4.

"Did I mention I think this is a bad idea?" Daniel said. "We'll just get caught, and then we'll never have a chance of fixing the timeline."

"Yes you did, twice, and we'll not get caught!" O'Neill said, irritated. "Now shut up or you'll give away our position!"

Daniel grumbled something too low to hear, but did not argue further.

"Someone is approaching the ATM," Jacob warned, keeping his voice down.

"It's three o'clock in the morning! What are people doing out this late?" O'Neill whispered, exasperated.

They waited behind the fence for another five minutes, then the street was empty. O'Neill nodded at Teal'c, who immediately fired his zat'nik'tel at the camera by the ATM, destroying it.

"All right, all is clear - hurry up and come back here!" O'Neill ordered.

Sam, Teal'c, and Jacob|Selmak ran to the ATM. Teal'c shot it with his zat'nik'tel, and the blue energy played over the screen and control panel for a moment, then the machine suddenly started dispensing money.

"Whoa!" Sam exclaimed. "And here I thought we'd have to break it open!"

"I'll take a bit of good luck!" Jacob grinned.

They quickly grabbed the money and stuffed as much as possible into their pockets as quickly as possible.

"Someone's coming!" O'Neill called to them after a while.

Teal'c grabbed another handful of banknotes, then hurried towards their hiding place together with Sam and Jacob|Selmak just as a man turned the corner into the street.

"Hey, what are you doing!" the newcomer shouted.

"Crap! Let's get out of here!" O'Neill exclaimed.

Teal'c turned and calmly fired his zat'nik'tel, stunning the man.

"Do you think he will be able to recognize us?" Sam wondered, worriedly.

Jacob sighed and pulled a hand device out of his pocket. "I will take care of that."

"Right, you found it on the teltac," Sam said.

"Wait! What are you going to do, Jacob?" O'Neill asked, concerned.

"I won't kill him if that's what you're afraid of," Jacob said grimly. He dipped his head, giving Selmak control.

She continued putting on the hand device. "The kara'kesh - hand device - can just like the hara'kesh be used to confuse a person or make him or her forget recent events."

"Nice - and more than a little creepy. Okay, go take care of him. Quickly."

Next day they had gotten clean clothing and something to eat, and were feeling somewhat better, despite the situation.

Realizing they needed to try and determine when things had changed, they were currently sitting in the nearest library, looking through recent history books.

"The President is different, and it looks like a few other countries have different leaders too," Daniel told them. He pulled another thick book over. "From what I have been able to tell, there are a number of minor differences here and there, but nothing major. My guess is that the only actual change was that they never found the Stargate - everything else that has changed must somehow have followed from that."

"You're sure they didn't find the Stargate? Maybe they just didn't start a program to study it," Jacob said, after first looking around to make sure no one was within earshot.

Daniel nodded. "I'm sure." He patted a book. "This contains all the issues of 'Journal of Egyptian Archaeology' from 1925-1935." He slid his hand over two other, even thicker books. "And these ones have all the issues of 'American Journal of Archaeology', volumes 30-35 and volumes 36-40. Covering the years 1926 to 1936. There are no articles about the find in Giza in 1928. I mean, there was never much, but it was mentioned, and a number of speculative theories were made."

"All right, so let's assume they just never found the Stargate. Okay," O'Neill said. "That gives us something to work with, right? Will you guys be able to adjust the Furling device to undo the changes now?"

"Ah..." Daniel said, hesitantly, looking to first Sam and then Jacob.

"We don't know how an adjustment is made, or even how you read the 'setting'," Sam pointed out. "Or what it should say."

"We need time to study it," Jacob concluded. "Then - maybe."

"All right, so touching the red crystal and one of the corners of the cube at the same time makes the text below the corner change," Sam said.

They had returned to the teltac, carrying food for several days. Sam, Daniel, and Jacob|Selmak were now studying the Furling cube while Teal'c and O'Neill kept guard.

"You've found out how to set the device?" O'Neill asked, hopefully, strolling into the back of the teltac where the others were working.

Sam shook her head. "Not quite. We learned where and how to change the settings. Which is progress, I guess."

"You mean you learned where the buttons are on the thing!" O'Neill said, realizing.

"Exactly." Sam gave him a wry grin.

He nodded. "Right. Call me if there's any actual progress." He went back to the flight deck were Teal'c was keeping an eye on the screen. The ship had both cloak and sensors which meant that they were quite safe and could keep guard from inside the teltac. "Anything going on?"

"There is not," Teal'c said.

O'Neill groaned softly. "I may quite possibly get bored out of my skull. For real!"

Teal'c smiled a little. "That is doubtful."

Sending Teal'c a dirty look, O'Neill let himself slide down against the wall and leaned his head back. This was going to be a long mission.

"What? What's going on?" O'Neill had fallen asleep and now jumped up when Daniel spoke to him.

"I said, I think I've translated the rest of the text. Most of it at least."

"Does that mean we can clear this mess up?" O'Neill asked, his expression a mixture of hope and disbelief.

"Well, while I know what the text says, there is still some confusion as to how to understand the settings. And, well, we also don't know what they're supposed to be set to in order to fix the timeline," Daniel admitted.

"Isn't there a reset button on the thing?"

"How could there be?" Sam said, joining them together with Jacob|Selmak.

"Sam is right. As far as we know, there is nothing to differentiate one timeline from another. The changed one is as valid as the one we think of as 'real'," Jacob said.

"So that's it? We can't fix this? I don't accept that," O'Neill exclaimed.

"No, we do believe we can fix it - or at least to a degree where we can't tell the difference," Jacob assured him.

"It may just take a few... well, trials," Sam told him, aware he would not like that.

"Trials! Oy!" O'Neill sighed deeply. "Why don't I like the sound of that!"