Somnambulist
Somnambulist
by C.L. Kamnikar
TITLE: Somnambulist
AUTHOR: C.L. Kamnikar
EMAIL: kikimariposa@prodigy.net
SPOILERS: Mid-third season; passing reference to "Forever in a Day"
SEQUEL/SEASON INFO: Season 3
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: This is Daniel's brain. This is Daniel's brain deprived of sleep and caffiene. Any questions?
CATEGORY: Humor/Vignette; small hints of Sam/Daniel
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis (later); Statistical Outliers. All others please ask.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Not a sequel to "Statistical Outliers", but in the same universe. Grateful thanks to Cagey, Perri, Lizbet, and Dee for beta'ing and giggling. And to Juan Valdez and the Pepsi Co. for a lot of everything else.
DISCLAIMER: All Stargate SG-1 characters are the property of Stargate SG-1 Productions (II) Inc., MGM Worldwide Television Productions Inc., Double Secret Productions, Gekko Film Corp and Showtime Networks Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author. This disclaimer was copied (ruthlessly) from the 'Heliopolis' site.
Somnambulist by C.L. Kamnikar copyright 2000
Coffee.
Must. Find. Coffee.
Walking down the hallways, one foot in front of the other, cracking the neck, the spine, the shoulders, ow. Tired. Very tired. Too tired to think, not tired enough to sleep.
(Coffee. Coffea: arabica, robusta, kouillou, canephora, liberica. Colombian, Jamaican, Brazilian, Kenyan, Javan. Kaffa: from Oronica, probably discovered prior to 500 B.C. in Ethiopia... )
The military clocks read 0400, which can't be mistaken for 1600, which is simultaneously really early in the morning and really late at night (except in Bangkok, it's happy hour in Bangkok). But the SGC never sleeps. It takes a nap, lies down for a little rest at 0300, but it doesn't sleep. Always alert and awake and aware, on guard against the enemy, ever ready, adeste fidelis, semper fi.
Cataloging the latest finds from SG-5 (pottery this time, shards of history with shreds of meaning) and fighting sleep. Sleep is the enemy. Morpheus is stalking through the halls, looking for victims, searching for the defenseless to make them senseless. Keep moving and he can't claim this corpse.
(And if there was a Goa'uld named Morpheus, would he drug his people into dreams? Would he touch them with a ribbon device, send them asleep like the Argosians? Or use some hyper-cyber-neuro-frequency-sound-wave to drag them under a wave of unreality, to dwell in his land forever? Must ask Sam if that is possible. Tomorrow. No, today.)
There is no coffee in the lab: it was gone by 0200. (2 a.m. Two o'clock. In the morning. It sounds more impressive in military parlance. But it's late, no matter how you say it.) No windows here to stare out at the night, but no way to mistake 0400 for 1600, even if there weren't clocks. Personnel start checking out at 6 p.m., trickling away, going back to their families, homes, lives. The place gets quieter, seems bigger without the hustle in the hallways, without the urgency of its inhabitants. More leave around midnight, the late shift shutting down, but there is always a skeleton crew on duty, day and night, from now until*** the end of time, maybe. The end of Earth, definitely.
Three techs are basking in their screens' glow in the Gate room, calculating vectors, catching coding errors, monitoring the cold quiet ring. One of them is sipping dark liquid from a SGC mug, the one with the symbol of the Gate stenciled on the side (the mug can't leave the mountain, it lives here, like all the other secrets live here).
"Coffee? Anywhere?"
"Sorry, Dr. Jackson. This was the last cup. You could check upstairs, though, there might be some left in Briefing."
"Mmm... thanks."
Up the spiral stairs, trudging slowly, to the room with the best view and the impressive table. Seen through the glass, the Stargate crouches at the end of the ramp, ready to spit out soldiers at a moment's notice, to swallow up members of the SGC if they ask it to, or simply give a belch of blue light and shimmer so they can talk to teams far away (1 800 CALL STARGATE: seven little symbols that mean so much). The beast they have let out of the box, the monster they have muzzled with trinium and titanium. The Special Forces soldiers stand straight and stiff, even this early-late, waiting for a chance to do their stuff, keep intruders inside Embarkation, stop the threats from beyond the Gate in their tracks. (Except for the ones that don't leave tracks. Like the Rhi'tu. Like the Nox. Like... )
There is no coffee. Only abandoned cream cups, sugar packets that tried to escape and didn't make it, and the pitcher of ice water slowly melting, melting, even the ice cubes falling asleep.
