Chapter 69 - Good Day
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Chapter 69 - Good Day
All things considered, Jack O'Neill would say the day had been going pretty well so far. The Ancient hadn't decided to hand them a series of vague warnings with the expectation that they would somehow muddle through things. He'd gotten to see Daniel walk around the base in heels. And Carter was at least temporarily back at the SGC to help out with everything they currently had going on.
Unfortunately it seemed like one of the other shoes might have finally decided to drop.
"When you say there's a problem with the vaccine, what exactly do you mean?" He asked Carolyn Lam, frowning down at the somewhat harried looking doctor who had stopped him in the hall. "Because I distinctly recall Doctor Beckett saying it was safe?"
And if it wasn't they were in a lot of trouble as he knew Doctor Weir had already begun inoculating her people.
"As far as I can tell from the notes he threw together it's perfectly safe." Doctor Lam confirmed, cringing slightly in a way that would have told Jack that a but was coming even without already knowing something was wrong. "But the problem is, I'm not sure how we can use it without risking the secrecy of the Stargate program."
Given the sheer number of strange things Jack had seen over the years that didn't exactly narrow things down any. So he nodded and motioned for the doctor to continue.
"As I'm sure you're aware, General. We've been studying the Ayiana contagion since you encountered it in Antarctica three years ago."
"I was surprisingly not." Jack admitted glibly, suspecting that it was probably somewhere in the piles of files in his DC office that he had yet to go through.
"Oh." Doctor Lam muttered, blinking in surprise. "I thought… Well, long story short, the researchers studying it have made zero progress in creating a cure or treatment because every time they find something that begins to work the virus mutates into something else."
Which somewhat confirmed what Evan had just told them about it, so that put at least a little bit of Jack's paranoia to rest.
"The Ancient's solution to that seems to have been to create a vaccine which…" Doctor Lam continued, only to bite her bottom lip and grimace slightly. "Well, to make a long explanation short, prevents nearly everything."
It was Jack's turn to blink in surprise as he tried to process that. "And by nearly everything you mean?"
"Think Tretonin." Doctor Lam said grimly. "Only without the dependency and immunosuppression issues."
"So, dose a week for perfect health?" Jack asked just to make sure he was understanding exactly what she was saying.
Doctor Lam shook her head. "According to the Ancients, the only recorded cases of it ever wearing off were people with healing abilities who consciously or unconsciously wanted it to wear off."
Put like that Jack could see the problem, because there it would stretch the Stargate program to the absolute limit to try and fake the development trail for a lifelong cure for functionally everything. Though that trouble absolutely paled in comparison to the political fight he could see coming when the IOA found out the US military was now holding onto a hundred thousand doses of the stuff.
"So what do you think we should do with it?"
Doctor Lam pointed at herself in surprise. "Me?"
Jack nodded. "You're the new head doc."
Pursing her lips, she seemed to consider Jack's question. "Well, by withholding it we'd be condemning hundreds of millions of people to easily preventable deaths." She paused for a moment before letting out a tired sigh.
"And I know that's something of a regular occurrence with the things we bring back through the stargate. But working at the CDC I've seen first hand just how bad disease can get elsewhere in the world, and this dwarfs the number of lives that would have been saved by other things by entire orders of magnitude."
The number of times Jack had asked himself the question of how many lives they could save by releasing the technology they'd brought back through the gate was not small. Debates about non-lethal weaponry in particular often had him flashing back to what happened to Charlie and asking himself just how many other kids could be saved from similar by pushing that technology out and damn the consequences.
But that was neither here nor now, because he hadn't been asking her about that.
"I meant more we as in the SGC." Jack offered as the corner of his lip twitched slightly.
"Oh." Doctor Lam muttered in a small tone, blushing in clear embarrassment before taking a breath to center herself.
"Personal preference of not having to deal with the constant string of soldiers coming back through the gate with STDs any longer aside. I don't think we can afford not to."
Even with the new information that had pretty much been Jack's thought on the subject, but it was always good to get an expert opinion reinforcing his own.
"My one suggestion." She continued. "Would be that we make sure to put everyone through the ATA gene therapy first. As I'm something like ninety nine percent sure the retrovirus used for that will get attacked by the improved immune systems just like everything else."
They hadn't made that particular treatment mandatory yet for a number of ethical reasons, but Jack knew just how close of a judgement that had been given how important the ability to operate Ancient technology was for the program's general mandate.
"Then I'll leave that to you to put together." Jack said, making a shooing motion to show that she was dismissed before turning and continuing down the hall.
He made it half a dozen steps before she called out. "In that case General, I'll expect you in for your shot by the end of the day."
That tone was familiar enough from his years with Fraiser to know any attempt at argument would just delay the inevitable, so he gave an over the shoulder wave so she'd know he'd heard before rounding the corner.
Given the inherent danger of alien weaponry, they had decided on Carter's old lab as the best place to go over the various things Evan had brought them from Atlantis. So walking into the lab, Jack had half expected to see the newly arrived woman already hip deep in hooking up one of the devices to various sensors.
Instead however she seemed to be glaring at one of the ancienty looking crates as if the thing had somehow offended her on a personal level.
"Carter." Jack put forward carefully, experience having taught him to tread carefully when something had annoyed her that much. "Do I need to get a crowbar?"
"I already tried that." Sam muttered distractedly, pointing to a nearby bar of metal hanging off one of the shelf hooks as she worked to secure a pair of some sort of clamps onto the edge of the container.
He had only been joking about the crowbar, that she hadn't caught that, or ever looked up to greet him, suggested it was probably past time to try and drag the Lieutenant Colonel away from her box shaped problem.
Walking over to the table she was working at he knocked on the crate a couple times with his knuckles. "Seems pretty solid."
"I think it's some sort of trinium alloy." Sam said, finally looking up at him only to blink in surprise. "Sir, I…" She shook her head before straightening up and shooting him a wry grin. "Sorry, I've just been banging my head against a rock trying to open this thing since the Atlantis team brought them in."
That it was an Ancient packing crate of all things that had her so stumped was more than a little amusing, but Jack knew Sam would absolutely make him pay if he ribbed her about it.
"Have you tried waving a hand over it and saying open sesame?" He joked, passing his hands over the top of the crate as he said the last.
A pneumatic hiss sounded out and the top lifted off the crate, leaving them both staring dumbly at it for a moment before Sam turned a dirty look towards him.
"I had absolutely no idea that would work." Jack confessed in case she might be thinking that he had purposefully done that.
He looked down at the now open crate for a moment before frowning as a thought hit him. "Do you think it was the hand wave or the open sesame? Because if it's the second I'm going to have to have a talk with Doctor Weir about the amount of media they've been showing off to our new allies."
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Author's Note: I think that ship sailed long before you were born, Jack.
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