Dan and Ann spun around at the sound of the door opening. Both would swear they had not heard a lock turn. A tall angular man with pale skin entered, leaving the door slightly ajar. He was carrying a cloth-covered tray.

"Hello." Dan made his voice sound friendly as he slid to his feet off the bed. However he made no move to close the distance between him and the stranger. There was something odd about him, something off… Ann stood beside him, her eyes guarded. So she was wary too.

The man gave a slight bow. "It is good that you have awakened."

Dan pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Who are you?"

"You may call me Mellicent." He had a strong lisp making him sound like a snake.

"Is that your name?" Ann pounced on the strange phrasing.

"It is what I am called."

"Where are we?"

A flicker of surprise crossed his face but was quickly suppressed. "You do not know this room?"

Both shook their heads.

"These are your quarters."

Dan took note of the wording. Quarters, not home or house. "Okay, here’s a tough one. Who are we?"

Mellicent sidestepped the question. "You have been ill. The fever affects the brain in many different ways. I have come to give you your next dose of medication." He removed the cloth to reveal two injections filled with a pale green liquid.

Dan swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. The moment he saw the medical paraphernalia he had the immediate impulse to yell out ‘No!’ "I…we…" he gestured to Ann, "…we feel fine." He instinctively moved in front of Ann shielding her. "Don’t we?"

Ann poked her head over his shoulder. "Fit as a fiddle."

"You must finish the whole course of treatment or you may relapse." Mellicent advanced towards them.

"No, really…we’d rather not." Every fiber of Dan’s being was screaming that he couldn’t let them be injected.

Ann must have reached the same conclusion, because as one their hands rose defensively to block the man’s approach, her hands flicking out to either side of him.

The tray flipped out of Mellicent’s hands by an unseen force and the glass syringes flew through the air to shatter against the stone wall.

Three stunned faces watched the green liquid trickle down the stones.

Dan was the first to recover. He pulled his shoulders back in defiance and his tone became hard. "As you can see, we really don’t want it. Now get out of here before I show you the same treatment."

The man mutely nodded and backed away towards the door. "As you wish. I shall have some food brought to you."

A  A  A  A  A  A

Terree deactivated the personal holographic device attached to his lapel. His image changed from the man subjects four-twenty and four-twenty-one knew to be Mellicent, to his normal appearance. Automatically he ran his hand over the comb crowning his head, making sure the feathers weren’t ruffled then adjusted the back of his coat so it sat neatly over his scaly tail. He was reasonably young for a Bassat and his tail still wavered off the ground by a good two inches. After transferring the information he had gathered from his wrist device to the subjects’ Handler he was supposed to give a verbal report to the Seniors on what had been discussed in the observation room.

The Handler was waiting just outside the room. He had witnessed the encounter himself though a silent version. Terree bowed his head in greeting then lifted his wrist device to an identical one on the Handler, causing the automatic transfer. So far it was the only record they had of any of the new subjects’ conversation. He then proceeded down the hall to the Seniors’ office.

What an interesting session. It seemed that the mind control drug had had a totally different effect on these two subjects. MM-1 was supposed to dull the synapses to the brain making them malleable to suggestion and suppressing their personalities, effectively making them automatons waiting for instructions. However these subjects were not only aggressively resistant but also inquisitive and stubborn. Plus they had not retained their memories. It was true that the Bassets had often ‘suggested’ to subjects to forget large portions of their memory, yet this was the first time it had happened spontaneously. He wondered from which planet they had come. It may be an inherent genetic flaw in this particular subspecies of human or an allergic reaction. Or perhaps the cause of the side effects was due to the presence of the toxin already within their blood stream. One of the scientists had been running tests on the samples taken and had accidentally dropped one of the slides. A speck of blood had splattered on his hand, making it instantly numb. Despite numerous cleansings, the area on which the blood had landed had festered growing from the size of a pinhead to a weeping wound larger than a thumbnail. The scientist was presently in quarantine.

And then there had been the power of telekinesis. That had been unexpected. He had been unable to tell which had done it. Both subjects had gestured at the same time and even though the male had taken responsibility for the action, Terree had his doubts. Further study was needed. Could it be that both had the ability? Was that the meaning of the identical rings? The Reviled had not had any such rings. Did they identify the subjects as different from the Reviled, a permanent way to distinguish between the two groups? That would explain why the Bassats had been unable to remove the jewelry. However the five had interacted as a close-knit team with the subjects protecting the Reviled and the Reviled protecting the subjects. Terree gave an involuntary shiver at the memory of the older Reviled pointing his projectile weapon at him. Which was another anomaly…That Reviled was the leader of the group. Why would a subject acquiesce to the Reviled? Too many questions, too many theories, that without the subjects’ memories may be extremely difficult to answer.

