Theorizing that one can time travel within his own lifetime, Dr Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

'Is it really that simple, Al?' asked Dr Sam Beckett pulling on the knotted handkerchief tied around his neck. He felt so uncomfortable dressed in a scout uniform; not as uncomfortable as being dressed as a woman (which he had on many occasions) but uncomfortable all the same.

'Ziggy says there's a ninety-seven point five percent chance that you help that old lady across the street and you'll leap.'

Admiral Al Calivicci, the project Quantum Leap observer, struck the flashing handset with the palm of his hand a couple of times; the handset squealed with each strike. He didn't mind calling the woman old because she couldn't hear him anyway. This had nothing to do with her age. Al wasn't present in that time. He was decades in the future standing in a holo-imaging chamber and it was his hologram that was present. The only person who could see or hear Al was Sam...and animals...and children...and the near departed...and the mentally disturbed.

'It all seems too easy.'

'Look, Sam, what's the worst that can happen? You do a good deed for the day and then we run a few new scenarios through Ziggy.'

Sam took a deep breath and walked over to the woman who was readying herself to cross the street. Just as she was about to step forward he took her arm and pulled her back. A car came screeching around the corner and sped off up the street. If he had let her cross then she would have been hit by the car.

'There you are,' said Al peering at his handset. 'That car would have killed her and drove off. You did it, Sam.'

'Then I should leap any second,' said Sam.

'You want to leap into the road,' asked the old woman thinking Sam was addressing her.

'No Ma'am. I was talking to...my friend.'

'What friend?'

'Imaginary friend,' said Sam slowly knowing it sounded ridiculous.

'Bit old to have imaginary friends aren't you, Dear?'

'You won't leap until you've got her safely across the street,' said Al. 'Ziggy's ninety-nine point nine percent on that.'

'Would you like me to help you across the street, Ma'am?'

'Oh, that is kind of you, Dear.'

Sam took hold of her arm once more and guided her across the busy street to the other side. The woman was so grateful that she took a quarter from her purse and pressed it into Sam's hand.

'There's really no need...'

Before he could finish the sentence he was encapsulated in a flash of blue and white light. Dr Sam Beckett had leaped.

...

The first few seconds of a leap were the most disturbing. There was never a guarantee that the situation Sam found himself in was safe or even one he could grasp the understanding of in the split second it took to realize that he was no longer the person he had just leaped out of. In this instance he knew one thing for sure: he didn't like heights. He found himself standing on a ladder that was slowly moving upwards toward a window that was billowing smoke. As he turned his eyes to the street below he had no illusions as to the occupation of his latest host. What seemed like miles below him attached to the bottom of the ladder was a fire engine. He was a fireman on a ladder and Sam didn't like heights. As the ladder juddered to a halt he could see the faint outline of a person in the room with the smoke. It was woman holding something wrapped in a blanket. The woman screamed something at him and ran towards the window, swinging it wide open almost knocking him from the ladder. It would have been hard to do since he was gripping it for dear life. As the smoke swirled around him and the fire roared ferociously all he could hear was the woman screaming 'help' and 'baby'. Before he could react she threw the bundle at him. He let go of the ladder with one hand and tried to catch the bundle as a baseball player would catch a baseball in a mitt. The bundle glanced off the tip of his fingers and fell to the ground below.

Oh God, thought Sam

Blaze of Glory

July 26 1962

The last thing Sam expected to hear was laughter. The woman in the room was almost bent double trying to control her fits of hysterics. This was a bizarre reaction since her baby had just fallen fifty feet, maybe more, to its death. It was the loud cheers from below that made him realize that he had probably been the butt of some cruel prank. One man by the fire engine was waving what Sam supposed was a doll that he had been a stunt double for a baby.

'I'm sorry, Lyle,' said the woman wiping tears from her eyes. 'As we tried to explain you must be prepared for any eventuality.'

'That wasn't funny,' replied Sam. 'I could have fallen and broke my neck or worse.'

'You're still hooked onto the ladder, Lyle. If you had fallen it would have been about two feet at the most.'

Sam looked at the belt he was wearing with a hook that was latched onto the ladder. Obviously this little fact wasn't known to him when he first arrived so of course he was going to panic. He decided that he best look on the brighter side of the joke and play along until Al could catch up with him and let him know what he was here to do. As the ladder began to descend the woman called out once more.