General Hammond always has coffee, but he is a general, he doesn't have to make it, search for it, follow the signs of caffienation to it: he can have any coffee he wants, any time he wants. There will be no coffee in his office, even if entering his office were an option. He is in command, and the coffee comes to him. Outside the SGC, maybe this is not true, but outside the SGC there are stores full of coffee. Occasionally it is one of the best reasons to leave this place.
But driving while sleeping leads to dying, so there must be coffee before there can be driving, so the search continues.
Parallax view of the hall: the doors at the end so far away, the walls and floor and ceiling so square and straight that walking down them should be easy. But nothing is easy at 0420, when Morpheus is getting closer. The night clean-up crew stops their cart outside the restrooms, and negotiating passage requires forethought, planning. One of the airmen looks up while moving the cart, nods and smiles in recognition .
"Hey, Dr. Jackson."
"Hey... Airman...." Personal memory dies at 3 a.m.; the names of the Byzantine emperors are all in place, but this face has no name. Until the flight patch is scrutinized. "Evans. Umm, have you, do you know, is the commissary***"
"Sorry, Doc. They shut down early tonight, most of the teams are coming back before third shift this week. They turned the coffemakers off at 0200."
"Damn."
"I'll bet they have some in the infirmary, though."
"Oo. Good thought. Right. Thank you."
"No problem, Doc."
Janet and her merry band (Janet and the IV's, Janet and the Nightingales, Janet and the Emergency Crew) have swung into the night shift: quiet, soft, serene. Lights low, machines beeping, movements unhurried, muffled, hushed. Two patients in the house tonight: a captain from SG-8 asleep, lulled into surrendering to the enemy, and Bradley from SG-4, awake and wincing with a broken arm. He waves hello with his uninjured wing, and a nurse turns to frown, then she adjusts his IV (familiar gesture: flick, bang, you're out) and his eyes start to glaze. She's in league with the Adversary, the Sandman, the DreamSpinner: she will not provide coffee.
She may call Janet, who has a lecture for these times, the times close to dawn on the wrong side of the day. A lecture of friendship and concern, about nutrition and somatic rhythms and body cycles that is designed to hypnotize the victim into unconsciousness. Janet also has syringes full of sleepy juice, and the will to use them. ("Stop! Back away from the Mr. Coffee slowly, Daniel, and no one has to get hurt!") Ghenghis Khan was only five foot six; he conquered China and parts of Russia and never met a battle he didn't like. In Janet he would find a kindred soul.
Time to leave. Retreat. Fall back, find another position. The mission is still on.
Follow the yellow lines (follow the yellow brick road) down the hallway, away from the infirmary. There are even fewer personnel in this section of the mountain, away from the military hardware and indispensable infrastructure that never slows. Empty labs on the left, empty labs on the right.
Sam's is quiet, almost echoing without her presence, though every surface has imprints of her: leaves from her plants on the keyboard, yellow sticky notes with scribbled equations stuck to whiteboard, pads covered in intricate incomprehensible designs everywhere, photos from the M.A.L.P. tacked next to snapshots of SG-1, Janet, Cassandra, Jacob, her cat. Schrodinger's eyes are closed in lazy enjoyment as Sam laughs into the camera, holding him upside down, right before she flips him in the air: "Proving the Feline 4-Point Touchdown Theory" reads the inked-in commentary beneath it.
The hypothesis that Ph.D's have no sense of humor: disproved by Sam. The belief held by many, that Doctors of Physics have to be old and dessicated fossils, superior and untouchable ivory-tower academics: also disproved by Sam. Accomplishments not on any parchment or paper, but which should be, like the letters that trail after her name which describe only part of who she is: Doctor-Major Samantha Carter, Ph.D., USAF, SGC, amazon and genius and friend. Dorothy without the ruby slippers (she likes her boots), Alice with a map to the stars (chasing quarks and leptons down the rabbit hole), Rapunzel with a haircut and an M-16 (Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me.... )
Sam stashes coffee in a ceramic cow jar on her desk. Not many people know how to twist its torso and turn the head to get it open. But the cow has no coffee, only a few grounds stuck to the rim, and so he is left to graze on her paperclips and rubberbands while the quest continues.