The scientist pressed a tiny button on the holo-device. There had been a reason that a Bassat had been sent in to interact with the subjects rather than a trained subject. For some unknown reason the listening devices were malfunctioning. Besides changing the appearance of the wearer it also ran a diagnostic on the emitters hidden within the room. According to the series of beeps it chirped back, the listening monitors were in perfect working order. Terree frowned. Perhaps it was one of the subjects who were responsible for the failing equipment. Maybe emitting their own frequency? From themselves or the rings? He’d suggest it to the Seniors straight away, before launching into his report. That way no one could claim credit for the theory except for him. Much to his irritation, his last hypothesis about who controlled the invisibility, had been solicited by another of his colleagues. Apparently he had been present when the group had turned invisible and had witnessed the subjects both twist their hands in a complicated pattern just before it happened. So Terree’s desire to acquire the subjects for himself had effectively been eliminated. His colleague had become their Handler, given the right to ownership because he had gotten in first.

When Terree had protested that the subjects and the Reviled would not have been captured if it weren’t for him, the Seniors had laughed, saying that falling on ones tail did not count as an effective hunting method and that it had been pure arbitrary chance that Terree had landed on the subjects. He now had to consider himself privileged to work with the subjects at all. The Handler of the subjects got to choose with whom they interacted with. He kept his hopes up that this new theory would grant him dual ownership. His subject had relayed all that he had seen and heard in the cave, so he knew that these two were the key to deciphering the strange text. Terree took a deep breath before entering the briefing room, and focused all his efforts to convincing the Seniors that he too had a right to the these interesting subjects.

A  A  A  A  A  A

After Mellicent had scurried out, Ann whispered, "Did you do that?"

Dan’s shoulders slumped. "No. I thought you did." He stepped up to the door and gave the ring handle a firm tug. There was no lock on the door. It should open. He gave another yank and then conceded defeat. Another oddity.

"Good bluff," she complimented. A shiver ran down her spine. "He gave me the willies."

It seemed the most natural thing in the world to drape a comforting arm around her shoulders. "This whole place gives me the willies. Did you see his face when he realized we didn’t recognize the room?"

She nodded, snuggling into the warmth of his body. "If this supposed fever we had affects the brain, then it shouldn’t have surprised him."

"You don’t think we were sick either," he said it as a statement. Clearly both of them were on the same wavelength. They were being lied to. The question was why? A question that was difficult to answer without their memories.

"Nope." Ann studied the room once again. "You don’t know the room, but you can identify the design."

She moved closer to the tapestries and Dan kept step with her. She ran a finger over the stitching. Dan focused on the pattern around the edges. He got distracted when Ann started humming. God! The woman was going to drive him insane! Insane with desire. It wasn’t even a sexy tune and she was slightly off-key, yet the sound echoing in his ears was making him hotter than a sun going supernova. Focus on the hangings! Dan determinedly studied the stitching, fighting down the heat coursing through him…and Ann kept on humming. When the lyrics reverberated around the room, Dan was shocked to realize that it was his voice singing them.

"…We wanna wish you a Merry Christmas. We wanna wish you a Merry Christmas…"

Ann’s voice joined in.

"…We wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of our hearts…"

Violet eyes locked with blue.

"Uh…I think others should have been singing that with us."

She nodded. "We were celebrating…" she broke off with a helpless look that was becoming increasingly familiar, "…something," she finished lamely.

"Something," he agreed with a sigh. Pushing the frustration of their Swiss cheese memories aside, Dan pointed to the tapestry. "The border isn’t ornamental, there’s script hidden within the design."

Ann shifted her focus and saw that he was right, but she didn’t recognize the words. "What language is it?"

Dan tilted his head to read the sideways letters of the closest boarder and answered absently, "Modern Russian."

"How do you know?"

His brow creased into a frown. "I have no idea."

"Can you read it?" she asked curiously. "Wait…don’t think about it. When you look at it, what do you see? The first thing that pops into your head."

