Too Smart for His Own Good

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This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

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Too Smart for His Own Good

Chapter Four - First Contact

For over an hour - or was it a month, he couldn't tell - Al's surroundings spun around him. The dizziness and intensity of the disorientation made death seem pretty appealing. However, that particular appeal had been presented to him before and he always managed to resist the temptation. The incessant buzzing sound started to trail off and everything slowed down finally. His hands shook. An icy chill in his bones made them feel actually brittle, as if any movement on his part might snap them. He didn't know exactly where in space any of his limbs were. Maybe he was seated or standing or lying down or floating in air. All of that seemed right, but it was only by seeing his hands and feet touching the floor that he knew he was lying flat in a cold sterile room.

So far, he managed to survive all of Lothos' tortures, but he had a gut feeling he was supposed to survive. The enjoyment here was in the infliction of pain. If he died, then the game, the fun, was over. Zoë walked in smiling, "Hello, Admiral. How are we today?"

There was no way he'd tell her the truth. "Peachy and you?"

"Splendid. We were monitoring your precious Beth. They're going to drug you now. They think you're mentally ill, so psychotic that you're doing all this to yourself. Isn't that a wonderful little surprise? Lothos now has a whole new perspective on your stay here."

He had to maintain any energy he might have. Wasting it with her word games wasn't on his list of priorities. "I'm thrilled."

She paid no attention to him at all. "Now instead of inventing little games for you, you'll get to replay games from the past."

The idea of reliving the terrors of his past made his blood run even colder than it already felt. He was not going to give in. "Hell, if I survived it the first time, I can do it again."

Still no reaction from him. "I thought moving chronologically would be fun, but then Lothos said random moments were so much better. You wouldn't be able to prepare yourself then. The cruelty of that," she turned to face him, "is incredibly wonderful, don't you think?"

He shakily stood up to face her and the upcoming agony. "I think Lothos isn't worth a pile of five cent washers. You're worth even less and that's a shame. You had potential, woman. Looks like yours shouldn't be wasted."

She let out a tiny bemused sigh, "I'm hurt, Admiral. By the way, this first little peek at your past was my idea. Enjoy yourself." Her long legs took her away and Al waited for whatever was going to happen next.

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"Ziggy, why did you override the security to let me in?"

"I have a theory, Allegra. I'm not sure anyone will believe me, but in order to verify it, I'll need your help." The young girl was confused. Ziggy continued, "Your mesons and neurons match your father's better than any of your siblings, almost identical. I need you to go into the Imaging Chamber to find your father."

The statement puzzled her. Everyone knew where her father was. "Dad's in a hospital in Albuquerque. You know that."

"I'm not sure he is, at least I'm not sure that all of him is."

Allie was 16 years old, not a child, but still far from an adult. She couldn't even begin to understand the project her father and Uncle Sam designed, but if Ziggy needed her, that was that. "You need me to go where?"

"The Imaging Chamber is the room up the ramp to your right. Inside there is a silver disk on the floor. You have to stand on that disk while I try to center you on your father." There was a hesitation. Allie didn't move and Ziggy noticed. "You're right to be afraid. I'm not sure what you'll see in the Imaging Chamber."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"If I'm right, then you'll see your father wherever he has landed."

"You know that I don't understand any of this."

"You don't have to, but, Allegra, your father may be in more trouble than you think he is. What you're going to see may not be easy to see. On the other hand, if I'm wrong, you may see nothing at all."

"If he needs me, then I'm here."

"Oh, and just so you know, sometimes the Imaging Chamber can be a bit upsetting to your stomach. There is a bathroom opposite the entry. At any time, just take care of yourself." She was getting more nervous. "Allegra, I promise you, you will not be hurt by this. I won't allow anything to happen to you. Do you trust me?"

Most of her life she'd trusted Ziggy to bring her father home each night. So far, Ziggy had done okay. "I guess. I want my dad back and if I can help, I will."

