Fic: [SG-1] Legion

[ultranos]

Title: Legion
Author: ultranos
Rating/Warning: PG, immediately post-"Gemini", s08 SG-1
Notes: Thanks to shanghairain for the quick once-over editing job. If it sucks, it's my fault, not his. Also, abyssinia4077? This one's for you.
Summary: "'What is your name?' 'My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many.'" (Mark 5:9)



She didn't break until she got home.

She would not accept the awkward absolution that the General and Teal'c offered her. She stayed in her lab until she couldn't take concrete walls and metal lab benches anymore and fled the mountain for the safety of the outside world. Someplace where nanotechnology was still mostly theoretical and couldn't walk up to you and throw you across the room.

All she wanted was to get into the shower and scrub it all away. Scrub until it hurt. Pain. The harder she scrubbed, the more it would hurt. Cause and effect. Quantitative results, reproducible under the correct conditions. Here, things obeyed physical laws, and maybe Sam could convince herself that the other was not her.

She made the mistake of turning around.

Staring out from the other side of the sink was her. The other. Her double, crafted out of infinitesimal robots to take the form of her image. The other, who knew Sam better than anyone else, who knew all the lies Sam told herself, all the little secrets she kept hidden away.

She stared at the image, searching that familiar face for anything that could be different. And found nothing. Almost of its own volition, her hand reached out and touched the face in front of her. Her fingers hit the coolness of the glass, so reminiscent of metal that she immediately flinched and withdrew her hand.

Scared of her own reflection.

Angles and numbers floated in her mind, physical laws of the behavior of light, for once not offering comfort in their explanations. Light and its confounding dual nature, pieces and a whole, showing her that which she did not wish to see in a smooth sheet of glass. Daniel had once told her that people used to believe that mirrors reflected the soul, so that breaking one was tantamount to fracturing your soul.

Once upon a time, her mother made sure both her children attended Mass every Sunday. She remembered very little from those hours sitting in a church. She stopped going when her mother died.

In her mind, bound by the pain of the hand in her head, the Replicator had smirked.

My name is Legion, for we are many.

The echoes of the priest from her childhood whispered from the artificial lips of her double, mocking, all around her. In this place, there was no God, there was nothing to drive this demon from her.

Because she was the demon and the demon was she. She could lie to herself, others would offer false platitudes, but the lies echoed in her brain. The only one who could lie to Sam Carter was Sam Carter. And now, not even then. Her double had ripped the blinders away, and now all she could see was the truth, stark, bright, and cold: there was nothing to the copy that wasn't in the original, somewhere. Intertwined and inseparable, now and forever.

My name is Legion, for we are many.

Jolinar stole her body. The replicator stole her soul.

My name is Legion.

What part was left that was still Sam Carter? Every time she walked through the 'gate, her molecules got rearranged and spat back out. Even that stole tiny parts of her. What was left, what else could they take?

Her double stared back at her.

My name is--

Sam's fist impacted with the mirror. The sound of shattering glass drowned out the soft splats of blood dripping onto the floor.

Comments

[rodlox.livejournal.com]

poor Samantha.
she needs a hug. my Ba'al muse volunteers.

(excellently-written)

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

She really does. Although I don't know how well she'd take it from Ba'al. :)

(Thank you! I was having a heck of a time with the rhythm of the thing.)

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Interesting. This is a much more religious Sam than I usually see her, but it fits with the quote, and with the mood.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

It's slightly weird, because Sam really doesn't strike me as the religious type. (I'm possibly projecting, but she's pinging as a "recovering Catholic" for me. Dunno why.) But for some reason, that's what was coming out as I was typing. Even though I was all "holy Catholic imagery, Batman!" *shrug*

The entire thing was based around the quote, actually, which I ran across while doing some research for a game I was writing. But it immediately got associated with replicators. I don't pretend to understand my brain.

[beanpot.livejournal.com]

**whistles low**

Wow - perfectly angtsy and my heart just aches for her.

Love it, really and truly.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I have a tendency towards angst, so I'm always worried I overdo it. (Because too much angst just gets stupid.)

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. This is amazing. Frightened of her own reflection. I love the opening two paragraphs the most. The description of things in scientific modes, and they don't work. And then her frightened by teh metal of the mirror and even more by the reflection and reverting to religious imagery of her childhood. It's all so creepy and amazing. Great job!

