Title: A Little Technology is a Wonderful Thing…
Author: Sam Carton
Email: SamCarton@yahoo.co.uk
Category: Humour
Spoilers: Hmmm… none really.
Season / Sequel: Daniel's in it if that gives any clues! Apart from that, it doesn't really matter.
Rating: PG for language (Daniel gets a bit upset!)
Content Warnings: Extreme stupidity!
Pairing: SGC personnel and some very big guns!
Summary: Daniel's computer breaks down just as he's working on a very big project and he doesn't take it too well…
Status: Complete
Archive: SGCS and Heliopolis

Disclaimer: I don't own SG1 or anything else remotely connected with the show. The only profit I gained from this fic was getting some frustration out of my system - no cash at all which means I still have to go to work and swear at my computer!! J (Oh, and the same goes for James Bond!!)

Author's Notes: This is not meant to offend anyone who is in IT or works with computers. It was inspired one day
after my computer at work broke down and there was no-one to fix it, leaving me in a really serious predicament! So… on the train home I thought "what would various SGC members do at a time like this in a fan fic" and cheered myself by writing the first draft of this!

"Damn this @!*@!!@! system!!" I have a PhD in anthropology and linguistics - not @!*@!@ Microsoft and it's worthless crappy, lousy unreliable system!"
Daniel Jackson screamed at the top of his voice as his computer refused to shut down. The damn thing had been crashing all week, and this was the final insult. Having worked solidly for 48 hours, surviving on chocolate and coffee, the prospect of losing his hard work thanks to a dodgy computer and its unreliable memory, Daniel was ready to wreak havoc. At the very least, he was ready to take drastic measures and was in the kind of mood to do something reserved for his very foulest of moods and most desperate of situations. He stomped over to his filing cabinet, stepping over a large pile of Egyptology reference books and opened the draw marked "Z". With an evil grin on his face, he drew out a zat gun, accidentally pocketed after a mission and somehow not yet returned.

Grabbing the weapon, he marched out of his office and along the corridor, scaring any personnel who he happened to come across half to death - and that included several marines. Had Daniel been thinking clearly, he would have been impressed. But, for that moment, he was just angry and knew what he had to do to get rid of his anger.
He turned a corner and walked down a corridor, then came to a door. Feeling royally, totally and utterly pissed off, he kicked the door open and heard it clang against the wall. A small group of technical guys looked up from their screens and saw Daniel. Then their eyes widened in sheer terror as they saw the zat gun, armed and ready to go in the hands of the furious young archaeologist. They had never seen Daniel this angry before, and did not know that he was capable of looking like he could do a lot of damage.

"I've begged, I've pleased and all you have done is send me e-mails saying you'll get around to fixing my computer. Well, now I have a hell of a lot of work riding on you getting up off your lazy butts and doing something rather than proving you know how to send useless e-mails, most of which contain spelling an grammar errors!!" Daniel said.
"Who the hell do you think you are? The only person with any authorisation to tell us to get off our butts is General Hammond and most of the time he's too busy so we -" a blond haired computer guy said. His name was Bill, and he suddenly realised that his mouth could at least earn him an electric shock - and from what he had heard, a shot from a zat gun really hurt…
"Hey, guys! I just completed the next level of our game - we'll be able to defeat the end of level boss and -" Bob, a red haired computer guy said impulsively and then realised that he had just earned himself a potential bolt from the zat gun. "Sorry."
The third member of the team was rather quiet and looked at Daniel with a relaxed expression, as though he really did not care that Daniel had an alien weapon trained upon him. "What d'ya want? Show me. I'll see what I can do." He got up, picked up a box and walked casually to where Daniel stood, fuming. "Come on guys - unless you want to be toasted. The guy wants his machine up and running and we're the guys for the job. Let's go."
"But what about his level?! We could be kings of the internet!"
"Not if we've been zapped three times with a zat gun - now get going." Ben said.

