CHAPTER 9

 “All right Carter,” O’Neill stated as he sat in the passenger seat of the rented sedan. He was fidgeting more than normal which did nothing to restrain his straight forward personality unfortunately,  “You mind telling me why we’re driving to a bus terminal?”

 She slowed down as she began to turn into the rows of cars. Her eyes were now concentrating on looking for a certain vehicle. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, sir.” 

 She stopped scanning vehicles and noted the strange and bemused look on the Colonel’s face. With that accusing stare she had to admit, “All right, I also wanted to ditch Janet. If I’m right we’re going to have a harder time with her.”

 “Just tell me what’s…” O’Neill stopped when his eye caught sight of a full sized black pick up truck with Colorado plates. At first he simply thought it looked like his truck. This included the ding on the back bumper that Teal’c had accidentally made that with his staff weapon one day. Then Jack noted the tag number. He was not shocked. He was not angry.  Jack was just more confused than normal, “Carter what is my pick up truck doing here?” They got out of the rental car and Jack ran to the drivers side door to try his key. When it opened that was the final bit of evidence to prove that this was indeed his pick up truck. What was it doing here? Jack could only figure one thing. He had a neck to strangle now.

 Carter noted the ding, “weren’t you going to get this fixed?”

 Jack shrugged it off as his anger worked at the forefront of his brain, “try explaining to an insurance company that the dent in your bumper was due to accidental alien weapons discharge.” 

 Normally the staff weapon did not carry much of a kick but that was only if you had expected it to go off in the first place. To make matters worse, after that incident, Hammond stopped the usual Friday meetings, in the parking lot, that were for the purposes of shooting beer cans. It was not so much that Hammond minded the ding on Jack’s truck as he did the visiting General’s car that had accidentally been hit with the other side of the Staff Weapon. They were still finding pieces of it on the Mountain. Finally, Jack stopped stomping around and surveying the parking lot, like he was actually going to see the kid here, “I’m going to kick his scrawny little butt. I don’t care if it is my butt he’s walking around with!” Then Jack pointed at Carter, “you knew about this?”

 “Well no,” Carter tried to explain, “it was just the only thing that made any sense. Besides, at least we don’t have to worry about Cassie now. We know she’s all right.”

 “No she’s not,” Jack protested. Then he thought about what he was saying. “Well maybe she is in that way but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m going to kill him when I catch him.”

 “Sir,” Sam pleaded, “don’t you think you’re over reacting a bit?”

 “He stole my truck Carter!”

 “Well sir,” she tried to put it into context, “he is you after all. I mean he might be just nineteen but he’s still you.”
 Sam crossed her arms and let out a whistle of shock, “I guess we should have seen this one coming, huh?”

 “No,” Jack was adamant on the point. The younger Jack might have been his clone, that didn’t quite reach the age of maturity, but he was not a duplicate. At least Jack didn’t think he was a duplicate. Was he? Jack decided, “I never would have stole my own truck.”

 Holding up a hand Sam tried to get focused, “Ok, he parked it here meaning they obviously planned on coming back. Where would they go?”

 “How should I know?!” Jack was still livid. Then he stopped pacing and thought about what he just said, “well what I meant was..” 

 Jack never got a chance to figure out his own confusion on the matter. He watched several police cars pull up with their lights flashing. Suddenly both he and Carter found themselves at the business ends of a large number of pistols. Jack kept his hands well to his side, “hi guys.” They looked like they meant business. Jack gave a slight shrug and glance to Carter before asking the new arrivals, “um, is there a problem officers? Take me to your leader?”
 

The only answer they got was, “on the ground now!”