SG-7 is in their lab, devices and scanners alive, sensors and computers and monitors hooked together by wires looped like SillyString around the desks and stools. Pierson, young, brunette and wired, is caught within the maze of connections, gesturing with her coffee mug at her tall unsmiling superior, who glances over a long printout and bats her flailing arm away. VanMeter ducks under the wires, and tinkers with an acetylene torch, heating the joins for an instrument casing, eyes narrowed in fiendish concentration. Quintero, short and manic and sarcastic, hangs over his shoulder, slurping from his own mug and kibbitzing, shaking his head. Then he turns and twists his way through the electric web to throw words into the argument between his CO and Pierson like grenades into an oil lake, ducking when Pierson lobs erasers, pencils, papers, and jelly beans in his direction, catching a few to throw back. More SGC mugs have been left outside the research cocoon to ferment over time; SG-7 has a well-proven system for aging their coffee to acidic caffienated perfection.
But their coffee pot is empty, and starting to burn. Punch the button, it's turned off, look in the cabinet... an empty bag. They're almost done with the experiment, then. They never run out before they've finished squaring the circle and cubing the result, then they emerge from their tangle of testing with new data and weary eyes, limbs vibrating as they stagger off to hibernate. Engrossed in their debate-argument-duel-test, they don't miss the handful of jellybeans and M&M's appropriated from Pierson's desk on the way out of their lair.
No muzak in the elevator (no Aerosmith no Marvin Gaye no Garbage in the air of the SGC), nothing filtering into the brain, tricking it into relaxing: a mercy. The quietest gentlest elevators in the world work at the SGC. There is no bump, no grind of gears as the next floor is reached, only the airless hush of doors opening onto the next level, and the corridor with the living quarters. Bunk rooms for crashing (sleeping dreaming falling into darkness). VIP suites for off-world visitors (and Ke'ra was important, but not for the reasons anyone thought at the time). And Teal'c's room.
Teal'c doesn't believe in coffee (it's a value judgement, not a reality call; he's seen his teammates drink it, he knows its power) or approve of its abuse. If he were here, he would suggest sleep instead of caffiene. Forcefully. But Teal'c is not here, although Teal'c never sleeps. At this time of night he slips into Kel-nor-eem: the glow of the candles holding back the darkness without, while his will curbs the worm within. Teal'c has demons other than dreams to battle at 0440, and no amount of arabica can assist him. Note the light beneath the edge of the frame, salute his efforts behind the door, smile and keep moving toward the desired goal.
Darkened observation windows reflect a figure wandering down the hall; if Sleep is pursuing, he has no reflection (Morpheus as vampire? It would explain a lot). Past the observation gallery to the firing range, silent and abandoned as a spent ammo shell. The door is locked, and whatever coffee it contains remains hidden inside. Past the glass windows overlooking the gym. One lone enlisted man is down on the floor, beating a punching bag into total submission: the Marine version of therapy. If he has coffee, he isn't going to share.
Alarm lights flare as the return-klaxon shrieks, then the PA system crackles to life.
"SG-2 is returning from off-planet, repeat, SG-2 is returning."
Ferretti's team, back from a four-day scouting mission off-world. Standard rations include coffee. They may not have drunk it all, or maybe they found more while they were there (coffea aliena: grown fresh and pure in the mountains of PZ698. Coffee that's out of this world).
Reverse course. Plot an intercept. Possible source of coffee detected one corridor over.
**
The voices of SG-2 are audible long before the entrance to the locker room is in sight. Tile and metal lockers act as amplifiers for their joking and complaints, and it's lucky that there are no brass on base at the moment*** Lieutenant Colicos is relaying a particularly slanderous and colorful story about Lt. Colonel Samuels (Military Ken doll without the charisma, all plastic smile and hair and eyes) that no one who knows him could disbelieve. Protocol would require a reprimand be given, but Ferretti is laughing too hard to do it himself.
