Chapter 19

As the Jaffy army guys clanked along the corridor to the cloning room, Pete mused as to what 'Cree!' could possibly mean, all the while keeping his eyes peeled for any unexpected escape opportunities.

Escape however, while a simple exercise for him in his Jaffy anonymity, was proving much harder to come by for any of SG-1. Both O'Neill and Sam were constantly surrounded by those Jaffy guards (Jaffa guards, Pete reminded himself of what O'Neill had previously called them). The humans were being monitored so closely that escape was out of the question, even if they received some unexpected help from their seemingly invisible human-turned-Jaffy (Jaffa) friend. As the-shit-hitting-the-fan situations went, this had to be one of the tightest spots that SG-1 had gotten themselves into.

What Pete didn't know was just how awful SG-1's situations typically ran. So even though this wasn't the worst or the scariest situation Jack or Sam had ever lived through, according to Pete things were dire indeed, and he was again wishing for some backup from Bra'tac if nothing else. But the five hour time limit that O'Neill had given to them all before Bra'tac was to begin worrying as to their well-being wasn't even half over yet. If something was going to be done to help SG-1 out of their current predicament, Pete was on his own.

However, useful thoughts, such as trying to come up with some form of miraculous escape plan, were severely lacking at the moment, and anxiety was creeping in at an alarming rate. To stop himself from going insane with worry, Pete let his mind dwell on his 'Cree!' thoughts instead of anything more useful right now.

The clanks of Jaffa footsteps receded from his conscience as the word 'Cree' went round and round in his mind. Perhaps it meant 'Hey you!' Pete considered as they left the cell area behind. Or maybe it just meant 'Yo guys, heads up!' He recalled how that Jaffa guy had shot that human man with his silver weapon in answer to that leader fella shouting nothing but 'Cree!' So maybe it meant 'Fire at will?' Or more likely, something more short and direct: 'Kill them!'

But then, that first Jaffa guy who'd shot that human man hadn't killed him - that leader guy had. So maybe it didn't mean 'Kill them!' but 'Shoot one of them!' But if so, then how did that initial shooting Jaffa know that he was the designated dude to do the shooting in the first place? Had there been some kind of hidden signal or number count thingy to indicate that Leader Guy meant him specifically to do the shooting?

More importantly, had there been some kind of signal that might later give him away if he missed it? Think, Shanahan! But try as he might, Pete couldn't recall seeing any kind of signal or sign that had indicated that particular Jaffa as the prize winner in the 'Shoot first, question the perp later' club.

Or maybe... it might have been because that shooting-Jaffa-guy was the guy out in front? Was that it? Did 'Cree!' simply mean 'Cree!' Kind of the way that the German word 'Achtung!' simply meant 'Attention!'just the way it sounded? Perhaps that was it.

Whatever the meaning, Pete's 'Cree!' thoughts had distracted him so well that they had reached their destination before he even realized it. He had forgotten all about his worries and looking for possible escape routes. Though he doubted that any possible breakout options had ever been forthcoming, a wave of disdain swept over him - he was fulfilling O'Neill's poor opinion of him without consciously trying to do so!

But that Ball guy was back in the cloning room again, and things proceeded at a much more rapid pace. Sam was thrown so hard against a far wall that even in his rear position, Pete heard her head hit the stones behind her. Shackles seemed to fly around her wrists and ankles, and one wrapped around her throat, imprisoning her in seconds. Then, to his horror, Leader Guy instantly stuck some kind of long stick into her side, and before Pete's eyes, Sam lit up like a demonic version of the Grinch's Christmas Tree. She screamed and writhed from where she hung, unable to stop her torture, and equally as unable to get away from it. That stick thing was obviously some kind of energy weapon, though hopefully not some form of a brand. Pete glanced warily at the gold emblem tattooed onto Leader Guy's forehead, recognizing it as a similar one to the golden tattoo that Teal'c wore. He must have undergone the same type of torture that Sam was now to be left with that brand thingy on his forehead. Pete fervently hoped that these Jaffa fellas didn't have the same fate in mind for Sam. All the while, he quickly considered and rejected a million ways in which to help her, or even to save her. But with each idea came a million more ideas where he could fail and get captured, thus ending all hopes of somehow rescuing SG-1 from this Ball guy.

