CH30

After his very much appreciated long and, quite frankly, deliciously decadent shower Harry redressed in his supplied clothes and began to better explore his VIP suite.

As the airman had assured him, everything he needed was at hand - except, of course, freedom. He'd been reading a copy of the Denver Post, Colorado's main daily newspaper, when he had a knock on the door.

Amused, as he knew that whoever was on the other side of that door already knew he was sitting on the provided couch reading the provided newspaper and was fully dressed, he went to the door and answered it.

Standing on the other side was Jack.

Jack grinned and waved. "Howdy pardner!" he mocked in a fake 'cowboy' accent. "I's headed fer the vit'lin shed and was a-wonderin' if yer of a mind to join me fer some chow."

Harry couldn't help himself. He grinned back. For a supposed colonel in the US Air Force Harry found the man quite amusing. However, he also realised the man couldn't have become an officer, let alone attained the rank of colonel, if he couldn't also be quite serious when he needed to be. Trying to affect his own fake accent, this time as a 'Noble' of the British aristocracy, Harry returned, "Thank you for the invitation, my good man. I would be de-lighted to join you."

That had Jack grinning back. "Come on, then."

As Jack led the way, Harry followed. And, as he stepped out the door, he saw that there was, indeed, an armed airman standing guard on his door. The man was even obviously doing that, as he was standing at what Harry thought of as the 'at ease' stance and almost ramrod straight.

This time, as Harry walked, there were more personnel in the corridors; with quite a few soldiers armoured and armed and with their 'serious faces' on. He also saw, from the same lab coat Janet wore, that there were also doctors or, simply, scientists mixed in, deep in discussion as they walked in pairs or more.

After they entered what was clearly a pretty decently sized 'cafeteria', but only about half the size of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, Jack led him straight to the 'chow line', showing him how to get a plate and load up with what he wanted to eat.

Because he'd never managed to transfigure lizard rat or any of the other meats into something as complex as a curry, as soon as he saw and smelled that, he took some of it for himself. However, he avoided the rice. Rice was one of those things he could easily transfigure the local flora on Hadrian into and, therefore, had done so a lot. Instead, he added roast veggies to the side.

Sitting down at a basic Formica-topped table for four with plain wooden chairs, Harry sat opposite Jack as they both began to eat. Harry also noticed the centre of the table was loaded with condiments, something he'd not had on Hadrian. Happily, he immediately picked up the pepper to sprinkle over his veggies, then the table salt. Then, while Jack was trying to dig further information out of Harry, Harry began to do the same with Jack. However, Harry was only trying to discover one piece of information. And that was the location of the base; besides it being in, as he suspected, Colorado in the United States.

When he'd asked why he couldn't see any windows, Jack replied, "We're underground."

"Hunh!" he replied. "Funnily enough, I was underground when I was hit with that light."

As Jack tensed up while trying to appear nonchalant, Harry asked, "That might be something common, you know. How far down are we?"

Jack, was about to ignore the question when they were joined by Daniel.

"Hi!" he chirpily said, sitting down next to Jack. "What're we talking about?" "How deep we are below ground?" Harry immediately replied.

"Approximately three thousand five hundred and twenty feet at the Stargate," Daniel immediately replied.

Harry saw Jack wince, but not say anything.

"Wow! For real!?" said Harry, appearing shocked. "I think I was only about... a hundred feet down when whatever happened, happened."

"What?" asked Daniel. "You couldn't have been on the Underground, then. At least I don't think so. That's the name of the subway railway in London, right? The Underground?"

"The Underground, yes," replied Harry. "But that's not where we were."

"We?" asked Jack.

Harry shrugged and replied, "I was there with friends from school. But, I'm not going to tell you who they were. I don't want them to get in trouble."

"That was three years ago, Harry," said Jack. "I doubt they'd get into trouble for something that happened that long ago."

Harry appeared to think about that, but was actually thinking of something else. He knew he shouldn't say anything due to the Statute of Secrecy, but... Merlin damn it... these people had helped him get home; or, at least back to Earth. Besides, this was clearly a secret military installation, so these people knew how to keep a secret. And he wanted a bit of revenge against the magical world for how he was treated for all of both fourth year by the school and fifth year by the entire society.

He leaned forward and made sure no-one was listening in and quietly asked, "You two can keep a secret, right?" Harry saw as both also eagerly leaned forward and nodded, with Jack unconsciously letting his finger touch a lapel pin in his bomber jacket. Behind his shields, Harry smirked. He'd read enough of Dean Thomas's James Bond books to quickly figure out the pin was likely a listening bug.

"We weren't in the Underground, but we were underground. We were somewhere where we'd snuck in during the early hours of the morning," he 'confessed'.

"Under where?" asked Daniel.

Again Harry looked around before he turned back and quietly replied, "Under Whitehall. Under the Old War Office Building. You should see what's under there! It's huuuuge!"

Sitting back again, he watched as both SG-1 members also sat back. While Jack looked a little pleased and was trying to hide it, Daniel was looking a little confused and pensive. "No need to look so worried, Daniel," said Harry. "Look, Jack knows. It was a school challenge prank. I just got hit by something that did something to me."

Jumping on it, Jack said, "He's right. The Old War Office Building was where the Brits Command headquartered during World War Two. They shouldn't have been there, but what is done is done."

Daniel only glanced at Jack before he clearly dropped it. That spoke to Harry of a long familiarity.

"Your school was in London, was it?" asked Jack.

"No, south western Scotland," Harry replied. "We'd only finished our exams that early afternoon and raced straight to London. That's why it was so late at night before we got there. It must have been well after midnight as we were sneaking around down there."

.

.

.

👓☕️Consider supporting me and enhance your reading experience with the ready-to-read PDFs I have on my Ko-fi.☕️👓

🎯https://ko-fi.com/bstories🎯