A LEAP TO THE STARS
Part II - Only a Day Away
Stallions Gate, New Mexico, December 23rd, 1999...
Threatening to be even more colorful then the Control Room six floors below, the decorations and lights strung from the walls and ceiling of the PQL Cafeteria glowed and twinkled gaily, as the assembled scientific staff and Military Officers milled about in pairs and groups, while "All Star" by Smash Mouth blared from unseen speakers.
Seated behind the rear-most table, Albert "Al" Calavicci hunched on the long bench and glared morosely at the un-lit tip of the cigar currently clenched between his stubby fingers.
The Rear Admiral didn't know what annoyed him more, the Cafeteria's ban on smoking, or the awful music currently assaulting his poor eardrums. Not that he didn't like rock music, he dearly loved the classics. Hell, he had even played a semi-direct hand at helping it turn from an American fad into an international obsession. But this new super-charged, octane-fast stuff pounded out too quickly even for the former 'Nam POW.
Guess I'm finally starting to show my sixty-five years. At least it's not "Livin' La Vida Orca", or whatever. Ugh, if Tina plays that Ricky Martin CD in my quarters even ONE more time-
"She's into superstitions, black cats and voodoo dolls!" the sound-system blared, "I feel a premonition, that girl's gonna make me fall!"
His fingers clenched, bending the long stogie into a 'V' shape. Oi vey...
"Al! Al!" the Project's lead Pulse Communication technician jiggled toward his location, arms outstretched and grinning like a Christmas elf high on sarsaparilla, "They're playin our song, Al! Howsabout we dance."
Howsabout we don't, Al rubbed at his forehead and fought not to grimace. "Tina, heh, I don't think I'm feeling that well. Might be coming down with the flu or something. So, baby, maybe we shouldn't-"
"Oh, Al, don't be such a stick in the mud." she seized his arms and hauled him to his feet, began dragging him to the open space in the middle of the hexagon-shaped room, where at least two of the gathered forty-three were dancing up a storm while the rest of the crowd did their very best not to pay attention.
"Tina, come on, I don't wanna. Seriously, I have a headache."
The buxom blonde giggled as she towed him toward the middle of the makeshift disco, "Heh, you never let me use that excuse. Or any other, for that matter. In fact, I tried and failed to use it last night. Come on, Al, you promised you'd dance with me at the Staff Christmas party, and surprise, here we are! So, dance."
He was still resistant, "Slow dance, sure. You know me, I'm always up for a some cheek-to-cheek action, but-"
"What kind of cheeks, Admiral?" inquired a thin, mustached man innocently from the sidelines.
Al shot PQL's Head Programmer a scathing look, "Oh, can it, Gooshie, and drink your punch."
He looked back to his now-gyrating girlfriend who was humming along to the horrible lyrics. For a moment Al was struck breathless by the bouncing parts of her anatomy, but he was knocked back to reality by a sudden high-pitched squealing coming from the pocket of his vermillion sports jacket. He fought not to grin and stuffed a hand into it, pulled the blinking handlink free.
Tina scowled and stopped dancing, "Oh no, don't you dare!"
Al shrugged, feigning disappointment, "Sorry, babe, but duty calls." and hustling past her he headed for the exit, moving a bit faster then his normal walking speed.
"Al!" she shouted at his back, "Al, you come back here!"
But the widely-grinning Rear Admiral knifed through the half-open doors and into the white-walled corridor, then broke into a run for the nearest elevator. Thank-you, Ziggy! I owe you BIG TIME!
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Six levels below...
The doors split and the serenely happy Italian strode forth into the twilight-lit Control Room, smoke billowing from the tip of the now-lit cigar. He nodded to the Ensign manning the boxy control panel, then looked to the ceiling, "Okay, Ziggy, this had better be good. Tina is ready to have puppies down there."
"According to my anatomical data, Admiral, that would be physically impossible. Last time I checked, Miss Martinez-O'Farrell is human, not canine, making it highly improbable for her womb to be able to bear pups. In fact, I believe that the term hound-dog would actually apply to YOU, not her."
"Oh, haha." Al glowered at the parallel hybrid computer's suspended compu-sphere, "Look, are you going to tell me why you pulled me away from the party, or not?"