After several moments of Sam screaming her head off, O'Neill straining against his captors in order to maybe push the Jaffa dudes away from Sam, Leader Guy abruptly pulled the stick away from her. Sam seemed to wilt in relief against her restraints while Leader Guy looked sickeningly pleased at her reaction to this obviously favored form of torture. The rest of the Jaffa soldiers stood around with bored looks on their faces, but didn't do anything, either to intervene on Sam's behalf, or to help in the torture. Only Leader Guy and Ball seemed to have taken any pleasure from the preceding so far.

Yet, just as Pete wanted to blink, he saw Sam sneak a look of amused defiance in O'Neill's direction.

That's when Pete got it: she was acting! She had to be in intense pain, but still had enough wits about her to act more defeated than she really was! None of the other Jaffa were paying her any attention at the moment except Pete, and if he had blinked like he wanted to, he would have missed her look.

O'Neill noticed it, however, for all the good it did him. The next second, he too was slammed against a wall opposite Sam, shackled tighter than tight, with activated staff weapons shoved in his face, just for good measure. That Ball fella was doing his oily chuckle thing, grabbing at O'Neill's cheeks with strong looking fingers. Then Sam did her acting thing again, and O'Neill rallied enough energy to yank his head out of Ball's grasp.

Ball did not look amused at that! O'Neill looked as if he didn't care what Ball thought. If anything, that made Ball angrier. Pete almost rolled his eyes in disgust, but then remembered that he was a Jaffa right now, and Jaffa didn't care what a stupid human would or wouldn't do. But he still felt extremely irritated at O'Neill. For a guy who had successfully lived through so many years of this, O'Neill sure wasn't behaving very responsibly. In fact, what he was doing, while heroic in a sick sort of way, was kind of childish. If O'Neill just wouldn't piss that Ball guy off so much, then it might not eventually be lights out for all of them. But at this rate, it would be lights out for anybody who was unlucky enough to come within a mile of the General. It was almost like the best result O'Neill could hope for in this situation was death, so he was doing his utmost to get that for him and his team.

Ball's second chuckle put an end to any kind of hopes on O'Neill's part of sudden death setting him free. His resigned expression gave the idea that O'Neill knew better, anyway.

And O'Neill was right, it turned out. “Do not bother wishing for death,” Ball softly advised with an assessing look at O'Neill. “You know better, don't you?”

Pete surmised that whatever history O'Neill and Ball shared must have been death free, as well as pretty unpleasant in its own right. Ball seemed to be taking great pleasure out of taunting his victim of the moment. “Cloning the mighty Jack O'Neill... and with a clone loyal to me,” he now said in a voice that softly echoed throughout the room. Pete had no trouble hearing what he said - maybe he had some kind of microphone hidden somewhere in that robe he wore so his voice could have that booming sound? His voice had been deceptively gentle - as if he had something truly heinous in mind, and was so amused by it that he could afford to be nice.

In fact, Ball seemed nice now as he pleasantly continued, “Not one of your best hours, was it?”

“It's not one I would like to revisit, no,” O'Neill agreed with him, a sarcastic edge to his voice.

“Revisit...” Ball thoughtfully added. He strolled away, still thinking on that word, and at last regarded O'Neill where the man basically hung on his wall, at his mercy. “Yes,” he hissed, now far less than pleasant. “We will 'revisit' many things together.”

Ball didn't elaborate on his promise, nor did any ideas other than what Pete had already come up with in order to give that booming quality to Ball's voice make much more sense just now. But then, nothing else in this messy clonking situation made sense, either. Pete just concentrated on not doing anything that might single him out as he watched.

Ball laughed again, a sound that told the seasoned cop in Pete that something veeeeery unpleasant was about to happen. His instincts were proven correct when the button that Ball pushed next caused a tube to reach out of a machine standing beside O'Neill, then a long needle to come out of it, pointing straight at the captive.

“Uh,” O'Neill started. “I'm not exactly one for needles...” The needle mercilessly pierced the skin on his arm. Even from Pete's position, the needle looked painfully large. “Ugh!”

There was a whirring sound, and the needle retreated, then dropped something into a tiny receptacle that Pete hadn't seen, and the whirring turned into a clanking that sounded alarmingly like a troop of Jaffa soldiers. The following silence was even more ominous.