'I'll make it up to you, Lyle. First drink is on me tonight.'

...

Even when the ladder had ceased its decent Sam still had his arms locked through the rungs, the belt and hook hadn't alleviated his anxiety. Opening one eye he found the group of firemen looking at him with what could only be described as astonished frowns. They had seen Lyle shimmy up and down ladders for weeks and couldn't figure out why he seemed so troubled by heights now. What they didn't know was that Lyle was sitting in the waiting room at project Quantum Leap nearly forty years into the future. The fire chief stood with his arms folded eyeing this terrified boy.

'Are you planning on coming down today, Carrington?' bellowed the Chief.

'Right away,' said Sam hurriedly unhooking the belt.

'Since when have you been afraid of heights?'

Since someone, or something, decided I would leap onto the top of a fifty foot ladder, thought Sam relieved that he had two feet back on firm ground.

'How do you expect to make it as a fire fighter if you can't handle heights?'

'I'm sorry, Sir,' said Sam, trying to think up a good excuse for someone suddenly changing their personality. 'I haven't been feeling too well the last couple of days and I think it's affecting my balance or something. That was probably why I felt a little light headed up there.'

Sam looked up at the window he had been thrust towards and shivered, even looking at it from the ground made him feel nauseous. It was then he heard a familiar voice beside him.

'We need to talk, Sam.'

'Al...'

'Are you sure you're ok?' asked the Chief.

'Maybe I should sit down for a while and it might pass.'

'Don't be too long about it, Carrington,' said the Chief, gruffly. 'We have more exercises this afternoon.'

'I won't be long, Sir,' said Sam heading for the fire truck and propping himself into one of the backseats. 'What's going on, Al? I can't be a fire fighter; you know I'm no good with heights.'

'That's the least of your worries right now, Sam.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean we have a major problem. Ziggy can't find out why you're here.'

'That's hardly a major problem, Al. Get Ziggy to run some probabilities and she'll come up with something.'

'She already came up with something.'

'So what's the problem? Tell me why Ziggy thinks I'm here.'

'Ok, Sam, I'll tell you what Ziggy has come up with, but don't shoot the messenger here.'

Al tapped some buttons on the handset. 'Your name is...'

'Lyle Carrington,' said Sam.

'Do you want to hear this or not? You're a trainee fire fighter in New York City. Ziggy says that in two days that young guy over there is going to die in a fire.'

Sam looked over at the guy in question. He couldn't have been more than twenty years old. As Sam watched him the guy suddenly looked over and gave a cheerful wave. Sam waved back.

'He's a trainee, Al. Surely he wouldn't be sent on a real call before he's finished his training.'

'All I know is what Ziggy says, and she says that in two days that guy, Tony Gallo, is going to die in a fire.'

'I don't understand what the problem is, Al. Obviously I'm here to keep him alive.'

'Maybe,' said Al, pressing more buttons.

'Maybe? What does that mean?'

'Lyle never made it through training. He flunked out as a fire fighter and ended up taking one dead end job after another. He turned to drink and drugs and ended up dying at the age of thirty-eight from an overdose.'

'So I'm here to make sure Lyle gets through training?'

'Maybe,' said Al again.

'Well, what is it Al? Am I here to save Tony or get Lyle through training?'

'You remember that woman up in the burning tower?'

'Yeah, the one who nearly sent me falling to my death,' Sam shuddered at the memory.

'She and Lyle used to be an item until he flunked out of training. The big Chief over there is her father and he will only let his daughter date fire fighters, something to do with them being the bravest or something, bet there were no naval men in that family.'

'What happened to her?'

'Annabelle Carson never got over the loss of Lyle and shut herself away from the world. She was admitted to a sanatorium for a few years and when she was released kidnapped a baby.'

'Why would she do something like that?'

'The transcripts from her trial state that she knew she would never have any of her own so to be a mother she had to take one. Annabelle died in prison during a mass riot. You see why there's a problem? Ziggy can't figure out who you are here to save: Lyle, Tony or Annabelle.'

Sam put his head in his hands, 'Oh, Boy.'