It was half-past quitting time, and Tony eagerly slung his back-pack over his shoulder and headed for the elevators. With the movie ticket for the free rental securely in his wallet, he consulted an address he had scribbled on a Post-It note.
" 'BlockBester Movies'," he muttered, again put off by the unfamiliar brand name, if it really did belong to a chain of movie rental places, at all. Tony drove to an area in Georgetown that appeared to have escaped the gentrification of the 50s and 60s. Ageing store fronts and residences struggled to survive alongside each other on crumbling streets. Tony had to slow down to make sure he didn't drive right past the business he was looking for.
A marquee proclaiming 'BlockBester Movies' flashed wanly in the fading evening light. Tony pulled off his sunglasses and entered the tiny building. It hardly beckoned; the interior was dimly lit and smelled remotely of mildew. Sagging dusty shelves half-heartedly displayed DVDs. It bothered Tony right away that there was absolutely no one else in the store, except for a person he assumed was the manager.
"Evenin'," the lone member of staff said in a low, uninterested voice. He stood behind the check-out desk, his angular face in shadow; his gaunt figure clothed in a black hooded sweater and jeans.
"Evenin'," Tony replied, trying to ignore the feeling that the staffer's eyes were following his every move. He decided to make his visit here as brief as possible, and began to circle around the shelves in search of anything interesting.
The carpet underfoot was worn and the ceiling was water-stained. Movie posters were affixed to the walls in what in Tony's opinion was a random and illogical manner.
"Who puts Batman Begins next to a faded poster of Steel Magnolias?" he grumbled under his breath. "How old is this poster, anyway?" Steel Magnolias was like, 20 years old, for cryin' out loud, he thought.
"Selection sure isn't anything to write home about," Tony said to himself, frowning as he picked up a DVD case that was for display only; the actual movie had apparently been already rented by someone else.
"Aw, ugh...'Daddy Day Camp'? 'Ishtar'...'Battlefield Earth'...'The Last Action Hero'..." Tony grimaced at what was left on the shelves. "More like LackLuster Movies!"
"May I help you?"
The sound of the lone staff member's voice nearly made Tony jump out of his skin. He turned around and glared at the man, who had been standing silently behind him. He was staring straight back at Tony, unblinking, and un-fazed by Tony's angry looks.
"Uh...yes..." Tony said, mustering a smile and adopting a casual tone: "I have this ticket thingy from a cereal box. I just, you know, wanted to see what you guys have here to rent."
He dug into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. He pulled out the golden ticket and showed it to the store employee. The man peered at the prize for a few moments.
"Right this way," he said, directing Tony to a shelf tucked away in a corner of the store.
"Why?"
"You may make your selection from this shelf and this shelf alone. Those are the terms of the reward as stipulated by management of BlockBester Movies."
Tony stared in disappointment at the dinky little shelf. There were about 10 titles. He'd seen all of them; some more than once. Half of them were already taken, anyway. Most of them he actually already owned.
There was one movie representing almost every genre. He turned to the staffer and addressed him:
"If these are all the movies I can choose from, then I would like to talk to 'management', buddy."
"I am he," the other man replied. "There are no exceptions. Make your selection from these movies, and these movies alone."
"Sure. Fine," Tony grumbled. He turned back to the shelf, and made a mental note of all the movies on the shelf that he'd either seen or owned, and those that were already rented:
There was the cutesy Family flick, 'The Little Mermaid' (rented); there was a Comedy, 'Young Frankenstein' (rented and owned); Western movie was 'Shane' (owned, but only after being embarrassed that he hadn't seen it during a stint that took them to GITMO); Action flick was 'Die Hard' (rented and owned, and seen a thousand times); Romance was 'The Princess Bride' (rented); Musical was 'Singing in the Rain' (rented). That left the Horror movie choice of 'Jaws' (owned), Drama choice of 'The Shawshank Redemption' (owned); War movie, 'Stalag 17' (owned); Sci-Fi...Tony shook his head in disbelief at the selection for Science Fiction.
"Frequency."
He picked up the DVD case. He'd already seen it, of course. But he didn't own it. If anything, he could borrow this and think up ways to tease Ziva about her 'crush' on Jim Caviezel. He chuckled to himself.
"I think I'll take this one," he said, approaching the desk. The manager was quietly standing there, waiting for him.
"Excellent choice. It's a very good movie. I guarantee you're in for an interesting experience. Ticket, please?"
Tony produced the gold-coloured piece of paper and handed it over. The manager tore it in half, put one end in the cash register tray, and handed Tony his 'stub'.
"Enjoy your movie," the manager said.
"Thanks," Tony answered without enthusiasm. He stuffed the ticket stub in his wallet and took his movie. He didn't want to spend another minute in the store and left hurriedly. He wasn't sure, but he could have sworn he saw a smirk forming on the manager's face, and a spark of glee in his eyes.
"What a creepy guy," Tony said to himself as he drove to his apartment. "Oh, well. At least it's a free movie, even if I have seen it before..."
