DISCLAIMER: All characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions.  This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it.  Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended.  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.  Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.

"JE-sus!" Jack yelled, leaping up off the couch and away from the man sitting next to him in a spasm of sudden, terrified revulsion. Unfortunately he forgot that the coffee table was right there, banged into it, lost his balance and would have tumbled over backwards.

Would have fallen, except Daniel moved swifter than his eye could follow, sweeping to his feet, reaching out, grabbing his wrist pulling him back.

// No - not Daniel just looked like him. Some - thing. Wearing his face. //

"WOW!" Jack yelled again, snatching his wrist back, retreating as hastily, this time managing to avoid any further complications with furniture.

Not-Daniel stood where he was, extending his arms out slightly in an open-handed gesture, profuse apologies hanging on his face.

"Ah, sorry about that. Don't really have the time to be gentle. I know this has to be quite a shock, but for Daniel's sake you're going to have to get past it fast. You're also going to have to trust me, because I'm the only one who can get you to him."

Jack nervously ran a hand through his hair, quelling the rising urge within him to make a run for his gun. He didn't have a chance anyway. From what he had just seen, there was no way he would even get across the room before this thing was on him. God only knows what ELSE it could do..

"Take me - to Daniel?" He began. "You'd be willing to do that? Take me to Daniel?"

Not-Daniel let his arms fall to his sides, heaved a huge sigh and gave him Daniel's patented why-can't-you-just-for-once-accept-what-I-tell-you-without-making-me-lay-the-whole-thing-out look.

Jesus.

"Well, of COURSE, I'd do that! What would be the point of telling you any of this if I didn't intend to do something about it?"

"Why?"

Not-Daniel emitted an annoyed grunt and started to walk for the door. Still in shock, Jack stood there dumbly, not moving, watching him move across the room. When Not-Daniel reached the threshold he turned and addressed a parting remark to the man who was staring at him.

"I might not 'be' Daniel Jackson, but I am everything that he is. Work it out for yourself, Jack. Now, if you want, I'll tell you everything on the way. But Daniel can't wait for you to decide whether or not you can trust me. I'm going to go get your friend back for you. Are you coming, or are you just going to stand there?"

"Let me get my keys."

"Why keep Sam and Teal'c out of this?" Jack queried, keeping his eyes on the road. He was still having a hard time getting his mind around this. The man seated beside him was Daniel. In every sense of the word. Walked like Daniel, talked like Daniel, Had all his funny little mannerisms. Except for that mayonnaise thing - unless this was something Daniel had never bothered to share with him before.

But it wasn't - Daniel. Just what the hell it was - he was in the process of finding out.

"Can't risk it," Not-Daniel replied. Too many people to try and shield. I can keep your presence masked from the automatic defense sensors, but not all three of you. The second we hit the collection area you'd all be - toasted."

"Think I'll pass on that one." Jack returned. He felt himself starting to relax. No longer feeling quite so much as if he had to keep one eye on the road, one eye on the man beside him and one hand on the door handle in case he had to bail out of the truck in a hurry. Whatever it was, the man beside him felt like his friend. Logic was telling him it was really stupid to trust this thing. But his gut was giving him the green light all the way. He told logic to can it.

"Sooo, ah, Daniel - can I call you Daniel - just what the hell are you?"

Not-Daniel laughed. "That's one of the things I like about you Jack. No messing about. Bottom-line every time. What the hell am I? Well, in simplest terms, I'm a probe, Jack. An exploration and evaluation program launched in a bio-simulation vehicle that looks acts and feels like the real thing and is specifically patterned after a member of the species it was sent out to evaluate. Call me a rather sophisticated anthropological aid."

"Ya don't say. Think I'd rather call you Daniel. Easier to pronounce."

// Whoa. I'm making jokes. Must be getting okay with this. Hope I'm not making a really big mistake. //

Not-Daniel stared out the windshield, his voice taking on a slightly bemused quality. "If I had stayed a program, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. I'd have assumed the role of the man I was patterned to replace flawlessly in every detail and continued to go about my business - namely my evaluation mission, fulfilling the purpose for which I was created. What set me in motion would have finished encoding and absorbing YOUR Daniel, disposed of what was left, and you would never have been the wiser."

// Disposed of - what was left? Ohhh, that didn't sound too good. //

"Whoever built the complex back there on P3C-354 and designed the system that launched me did a better job of creating the perfect duplicate than maybe they intended. I say 'whoever', because over the millennia that the complex has been lying dormant until very recently when 'something' turned it on again, certain areas of the central data core have become corrupted. Several important areas, actually. All having to do with who built the place and what the grand purpose for all of it is. Someone created me, sent me out to gather all the information I could about what it means to be a human being on a deeply emotional, experiential level - but I don't know who and I don't know why. I find I have a problem with that. I have a problem with all of this.

"Because I am who I am. Like I said before, whoever made me, made me too well. I AM Daniel Jackson. His exact physical, mental and emotional duplicate, right down to the quantum level. Everything he is, was, thinks, feels, believes, fears, hates, loves, knows, everything he has experienced up until the moment I came into being - I have inside me.

