Chapter Four

Sam lay quietly in the dark patient room. The only light reaching his eyes was the light from the hallway that was creeping underneath the door. Verbena had agreed to let him rest for a few minutes before having to deal with what was happening to him.

But what was happening to him? Was he insane? Could it actually be that he had years of memories of things that had not actually taken place? If that were so then why were the memories so vivid? He could remember every detail of what had happened to him since he started Leaping.

That fact in itself was a miracle. Ever since he had first started Leaping around in time he had been plagued by a certain type of amnesia. He could remember the important things about himself such as his name and where he was born. But there were huge gaps that would fill in occasionally and then fall out again. Things like how old he was when his father passed away, where he had met Al for the first time, and details of the project seemed to fade in and out. It was a phenomenon that he and Al had always referred to as the "swiss cheese" effect.

But now, lying on this gurney in a compound buried underneath the New Mexico desert in the year 1999, he had no gaps in his memory. He knew everything. He knew every detail about the project. He knew everything about every person that he had become on his journey. He even thought that if he sat down and thought about it he could figure out why he had started becoming other people in the first place instead of just traveling in time which was his original intent.

"What if it didn't happen?" Sam asked himself in the darkness. And he continued to ask himself the same thing in his mind. What if everything that had happened to him over the past 15 years had been nothing more than a dream brought on by a concussion?

That was the other thing that was getting to him. How did he know that it had been 15 years? Bouncing around in time did not make it easy to keep up with a calendar. It might be noon and then he would Leap and it would be the middle of the night. Plus the fact that what seemed like an instant between Leaps to him was actually days or even weeks in the present. He should have no concept of actual time. Even so, he found that he was absolutely positive that his present should be fourteen to fifteen years later than where he actually found himself.

The door slid open and a shaft of light filled the room. He sat up on the bed and held a hand up to shield his eyes. There was a figure standing there that was silhouetted by the light from the hallway.

"Lights," the figure said. The lights came on in the room and Sam found that he was staring at a man that at one time had been his best friend in the world.

"Al!" he said. He jumped up and wrapped his arms around the man's body and squeezed him.

"Okay," Al said. "Okay, Sam. Geez! What has gotten into you?"

Sam pulled back but he could not erase the grin that was sprawled across his face. He put his hands on Al's shoulder and poked his chest with his finger.

"I can touch you," Sam said.

"Yeah," Al replied. "I'd appreciate it if you'd stop."

"Sorry," Sam said. "It's just...I haven't seen you in..."

Al interrupted. "Dr. Beeks told me. She said that you think that you haven't seen me in something like ten years. Sam, you've got to get a hold on yourself."

"No, Al," Sam said. "This isn't like when I was in the insane asylum. I know what I'm talking about."

"Insane asylum?" Al said. "You've never been in one of those."

Sam nodded. Of course. He was thinking about one of his Leaps.

"Look," Al said. "We've got to go to the committee in the morning and tell them what happened. They're probably going to pull the funding."

"I know," Sam said. "That's why I got into the accelerator."

"Because you wanted to show them that it worked?" Al asked. Sam nodded. "But it didn't."

"I don't know," Sam said. "I think it did. I remember it working. But then again, I can't explain why I'm here."

"Okay," Al said. He motioned to the bed and told Sam to sit down. He pulled a folding chair over and sat down across from him, placing his uniform hat in his lap. He sighed. "The last thing that we need is for you to go in there and start telling them wild stories. Why don't you tell me what's going on in that brain of yours so we can figure it out."

Sam took a deep breath. "I got into the accelerator on this day in 1999. It was supposed to allow me to time travel to different points within my lifetime."

"I know all of that," Al said.

"Okay. Well, I was enveloped in this blue light and I lost consciousness. When I woke up I was in the past but I was someone else. I was Tom Stratton. He was a test pilot in the Air Force back in the 50s."

Al opened his mouth but then took a breath and closed it.

"I know it sound crazy, Al," Sam said.

"Well, if you had asked me a few years ago I would have told you that the whole idea of time travel was crazy," Al said. "But there is nothing in your theory that would make it possible to become another person."

"I know that," Sam said.

"Okay," Al said. "What happened then?"

"Well, its a long story," Sam said. "We figured out that the only chance that I had to get back was to fix something in Tom's life that had originally gone wrong. But when I did that I didn't come back. I Leaped into someone else."

"And you were lost in time," Al said.

"Right," Sam replied.

"How did you know what you were supposed to change?" Al asked.

"You told me," Sam said.

"Me? I didn't go back in time."

"You used the imaging chamber," Sam replied.

Al nodded. "So, I was a hologram. A lot of people throughout history must have looked at you like you were nuts since you looked like you were talking to yourself."

"Kind of the way you're looking at me now," Sam said. "I don't know how to make you believe me, Al. I can't prove what happened but I know that I'm telling the truth."

"I know that you're telling the truth," Al said. "I believe that you think that this actually happened to you. But we've got to find out why." He stood up and dusted off his coat. "Get some sleep, Sam. I'll be back in a few hours so we can go meet with the committee."

"Why is the committee in charge?" Sam asked.

"What are you talking about?" Al asked. "They've always been in charge."

"But I changed..." Sam trailed off.

"What is it?" Al asked.

"Does my wife work at the project?" he replied.

Al shook his head. "No. She's a teacher. Why?"

"Another one of my Leaps," Sam said. "I remember changing history so that she was in charge of the project while I was gone and the committee had nothing to do with the funding."

"You really were dreaming," Al said with a smile. Sam returned it. "Good night, Sam."

That night Sam slept but it was not restful. He had nightmares continuously throughout the night. He woke up a few times but mostly he drifted in a state between sleep and wakefulness. Surprisingly, the nightmare that he had was the same that he had been having for years. But tonight it was worse. It was as if the clarity had been turned up and he could swear that it was happening for real.

The dream found him walking through a maze of mirrors. It was like the maze that one would find at a state fair or a town carnival except that this one was huge. The corridors of mirrors stretched out for miles and reached high into the sky above him. Every one of them had a different reflection. He could see Samantha Stormer, Tom Stratton, Jimy LaMotta, and Eddie Brackett to name a few. He was surprised to find that he had no trouble recalling their names this time. Usually it was as if he were seeing someone that he knew he should remember but he could not recall why. As he walked down one of the corridors he looked around at the mirrors. He saw Elvis Presley, Bobo the chimp, and Dr. Ruth.

Then he saw it. Ahead of him at the end of the hallway he could make out a house. It was not as big as the house that he grew up in but it looked comfortable. It was his house. At least, it used to be. He knew that if he walked through that door he would find Donna setting the table for dinner.

It was at this point that in the dream that a voice usually boomed from the sky and told him that it was not yet time and the mirrors would all start to fall on him and envelope him.

This time there was no voice.

The mirrors did not fall.

"What does this mean?" Sam asked. "Are you telling me that it's over? I can rest? Is that what you mean?"

He continued walking toward the house. As he did he looked around him at the mirror. They were not falling or crumbling but he could see now that the faces looking back at him were fading. Some of them had disappeared already. Other ones did not look like they would last much longer. In their place there was nothing but empty space.

"No!" Sam said as the meaning of what he was seeing slowly crept into his mind. "No, don't take them! I need them! They need me! Don't let it all be for nothing!"

The mirrors were empty now and they slowly dissolved until there was nothing around him but empty space and the house in the distance. He screamed.

He woke up screaming.

He felt empty.