Slowly, his dream of a particularly difficult mission in Afghanistan faded.
Cutting through the dim haze of semi-consciousness, Hargrove soon became aware of voices talking. A great many, in fact.
He felt detached, almost like an observer in his own head, but tried to focus on one voice at a time.
Strange. He reflected. I speak seven languages fluently, and pieces of another dozen or so, but I still have no idea what they're saying.
He tried to open his eyes, but they felt as though lead weights were attached to each eyelid. After a minute or so, he gave up and returned to listening to the voices. Despite how many there were, they seemed to repeat the same messages over and over.
Eventually, he noticed with some surprise that a few of the voices were familiar. He just couldn't place exactly how. He tried again to focus on them, to tune out the others, but it felt like trying to hold onto a smooth, slippery stone in a rainstorm.
Soon, he slipped back into his dreams again.
-.-
"What's happening to him?" Suna demanded, sounding equal parts worried and impatient.
"As I said before, we're not entirely sure." The Pyrta responded in a docile voice. "About an hour ago, his brain began fluctuating between states. At some points, he still seems to be dreaming, but then he returns to a nearly conscious state. I can still find no signs of trauma whatsoever."
Tony listened in with some worry of his own. They'd returned from Paros yesterday, before their injections could wear off, only to find Hargrove in the makeshift infirmary as well. According to Blake, who was back in the Goa'uld lab furiously going over any notes on the artifact, a burst of light had emanated from the device and Hargrove had clapped his hands to his ears and promptly passed out.
They'd set him up in one of the side tunnels off the main entrance so as not to upset the other patients, and the Healers, followed by the Pyrta, had performed extensive scans on him. He'd been out for over eighteen hours, but the Healers had been frustratingly unable to figure out why. All they could say for sure was that he wasn't entirely unconscious, at least not all the time.
Tony silently offered a quick prayer for his recovery, and could hear someone coming up from below. As soon as Blake came into view, Suna rounded on him. "Tell me you found something that can help."
"Maybe. The device is still active. It's definitely Ancient, but it's not from Dakara, at least not originally. I found references in the database saying that it was originally taken from Earth, in an ice crevice. Probably near where the Antarctic ‘gate was found." He sighed. "I still don't know what it did to him, but he definitely did something to it. Whatever Hargrove did turned it on, for probably the first time in ten million years. I finally got Seraus' equipment up and running. Haley's monitoring the device for any change, but here are the readings I'm getting in real-time." He presented the laptop. "I had to make some changes to the equipment to get it to receive Goa'uld telemetry, but you get the idea."
A series of lines could be seen on the screen, overlapping each other. They fluctuated every second or so, just barely.
"Let's assume for a moment that I don't. What am I looking at?" Tony asked impatiently.
"Sorry, I didn’t know at first, either. Haley told me it's an EEG. Human brainwaves, Tony! The machine is sending them out in almost the same pattern as a human brain would."
The Pyrta lifted his own wrist-scanner and held it next to Hargrove's head for a few seconds.
Tony looked up, stunned. "Are you saying that device has a human consciousness inside it?"
"No." Argyros cut in, showing the screen on his wrist to the others. "The signals from the device and those from the Major are identical. It appears to be mirroring his mind."
"Why would it do that?" Suna demanded.
There was a long silence.
"Seraus thought the device was a subspace communicator." Blake finally responded, slowly. "We've already seen some Ancient technology that uses a mind-to-machine interface. He's linked to it, now. If I had to guess, I'd say he's calibrating it."
Suna still gripped Hargrove's hand insistently as she looked at Blake. "What does that mean?"
"I think the machine is learning from him, Suna." Blake answered with a little more confidence. "Probably learning how we communicate. It's duplicating his brainwaves, and seems to be getting better at it over time. I'm not even sure it was supposed to knock him out. If it really does work through subspace, he could be awake, anywhere in the galaxy, and it'd still be doing what it's doing!"
"Doing what?" Hargrove asked, as he tried to sit up.
Nearly the entire room jumped in surprise. Suna gave a glad exclamation and hugged him. He held her for a moment, and then let go, looking puzzled. "What happened?"
"I've lost all telemetry!" Blake exclaimed, looking at the screen. He grabbed for his radio. "Haley, is there a problem with the interface? I'm not getting a signal anymore."
After a moment, her voice came through. "It's still working fine. Looks like the device has stopped transmitting."
"His brainwaves are consistent with an alert, stable state." Argyros added.
Hargrove looked around the room, confusion growing on his face. "Seriously. Anyone want to fill me in here? Sir?"
Tony stepped up to him. "It's good to see you awake, Major. How are you feeling?"
"I feel… strange, actually, sir." Hargrove put his hands to his ears for a second. "Quiet, for once. The voices have stopped, finally."
Blake looked at Argyros, concerned. "We should probably head back down there and take another crack at that device." Argyros nodded. He gestured to the other Healer to stay put, and began grabbing some of his diagnostic equipment.
"I'll join you in a minute," Tony added, "but first I need to talk to Hargrove in private."
