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“I do not understand the objective of this game, O’Neill.”
“The objective is to get rich, T.”
Teal’c turned over a crinkled, baby pink $5 bill. “I do not believe we can spend this currency in any establishment in your United States.”
Jack snatched back the bill and continued sorting out the money. “It’s symbolic. Now, do you wanna be the shoe or the thimble?”
Teal’c gave him a look that said quite plainly he did not much care to be either one.
“Look,” Jack said bracingly. “I know it’s not much for choices. I’m partial to the top hat myself, but this is what we’ve got. This has gotta be better than another round of ‘Are you really sure I told you sun and not fire? I think it’s fire. Why would it be sun? Oh. It is sun. Would you look at that?’ with Daniel.”
Teal’c bowed his head in acquiescence and accepted the thimble.
“It’ll be fun. Trust me.”
***
It was not fun.
Teal’c beat the pants off him.
Twice.
It did not improve Jack’s mood in the least.
***
“Um, sir?”
Jack, leaning carefully over the rail at the top of the safety ladder, held his breath as the tower of 2x4 segments swayed dangerously, then stilled. “Your turn, T,” he chirped, skipping lightly down the steps. “What is it, Sergeant?”
Siler glanced from Jack to the small crowd of onlookers who’d gathered on the ramp, and back again. “I was just wondering, sir, when my team and I might be able to complete our gate diagnostic?”
“Go right ahead,” Jack answered absently. He watched as Teal’c laid his block from the middle of the tower alongside his at top. The damn thing didn’t so much as wobble.
“But, Colonel,” Siler protested as Jack and Teal’c swapped places once more, “we —”
Jack shouted as Siler’s anxious grip on the ladder rail nearly cost him the game. The sergeant released the metal as if burned, and at Teal’c’s silent stare, he backed away several steps as well.
“Sorry, sir,” Siler said, “but it’s just that you’ve got our ladder, and —”
Alarm klaxons blared to life, signaling an incoming traveler. Jack cursed as he fumbled his block. All fourteen feet of the tower leaned first one way, then the other, then collapsed at the foot of the ramp with a crash that was drowned out by the stargate flaring to life.
Jack cursed again and stomped down the stairs.
“I believe another ‘Jenga’ is in order,” Teal’c intoned, somehow managing to convey an entire victory dance’s-worth of smug superiority with a single arching brow.
“Best four out of seven,” Jack grumbled, already beginning to clear space for the base of the new tower.
“Sir —”
“Siler,” Jack snapped, kicking blocks out of the way, his toes protected by the steel in his boots, “the gate’s fine. Consider your diagnostic complete and your ladder thoroughly commandeered.”
“But, sir—”
“That’s an order, Siler. Diagnostic complete.”
***
“O’Neill, I do not believe you currently hold enough currency or property to win this round.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack muttered, doing the mental math himself as he passed Teal’c a handful of bills for rent. They were thirty minutes into their latest game, and Jack was practically hemorrhaging money already.
“There is no shame in admitting defeat,” Teal’c offered serenely.
Jack suddenly wished he’d set up the board somewhere other than the massive conference room table. There was something cathartic about flipping a table and watching the de facto winner duck and cover in a hail of tiny plastic buildings.
***
“Watch it!” Jack shouted.
Walter, in a show of shockingly quick reflexes, caught his fumbled stack of folders and leapt onto the nearest chair, like a 50s cartoon housewife who’d spotted a mouse.
Jack climbed down from his perch atop a file cabinet and into one of the office chairs.
“What is it, sirs?” Walter asked, scanning the floor anxiously.
Teal’c tipped over another file cabinet to make a bridge, scattering files across the carpet before he answered. “The floor has become covered in semifluid molten rock. If you touch it, you will die.”
Walter stared blankly for a moment before chuckling a little nervously. Clearly, he wasn’t sure whether to take the threat seriously or not.
“Just stay put, Walter,” Jack ordered. He shoved away from his file cabinet, but the wheels on his chair were no match for the carpet of the briefing room. The chair toppled, but Jack launched himself out of it as the back hit the ground. The edge of the conference table forced the breath from his lungs, but he hung on and hauled himself up onto the tabletop after a moment.
“O’Neill,” Teal’c called. “Are you well?”
Jakc gave him a thumbs-up from where he was sprawled, though he suspected Teal’c might be winning this game, too. “All good, T.”
***
“Uh… whatcha doin?” Daniel asked warily, peering up over the top of his notebook as Jack erased a huge swath of Ancient text from the blackboard.
“Quitting.”
“Jack, you can’t just—”
“Can,” Jack corrected, sketching out a quick grid. “I can, in fact, just. We’ll start this all over again in a couple hours anyway. T— X’s or O’s?”
***
“What the hell is going on in here?” Hammond demanded as he entered to briefing room to see nearly a dozen of his personnel perched atop various pieces of overturned furniture in what looked to be the epicenter of an explosion.
“Careful, General,” Walter shouted. “Don’t touch the carpet!”
Hammond jumped back over the threshold to the concrete of the hallway. “Why not?”
“There is some sort of semifluid, rock-like substance on the floor, sir,” Captain Rodriguez answered, wobbling a little in her chair as she snapped into a salute at the general’s tone. “There seems to have been a containment breach from one of the labs. Not sure how it got all the way up here, but it seems confined to the carpet, at least for now.”
“Why was there no alarm?” Hammond demanded. “Colonel O’Neill?”
Jack held his hands up helplessly from his seat on the bookshelf, to which he and Teal’c had retreated to watch SG-9 fumble their way through the ‘containment breach.’ “Peters knocked the phone off the shelf, sir.”
“The handset appears to be broken,” Teal’c added.
“We were trying to contain the substance using pieces of furniture, General,” Peters offered, desperate to salvage his image in this bizarre situation.
Hammond’s reply was cut off as the alarm blared and electricity crackled to life around the stargate once again.
“Best. Loop. Ever.”
“Indeed.”
***
“We seem to have reached an impasse,” Teal’c said.
“We call it a ‘cat’s game,’” Jack answered.
“Why?” Teal’c asked. “I see no cat.” He cocked his head to the side, as if he might discover a hidden image on the board.
“You know, I have no idea,” Jack admitted.
“Actually,” Daniel offered without looking up, “there is a theory that it’s called a cat’s game because tac spelled backwards is cat. Other theories tie it to the idea of a null or scratch outcome, like a cat’s scratch, while a third camp—”
“I thought you were pouting,” Jack cut in.
“I wasn’t pouting,” Daniel answered. He flopped his sheaf of notes dramatically on the table. “I just don’t understand why you’re not more concerned about this.”
“About a tie in tic-tac-toe?”
“About the time loop, Jack!” he shouted, throwing his pen down as well. “Teal’c, you’re with me on this right?”
“We have endured the loop a great many times, Doctor Jackson,” Teal’c said. “We will undoubtedly endure it many times more before the translation is complete. Panic has not yet improved the situation in any significant way.”
“But you can’t just give up!”
“Sure we can,” Jack declared brightly. “We get a do-over no matter how this turn out, so why worry?”
“Why worry?”
“Cheer up, Danny-boy: you won’t remember this in a couple of hours, and I promise we’ll get right to work next time. T, I’m X’s this time.”
***
Jack ducked as red and green houses went flying across the commissary, raining down on the unsuspecting diners.
“You are correct, O’Neill,” Teal’c said, righting the table again. “That is indeed a much more satisfying ending to the game.”
"I told you it'd be fun."