Ball smiled, which didn't make Pete feel any better. “Now we wait a few hours for the sample to grow into a clone so good that it will fool anybody. Meanwhile, let us prepare for memory download.”

Pete almost winced in confusion. What was 'memory download?' He knew only one thing: if this Ball guy wanted it, it was sure to be nasty.

O'Neill clearly agreed. “If it's all the same to you, me and Carter will just go back to our cozy cell while we do that waiting.”

The patient smile slid off Ball's face. “I think not,” he said, then gestured at Leader Guy, who stepped forward and thrust something straight onto O'Neill's temple. O'Neill grimaced and jerked away, not that it did any good. When Leader Guy stepped back, some kind of round circle thing was firmly attached to O'Neill's temple.

Ball gave a soft, deceptive smile. “This recall device so conveniently donated by a Tok'ra formerly in my service nicely integrates with this Ancient cloning machine that recently fell into my hands. It easily gives me what I'm looking for.”

Pete didn't know who the Tok'ra were, or what being Ancient meant, besides being really old, obviously, but he got the impression perfectly that no one wanted to be in O'Neill's shoes right now.

O'Neill just couldn't keep his mouth shut. “Look away, old Balsey-boy, but I promise you, you ain't gonna find any... Uh!” A loud grunt fixed the attention of even the most bored Jaffa as a soldier again punched him in the stomach. The captive would have once more doubled over, but his restraints kept him upright. Instead, he seemed to momentarily wilt in place while being forced to stand the entire time.

Ball's smile was back as he again grabbed onto O'Neill's cheeks, ignoring the prisoner while intently studying the thingy attached to his temple. “Ah. The recall device is working as expected.” His smile grew larger as O'Neill grimaced more. In a voice so soft that it was frightening, the alien dude muttered, “What is your worst memory, I wonder?” And again he laughed, though no one, Pete included, suspected for one minute that he thought anything was funny.

And right in front of Pete's eyes, larger than life, a rectangular box formed in midair. It was filled with so many images at first, it was hard to make out any one picture of anything specific. Then it all resolved into what had to be one of O'Neill's more unpopular memories.

The scene showed some kind of green vegetation shrouding what looked like a revolutionary camp. There were tents, several ditches, many human soldiers on guard duty, and many more soldiers milling around, some cooking a meal, some cleaning weapons, some talking, some smoking. After a moment of this peaceful scene, a military commando dude came out of a more permanent dwelling in the middle of the tents, carrying a young boy on his shoulders. Both were smiling, laughing, joking with the men in the camp, teasing all of them... until the memory abruptly turned horrifying as two pops split through the serenity of the camp. A second later, both man and boy dropped to the ground like stones, blood gushing from forehead wounds that hadn't been there a second ago. Chaos ensued as the soldier men started rushing around, searching the area or frantically trying to save the victims who were both obviously dead. Pete could see their 'death stare' even from his position way at the back of the room.

The view changed as the camp faded to be replaced by the person who'd just killed both the man and the boy - O'Neill, Pete suspected - though when he saw how young the hands looked of the sniper who'd done the shooting, he was a much younger O'Neill. Then the picture on the memory screen changed again as the killer (O'Neill) slipped into a pre-made hole in the ground that was little more than a dent buried under dense vegetation. There O'Neill lay quietly while the soldiers frantically searched for someone they had no hope of finding.

The memory faded out, replaced by one very similar. Again came the fake serenity of a peaceful scene at some kind of an encampment, only this time there was some guy shaving in a small piece of mirror... until the pop sounded again and the mirror burst apart in a mess of brains and bloody glass shards.

The memory changed a third time - and there was a third killing. Then a fourth. A fifth. More... and more... and more... all the same, all horrifying, and all O'Neill's.

As each grisly scene replayed before them for Ball's amusement, O'Neill wilted just a fraction further into his restraints. It was obvious that these memories were something that he would rather forget, and certainly wasn't enjoying reliving now. Which would explain Ball's growing pleasure. He grew cockier and cockier as O'Neill's head hung lower and lower as each memory played out.

Suddenly Leader Guy thrust his stick into Sam's side again, and she glowed a second time as her yell echoed in the chamber. “Watch!” he gruffly ordered, then withdrew the pain stick. Sam gasped for air as the memories continued.