Tony had just turned on his widescreen flat-panel TV and popped the DVD in the player when he had an urge to bolt for the bathroom. He tossed the remote on to his coffee table and sprinted like his life depended on it, socks sliding on the thick carpet as he ran.
A few minutes later, the satisfying sound of the toilet flushing nearly drowned out a sound coming from his living room. The movie had started playing.
Butch - (muffled, over walkie-talkie) "Sullivan! This is Commander O'Connell. Can you hear me?"
Frank - "I hear ya, Commander."
Butch - "The gasoline is risin' in the vault. Those downed cables hit that gas, it's gonna blow."
Tony crept down the hall and heard more dialogue as the movie continued to play.
ConEd Worker – (frightened) "Get us outta here! He's got a broken leg! Get us out!"
Butch – (over walkie-talkie) "Frank, it's gonna flash. Get outta there. Dike isn't holdin'."
Tony approached the TV and watched firefighter, Frank Sullivan, instruct the probationary fighter, 'Gib' Gibson, to give his clawed crowbar a whack with an ax.
Frank - "No sparks. Again! One more!"
Tony stared as the rusted door in the movie finally gave, and gasoline that had been building in the vault gushed out into the underground tunnel.
Tony decided he really should flip back to the beginning of the chapter, and grabbed for the remote. As he did so, he yelped in surprise as he was zapped with a jolt of static electricity.
"We have a white male, found unconscious, no visible signs of injury or trauma. Pulse, steady; blood pressure, slightly elevated; breathing, normal...Cops found him. No shoes, for some crazy reason."
"Take him to number 3...I'll make sure Doctor Miller takes a look at him. Any ID?"
"Yeah, I think so. Here's his wallet. Hmm...Got what looks like a ticket stub or somethin'...Huh! This ain't like nothing I ever seen, though. There's all these weird-lookin' card made out of plastic, or somethin'...What the heck is a 'VISA' ?"
"I don't know."
"Okay...Here's something with his picture on it. Name says Anthony D. DiNozzo. Get this: his birthdate is 1971! This has gotta be a joke..."
"What? 1971? Definitely a joke. It's 1969. He wouldn't even be born yet. Who does this guy think he's trying to fool with this?"
Tony DiNozzo was struggling to make sense of what was going on. He was hearing voices. One male, the other female. He was on his back on a very uncomfortable surface, and was feeling a vague sensation of motion. Before he even dared open his yes, his sense of smell began to inform him he was in some kind of antiseptic environment.
"Mr. DiNozzo?"
Tony turned his head toward the sound of the masculine-sounding voice, and grimaced slightly. He cracked his eyes open and blinked against the harsh overhead lights. As his sight adjusted, Tony realised he was in some kind of hospital. Peering over him with concerned and somewhat confused expressions were a man and a woman. The man was dressed like an orderly from the 60s, and the woman like a nurse from the same era.
The nurse smiled when she saw him blinking back at them. "Glad to see you're awake, Mr., uh, DiNozzo," she said. "I'm Julia. Can you tell me where you are?"
"A hospital, by the looks of it," Tony answered.
"Good. I'm going to ask you a couple more questions, okay?"
"Sure," Tony said, thinking that she was pretty darned cute, and somewhat familiar. He flashed her his best smile, doing his best to pour on the charm.. "Ask me anything."
Julia took his flirting in stride. "What's the day today?"
"Friday," Tony said.
"Okay...Can you tell me who the President of the United States is?"
"For now, it's George W. Bush," Tony replied without hesitation.
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, and she looked sideways at Tony, then looked at her colleague. The orderly mouthed the word 'Psych', and made a quiet, but hasty departure.
"Not a fan of 'Dubya'?" Tony asked.
"'Dubya'?" Julia said in a puzzled, questioning tone.
"Yeah," Tony said. "You know, as in 'George 'double-you' Bush?" He traced a 'W' in the air with his finger.
Julia pursed her lips.
"What, did I say something wrong?"
"Oh, no," Julia replied mildly. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just waiting for Dr. Miller to come check you out."
"Oh, okay," Tony said, thinking to himself that she was obviously hedging. He kept getting the sinking feeling what something was very, very wrong. For one thing, he noted the complete lack of computerized hospital equipment. He'd been inside hospitals many times to know that none of them were as outmoded as this one seemed. And furthermore, how'd he even get here? The last thing he remembered doing was...what, exactly? As he lay on the gurney, Tony tried to avoid the growing sense of unease in the pit of his stomach.
"Excuse me, Julia," Tony said tentatively, "this is going to sound really looney-bin, but...you see, heh, I think I uh, hit my head, or something, and I'm having a little lapse in my memory..."
Julia looked at him expectantly. "What is it?"
"What year is it?"
"That's what I'm supposed to ask," Julia said.
"C'mon, humour me, please," Tony begged.
The pretty, brunette nurse answered with a sigh: "It's 1969."