"Of course, Admiral. The reason I summoned you up here is because somebody has appeared in the Waiting Room."
"Oh?" he exhaled smoke out his nostrils in relief, "So, Sam finally put down, huh? Good, about darn time he showed up." While for Dr. Beckett the time between leaps appeared to be mere moments, for the Project supporting him sometimes days or even weeks passed before they could locate where and when he had traveled to, making for lots of overtime for Ziggy's support team, as well as many sleepless nights for the Rear Admiral. But this time it had only been nineteen hours since Sam had finished his last "assignment" and vanished.
And a better moment for him to show up I can't remember, Al puffed on his mostly-straightened stogie, though Tina would-and probably will-disagree...
"So, where is he?"
"As I told you, Admiral, in the Waiting Room. You know, down the hallway, third door on the right."
"No, not the nozzle Sam Leaped into, you dolt!" Al rolled his eyes, "Where is Sam himself!"
But amazingly, the artificial intelligence made no reply. Indeed, the seconds continued to pass and the two of them, garishly-glowing hybrid computer and swarthy homosapien, fought a staring contest that would have confused even Freud, until the tobacco-addicted Naval Officer finally gave in.
"Ziggy! What the heck is going on here?"
"...Admiral...I-you will just have to go see for yourself."
"For myself? Whatever then, you stupid box of after-market parts." he scowled, then squared his shoulders and turned about, headed for the Imaging Chamber, muttering hexes under his breath.
But Ziggy called him back, "Um, Admiral, no."
Al whirled back around, "No? No? Look, have you gone bonkers? Did Gooshie slip you a slug of the spiked-punch and chicken-fry your circuits? How the hell am I supposed to 'see for myself' if I don't go into the Imaging Chamber?"
"Because at this moment I firmly believe that your presence would be better served in the Waiting Room."
"Why?"
"As I said, you will just have to see for yourself."
"Ziggy!"
"Admiral..."
Al glared at the pulsating sphere, then spat a line of smoke-rings up at it and stalked out of the Control Room and into the connecting corridor. By the time he turned the corner leading to the WR he was ready to chew steel, but all thoughts of strangling the hybrid computer vanished like the wind as he caught sight of the woman standing at the Waiting Room portal, while a pair of uniformed MPs stood off to the side.
He halted and hastily stubbed out his cigar, "Donna? Uh, heh, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be, um, up at the party?"
"Ziggy asked me to come down here." she said in an oddly-quiet voice.
"He did?" I'm gonna KILL that stupid toaster! I'm gonna bash in his boards with a poker. That's if I actually had a poker. Okay, what can I use? Maybe a fire extinguisher...
"I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with him, Ziggy shouldn't have done that."
"Al?" Dr. Elesee asked absently, never taking her eyes from the thin rectangle of retractable one-way glass that allowed somebody outside the WR to observe it's occupant without being seen, "Why do you always call Ziggy a 'he', when the computer has an obviously female voice and personality?"
"What? Um, well, I dunno, because...because..." he scratched his chin, "Look, Donna, are you okay? Because you sound...odd."
"With good reason."
Her tone of voice, combined with Ziggy's evasiveness, was really starting to give the Admiral the creeps, "Okay, what gives? Why are you up here? You never come to the Waiting Room-"
"Actually, I come here all the time."
The Admiral blinked, surprised, "You do? I didn't know that."
"You weren't supposed to, Al, because I knew it would depress you."
"Depress me? But you're the one who-um, I mean...uh..."
"I know what you mean." Donna said severely, still galvanized to the strip of glass, "I'm the one who's husband has been lost in time for nearly five years, except that if I ever want to see him all I have to do is come up here to the Waiting Room, and there he is. Or, rather, some stranger ripped from the past who I've never met is inside projecting Sam's perfect aura."
"Well, not to me." Al said firmly, stabbing the air with his crooked and half-crushed stogie, "The mesons and neurons linking Sam and me allow me to see past the aura and view the true face of whoever's in the WR."
"Care to bet on that?" chuckled Dr. Beckett's temporally-estranged wife, but her tone was completely lacking in mirth of any kind.
"Huh? What the devil are you talking about? Okay, has every woman in this facility gone wacko-jacko? Tina's trying to wash out my brain with Ricky Martin, Ziggy's gone wiggy, and now you're up here torturing yourself by looking at Sam! And it's not really Sam! It's-"
"Al!" growled Donna.