There was some kind of prison... gray walls, cell doors, random screams, a huge Middle Easterner with a scary looking weapon guarding what was definitely thoroughly disheveled prisoners. The empty room had some kind of reflective piece stuck on the wall, and O'Neill showed in its wavy lines, standing just as disheveled. Other Middle Eastern guards were milling around, smoking, putting out their cigarettes on the prisoner's skin and laughing, until one guard yanked a prisoner out of the line and threw him on the floor just prior to... Oh geez, was that... a rape going on?

Pete rapidly blinked his eyes, pretending to have something in them to shut out this latest memory so that at least one Jaffa didn't witness what had to be the emotional low point in O'Neill's colorful military career.

This latest memory, however, made that Ball guy's laugh echo sickly throughout the room. “We will most certainly be keeping these,” he said, his voice once again so quiet that it was hard to believe that such a gently spoken man had just done what he'd done. O'Neill was forced to watch the memories displayed on the screen like some bizarre memory garage sale due to the cuff that attached his neck to the wall behind him, just like the one on Sam's neck. But he'd squeezed his eyes tightly shut in the only act of defiance left to him - in this way, he refused to relive those memories of his, no matter what Ball wanted him to do. Yet, even with his eyes clamped tightly shut and a pained expression twisting his face, he was aware of what was going on - he had to be.

But what was to O'Neill's detriment was obviously to the Ball guy's liking. He could hardly contain his glee as more killing replaced the prison scene. “All done in the name of your holier-than-thou military,” Ball commented in his voice of deceptive velvet. “Killing - supposedly to keep you and yours safe.” (How he had found that out was beyond Pete.) Ball gave O'Neill a thoroughly satisfied look. “So much killing - and you're very good at it, O'Neill, much better than I would have thought possible with your crude weapons and primitive tactics.”

Pete gave a start. Crude weapons? Those guns that O'Neill had used had been state of the art as far as weapons went. They were the 'I Ching' of weaponry! Pete ought to know - he was a cop, a detective, a keeper of the peace, a goto guy for safety concerns, an intervener of the dicey and dangerous, a man hunter when it was called for, a...

A killer, if he had to be, and he'd had to be plenty often in the past. That made him... Pete couldn't help it - he cringed. Fortunately, no one saw him. But he couldn't completely keep his face from showing exactly what he thought: the profession he had chosen often made him just like O'Neill.

With a vengeance, Pete turned his wandering attention back to the screen in order to hopefully forget his last thought.

He was just in time to see the picture of O'Neill's fingers expertly handling a sidearm, loading the magazine, slipping the magazine into the weapon, to hear the magazine clicking into place...

The sound of an unidentified female voice - higher, softer, less technobabbly than Sam's - interrupted what was obviously a home ritual. Memory O'Neill focused on a woman holding a baby, but didn't do anything more than cock the weapon he held in his hands, making certain it chambered correctly before removing the bullet from the chamber and flicking the safety on.

This was followed by a huff of air filled with a disapproving female grunt. “How many times do I have to tell you to lock that thing up? Nothing's going to happen.”

Then came a version of O'Neill's voice that was younger than Pete had ever heard, “I have too many enemies to be so dumb as to not be prepared for the worst around my wife and child.”

Child? Pete knew about O'Neill's ex-wife - Sam had previously told him her CO was divorced. But she hadn't said a thing about a child. Had she not known?

The memory wife continued in a voice of scorning disbelief, “Those enemies are going to attack us in our bedroom?”

O'Neill sighed, as if this very subject had already been talked to death. “If anything happens to you or Charlie because I was a trusting idiot who felt safe in his own home, then I...”

“What can possibly happen in our own home?” the female asked.

The scene on the memory screen flipped for just the briefest second to a view of the brains spattering the mirror. “Oh,” came memory O'Neill's deceptively mild voice. “The biggest threats are the ones that come where they shouldn't.” Then he decisively shut the gun in the drawer of his bedside table... an unlocked drawer.

The scene changed again to that of another, bigger gun being cleaned by a person who was ostensibly O'Neill, sitting again on a double bed, loading the magazine, slipping it home, starting to firmly close the same drawer.

And the same female voice, less patient this time, demanded, “Jack! I said to get that thing out of here!”

The Jack in the memory whipped around to face the woman angrily regarding him to tenaciously reply, “And I said that I can't do that! If anything ever happens to... I won't be able to live with myself - you know that!”