Tony smiled to hide his alarm. "1969! Ri-i-ight! Thanks. Of course it's 1969." He tried to sound relieved, but his mind was reeling. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto, he thought to himself. Either that, or this is one really tripped-out dream...
ooo
Maybe it's time I lay off the bourbon, Leroy Jethro Gibbs thought to himself. He was standing on the top step of a flight of stairs, door leading out ajar. He looked alternately between the basement and the upper level. Gibbs wiped his bleary eyes and blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't just 'seeing things'. Down below, he could see the boat he was building (all hand-tools!). He knew there were people who thought he was crazy to build a boat in his own basement with no means of getting it out, but he didn't mind. Everything looked perfectly in order in the basement – his basement. But up top, on the ground level of the house, things were not perfectly in order. They looked, in fact, decidedly foreign to Gibbs.
Taking a tentative step across the threshold, Gibbs walked into a hall that was not his; made a quick tour around the premises. He saw a kitchen and living room that was not his; a worktable with what appeared to be a ham radio that most definitely was not his. The décor looked quite dated, as if the owners of the house hadn't redone anything or remodelled in 35 years, but it didn't look old or decrepit. There was even a record player queued up with an Elvis Presley record in the living room.
Where the hell am I? Is this a dream? Gibbs asked himself. Things sure looked, felt, smelled real enough...
Motion caught his attention. Small. Black-and-white. A pink tongue was soon licking his ankle. Gibbs looked down and saw a Dalmatian puppy happily frisking about, clearly unperturbed by his presence. Briefly forgetting his confusion over where he was, Gibbs smiled indulgently and scratched the little dog behind the ears. The dog yapped and begged for more.
"All right, you little mutt," Gibbs said, and rubbed its belly. "Where's your master, bud?" He checked for dogtags, and saw it read 'Elvis'. Who names their dog 'Elvis'? Gibbs thought, but remembered the Elvis Presley record he saw earlier. Whoever lives here must be a serious fan of 'The King'.
Hardly believing what he was doing, Gibbs systematically and cautiously combed the upstairs rooms much in the same way he would as a Federal Agent while combing unfamiliar territory. He was searching for any signs of human life.
"Anybody here?" he called out. It occurred to him that if the owners of the home were there, they would probably think it extremely odd that a stranger suddenly popped into their residence.
Gibbs finished his tour of the upper level, which included a full bath, master bedroom, and a smaller room that looked like it belonged to a young boy. And that boy was a New York Mets fan. All the rooms were devoid of human occupancy, even though the hour suggested by several clocks in the house would indicate it was bed-time for any decent human being; especially a school-aged child.
He could think of only a couple other times in his life when he felt this lost and disoriented, and almost convinced himself he was experiencing an extremely lucid dream.
Gibbs tried to think very logically about what his next move ought to be.
Sit down, relax, and wait until I wake up? Sleep off the effects of the bourbon?
Then, illogically, he thought: What if this family decides to come home?
What if I just go back into the basement? Just go back down to the boat. Then maybe this dream will end, and everything will make sense again...
He approached the door to the basement, opened it, and was shocked to see that it no longer contained a boat-in-progress.
Boy, I'm really going to have to talk with Ducky about this one in the morning, Gibbs thought. I've never had such a vivid dream in my life...
ooo
Dr. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard shut the door of an autopsy locker, and rotated his tired shoulders. He discarded his gloves in the bio-hazard bin, finished his routine clean-up and scrub-down, filed some papers for the lab, switched off the lights and made for the exit. As he stepped out, he felt a strange sense of vertigo, and paused to steady himself. His vision swam for a moment, and he shut his eyes. When he opened them, he was staring down a long, dim hall. Turning back to face the door, he saw it was not his Autopsy door. It said 'MORGUE' instead, and it was a single door, not stainless steel ones that shussed open with an electric eye that detected motion. He turned around again and stared down the hall. He started to make his way tentatively down towards the end where there was an elevator that only went up, but it surely wasn't the elevator he knew from NCIS.
Where in blazes am I? The Medical Examiner thought to himself. Oh, dear...they say dementia runs in the family...am I going mad? How old was Mother when she started showing signs of going batty?
Ducky extended a shaking finger to press the 'up' button to call the elevator to his level. I'm either losing my mind, or I've nodded off to sleep at work, and this is simply a highly-enhanced nocturnal vision.
The elevator doors opened, and with renewed confidence, Ducky stepped inside and pressed for the ground level. If this was a dream, he decided he was going to try his best to enjoy it. If he was lucky, he might even be able to direct its course like he'd been able to do on rare occasions.
That notion was quickly dashed, however, when the elevator arrived and doors opened to reveal what he recognized to be a hospital. Ducky was shocked to hear a familiar voice crying out in desperation.
"Wait!"
Is that Tony?! Ducky thought incredulously.
A different voice, comforting but firm: "Keep still, Mr. DiNozzo. We're not going to hurt you."
"Did I say Bush was president? I meant Kennedy – I mean Nixon! Nixon's president of the United States! I don't need to be...se-da-ted..."