Shocked silence filled the room.
More than shocked, Jack thought, it was a kind of breathless incomprehension. How could this man be Teal’c’s young son? His mind felt like it was struggling to change gears, struggling to process something so impossible.
“How?” Teal’c said at last, voicing the question they all shared. “You were a boy when last we were together.”
Dix — or could it really be Rya’c? — nodded. “So I was, but that was close to one hundred years ago.”
Daniel’s breath left his lungs in a rush of disbelief. “What?”
“Oh my God,” Sam gasped.
Jack just pressed his lips together in a hard, skeptical line. Bullshit.
Teal’c seemed to share his opinion. “Why should I accept your word on this?”
“Because it is the truth and you are my father and must know your own son.” Dix drew a step closer, further out of the shadows, and Jack couldn’t deny that the man bore a striking resemblance to Rya’c.
But Teal’c wasn’t convinced. “Your assertion is insufficient,” he said.
Zuri pushed herself forward, chin lifted with an angry cynicism that rivaled Jack’s own. “Dix,” she said, “surely you can’t think these people are really who they pretend to be?”
“I know my own father!” His flare of anger was familiar and Jack was disconcerted to see Teal’c react to it, as if in that unguarded moment he saw the boy he’d known. Rya’c had always been fiery.
Zuri wasn’t cowed, however, and cast her gaze over Teal’c and the rest of them without conviction. “How is it possible that they appear unchanged? This could be a Wraith trick.”
“Yeah, a trick is exactly what this is,” Jack insisted. “If you’re Rya’c, then I’m Rip Van Winkle.”
“Sir,” Sam said quietly, “theoretically it is possible. This wouldn’t be the first time the Stargate has connected with a gate in a different time.”
“And we’ve woken up in the ‘future’ before, Carter, and found ourselves in Hathor’s happy place.”
“But we were unconscious then,” Daniel pointed out. “This time we were awake all along. At least, you guys were, right?”
Jack acknowledged his point with a shrug, although it didn’t really prove anything, and for a moment there was nothing between them all but silence.
Daniel made the most of the opportunity. “Why ‘Dix’?” he said. “Why do you call yourself that and not Rya’c?”
Dix gave a tight smile. “Because ‘Dix’ is a legend.”
“Yeah, we heard. He leads the resistance, apparently. Is that you? Is this… ?” Daniel gestured around them. “Is this the resistance?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” He glanced at Teal’c. “I adopted the name ‘Dix’ because it has meaning here. I need these people to trust me.”
“By usurping their legends and impersonating their heroes?” Jack said, not bothering to hide his contempt. “Sounds familiar.”
“Huh.” The snort came from Zuri. “You can hardly object to that when you —”
Dix put a hand on her arm, quieting her. “I have done what I must, O’Neill.”
“Oh, I bet you have.”
“Jack —”
“No, Daniel, this is bullshit. All of it.” He turned to Dix. “Look, I don’t know who you people are, or what scheme you’ve got going on here, but you clearly know us and I’m willing to bet you know how to get us back to Earth.” He didn’t raise his MP5, but he swung it around, letting everyone in the room know how this scene could play out. “So if your boss has a Stargate, Dix, then I suggest you take us to it. Now.”
Dix exchanged a silent look with Zuri, before saying, “I understand why it is difficult to believe me, O’Neill, but there is something you need to see.”
“Dix, no,” Zuri protested. “You can’t —”
“I must.” With a serious look at Teal’c, he said, “It is the only way.”
For once, Teal’c’s emotions were easy to read and it was obvious that he wanted to know more about the man who claimed to be his son. Jack couldn’t begrudge him that, even if he couldn’t trust this Dix character any further than he could spit.
Hathor had proven that, when it came to Goa’uld plans for galactic domination, no scheme was too elaborate and no detail too small. But if this was a trick, Jack didn’t know where it started and where it finished. Planet-wide nuclear destruction seemed over-the-top, even by System Lord standards, so whatever had happened to these people — the war, the enslavement, the invasion by the Amam or Wraith or whatever they wanted to call themselves — all of that was real.