“So this is your answer? More killing?” She choppily gestured at the gun. “Something will happen alright, and it will be something you'll regret!”

The mild voice was back as 'Jack' turned around to regard the weapon in the drawer. “I'll regret doing nothing,” he countered, and slid the drawer the rest of the way home.

The memory changed again. This time it was a child's hand that opened the drawer to reverently pull out the semiautomatic pistol hidden there. “Don't tell your mom about this,” O'Neill cautioned in a whisper coming from somewhere nearby. “You know how she feels about guns.”

“Sure,” came a male whisper from the boy standing beside him.

The O'Neill voice continued, “And you should never play with a gun, Charlie, especially not when you're alone. If I catch you at it, I'll have to yell at you for it.”

“But you deal with them all the time,” the young voice protested. “And you do it when you're alone.”

“I'm trained to use guns, even when I'm alone,” O'Neill argued. “You're not.”

“I will be someday,” the young voice assured. “I'll be the best marksman in the Air Force!”

“Your mom won't like that,” cautioned O'Neill. “Don't get your hopes up just to be thrown down again.”

“But you use guns,” protested the boy. “Doesn't mom like you?”

The silence that followed this question said a lot.

Present O'Neill squinched his eyes shut tighter yet, but he couldn't stop what was showing on the very public screen.

“I said watch!” Leader Guy suddenly erupted to again thrust that stick into Sam's side. She yelled as she glowed. Leader Guy seemed to leave the stick pressed to her side for longer than before, and she leaned against her restraints, panting, the second he released her from the painful routine. She seemed to shrink as she tried to recover, and Leader Guy's attention returned to the screen in some kind of gross addiction to see what happened next.

Sam didn't have to watch, as if she already knew what happened next, and O'Neill had squeezed his eyes shut tighter than tight again, only opening them a slit to make sure that Sam was okay after her stint with the stick thingy. That was when she smiled.

Just a little smile, so tiny that Pete wasn't sure he'd seen what he'd seen. It wasn't even a proper smile, more like a lifting of one side of her lips. But it was definitely a gesture, and definitely aimed at O'Neill.

Wow! She was acting again! Or not precisely acting as getting O'Neill's attention in the only way she could. She had manipulated the scene with Leader Guy so that he would thrust his stick into her side and she would yell bloody murder, just to get O'Neill's attention. She must have known that he would look to make sure she was alright afterwards, and that had been her intention all along.

Pete wondered at her initiative. But one more look at the determination in Sam's eyes made him rethink this situation again. Perhaps she had known about the child all along, and even knew what was going to happen next on the memory screen, and her manipulations were her attempts to distract O'Neill from a memory that she knew was going to be particularly unpleasant for him?

The more Pete thought about what he was seeing, the more he was sure he was correct. Jack and Sam were both gazing at each other rather than the memory screen, and completely missed what transpired next: the sound of a gun shot, the boy from before being pulled into arms, blood everywhere, driving to a hospital so fast that the trip was just as dangerous as the situation, the beeps of a heart monitor, the sound of the female saying, “OHMYGOD!” as O'Neill's random thoughts of 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' played over and over again like some kind of sick background litany, the sound of the female keening, a funeral, a boy's room filled with pictures, a ball glove...

Funny - a ball glove for a guy named Ball.

Pete almost missed all of this as he tried to keep his eyes on both the screen as well as Sam and O'Neill. They were still staring at each other, oblivious to the screen and what was going on.

They were oblivious, that is, until Leader Guy thumped Sam so hard on the side of her head that blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth. She gently probed the spot with the tip of her tongue. “This one refuses to comply!” he grunted. “Aided by this one!” And he crossed to O'Neill to maliciously rip the small disc from his temple, making him yell in pain, and leaving a bloody mark behind.

The memory screen instantly disappeared as the small circle disconnected. The Ball guy sauntered forward, walking through the vanishing view screen, studying O'Neill like he was a bug he'd just discovered. “No matter,” he softly said, putting a hand on Leader Guy's shoulder to discourage him from thrusting his pain stick into the captive's side.