"Christ, Tomas, I don't wanna know where you hear about this stuff... Hey, Daniel. How ya doin'*** you sure look like hell."
"Good to see you too, Ferretti." And it is; Ferretti is a friend, something which never would have been expected three years ago. Especially when he went the extra mile to relay the symbols to Chu'lak that made it possible to follow Apophis and try to retrieve Skaara and Sha're. (Do or do not, there is no try. Yoda was always an insightful but sadistic master of the obvious.) "You 're back early. Problems?"
"Nah, just the opposite. The native high council or whatever they call it, they want to negotiate for trinium rights. Real eager too, they need medical supplies something awful. It's SG-9's headache now." Ferretti throws his boots into his locker and straightens up, grabbing a towel and heading for the showers, before turning back momentarily. "Say, is the commissary open?"
"No. Shut down early last night. Two more hours until they start up."
"Hunh. Looks like it's IHOP for dinner. Or do I mean breakfast? What time is it, anyway?" Howell comes out of the dressing room and finishes putting on a clean T-shirt, looking confused as only those who travel the galaxy through the Stargate (faster than a speeding 'zat blast, colder than an Antarctic cocktail, able to leap twenty-nine timezones in a single bound) can. "Are we four hours behind, or four hours ahead***"
"Damn if I know, I'm still gate-lagged from five days ago," Colicos says with a groan, leaning against his locker. "Any coffee around, Dr. Jackson? I can hardly keep my eyes open. The natives sure liked that stuff.... "
Thwarted again. "No. Been searching for some myself."
"Hell, you pulling another all-nighter? You gotta quit doin' that, man. Why don't you come with us, get some grub before you go home?"
"Thanks, Ferretti. Can't, though. Briefing in two hours." Jack's fault. Jack has too many other meetings today (budget oversight security Tok'ra and the malevolent malicious minions of N.I.D.), so he set this one up early, to get it out of the way. Killing Jack later might be a viable plan.
Except that Jack never stands still long enough to *be* killed, not by anyone. And he'd just point out that people who stay up until 4 a.m. looking at "mixing bowls" get everything they deserve the next morning.
"That sucks. Hope you're not going on a mission, if you don't mind my saying so. You don't look up for it."
"Nope. Planning briefing. Next three missions. Cultural linguistic anthro.... Et cetera. And so on." Falling asleep while standing up is bad. Falling asleep while talking to someone else is worse. Time to go. "Talk to you later, Ferretti."
"Take it easy, Daniel. You know, sleeping might be a good idea."
Yeah. Right. Sleep.
It might be a good idea for someone else. Someone without nightmares. Or without memories as vivid as nightmares, and their wonderful technicolor-neon breath-taking tangibility. Morpheus carries a grudge for all the other times he's been avoided, all the nights awake in bed, replaying the nightmares that will never fade away into it-never-happened. He wants payback, his pound of flesh, the time he's owed in the prison of the mind.
No can do, Mr. Sandman. And no coin to post bail with. Miles to go before there's sleep, and lectures to give on Inuit economics and vocal shift before there's rest. And still no coffee anywhere in sight....
The only other choice is sunlight. Taking the elevator up twenty-eight stories to the staircase that reaches the surface, past the guards who barely look up, nod a hello, then back to their monitors and books and clocks. 0527 when the exit is reached.
Dawn hasn't started yet, it's still thirty or so minutes away. The sky has the bright violet readiness of no other planet, with the barest sliver of moon falling down over the plains to the east. Black, chilly shadows of mountains crowd the vistas in every other direction like the pine trees that cover their slopes. Name the stars, keep back the dark, thank Jack again for a hundred astronomy lessons on a hundred worlds.
"Pleiades. Orion. Bellerophon..." An Incan calendar, that would be good, to find all the names that Quetzalcoatl's people gave the stars, and learn those instead of the ones the Goa'uld stole. Maybe the Viking labels. Thor might find that funny. Alternatives to the Greek names that have parasite-infested counterparts on the planets orbiting those stars.
"Cassiopea. Serpens. Gemini. Canus Major. Canus Minor..." The Goa'uld took their identities from Earth myths and legends, twisted the dreams of the ancient races into the realities of their choosing. They can't change the stars, though. They can take away everything else, or try, but they can't rewrite the constellations; they don't know how to destroy the suns of all those worlds they've enslaved. Yet. Another nightmare that could become a waking reality.