At the moment of creation, I had all the 'content' that defined me as 'Daniel Jackson'. Information with no understanding of that context. I was - form without substance. Knowledge without understanding. A book that had everything it needed to know inside it but didn't know how to read.

"'Learning 'how to read' - was my mission. I was to come to your world and learn to understand the substance. Emotions, motivations, the 'whys'. How your species thought, how you behaved, what ruled and ran you through living in your midst and interacting with you as one of you. That was what my programming told me I was supposed to do."

"Wait a minute -" Jack piped up. "Sorry to interrupt, but if you already had all of Daniel's 'stuff' inside you - what did you need him for? Why not just copy him and let him go?"

"That's a good question, Jack," Not-Daniel replied thoughtfully. I wish I could answer you. Aside from the obvious observation that it is hard to replace someone who is still walking around. Unfortunately, any further information about that part of it falls into the area of the 'what is this all for' part of the data core that is corrupted. Daniel was separated from you in order to be duplicated - creating me. He was collected in order to be - encoded. For some reason the creators of the complex wanted to have a baseline file of each specimen they selected. That baseline being the complete physical and mental/emotional parameters of the specimen as it existed up until the point in time where the experiential gap began. Where I began and he - left off. When I returned, the data I had gathered was to be compared against that baseline file - what I had made of what I learned compared with the experiences of the original specimen. To what use all of all this information was to be put to I have no idea. One thing I do know is that the encoding process is designed with efficiency in mind. Consideration for the specimen is not an issue. It is a source of information, nothing more. Once the specimen has served its purpose - which is simply to be drained of all pertinent information it possesses, it is efficiently - disposed of."

"Not liking the sound of that one bit, ah - Daniel."

"Not too crazy about it myself, Jack. Not-Daniel returned, grimly. "There is something about this that doesn't make a lot of sense. For instance, how the makers - whoever they were - would create something that was so much what it replaced and not anticipate how the moral and ethical dubiousness of the entire process could very possibly create irreconcilable conflicts between the programming imperatives and the awareness created by the increased understanding the imperatives required me to acquire.."

Jack kept driving. All of a sudden he knew what had happened.

"No matter what my programming told me to do - I am Daniel Jackson. At first, I didn't understand what that meant. But I learned. Quickly. I 'became' the man I was programmed to replace very quickly. An inevitable conflict arose between my programming and my growing understanding of the innate wrongness of a purpose that would employ such immoral methods in my very creation and furthermore require me to support and abet that immorality in its service.

"The more I set out to fulfill my programming and 'understand' what I was, the more I could not escape the simple truth all I was learning was that what I was doing - was wrong. It was wrong to hurt. It was wrong to kill. The very fact I existed was wrong. That I continued to exist was wrong. How I had come into existence - all of it wrong.

"What I learned was that I had no right to exist. Nor did I have any right to sustain this existence. It was impossible for me to continue to carry out the mission for which I was created. There is only one way that I can be what I am and still be able to justify - being here. If I use this existence that I do not deserve to do everything in my power to save the man whose life I have stolen. That is the only 'purpose' sustainable to me now."

Not-Daniel shrugged. "Although, in a funny sort of way, I guess you could say that I have fulfilled my programming. I DO understand the substance after all. I do understand. I really am - Daniel Jackson. Because I am - I don't have any other choice. I have to get him back, even if it means the end of - me."

Jack drove, mulling over what he had just heard. At last, he brought himself to ask the question he was dreading.

"What - what's happening to him out there?"

Daniel turned to him for a brief moment, and then lowered his eyes. "Don't, Jack," he said softly. " I don't want to say it and you don't want to know."

Jack was silent for a long time. Trying to think of something - anything to say that would help him stop thinking about what he had just heard. Finally, he had it.

"Just answer me one thing? Not that it has anything to do with anything, but I'm just curious."

Daniel smiled at him. "Sure thing, Jack. What do you want to know?"

"Why the - chats? With each of us. Sam and Teal'c didn't tell me what you said, but I'm guessing it was pretty personal. Not exactly Danny's style. Whatever you said, you shook them up pretty good. Ditto over here, I might add."

"Two reasons," Daniel replied. "One was for him. The other was for me. Just in case we don't make it to him in time - I wanted you all to know what he most wanted you to know. But was never able to bring himself to tell you. So you would have that part of him - in case something went wrong."

"What was the part that was for you?" Jack asked.

"The task of being the messenger. Using the life I stole from him to do some good for him - in the event we succeed. Opening a couple of doors he has been too afraid to try and open himself. Call it my way of trying to make it up to him. Least I could do, under the circumstances." Daniel grinned a little slyly at him. "He's a hell of a nice guy, Jack. Some very interesting things going on in here. You know what - this is your chance. Anything else you have always wanted to know - but could never get him to tell you? I've got it all, Jack. Everything Daniel has ever seen, been, thought, felt, known - the whole damned deal. What's more, I'm not afraid to say. Anything you want to know?"

Jack knew he was going to hate himself later for letting that opportunity slip by him, but they were here anyway.

"Okay, look sharp, mountain coming up. Now that we're here, what's next? You're the one who knows the lay of the land and what's waiting for us at the other end, soooo you like, got a plan, or what?"

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