"Good. Do you see that flashing box on the console?" She nodded. "Take that with you. It's called a handlink. That's how you and I will communicate."

She picked up the box and stared at all the lights and buttons. "I don't know how to work this."

"Just talk into it. If I have to give you any information, you'll see it on the handlink screen, so keep looking there. Your father had a tendency to whack it on occasions, but I recommend that you not try that. Are you ready?"

Her tone was decidedly fearful, but she said, "Sure, let's go." Her stride, the way she held her head, her courage were all replications of her father. She hesitated a fraction of a second when the door slid open, but setting her shoulders, she marched right onto the disk and called out, "Ziggy, center me on Dad."

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Beth and Sam walked into Al's room and nothing was different. The same machines monitored the same vital functions. The same ugly fluorescent lights illuminated the same IV stands. The same fluids dripped into his veins. Nothing changed. Nothing ever changed until he had an "episode" as they were now referred to. Beth's greeting didn't change either. Her hand gently pushed his curls from his forehead. She whispered into his ear, "Hi, honey," and then kissed his lips hoping for a return kiss from him. It hadn't happened since he was checked in. Nothing was different.

Sam walked to the other side and took Al's hand. "Hi, buddy." It wasn't that he expected a response. It's that he wished for one so badly it broke his heart to have it denied day after day. There was no active response from Al, not even an increase in heart rate that was abnormally steady. He was just there, a body with no substance.

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Zoë walked out of his pretty cell and it began. Al was thrown against the wall hard. His breath disappeared and his head hurt. The room spun again and when it stopped, he was somewhere and sometime else. By skin and bone wrists tied together, Al hung, suspended from a tall pole. The pain in his arms and chest was killing. A shredded pair of pants cut short covered very little of his body. He felt the burning sun raise blister after blister. The swelling of his face kept him from seeing his surroundings. Seeing wasn't necessary though. The stench and the heat told him he was in Vietnam about to relive his most incomprehensibly hellish day. He told himself to remember it was only a memory and memories couldn't begin to touch the reality.

The guards yelled at him in Vietnamese spoken too quickly for him to understand. The words didn't matter anyhow. The upshot was always the same. Thin rubber strips made superior whips and each time one snapped down across his back, he flinched with the pain. It was only a memory. Another crack and the blood splattered. The ooze of wet blood evaporating off his burned skin was cooling and almost welcome, until the next whip came down and the next and the next. Each stripe forced an explosive sound of pain from his throat. Al tried not to give them the satisfaction of hearing the agony, but there was nothing he could do. Crack! He yelled out. But this was only a memory. It shouldn't hurt. Crack! He couldn't stop himself. His pain filled the jungle with human sounds of hell. Crack! Crack! And he finally begged forgiveness, the result his captors wanted. Capitulation and humiliation was the goal and they always won.

When they finally cut him down, he fell to the jungle floor. His hands had no feeling. His arms wouldn't move in the direction he asked them. Poked by bayonets and cattle prods, a jab to his ribs sent shocks through his gut. He retched, but with no food in his system, all that he vomited was blood. The bayonet pierced his arm; a stab of electricity arched his back, but these were only memories. They couldn't really hurt. It was just a cruel joke used by Lothos to taunt him.

Giving no thought to his injuries, the guards dragged Al to a bamboo cage and shackled him to the four corners, each arm and leg pulled as far as possible, leaving him open to any kind of damage they still felt the need to inflict. Sugar-water poured onto his face and chest, into the bleeding stab wound on his arm. It only took minutes for the ants to come, crawling from a gray hole at the edge of his vision, thousands of them all over his body, biting him, crawling into his ears and nose, trying to crawl into his mouth. He thought he couldn't hurt more, but every ant bite made him realize he was wrong. Each nip felt like a knife cutting through his thin skin. The sugar-water mixed with his blood and it all was finally too much. It sounded out as one long paralyzing wail that was never-ending.

