for some strategic reason you might want to mobilize a few more. Once the 'Gate is opened, I won't be able to close it for a few minutes."

As the General went for the closest phone and did his thing, Alex turned to the guy standing next to him. "I get that this computer runs the 'Gate. What does that one do?"

Alex caught about every other word of what the tech was explaining before he lost the conversation. It didn't matter, he got the gist. Alex riffled through his backpack and pulled out his emergency CD wallet. He flipped through until he found the Big-Bad Mama. He'd originally designed the virus on a lark a few years ago, just to see if he could do it. He knew that come what may it was worse than anything else out there because it was a learning virus of his own design. It could adapt and hide in whatever computer it was fed into. It had taken about two hours to adapt the virus for this purpose; but with the hints all the information that he'd recently read about Goa'uld -whatever they were- computers, he knew it would work.

"Why do you stink?" The General asked.

Alex popped a stick of gum into his mouth as he said, "Your base has funny soap."

The lights went out, as the computers all shut down.

"I took a trip down to the locker rooms," the emergency lights came on, "just to see if I could bathe here. But it was way too much. All those people, the lights were unendurable, there was a lot of sounds, and the only change of clothes are uniforms and that was way out of the question. No offense but uniforms suck ass. They're stiff, made from unfriendly material, and they have funny sewn-in tags. I couldn't do it."

The lights came back on as the computers re-booted. Alex pulled Big-Bad Mama out his CD wallet and said, "I'd personally rather wait until I get home. I have the right soap, the fluffy all cotton towels, and the kinds of clothes that I can deal with. Besides, if I picked up Athlete's Foot off of that shower floor I'd probably have to burn my skin off. I just can't deal."

When the computers were up, Alex loaded in Big-Bad Mama on the second computer.

"You run this sucker?" Alex pointed out towards the 'Gate.

"Yes, sir." The tech said.

"Great." Alex said, getting ready. "Don't start...dialing up the right address until I say go."

Alex fed Big-Bad Mama into the second computer so that she'd piggyback on the 'Gate's initial activation signal. To date, the wormhole could only be established for a maximum of a few seconds before it would shut down automatically. All he had to do was hold open the door with his dialing program long enough to link up and upload Big-Bad. The dialing program on the first computer worked on the same basic principles that Alex theorized all wormholes worked on, with a twist; it was that twist that he hoped would buy him the time he needed. Whatever computer was on the other side would need time to adapt, if he did his job right it would take long enough to upload Big-Bad. She would attack the first thing she found which he theorized was the computer 'wall' blocking the 'Gate's signal. Once inside of that other computer, Big-Bad would hide, grow, learn, and then attack.

The next sound that caught him was of the 'Gate spinning.

"I told you not to dial-"

"That isn't us. Someone's dialing in." In another moment the tech turned to the General and said, "Sir, its P4X211. SG-1 might be trying to get through!"

"Close the iris!" The General demanded.

"Iris closing." The tech replied.

While the sound of the metal clamps on the 'Gate activated and lit up Alex said, "General, I need that 'Gate open for a minimum of three minutes to do this. That's all I need is three minutes."

"Sir, it's SG-1's code."

"Open it up."

The moment the shield covering the metal ring swirled away Alex caught sight of his first stable wormhole; the light, texture, and beauty of it took his breath away. It was even more beautiful than his painting, more beautiful than any dream that he'd ever had.

"Alex!" The General demanded, waking Alex from his fixation.

Alex put his head down and concentrated on his job.

It was the first explosion in the 'Gate room that forced him to look up. Someone was shooting something through the 'Gate that reminded him uncomfortably of a laser. Alex immediately grabbed the keyboard and his backpack and dropped down to the floor.

The General began screaming at him almost immediately. Alex ignored everything as he pulled out his ear muffs. Alex had demanded a pair of industrial grade ear muffs with the best sound dampening ability on the market the moment he first heard the Base's klaxons going off. They had freaked him out so badly that he didn't sleep for three days after. With his Irlen lenses in place he sat on the floor and looked up the monitor so that he could do his job.

He watched the second computer that the tech had abandoned. His program running on that computer was working; the computer showed a stable wormhole.