Daniel marched the three computer technicians along the corridor, his zat gun ready to fire at the slightest sign of any of them veering off course. They kept faithfully to the route and had nearly reached Daniel's office when the party passed General Hammond in the corridor.
"Doctor Daniel Jackson, what do you think you are doing?!"
"I was desperate!! I have to get these morons to fix my computer somehow or you don't get the findings we need for the next proposed archaeological mission to PX1471!"
"And that's next week -"
"Well, a week is how long I've been waiting for these guys to stop my computer from crashing and losing all my work!"
"Why didn't you use anyone else's computer?"
"The only working machine is in the gate room and I don't think Sgt Davies would like it is I took the gate dialling system off line to run word to type up some reports!"
"Good point. Do you suppose there's any chance these guys could fix my computer while they're at it?" General Hammond asked. He had been tempted to call for security until he thought of how his computer was sitting on his desk resembling little more than a paperweight full of cables, circuits and wires while, like Daniel, he had been putting in requests for the IT guys to some and see to it for the past month.
"Give them some incentive and we'll see what happens!" Daniel said. "Guys - keep at it or my finger might slip!"
"Daniel, I'll meet you back here in a couple of minutes…" General Hammond said.
"Why?" Daniel asked, his eyes not leaving the sight of the frantically working technical support team.
As promised, the General was back two minutes later, armed with a blast lance, a zat gun and a worrying piece of paper with instructions to cancel the technical team's coffee supply if everything was not fixed within the next sixty minutes. While the weapons were frightening themselves, they were probably unnecessary when compared to the threat of the technical guys being deprived of coffee.
Five minutes later, after frantic repairing, swearing and screen staring
"Yes!! I'm invincible!!" Bob said, raising his hands in the air.
"Yeah, whatever." Said Ben.
"Shut up and move!" Daniel ordered. Bob looked a little embarrassed, got to his feet and followed his two colleagues to the door where they were hastily rushed along the corridor to their next destination.
"What the -" Sgt Walter Davis said, staring at the sight of the IT guys being marched down the corridor.
"We're making them fix our computers!" Daniel said, "They've done mine, now they have to do the Generals' and then -"
"Could they fix what they've done to the gate room computer?"
"And what might tht be?" General Hammond enquired.
"It's kind of embarrassing… but if you guys could hold on for about five seconds…"
"Well… OK…"
Moments later, Sgt Davies had joined them touting a sniper rifle, a hand gun, several combat knives and a large jar of instant decaffeinated coffee.
"Sergeant! That's going a bit over the top, don't you think?" General Hammond said. "I mean… decaf?"
"I'm sorry sir - I'm desperate! You should see the screensaver they put on the gate computer - I have to move the mouse at regular intervals when any alien dignitaries are in the room or they'll take one look at the - uh - artwork and think I'm a pervert!"
Daniel and Hammond stared at Davis in shock.
"Trust me - if you'd seen the screensaver in question, you'd be resorting to foul tactics, too!" Davis said, desperately.

The small party called by General Hammond's office where his computer was duly fixed and upgraded. It was amazing how quickly things could be repaired when the right incentive was present. Then, it was back along the corridor to the gate room. That was when they passed the infirmary. Janet Frasier peered around the doorway.
"May I ask what's going on?"
"We're making them fix our computers!" Davis said.
"Really? Mine hasn't worked in ages… and considering I need to check the medical records on a regular basis…" Doctor Frasier said.
"Guys - here's our next stop!" Daniel said. "About turn or I fire!"
"And you drink the decaf!" Davis said.
"And I stop your coffee supply!" Hammond barked.
Janet Frasier stood over the IT guys with the biggest needles she could find until they had finished repairing the infirmary's computer. Daniel, Hammond and Davis would have agreed to anything upon sight of those needles, and Janet's stern expression seemed to give Bill and Bob even more of an incentive to work faster. Ben just shrugged and got on with the job in hand. Enjoying the spectacle, Janet tagged along with the strange party, her needles in tow, as they neared the location of the gate room computer. They passed Colonel O'Neill in the corridor who wondered what was going on.
"Uh… where are you going with all the hardware?" O'Neill asked warily, wondering why none of the alarms were going off when it looked like they were facing an alien invasion or something.
"Modern technology sucks and these guys are on a repair or face the consequences mission!" Daniel replied angrily.
O'Neill ignored the majority of the guns but saw the coffee cancellation form of Hammond's, the decaf Davis had and the needles Janet was holding in a threatening manner and realised why two of the IT guys were looking so pale and scared. The third one was looking at his colleagues with disdain.
"Well… if you wouldn't mind - I need some technical help, too - like… how do you turn the damn thing on?! No-one ever showed me!!"
"What?!" Bill, Ben, Bob, Frasier, Daniel, Hammond and Davis said in disbelief.
"OK, team - you've got a job to do!!" O'Neill ordered.
"I'm the general here!" Hammond said.
"I'm merely advising… and put it this way - I'll be able to type my reports now!"
"OK, team - to Colonel O'Neill's office!"