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Sam and Beth stood at the bedside listening to the screams and knowing nothing they did would stop them or whatever it was that created them. Nothing would stop Al, but time. This was one of the worst episodes he had. The terror on Al's face petrified Beth. It was so obvious he was in agony, a kind of agony nothing medical could initiate. Maybe it was mental illness. It was so apparent to her he was being tortured. She lost all composure when she heard him beg, "Please, I'll sign whatever you want. I'll sign!"

"Oh, God, Sam. He is mentally ill. Why didn't I see this?" She held onto Sam and cried at the psychological assassination of her husband.

Donna came rushing in. "I could hear Al from the elevator!" She saw Sam trying to comfort Beth. "He's talking!" She listened to his words and realized why Beth was beyond consoling, but Sam was with her. Donna went to Al's side and held him close. "It's okay, Al. You're home. Vietnam is over. You're home."

Hearing Donna brought Beth back to Al's side. She should be the one whispering those comforting words. "Please, Donna, let me hold him." Donna gently transferred the Admiral into his wife's arms. "I'm here, baby. You're home with me. The war is over, long over."

Sam and Donna looked at each other. They knew the truth. The war was just beginning.

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Allie stood watching lights swirl around her. Ziggy tried for over an hour to find Al with no luck. Three upchucking trips to the bathroom later Allie yelled out, "Ziggy, I see something! Keep going!" Ziggy intensified the search, centering on the instant Allie cried out. Moments later the 16-year-old yelled out again, "Stop! I can see something! Stop! I know he's here!"

Ziggy settled in and Allie found herself in a place completely foreign to her experience. She had no idea what to do. She was just a kid involved in an experiment that wasn't supposed to involve her at all. The thought occurred to her to take a deep breath, but all of a sudden breathing seemed too hard. It took concentration, but finally her lungs expanded and she got air. "Ziggy? Where am I?" There was no sympathetic voice to provide guidance, but there was a handlink. Not sure of what to do, she looked at the view screen. It simply read, "Vietnam, 1972."

"Dad is here somewhere, isn't he?" She didn't need Ziggy to tell her where. A scream cut through the air. It was a terrifying sound, but one she had heard before, in the middle of the night when her father was having a nightmare. "Ziggy, where is he?"

Again she expected to hear an answer and then remembered the handlink. The view screen pointed her north. She crept through the brush and the camp came into view. She saw a trail of ugly ants and tried to brush them off her legs, but then she realized she was a hologram. Nothing she saw could touch her nor could she touch it. Grateful the ants weren't a worry, she walked further. The ants seemed to be moving toward a cage. A few steps closer and she saw a hand, then a bleeding arm. "Oh God, there's a person in there."

The handlink whistled and read "Inhabitant of cage - Admiral Calavicci."

She began to run toward him, not stopping to think what she would see. Her tender years and sheltered lifestyle didn't prepare her for the mess of a human before her. The terrible cries turned to whimpers of swallowed pain. He shook his head flinging the ants off, but they were in control of the situation and were taking their time. Allie dropped to her knees to see if she could help. "Daddy? Daddy?" The prisoner turned to see if he was dreaming. Her imagination had painted pictures of her father's incarceration, but none were as ugly as this reality. "Daddy, I'm here. What do I do to get you out?"

Speaking was hard, but he had to know, "How did you get here?"

She futilely tried to get the attacking insects off her father's face. "Ziggy thought she could find you. Oh, Daddy. I can't get the ants away."

"Go back now. It's too dangerous." He tried to shake the ants off his eyes.

"But no one knows you're here. They think you're in the hospital."

"Tell Uncle Sam it's Lothos and Zoë. Now go!"

"Lobo and who?"

Spitting out the ants creeping into his mouth, he repeated, "Lothos and Zoë. Get out of here, Allie. If they find you here . . ." The thoughts of what they would do to his precious child almost made him scream again. "You have to go. They don't want me dead. They're not going to kill me. Go before they see you."