"WHAT!"
"Look!" and she stepped out of the way, pointed at the glass.
He rolled his eyes and stomped forward, halted before the magnetically-secured portal and peered through. The white-clad occupant was standing with his back to the door and staring at the blue wall, while leaning against the Waiting Room's only piece of furniture, a high mirrored table mounted atop a ramped dais, which the Rear Admiral's best arguments had yet to have removed, as the Project's lead psychologist Dr. Beeks was adamant the Leapee needed to see Sam's reflection.
Like they need any MORE shocks to the system, being ripped out of their own time and place and clothes to be plunged into a glowing blue chamber, complete with a skin-tight white leotard that never seems to get dirty, scowled the Admiral.
"I don't understand, Donna, it's just some guy, like it almost always is. Yay for Sam, 'cause I don't think he can take being any more women."
"Just wait a moment."
"For what?" Al was about ready to burst here, and-wait, this new guy, his bearing showed him to be annoyed and bored, not the usual state of somebody newly-arrived to the WR. More often then not they appeared scared and nervous, and they couldn't stop looking at...at...
Why isn't he looking at his reflection?
Donna fidgeted beside him, "You're asking yourself why he isn't looking at himself in the table, right? Why he isn't trying to figure out why the face of Sam has somehow been switched for his own."
"Yeah...it seems sort of-"
"-odd? Hah, Al, you don't know the half of it."
"What do you mean-" and then he saw, as the guy at last turned around.
Al gawked in astonishment, blinked, rubbed at his eyes. It-It was Sam!
"Ohhh, now I get it, it's not everybody else who's gone nuts, it's me! I knew depriving myself of cigars could lead to this. Stupid Christmas party. But how'd it happen so fast?"
"How'd what happen so fast?" Dr. Elesee was confused.
"My mental link to Sam that allows me to see him instead of the person he's Leaped into, and vice versa with the people in the Waiting Room. It's not working. I must be over-tired or something."
"Al! Your link is working just fine! It's the man in the Room! He looks exactly like Sam! Or nearly."
"What?" the Admiral peered through the glass again.
Donna joined him, "See?" and she pressed a key set into the portal's control panel, and the glass polarized with quantum energy, filtering out her husband's aura, leaving behind a near-duplicate of Sam Beckett. Only he looked to be about ten years older then the Doctor, and the white streak was missing from his wavy hair.
"Wha-is it Sam's father?" Al guessed desperately, "He and Sam are dead-ringers for each other, you know. And he's bumped into him at least twice so far, back in time."
Donna shook her head, "Yes, I know he has. But no, that's not Sam's father. He says his name is Jonathan-"
"Hah!" cheered Al, "That's it, it IS him! Sam's father is named John!"
"Not J-O-H-N." she spelled, "It's Jonathan. J-O-N-A-"
"I know how to spell Jonathan. But maybe his mind is swiss-cheesed. Wait, of course it's swiss-cheesed, it always is."
"I know that, but this man says he is a Captain."
"A Captain? A Captain of what?"
Dr. Elesee chewed her lip, "Um..."
"Will all you females STOP holding back on the info! I know it's a personality quirk of your gender, but your only supposed to do it for romantic purposes, not in matters of life-and-death! Because every second you hold out on me, is another second Sam's back wherever the heck in time he is, working blind! I need to know what's going on, for his sake and ours, and I need to know it NOW!"
Donna fumed, "Are you done?"
"Pretty much."
"Good. Because so am I." and she turned on her heel and stalked away.
Al gaped at the retreating Dr. Elesee as she turned the corner and vanished, but he didn't try to call her back. In fact, he felt relieved she was gone now, because it was making the whole situation much too personal, and if ever there was a time to handle everything with kid gloves it was now. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, then nodded to the waiting MPs and typed a command into the door's controls. They gripped the butts of their automatics as the portal opened, but he stepped through without incident and the entrance sealed up again behind him.
The man Dr. Beckett had Leaped into turned about and fixed him with an appraising stare. "So...who are you supposed to be?" he asked in a voice exactly the same as Sam's, albeit a trace harder and reeking of Military discipline.
Al exhaled darkly, "Oh, boy..."
To be continued...