"Pegasus. Virgo. Libra..." The plains beyond Colorado Springs have begun to glow lemon-gold, and the stars are fading, one by one. The moon is only a translucent sickle of frost as the sky brightens, streetlights down in the city blinking off like the stars. For a moment, the air is gold, but there's no visible source: Earth itself is glowing, radiating heat and light and hope into the void.
The sun slowly rises (not Ra, not Dagba, not Apollo, not Helios) and the watch face reads 0615. Personnel will be arriving down in the SGC. Some of them might bring coffee with them. If Jack were holding the briefing on the mountainside in the sunlight, coffee might be foregone, but General Hammond would never go for that, and there are still papers to write, catalogging to be finished, and a million tasks to complete before Sleep wins the battle of unconsciousness late tonight. A partial victory for him, but one without dreams or memory, if the battle is fought long enough. Exhaustion is the only ally in the land of dreams. Coffee makes sure the battle continues.
Personnel are reporting in, checking their realities at the door (they can pick them up on their way out), organizing the minutia of the day with notepads and computer calendars, and greeting fellow early risers (the early bird gets the Goa'uld) in the halls. None of them have coffee yet. Swing around the corner, head for the commissary. Maybe camping in front of the cafeteria door will guarantee coffee before anyone else can steal it. Must get there without falling over first, though.
~Put one foot in front of the other... and soon you'll be walking 'cross the floor.... Put one foot in front of the other... and soon you'll be walking out the door!~
"Whoa! Daniel, watch where you're going."
"Sorry, Sam." Brakes on, full stop. Blink, straighten, smile. Sam stands out in the graying hallway-- a primary-color silkscreen in a sea of faded pastel faces. She grins, and two passing non-coms crane their necks to keep her smile in sight. (Dream on, jarheads. She's a major, the very model of a modern major-physicist, and you're walk-on drive-by airmen without a clue between you.) Push up the glasses, lean against the wall, try to fake consciousness. "Looking for coffee."
"Well, I don't think you're going to find it on the floor," she says, her voice serious, but the dimples are almost visible. "You can have a cup of mine, if you want***"
Guilt would kick in if it weren't 0630, and if there had been any coffee to borrow (steal) earlier. "You're out of it. I mean, there's none left. I checked. Sorry. Thanks." Yawn, open the eyes very wide, smile an apology, look harmless. (They shoot horse thieves, coffee burglars probably get the stockade...)
"You never left last night, did you? You have *got* to quit doing this to yourself." Wide concerned blue eyes. "Why are you always***"
Can't answer that. Too many answers to that. "I know, gotta stop, not do this any more... But we have a briefing. In thirty minutes. So, coffee."
She sighs, shakes her head, lets it go. "Allright. But you better be in the commissary right after the briefing, because you're having breakfast with me. I can't make you sleep, but I can make you eat, buster. Even if I have to force it down your throat."
Wendy looking after one of the Lost Boys... (Will you stay with us always?*** Don't ask. She's only here through spring cleaning.) "Yes, ma'am." Smile again, watch the dimples flicker into sight, stagger upright, wave good-bye and move on.
Back on track to the commissary, treading the knife's edge of consciousness that's so easy to fall off. Need. Coffee. (Cafe'. Kava. Kahva. Ko-pi. Kohii...) The notes are already organized for the 0700 meeting; all the options outlined, arguments in place for one planet over another, but reading the notes will be impossible unless this fuzz is dissolved from the brain...
Wait. Wait. Wait-a-minute-what-have-we-here?
Jack's office. Usually locked, but open now for some reason - maybe General Hammond needed a file, maybe Jack's aide wanted to check the schedule - but it doesn't matter why, what matters is that Jack _always_ has coffee. No one dares swipe it. SG teams have been harangued and verbally eviscerated and left out to die in the sun for less.
Death or coffee?
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. COFFEE. Mission. Accomplished. Ooo. Maybe, yes, definitely another cup... ahhhhhhh. Oh yeah. None of that flavored stuff for Jack, nothing but the straight black ambrosia that could jump-start a Death Glider. Hmm. Right, just one more.... Yessss....