A moment went by as Ball searched O'Neill's eyes, scarier than any moment so far because of its expectant silence. It was so quiet, Pete fancied he could hear O'Neill's raspy breathing from all the way across the room. It was clear just from his breathing that this memory session had been far from pleasant for him - O'Neill sounded like he had been forced to swim a marathon against the current of a mighty river, and had almost drowned. Pete snuck a look in Sam's direction to see how she was faring, but she was still tiredly exploring her new wound, hanging limply from her shackles now, the picture of defeat.

But Ball didn't buy it this time. His eyes swung from O'Neill to Sam, from Sam back to O'Neill, back to Sam, before his gaze rested again on his male prisoner's eyes.

At last a wheeze came from the Ball guy. “He defies me.” He swung his amazed gaze to take in Sam hanging seemingly limply from her restraints, then back to O'Neill, who was so not staring at Sam that his eyes were again squeezed tightly shut. But Ball wasn't any more fooled than Pete had been. “They both do. This one has just had his worst memories displayed for all to see.” He said it like he understood just how mentally painful this latest torture session had been. “And yet he dares to defy me.”

He turned to stare at Sam. “And she...” His gaze swung back as he thoughtfully considered O'Neill again.

“My Lord,” said Leader Guy, his voice deferential now. “It's because of her. She...”

“Yes.” Ball sounded as mild as a warm Spring day. “Yes - her.” Momentarily lost in thought once more, he continued to study O'Neill, then Sam, then O'Neill. “So, I was right all along - she's the one. Just as I foretold.”

“Look,” O'Neill said, interrupting the yo-yo effect of Ball's swinging gaze. “I don't know what you're talking about. How can she do anything to me when she's all the way over..?”

“Defiance... of me.” Ball now sounded even more surprised than before, as if he couldn't fathom that anyone would dare defy him, especially a female. He once more eyed Sam, who was now warily eyeing him in return. O'Neill had just begun to struggle for an impossible release when Ball turned completely away from him to more fully regard Sam. “She's the one,” he again intoned, sure of himself once more. “This ugly thing.” He crossed closer to Sam, his hands clasped behind his back in a mocking pose of academic thoughtfulness.

Conversely, Sam was even more defiant the more he spoke. “Do what you want,” she leaned forward and said. “Kill me.” And just like that her gaze slid from Ball to that O'Neill guy. Her eyes actually blazed when she stared at him. She glowed. She was a sun gone nova. Her eyes became impossibly deeper, bigger, warmer as she stared. She had eyes for no one but O'Neill.

The warm intensity of her gaze made Pete feel as if were trespassing on something he oughtn't to see. So this was how it was. Sam... and O'Neill. The reason for either of them even existing was in their gazes. This was something more than just emotions, more than just love, more even than a galactic connection. This was magic.

An arrow of jealousy shot through Pete, and he cringed again, but couldn't quite put a stop to what he was thinking as he continued to watch. Sam and O'Neill... They obviously had, and had had for a long time, something he had always instinctively sought after, but knew that he wouldn't find, not for him, and not in Sam. He'd been fooling himself all this time to think any differently. It was an uncomfortable, but enlightening moment for the cop.

At last, with a sigh that resonated with everything that was good in the Universe, Sam turned away from O'Neill and with an effort focused again on that Ball guy. With eyes still full of O'Neill, she whispered to the alien, “You can kill me, or him, or us... But no matter what you do, you can't kill it.”

For a heartbeat, Sam and Ball did nothing but stare at each other, the one honestly defiant, the other frighteningly thoughtful. The impasse broke when a malicious hissing sound escaped Ball's lips, and his silky voice coiled around the room. “Of course I can do many things to 'it.'” And he leaned in so close to Sam that for a moment their breath mingled together. Ball's following laugh came out like a satisfied snort, as if nothing pleased him more than her defiance of him.

Pete supposed that this Ball guy's pleasure was real - he certainly looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself as he once more ran a seductive finger down Sam's cheek. O'Neill predictably began to thrash against his restraints, but Sam refused to move an iota. She just kept gazing in satisfaction of her own at Ball, practically daring him with her gaze to committing further atrocities.

“I must consider,” Ball said, his gaze never straying from Sam. “But I assure you that my thoughts will have vastly unpleasant consequences for you.”

“Promise?” Sam goaded.

Ball resisted her taunting to smile his maniacal smile that pledged even more. “Oh yes.”

Ball gave a jerk of his head. With that, Jaffa yanked the two prisoners from the walls, thrusting them both down the corridor to return to their cell.