With the first few keystrokes Alex was sure that whoever was actively trying to fry their contact with SG-1's current destination had to be using a computer. He piggybacked the wormhole's signal and immediately began negotiating with the computer on the other side. To his shock the computer wasn't so different that it couldn't be infiltrated and confused. Carter's notes on Goa'uld technology had been more than just helpful. Once in the system, Alex uploaded Big-Bad Mama and sent her forward.

He watched as the upload progress began.

Alex turned and realized that he was alone in the control room. He stopped to listen and quickly realized that even through the earmuffs he could hear weapons fire...lots of it, and not all the same kinds.

Alex stood up carefully and realized that someone had lowered some kind of a shield over the control room window; and burnt, cracked, bullet proof glass was where the window should be. Though he could hear what was happening on the other side of the glass he couldn't see anything; he was glad of it.

He double-checked the virus's progress; it was still loading.

Curiosity got the better of him; he walked out the doorway and saw the General and several of his men firing at someone around the corner.

Alex turned and checked again. The upload was almost finished. He went back to the computer and stayed by it until the virus was successfully uploaded. He pulled his CD out of the drawer and slipped it back into his CD wallet before shutting the 'Gate down. He wasn't sure if he'd be sorry or not, but he left the ear muffs in the control room.

Alex walked out of the control room. The General and his men still seemed to be busy on the one end; Alex went the other way, where it was quieter.

As he wandered down the hall, he came across a weird-looking guy in a chain link shirt. The guy looked like he'd been shot up, but with all the armor on Alex couldn't really tell if he was dead or not. He nudged the guy a few times with his foot before he bent over and picked up the guy's weapon.

"Staff fire, huh?" Alex said as he looked over the weapon and tried to figure out how it worked. He found the trigger mechanism. The end cracked open with a promise of power and fear.

"I see," he whispered to himself.

He walked down the hall and looked down the end. He saw two more guys in skirts only these guys weren't dead. Both of them held staffs in their hands as if they were holding them on someone beyond his sight. Alex didn't hesitate to fire at them. Just like in a video game; he walked towards them and shot them both down. It was amazing how all those hours in front of his Playstation finally paid off.

When he reached the end, he peeked around the corner and found Jack and Daniel kneeling on the ground. Both men looked up at him at the same time.

Alex looked them over before he quietly asked, "I take it the guys in the skirts aren't on our side?"

At the same time both men screamed at the top of their lungs.

"Alex!" Daniel yelled. "What are you doing here?"

"Are you out of your mind?" Jack bellowed.

Just then Murray and Carter came running around a corner. At least, Alex was pretty sure that it was them. How many big black guys run around with tall blondes at their heels?

Murray quietly looked over the situation as Alex noticed for the first time that the man had a tattoo on his forehead like the guys in the skirts, only Murray's was gold. Murray took the staff from Alex as he said, "I am impressed." The man nodded once and walked away.

Alex smiled and said, "I like Murray. He doesn't say much; I can appreciate that."

"What! The! Hell! Are you doing here?" Daniel shouted.

"He doesn't yell either," Alex said, suddenly feeling sick.

"You are supposed to be at school!" Daniel snapped.

Alex held up a hand and said, "Way, way too much noise, shit, people, and stuff. I need a nap."

"No," Jack said swiping the air with one hand as he made a face, "what you need is a shower little man. You are ripe!"

Alex watched Daniel lean over heavily onto Jack. For a fraction of a second Alex was going to tell him not to give himself away in front of all the uniforms, or some such smart-ass remark, but at the last moment he noticed that Daniel's thigh was wrapped heavily in bloody bandages. Jack noticed him staring at Daniel's leg.

"It's okay," Jack said patting his cheek, "looks worse then it really is."

Alex followed them both to the infirmary. He wasn't allowed inside and had to sit with Carter and Murray. For a while Alex said nothing, and then he decided to make conversation.

"So what's it like being an alien?" Alex said turning to Murray.

Murray was silent.

"What's it like being a pain in the ass?" Carter asked in Murray's stead.

"My reputation precedes me," Alex said with a smile.

"You have half the consultants on base angry at you, the rest just want your head."

Alex shrugged and said, "They're idiots; I can prove it mathematically too."