"Daniel?"
Uh. Ohhh.... And maybe Jack's door was open because*** Jack is here. (Someone's been eating all my porridge.) Busted. Turn slowly, and maybe he won't break your neck right away. "Hey, Jack."
"Whatcha doin'?" Jack already knows the answer. He looks like he does right before he either kicks someone's ass, or hauls it out of the fire: a little too focused for comfort.
"Umm.... I can explain.... "
"What's to explain? If you were enlisted, I'd be able to shoot you for stealing supplies. Right after I'd *order* you to report to the infirmary for caffiene detoxification. Did you know that no less than *six* people mentioned your little zombie-imitation around the SGC last night to me?" Jack rocks up on his toes, eyes narrowed and scary. "And that was before I got past the first checkpoint." Hmm. That expression is familiar... (And then he took out his knife, and he threw it at Heru'ur. Oh, yeah. Take another gulp of coffee before Jack takes it away.)
"Did they really?" It's not lying if it's in the form of a question (I'll take prevarication for $300, Alex).
"Yup. Including Ferretti, who said you were on a quest for the holy bean at 0500 when his team got back from off-planet. And Lieutenant Clark, who told Janet that you were lurking around the infirmary before that, and went haring off before she could grab you. Oh, and Sam, who just informed me that you looked like someone had used you to illustrate the dangers of voodoo in the hands of amateurs." He shakes his head. "Daniel, you have *got* to stop this. Coffee is no substitute for sleep."
"It doesn't have to be a substitute for anything, Jack. Coffee," hold up the cup, show him the Grail, put as much ringing sincerity as possible into the voice, "is an end in and of itself."
Jack stares for five full seconds, then grabs the mug and puts it down. Out of reach. (Damn.) "That's it, Danny-boy. You're cut off."
"What? No!"
"Don't even *try* to argue with me, Jackson. You're on 48-hour medical stand-down the second the briefing is over, or until Fraiser says you've got more blood in your veins than caffeine." Jack's smiling, but his eyes are a little too grim for him to be kidding.
"I'm *fine*."
"You're sleep-deprived and vibrating like one of Carter's reactors! As your CO, and more importantly, your friend, I've got a duty to the world to protect them from you. A-aahh-ah!" Jack's hand is out like a crossing guard's, halting any flow of protest that could attempt to change his mind. "No. Hush. You can thank me later. After you've written 'I will not steal Jack's coffee after all-nighters again, ever' 100 times. In, I dunno, something that'll make it interesting for you*** Hindustani. Yeah."
"That's easy***"
"Wanna try for a thousand, Daniel? In Asgard script?"
"Ummm, no." Shutting up now would be a good idea. Jack O'Neill in a mood is capable of a lot of twisted things. Besides. Jack doesn't read Hindustani, so writing 'Jack is a coffee-hoarding control freak' a hundred times will be just as easy.
"Good. Now, Mr. Coffee Monster, get outta my office, get your notes, and meet me and the rest of your department in Briefing in ten minutes. After which, you're having breakfast with Sam, like she said she wanted; and after *that*, I'm having an airman drive you home, where you will _stay_, and not come back to this facility, until the day after tomorrow. "
Arguing is too much work. Even though Jack is missing the point. Home is not an attractive option. Too many reminders at home; not enough reality, not anymore. No Sha're. No family. No dreams of happy-ever-after. Just old nightmares. Nothing to keep Morpheus at bay, no allies to fall back on.... Time and endurance will make the nightmares fade, but work and sleep avoidance pass the hours (days weeks months) until then.
Go back to the lab to get the notes; at least after three cups of coffee, alertness has increased to tolerable levels.
Hello? What... oh, cool.
On the desk next to the computer are nine, no, ten cups of coffee. Most of them are still steaming. Someone even built a little pyramid out of the creamers and left that next to them, with a packet of sugar on top.
(Friends steal coffee for others. Real friends make sure the Colonel doesn't find out.)
Maybe taking some downtime isn't such a bad idea. Home doesn't look quite so empty or lonely, now.... And there's coffee there, too.
Comments welcomed. Coffee appreciated. Chocolate really appreciated.
Chris
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