Beyond the Iris: A Stargate Story

Chapter 8

"Last night I was supposed to see the Denver Orchestra perform alongside A New Hope on a big screen. It's a series they're doing, but my sister couldn't make it and so I had two tickets to give to Bill."

"Why not just attend alone if you were looking forward to it?" Teal'c always managed to find a way to be as straightforward as possible.

"It was a perfect date package, I wasn't going to go alone, and what better gift could I receive than for Dr. Lee to finally have a night with?" I turned to him and he wiggled his brows again.

"Dr. Rachel Chen."

"Then the beautiful Dr. Chen." I grinned holding back laughter again. "I expect you to get tickets for Empire Strikes back in December and relive the magic."
He nodded enthusiastically and walked away. Teal'c and Jack mentioned hitting the showers and Daniel said he'd catch up. They had just come from what I could only assume was a sparring match of some sort.
"Having a productive morning?" I walked back into my office, pulling on my rubber gloves and trying to be as casual as I could. Seeing his sweat slick shirt sticking to his body leaving nothing to the imagination wasn't helping.

"Yeah, uh, you didn't want to go to the show? I thought you had been talking about it for weeks."

"I didn't have anyone to go with." I pulled a pyramid controlling device out of the box and set it next to me. He looked as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself. I grabbed the lid off another placed it on the table. "There is an installation opening at the museum down the road from your apartment on the 30th. You'll never believe it, but it's a traveling exhibit about Akhenaten and I cannot think of a better date than a man who specializes in just that."

"Date?"

"Amongst friends." I amended. "Maybe you could invite someone to tag along with as well who'd be interested. You'd be like a lovely tour guide." I immediately kicked myself mentally for that but I just started spewing out whatever I could to help the embarrassment.

"I'll be going off-world on the 30th." His demeanor changed and I felt what I had worked up the courage to do crumble before me.

"Right, some other time." I plastered a smile on my face and went back to pulling out old scrolls.
"While I have your attention though," he motioned for me to follow him back through his door and I obliged. He flipped through the parchment on his desk and found what resembled a papyrus map. "I can't seem to find the entrance to these caverns. I just know what we're calling 'the remote' is in one of these caves. It's written about, coded even, to be in a cave. A cave that I swear has to be here." He gestured to the map. "The map is in the book, the only book, with mention of it this time piece that can pinpoint solar flares with gate travel. It can't be as easy as just going through the Stargate and it's there. I mean why? Why would it be that easy when all I'm trying to do is find more riddles and clues. Again." His eyes met mine and I felt my stomach turn. This feeling, it was awful and disgusting. Constantly seeking out any positive attention from him, knowing it was leading me to nowhere. Knowing I was just tormenting myself, and blaming him for it. He was doing nothing wrong, he was trying to save the world by finding some new tool and I was salivating at the delusion that he was using this as a way to talk to me longer. He pulled a sucker from a drawer, unwrapped it and plopped it in his mouth while he moved to stretch, and that warm pooling in my gut made my face flush as I saw his gym shirt rise above his navel. I diverted my eyes and went back to the map.

"Are you the one who has been stealing candy from my jar every day? I feel like I have to refill it every week now."

"Only the root beer ones." He chuckled and started rolling his shoulders to ease the tension in his back. I slid into his desk chair and started tracing the lines along the map as he kept stretching.
"What are you looking for?"

"Well, I was hoping for coordinates. But it doesn't seem that I'll be finding my answer anytime soon."
I rested my chin in my hand and watched him as he slumped onto the ugly brown corduroy couch in the corner of the room. I traced the map again and noticed the abnormalities, then pulled out the freehand decoding journal I knew he kept in his keyboard drawer with the Ancient's alphabet and number codes and thumbed through it. "Daniel, you already have them."

"What makes you say that?" He put his head in his hands and twirled the sucker in his mouth again.

"The lines on the border of the map are textured. Using the ancients numerical patterns the raised bumps are the numbers for a latitude and longitude. There are 3 possible spots."

His head popped up and he stared at me. "What?"
"I mean it's pretty clear here."

He ran up and grabbed my hand, tracing exactly where I had. "You're a genius." He whispered looking back at that and the decoding papers.

"That or you're too sleep deprived to notice what's in front of you." I chuffed quietly enjoying the small contact I was permitting myself to feel.

"That's true as well." He muttered to himself. "You see this here." He took my finger and traced over a corner. "These are not coordinates on one map. This is a gate address."

"So, problem solved?"

"Temporarily," he mumbled "but thank you. I really appreciate you." And like a horrible reward I felt my pulse flutter knowing I had helped in some way, I had gotten praise from the one person I so desperately sought it from.

When I got back to my office I saw Erickson drumming his fingers on the counter.

"Isn't the point of you being here, to be here?"

"Good afternoon to you as well Erickson. Peppy as always." He stared at me with a scowl. "How may I help you?"

"I need a box on PS4-675."

I shuffled through my database confused. "I... we have no collected data from PS4-675. It looks like we tried to dial the gate but it blocked out, there are notes that Ba'al may have something to do with the signal and we don't want to move it to tip him off we know. Another reason the dialing is not going through."

He rolled his eyes and walked away. "You're welcome." I sing songed back and started working on the request inbox I had.