Events on the Horizon: A Stargate Sequel

Chapter 15

Sam

The following morning we were huddled around the stone water fountain sorting through color coded cords and a control panel that was cleverly designed to mimic the look and feel of the stone around it. Aesthetically it was compelling in design but from someone like me who was not from this planet and still wanted to fix the issues with it, it was a headache. After managing to solder together the final wires that seemed as if an animal had chewed through them, I flipped the panel back and placed the stone into the slot.

"Well, that should do it." I reassured myself. Jack stood there looking out into the tree line with Teal'c as Daniel came back from the village.

"None of your ghosts are out there Jack," he shrugged.

"Not even Teal'c's candle in the window. I wonder if the setting of the sun triggers some sort of evening display that is malfunctioning and that's why we were able to see the images projected. Either way, there is no trace of them currently." The fountain began to bubble with murky water from the top and trickle down over the control panel and he grimaced. "You fixed the uh, water fountain?"

"That seems like a poor design." Jack murmured. "Having a control panel in the water I mean."

"Well, it goes untouched." I shrugged. "But it didn't really do what I had expected." In that same moment a pixelated collection of two dimensional multicolored squares popped up in the air at eye level from us and moved in a fluid collection as if trying to morph together into a collective shape. All four pairs of our eyes were glued to the image as they swirled together to create the caricature of an off white tapered candlestick sitting on a bronze circular base. A flame flickered atop the candle making it appear as if it had been lit, but the most compelling feature of this floating two dimensional candle cartoon that appeared in thin air, was that it was clearly anthropomorphic. Two oversized eyes, a smile and a nose, a set of two arms and that was it.

"What the fuck is that?" Jack whispered and the candle blinked back.

"He-he-hello!" It glitched and smiled back at him. "I'm Flickwick Candlestick, bu-bu-bu-but you can call me Flick. Th-thank you for rep-rep-repairing my circuit board." His voice was charming and as he waved at us in a friendly gesture I still felt my face frown in confusion.

"Um, hello." Daniel was the first to speak and glanced over at Jack whose mouth was slack jawed. "We are travelers from a planet called Earth. We ventured through the uh, the Stargate up the path that way." He motioned to the woods and created a circle with his hands.

"Ah! The the the circle of prophets." The candlestick called Flick grinned back. "Creation date is unknown, but it is composed of various metals that are not local to the area and believed to be painstakingly hand carved for religious purposes."

"Sure," Jack cocked his head to the side, still taking all this in.

"Flick was it?" Daniel tried to maintain a polite gaze but his brows were knitted in obvious confusion. "Could you tell me more about who you are? What this place is?"

"One-one-one moment to reboo-boot my systems and fix any internal processing da-da-data issues please." He nodded disappearing from the air around us. Jack let out a loud puff and started laughing.

"What was that? Am I the only one here who saw that?" He gestured to the empty space.

"If this is an educational site, I imagine there would be a tour guide of sorts." I shrugged. "And it's this candlestick guy."

"Flick," Daniel corrected.

"Well we should be careful of what we say to Flick when he comes back online. If he is a form of artificial intelligence that is difficult to get rid of, we don't want to make any mistakes." I mentioned.