Murray wouldn't answer any questions about alien physiology, the state of being, existence in the universe, and so on. So Alex just sat and stared at the wall until a little Doctor came out and told them that Daniel would be okay.

Alex didn't feel right until he was allowed inside so he could hug Daniel. Even twisting around and down to hug a Daniel that was lying in bed with his leg elevated, and half-doped up; that hug was the best thing that Alex had felt in a long time. It was at Daniel's bedside that Jack told Alex that he wasn't going to be allowed to leave for a few days, at least until he was fully debriefed. Alex shrugged.

It didn't matter. At least he didn't think it would, until he met the dumbbells that were responsible for debriefing him. He started playing with them the moment he walked into the room and decided that he didn't like them.

"I just need you to explain to me what you did."

"Why? You wouldn't understand what I did or how. So why bother?"

"Do you understand that I don't have to let you out of here until you cooperate?"

"That's fine, go get me some lunch. I want a bologna sandwich, on home made seedless rye bread sliced thick. First, a layer of lettuce, then onions, tomato, ten pickles slices, and two slices of bologna. On the top bread layer you want to put a nice thick spread of mustard. This is Saturday; make sure that you slice it horizontally."

The guy just looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"Bring it with a can of Coke, don't forget the straw. Oh, and some chips if you can find them. No vegetable, no carrots, nothing that once lived in the ground."

About two hours after Alex had started, Jack showed up. He was sure that it was Jack; Jack had a little bird on his uniform. It said O'Neill; also Jack had a very distinct body type and movement that seemed to belong only to him.

"Hey, Jack."

Jack didn't answer. He walked in and pulled a chair out and sat. Jack drummed his fingers on the table a few times as he looked around.

"We have a problem, Alex," Jack said after a while.

Alex nodded and waited.

"You did a lot more than just stabilize a wormhole and I need you to tell me what it was that you did."

Alex opened his mouth.

"Ah," Jack immediately said cutting him off, "but let me tell you why."

Alex waited.

"Daniel told me how much you like conspiracy theories and how you've been trying to figure out what's going on around here. By now I'm sure you know. We both know just how smart you are. We both know that you did something while that 'Gate was open. We need to know because several things have happened since and we can't operate out there blindly. You saw what happened to Daniel the last time we went into a situation with minimal information."

Alex felt the smile melt off his face.

"I need you to help me, or I can't keep him safe."

Alex suddenly felt terrible. He leaned forward on the table and felt his shoulders droop. "Promise you won't get mad."

Jack laughed suddenly. He calmed down and closed his eyes for a second or two. When he looked up at Alex he calmly said, "I promise I'll listen. I'll try to be fair; but I can't promise you calm."

Alex started picking at the table when he said, "Those guys in the skirts were bad guys, right?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of," Alex repeated wistful and unsure. "I saw the problem. I wanted to solve the problem." Alex looked down at his hands. "Have you ever chopped onions?"

Jack's voice was even when said, "Yeah."

"I hate onions. If I touch one the smell sticks to my hands and I swear that if I touch anything else I can smell the onion on it for days. That's kind of what I did. I created a virus that sticks and then won't wash off; the smell will linger and figure out how to make you nauseous until you can't work with it anymore."

"Alex," Jack said carefully, "where did you put that virus?"

"The other side."

"Other side of what?"

"Someone on the other side of the wormhole was sabotaging our ability to create a stable field. All I did was confuse their equipment long enough to upload my virus into their computers. You opened the gate and came through, but so did our friends in the skirts because I couldn't shut down once I started. Once the virus was safe on the other side, I shut it down. Big-Bad Mama knows what to do; don't worry, she can't contaminate your base computers. I taught her to only go after Goa'uld computers."

For some reason Jack's mouth was hanging open. "How?"

"How what?"

"How do you know what a Goa'uld computer is like?"

Alex thought about it and realized that the question could be taken in several ways. "Rephrase the question."

"How could you teach your virus to go only after Goa'uld computers when our computers are similar?"

Alex considered the question and realized that the way Jack phrased the question he could be asking any one of several things. "Are you trying to ask me how Goa'uld computers are different from our computers? How they each work differently? Or are you trying to ask me how I modified Big-Bad Mama?"

Jack paused and then said, "Let's start with that last one. How did you modify...Big-Bad Mama?"