He nodded in understanding. So far anything they had ‘remembered’ had been an automatic response. "It’s a series of statements, instructions. Find door. Get out. Find SG-1. Get stoned…"

"Get stoned? As in get high?"

Dan backtracked, "Sorry, my fault. Get stone. In between the words are symbols."

"Maybe in place of a full stop to separate them?"

"Maybe." But he sounded doubtful.

"Find door? I suppose it would be too easy for that," she gestured to the heavy oak door Mellicent had used, "to be the door?"

"I’ll take a wild guess and say yes, way too easy," he gave a rueful grin.

"What’s SG-1?"

"No idea. An anagram for someone, something…"

"Super Group? Sir Galahad? Smoked Game? Sugared Gingerbread? Salad Greens?"

Dan couldn’t help the full belly laugh that erupted from him. "I’m sensing a running theme."

Ann’s found his laugh contagious, felt it ripple forth from beneath her heart. "I can’t help it. Ever since that snake mentioned food it’s all I can think about."

As if on cue a metal flap on the bottom of the door lifted and a tray of food was slid into the room. It immediately snapped shut with a loud bang.

"Well, that’s what you call good timing," Dan smirked.

Ann strode over and bent to pick up the tray. "Thank you, you slimy, lying bastards," she yelled at the closed slot.

"Polite, yet insulting," he chuckled. "I like it."

"I think it’s a talent of mine."

She placed the tray on the bed and they both examined what they had been given. There were three different dishes. One was an assortment of cheeses, one was a dish of fruit and the last was a mix of breads.

"So, what takes your fancy?"

Ann considered their options. Her hand reached for a red oval shaped fruit, hovered for a moment then chose the yellow one next to it. She bit into the soft flesh and the juice trickled down her chin.

Dan couldn’t resist the urge to gently wipe away the sticky sweetness, tracing his thumb up her chin to her bottom lip. Ann’s breath caught at the tender caress. Hastily he removed his hand, trying to ignore the pulse of heat that coursed through him. With no napkins to wipe his finger clean, he could only come up with one solution. Ann’s eyes locked onto his mouth as his lips sucked off the sugary liquid. She gave a slow swallow, her tongue darting out to remove the remaining juice from her lips. It was unintentionally seductive and Dan felt his groin tighten in response.

"Ah…I think I’ll stick to the bread." His voice was hoarse. Bread was safe, there was nothing even remotely sexy about bread. He broke off their gaze and studied the selection, chose a seeded one at random. Biting into it he tried to think of anything except the beautiful woman sitting in front of him. A couple of the seeds stuck to his lips and his tongue automatically slipped out to lick them off. A glance up at Ann and he saw her eyes darken with lust. He’d unwittingly repeated the erotic gesture that she had done. Dammit, they had to stop this…they could be related for God’s sakes! As much as he wanted to haul her into his arms and taste that full mouth for himself he wouldn’t do it until he was sure he morally could. He considered the plate of cheese and decided he wasn’t going to risk it. He couldn’t think of any situation where cheese would be a turn on, but then again, it had never occurred to him that bread would be a sexual toy either. "Well, I’m full."

"Yep, me too," she agreed breathlessly. "Let’s get back to the tapestries."

A  A  A  A  A  A

The Handler observed his newest subjects through the wall with a mixture of delight and frustration. The observation room was one of three that had been created of a special polymer material. Besides providing illumination within the room it also allowed the observers to witness anything that happened without disrupting the holographic images being shown. If he wanted to study the subjects without the induced holograms, then he could do so from the opposite side. The Handler rarely used that option though. He disliked being so close to the captured Reviled, their presence was a distraction to his analysis. As far as these subjects were aware the room was solid stone, not knowing that their every move was being scrutinized. He wished he could hear what they were saying. It would certainly make it easier to determine if any of his theories were valid or needed revision. The food had been an experiment. One or both clearly had a strong subconscious mind. The fact that he/she/they had been able to manipulate the hallucination was proof of that, as was the telekinesis. He wanted to determine the extent of their subconscious power. Half of the foodstuff had been liberally dosed with the drug MM-2. This version of the drug was tasteless and colorless. Not quite as potent as MM-1, however after the failed attempt to inject a second dose of MM-1, he decided that MM-2 would have to do. Subject four-twenty had almost taken one of the drugged fruit but at the last moment had chosen a placebo. Subject four-twenty-one had bit into a drugged roll, however after one small bite had put the bread down, refusing to eat anymore before consuming the centre where the drug was interspersed with the white dough. From what he had observed the subjects were unaware that they had avoided dosing themselves.