-.-
The Colonel had finally gone, leaving just the two of them and their apparently mute Deuca Healer to keep an eye on things. Hargrove had wanted to get up and go back to work immediately, but Suna had insisted that he stay, at least until they could find out more about the device. When he'd stood up to leave anyway, she'd given him such a look that he'd hesitated. He'd seen looks like that before, usually just before violence erupted, so he'd relented.
I guess I'd have to fall for a woman who can put me in my place with just a look. He considered ruefully. With more than a little surprise, he realized that he actually had fallen for her. When did that happen?
"Now, really, how are you?" She asked, straightening his covers.
He leaned back, wondering how to explain it. Ever since he'd woken up, it felt like everything was slightly out of place. He felt… as though his perceptions had expanded, somehow. He couldn't say for sure, though, even to himself. Instead, he just focused on explaining the events themselves.
"Like I said, strange. I was dreaming, I think, so it's hard to figure out what was a dream and what wasn't. I've had some pretty vivid dreams before, but nothing like these." He closed his eyes for a few seconds. "It was like I was in the middle of a crowd, and everyone was all talking at once. Everything I saw and heard is jumbled together, mashed up and confused. I'm pretty sure that last bit wasn’t just a dream, though."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I didn't understand any of it. The language, I mean." He took her hand. "There was a huge ship in space, I remember that much. And the voices kept saying the same things over and over, like they were on a loop. I remember a few faces, too. All of them looked human, at least."
He sighed, seeing the look on Suna's face. "I'm sorry, all of this must be freaking you out right now."
Suna shook her head. "What was ‘freaking me out’ was not knowing if you would wake up. And it still is a little."
She silently put a hand to his forehead.
"Hey!" He snapped his fingers, remembering something and grateful for the chance to distract her. "I never had the chance to congratulate you!"
"For what?"
"For the mission, of course. You gave us exactly what we needed, and we all got out of there alive, mission accomplished. I can tell you, I wasn't happy assigning you to Palchan, that's for sure. I've assigned friends to missions before, and it's never easy."
She moved her hand to the side of his face. "I was worried about you as well, when I heard you were to place the weapon and kill Nereus. The stories from my home, of the ancient warriors of Old Zau; they never mention the fears any of those warriors had, nor the people they left behind."
"It's never like it looks in the movies, true," he agreed, "but we were fine. Cayo and his team did an excellent job."
"Perhaps you should tell him that, when you're well enough. He's been preoccupied ever since we arrived on this world. I am not the only one to notice it; his team has commented on it as well."
Hargrove was silent for a moment. He'd wondered what kind of fallout forcing the decision on Cayo would have. Either he'd bear up under the strain, and be better for it, or he'd crumple. Hargrove felt a bit of sympathy for him, strangely enough. Probably because of Suna, he concluded.
"So what did Tony want from you?" She cut into his thoughts.
He answered immediately. "There was a situation somewhat like this with someone we know on Earth, over two years ago. An Ancient machine messed with his head, too, and he nearly died. The Colonel wanted to tell me about it, but I already knew." There was more to their conversation, of course, but it dealt with the interrogation, and he didn't want to worry Suna any more than she already was.
"How did he survive?"
She kept her voice even, but he could tell she was afraid. He squeezed her hand in reassurance. "You've never met an asgard, have you? They were able to undo the changes made to his mind. If this is the same thing, we'll ask them for help again, no problem. Still, I'm not sure it is the same. For one thing, I actually heard and saw things immediately after. He didn't, and it took some time for the changes to show in him, or so I heard."
She sat on the bed next to him, and he shifted slightly to make room. They sat in silence for what seemed like minutes before she spoke up again. "There is something else I must know."
Her wording sounded familiar. "Am I about to be kissed again?" He teased. "I should warn you, I won't be surprised, this time."
She laughed lightly and kissed him on the nose. "No, this is something else. On Zau, everyone has just the one name, so it took me some time to adjust to the tau'ri way. The others call each other by their first names. Even Tony answers to that name, with a few people. Why are you different?"
"Sooner or later, everyone asks that." He shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't like my first name."
"Why not? I think Lucius is a good name."
"I guess it’s because my father gave it to me. Pretty much everything that man gave me left either bruises or scars."
His casual admission apparently shocked her. She stared at him. "David and his brother haven't spoken in three years. Haley's first husband abandoned her before their child was even born. And now, apparently your own father brutalized you! Is every family on your planet so… horrible to each other?"
"There are exceptions, you know." He squeezed her hand. "But yeah, there are a lot of broken homes on Earth. I'm an only child, so I guess I'm lucky. When my mom died, I didn't have any reason to stay anymore, so I joined my country’s military as soon as I could. Eventually, my team became sort of a family to me. They gave me a sense of belonging, even through all the stuff we had to deal with, and that was something I never had at home."
"And now you're cut off from them."
"In a way. All but one of them were killed, not long before we met." He coughed into his hand. "It's one of the reasons I was so hesitant with you, Suna. I was- still am, actually, afraid of losing something I've come to value."
"When I was very young, my father would tell me 'the greatest fear is not of losing but of being unwilling to gain because of loss'." She responded gently as she put her arms around him. "And you are the least fearful person I know."