"She was originally a thinking virus. I designed her myself. Once she finds a computer she actually becomes part of the computer. She finds a nice place to live, integrates herself fully, and only then will she go active and start fucking with all functions at the same time. I had to read up on Major Carter's notes in order to understand how the 'Gate worked enough so I could create my dialing program just to open the 'Gate, some of the papers were notes on Goa'uld devices, communication signals, things like that. I just extrapolated and made a dirty bomb for them. Their communications signals are now contaminated with Big-Bad. The second they start talking to each other is the moment that she starts to permeate their network."

Alex reached across the table and checked Jack's watch. "It's been six hours, fifteen minutes, and forty-three seconds since upload. Big-Bad is in phase five by now. Even if I gave you the anti-virus, that system is fucked. You'd have to slash and burn the computers; they can't be saved."

At first Jack was just sitting there. Alex expected some kind of a reaction. Usually, people yelled first and spoke later, they didn't often just stare. Jack just continued to sit there for a few more moments. Alex was sure that he was in serious trouble, perhaps the virus was a bad idea. He wished at that moment that he was good at reading people's faces; he was concentrating, but he just couldn't tell. Then the oddest thing happened: Jack snickered. The snicker quickly rolled out into laughter, and then right into a belly shaking guffaw until there were tears rolling down his face.

When Jack had sufficiently calmed down Alex carefully asked, "Am I in trouble?"

Jack shook his head and asked, "So, did you by any chance happen to keep a copy of the virus you used?"

"Of course," Alex said opening his backpack up, "I keep a copy of everything I do. Backup is important." He found the CD and gave it to Jack.

As Jack looked at it he said, "If this works, I'm going to buy you the biggest steak that I can find."

"Organic or kosher beef only," Alex explained, "the steroids that regular farms inject their cows with make me sick...my eyes swell up, stomach aches, nausea, and then I really get constipated."

EPILOGUE

Alex lay out on Jack's deck with ice cold lemonade in his hand. He just smiled and closed his eyes as the smell of the marinated meat began to gently drift over to him. He was a hero now. He wasn't really sure what he'd done, but Jack had called him a hero. Alex could live with that; after all heroes got grilled steak and noodle stuff. All he had to do was kick back and wait for it. He decided that he liked being a hero.

He'd watched Jack and Daniel debate for almost ten minutes about the lemonade. Daniel had made ginger lemonade for himself and plain lemonade for Alex. Jack popped open a long neck and then somehow they went from talking about how ginger didn't sit well in Alex's stomach to arguing about what the proper consistency of peanut butter should be. That led to a loud discussion about the right order in which to grill the vegetables.

Alex's hat was riding low on his brow so that there was a nice shadow over his eyes; his Irlen lenses securely in place. The day wasn't overly bright and he could appreciate the shady deck that caught every generous breeze that came by. Jack was busy grilling, gas not charcoal, because both Alex's and Daniel's allergies had been acting up; and he'd been outvoted.

Standing over the grill with a pair of tongs in hand and an apron that said, 'I say let's fish five days and work two!' Jack stood over the grill complaining, "Never mind that it's my house,I just live here. But while you're here I'll just step aside so you can tell me how to run my life."

"Well I'm glad you aren't going to get bitchy about it, Jack. God forbid anyone should tell you how to do anything."

Jack just looked at Daniel and profoundly said, "Bite me."

Daniel smiled and leaned in to kiss Jack. Alex watched as Daniel slowly pulled away still sucking on Jack's lower lip. When Daniel eventually bothered to let go Jack's lip snapped back towards his mouth. Jack didn't seem to mind much, he just stared open-eyed at Daniel who merely smiled.

"If there's anything else that I can do, just let me know." Daniel said as he left for the kitchen.

Jack turned back to the grill with a funny look on his face. After a few seconds he seemed to regain his composure: that's when he yelled back towards the kitchen, "Not fair!"

Yeah, it wasn't exactly a meat cleaver piercing an office door securing a bloody note in place, but theirs was a relationship that Alex could understand. As far as Alex was concerned, parents were always weird. It seemed to be part of the job description. But as long as they communicated, who was he to say anything?

The End.

Next: Another Nut In The Jar