The subjects were currently resuming their study of the wall hangings. The stitched borders clearly meant something to them. The Handler had not observed any sort of identifiable pattern. In fact he had not recognized any of the objects that the holographic equipment had produced except in the most general sense of the word; bed, tapestries, mirror, stone walls and floor. Right now they were focusing on the images within the borders. Some of those he did recognize. Clearly depicted was a Bassat, though the features were more pronounced, like from a less evolved generation and there was a detailed picture of the Chaapa’ai.

He was curious to know how they knew what the Bassets looked like. Both had been unconscious before any of his kind had revealed themselves. It was another anomaly to add to the ever increasing list of questions regarding the subjects. There were potential years of intensive study with these subjects…if they could work out the technical details of the observation room.

A  A  A  A  A  A

Sam gave a frustrated sigh. What they had in their meager stash was of absolutely no use to help with an escape attempt. She could think of no way to reach the control panel and switch off the beams. What was that saying? Impossibilities we can do, miracles take a little longer…at the rate of her progress she really needed a miracle.

"Love to know what they find so interesting," the colonel griped.

She glanced up across the hall to see Daniel and Annika once again studying the glass walls. An idea began to form in Sam’s mind. They were looking for escape in the wrong direction.

"What is it, Major Carter?" Teal’c had caught the slight frown on the blonde woman’s face.

"Annika still has her abilities…" she mused, "she just doesn’t know it." They’d all witnessed the tray crash into the wall.

"That helps us how, Carter?"

"I was just wondering if we could prompt a vision from Annika." Sam rose to her feet.

"Doesn’t Annika need to be touching something to get her hocus pocus to work?" Jack couldn’t write a book on his team member’s abilities, but he was pretty sure that ‘touching’ was generally involved.

"She is," the major gestured to their teammates, "the glass wall." She made an estimate on the distance between their cell and the room confining their friends…arms wouldn’t be long enough to reach…legs…legs are longer… Her gaze switched between the tallest member of their team and the hall width, pausing at the Jaffa’s thighs. She turned her attention to the space between the beams of their prison.

"Carter, what are you thinking?"

"Just a sec, sir," Sam strode up to the barrier, took a deep breath and hesitantly poked a finger between the bars. Either this is a really bad idea and I’ll get zapped…or my plan could work… She felt nothing except air. "The power of the barrier is limited to the actual bars. It’s not like a Goa’uld force field that blocks everything from passing through."

"Yeah, so…"

"If Teal’c can stretch his leg through the bar and touch the wall, while Annika is touching the wall…"

"It may result in Annika Murdoch having a vision," Teal’c finished.

Sam nodded then turned to Foltan. "Do you know if we are being watched?"

"Not that I know of," the Tok’ra shrugged. "The Bassats don’t seem to be interested in us until we are required for sacrifice, except to bring food once a day."

The Jaffa was already approaching the front of the cell.

"Careful, T," Jack warned, lending a steadying hand to the man now balancing on one foot. "Let’s not make you into a soprano."

The major moved to his other side to also help the man with his balance. She winced at the very small distance between the two electrical bars and the black man’s muscular thigh.

The three held their breath as Teal’c stretched out his foot as far as it would go, the toe of his shoe scraping the wall.

There was no reaction from the redhead, who was running a finger down the clear panel in front of them.

"Maybe we need to focus our thoughts," Sam suggested. "All think the same thing at the same time."

"What do you suggest Major Carter?" Teal’c asked, looking like an odd ballerina.

"Should be something simple…"

"How about ‘help’?"

"Just ‘help’, sir?" she raised an eyebrow at the colonel

"It’s simple, conveys the message we need."

"Okay," Sam agreed. "On the count of three, all think ‘help’. One…two…three…"

They all focused their minds on screaming the SOS, their eyes never leaving the psychic still tracing the wall with her finger.

"Yes!" Jack would have punched the air in glee, except that he was still holding on to Teal’c.

Annika had jumped a foot in the air, clutching her ears.

"Crap, I hope we didn’t deafen her."

The glass wall started to dim. Within a few seconds it had turned back to the opaque blackness from earlier.

"Peachy!"