As they headed in that direction, the sounds of group chatter and threats intrigued Sam Carter, who had been working away quietly and was frankly glad of some distraction. She emerged from the lab and looked at the small team in disbelief.
"We're getting them to fix everything!" Daniel explained.
"Well, if that's the case, I could use their help…" Sam said, running back into the lab to grab something and returning moments later. "It's a good thing I perfected my portable naquada cannon!"
Davis, Hammond, Daniel and O'Neill stared at the evil looking device in shock. Bill and Bob let out a collective whimper, while Ben looked a little worried or the first time. For some reason, they elected to attend to Carter's computer first.

Time was ticking and the guys had twenty five minutes left to fix everything. They were in O'Neill's office teaching the Colonel the finer points of turning a computer on.
"This…" said Ben, "is how you turn it on. And here's the start up screen with lots of little pictures, you know, like you see on the gate. Well you take the mouse and you click it on -"
"Run that by me again." O'Neill said.
"Twenty four minutes, thirty seconds!" Carter announced, "Not that I'm putting any pressure on you guys!"
"Wait a minute - there seems to be a problem here…" Bill said. "It's refusing to respond to any clicks of the mouse or…"
"Don't say that." O'Neill said.
Ben sighed, wishing he'd called in sick that day.
"You have twenty four minutes and five seconds to fix it!" Sam said, aiming the naquada cannon in a worrying manner. The IT guys looked scared as hell.
"Damn!" squeaked Bob.
"What have you done?!" Bill yelled.
"Nothing - I - It was like that already!"
"This thing is beyond repair!!" Bill was about to tear his hair out.
"You're saying this thing is beyond repair when there is someone with a naquada cannon aimed at you? What are you - nuts?!"
"No - we'll try and find a way…"
"Only try…?"
"We'll find a way! I swear on my mothers life we will find a way!!" Bill pleaded.
"Oh… I need a new pair of pants!!" Bill said.
While this was going on, Ben had sat down and got to work, evaluating why the machine in question wouldn't work. It was easy enough to find the solution when you kept a cool had like his colleagues weren't. Seconds later, Bill and Bob had joined him and were flapping around like a pair of headless chickens.
Colonel O'Neill, who would only admit to himself that he had no idea what the guys were doing, stood over them looking authoritative.
"You'd better get going… you already wasted 40 seconds just by panicking."
Bill and Bob screamed and looked at each other, then launched themselves into working on O'Neill's computer.
"Guys, will you cool it? I could work a hell of a lot better if you weren't jumping around like you'd got Goa'uld symbiotes in your pants!" Ben said, typing furiously. "It's nearly done…"
"Goa'uld symbiotes? Eeew… that's gross!" Bill said.
"Shut up freaking out and give me a hand. We have some guys with guns who mean business here and I fancy going out on a hot date tonight."
"Oooh.. You've got a hot date?!" Bob said.
"Shut up and hand me that manual." Ben demanded.
About a minute later, Bob embarrassed himself again by yelling, "yes, I'm invincible!"
There was a collective groan in the room. No-one was impressed and Ben wished he'd never lent Bob his collection of James Bond movies, particularly Goldeneye featuring a computer enthusiast with a liking for the phrase Bob liked so much.
"Right!" said Sgt Davis "You have six minutes and four seconds to get the filthy wallpaper off my computer.."

Bill and Bob looked at each other with dire panic in their eyes while Ben grabbed the pair of them and dragged them in the general direction of the control room. Ben sat himself down at the computer, laughed filthily when he saw the wallpaper in question ad got going. Bill and Bob just looked terrified.
"Guys - stand behind me will you?" Ben asked.
"Uh… sure." Bill and Bob both said. "Why…?"
"So that should I not get this done in time, you'll absorb the impact of the blast."
"Thanks!" they both said, moving to his sides.
"Don't stand there, you'll distract me and then we're all fried."
The pair of them grudgingly stood behind him while Ben got to work.
It was a hard process, particularly as some inconsiderate team decided they just had to come back through the gate or get killed by enemy forces. Bob and Ben were getting increasingly worried about Janet Frasier's needles - and the various guns that were being toted.
"Five… Four… three…" Davis announced.
Ben hit a button and yelled, "It's done!!"
Bob and Bill sighed and wilted to the floor. Ben got up, looked at the small party with the weaponry and then at his colleagues.
"You see what I have to put up with?" he said. "Now if you don't mind, I have a few things to do. Just try not to break anything too important on the systems, OK? It looks like my colleagues could use a while to recover."
With that, he ambled off, leaving his panic stricken colleagues on the floor.
"Well, everyone." Said Dr Frasier, regarding the motionless figures of Bob and Bill on the floor. "It's a good thing I bought my needles along as I'm going to need them after all."