(BTW, I'm remembering some interview with AT where she saw Sam as Catholic or Episcopalian...or read that on Sam's dogtags or something. I dunno. I only remember a real hint of her religious beliefs in "Line in the Sand" in Season Ten.)

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You don't know how happy I am to hear that the transition between the scientific descriptions and the religious imagery worked. I was having a hell of a time with narrative shear between the two.

I was going for creepy. Also glad to see that it worked.

(I vaguely remember hearing that somewhere. I kind of go with Catholic, because she's tripping a lot of my sensors with that. [To say nothing of what my friends call "the creepy Catholic brainwashing effect" in regards to recovering Catholics.])

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Not completely sure what you're referring to...but probably best not to pursue it.

FYI, I'm a practicing Roman Catholic. We're not all creepy brainwashers. No, really! ;-)

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Ah, no. I'm not trying to offend. Really. I'm not a practicing Roman Catholic anymore, but I grew up one. I don't think it's "brainwashing" either. :) I will actually try to explain.

What my friends are referring to is our ability to basically never forget the proper responses for a Mass, even when we are very far removed from the Catholic church and have not actually been to a Mass in years. The "creepy" factor was due to the context: we were playing a LARP set in the Vatican, so most of the players were cast as priests or Cardinals. One way to recharge abilities in the game was to mock-perform a service for 10 minutes. Generally, that's supposed to be "make something up and talk for 10 minutes". One player, who is not Catholic, decided to look up the actual Catholic Mass, printed it out, and started reading from his crib sheet. Once he started reading, every single Catholic in the room stood up and responded at the correct time.

Since the LARPs I play in have a tendency to go towards the creepy side, usually people all responding at the same time means that something bad in terms of the game is about to happen. (For example: in one of the other ones I've played, a room full of people chanting in unison summoned Cthulhu.) Those who were NOT Catholic in the room all got kind of freaked out. :)

Me, I just know it as something I'll never forget, so if/when I do actually become a practicing Catholic again, at least I'll still remember.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

...
...
Oh, man, just....yes.

I love her refusing their absolution and fleeing to the real world where nanotechnology was just a pie-in-the-sky idea. and everything but this bit:

She stared at the image, searching that familiar face for anything that could be different. And found nothing. Almost of its own volition, her hand reached out and touched the face in front of her. Her fingers hit the coolness of the glass, so reminiscent of metal that she immediately flinched and withdrew her hand.

Gave me shivers because it's so incredibly perfect.

Why why why is there not endless archives of fic about RepliCarter and Sam and Replicarter and Daniel and RepliCater and Jack and RepliCarter and everyone and GAH!

you rock!

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. :)

You can tell I totally have Replicators on the brain. Also? I thought about mirrors for about 3 days straight during and after this.

Clearly, we need to start creating the endless archives. Yes. This is clearly a plan with Zero Failure Modes.

[sulien77.livejournal.com]

aurora_novarum just recced this on stargateficrec and I'm glad she did, because this is amazing. I love Sam Carter, she's my favorite character, and this is just an amazing glimpse into her psyche. Thank you!

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks! I really, really love Sam too, so I really just love digging into her character and seeing how she ticks.

[scifithinker.livejournal.com]

"Jolinar stole her body. The replicator stole her soul."

This is such a basic description of Sam, yet I would have never thought to express it this way. I like how it pays homage to an event so critical to who she is and ties it to something new that changes her just as fundamentally. Even if it isn't acknowledged on screen.

This story definitely deserves the entry in stargateficrecs. Well done.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. (I'm still kind of stunned by the rec.)

And it is such a basic description, but the change just seemed that basic, that fundamental, that I couldn't see how else to express it. So many things seem to chip away at Sam over the course of the series in that fundamental way that "stealing" things from her was more apt a description than a slow wearing away of traits.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I've been watching SG1 on DVD and just finished "Gemini," so abyssinia4077 recced this story to me. I just wanted to say that I'm glad she did. It's very effective.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Somehow, I'm not surprised Abyssis sent you here, considering that episode ate our brains and all. :)

[samantilles.livejournal.com]

this is the definition of angst! That episode always creeped me out a little bit, and its wonderful to see the reaction (and especially the addition of the whole Jolinar situation).