The sight of her father's agonized body froze her to the spot. She didn't even know how to stand up. "I don't want to leave."

Al's pain was only magnified with his child's presence. She was too young to see him like this, too young to be used by Ziggy for some experiment. "Allie, tell Ziggy to open the door. Then find Sam. You tell him Lothos and Zoë. Lothos and Zoë. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." Her feet still couldn't move."

"Allie, get the hell out of here."

Her father's life was in her hands and she finally got it together and took command. Firmly she told the handlink, "Ziggy, open the door, now!" The white light of safety beckoned. She moved toward it, looking back one last time at her father still fighting off the biting insects. "I'll be back, Daddy. I promise you."

The ramp down into the Control Room wasn't steep at all, but her footing slipped and she fell to the floor in a heap. The handlink skittled off under the console. Exhausted and afraid, she ran out of the Control Room and into the hallways. Once in more familiar territory, she ran like bloody hell toward help, toward anyone who would listen and believe her.

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Al calmed down and returned to that unknown state, inanimate again. Beth, Donna and Sam sat around his bed hoping to calm him should his fears return. His wife said, "He's never had flashbacks like that before."

Sam still held the Admiral's hand. "Are you sure it was a flashback? I mean he was calling for Allie. That wouldn't be part of a flashback, Beth. Would it?"

Her face tensed up, "What are you talking about? He didn't call for Allie."

His gut tightened and he shrugged off the comment, hoping no one would pursue his own apparent madness. He wanted to divert attention, so he asked, "Did he ever tell you what they did to him there?"

Some memories of Al's were not to be shared and what they did to him was number one on that list. Al didn't want Beth to know and his own way of handling pain was to file it away under lock and key, so words never were put to the atrocities. "When he had nightmares, sometimes he'd talk in his sleep and I could find out things, but he can't talk about what they did to him." Beth looked at Donna, "Yes, I know what that sounds like and after this last episode, I'm not sure anymore. This was like a flashback, but the worst he ever went through."

Donna reflected, "I didn't mean to hurt you, Beth. Sometimes it's hard when you're married to the most almost perfect man in the universe. I should know!" It was an attempt to lighten the mood, but the gravity of Al's situation weighed too heavily.

"A lot of the boys I saw in the '70s were in trouble because of PTSS, but this is beyond anything I've ever seen."

No one spoke. The monitors beeped and whirred. The enormity of Al's circumstance was trying its best to sink into their heads, but they had no understanding at all. A mind as powerful as Al's, if it was twisted into profound psychosis, would be hard to unlock, especially if he fought the help he desperately needed.

Sam broke the silence. "Beth, I don't know if his body can tolerate much more." Sam pointed out black and blue marks on Al's arms. "This is taking a toll on him. Look at the bruises."

Beth tenderly pulled back the sheet covering Al's legs and checked to see if there were more and she found large patches of discolored skin. "Why didn't I see these before?" An angry red, blue and purple mark covered Al's left calf. "This is from his own muscles cramping up. I've heard of this happening, but I've never seen it."

No one could sustain this agony for long, but Sam realized Al would be sustaining it for a very long time. Shaking that thought from his mind, he said, "I think Dr. Langford needs to give Al a complete physical before we transfer him back to the project."

The morning's tumult gave Beth second thoughts. "I don't know if we can do this at home."

The exhaustion in Beth's eyes was easy to see. Donna could see that the prospect of living with Al in this condition was sinking in. She offered, "Beth, we can all help out. I don't like the idea of Al in a nursing home. They won't pay the right kind of attention to him."

She was his wife, but she was also the mother of his children. "At home, Allie will have to deal with this and I know my child. She is Daddy's girl. This could devastate her."

Sam had to intervene, "I think it already is devastating her. She wants to be with him and we haven't really let her come much." Quietly, almost to himself he said, "I think Al misses her."

"She has to concentrate on school. If I let that drop, Al will have my head. Allie's the brightest of all the girls. Gia, Toni and Peri all know it, but not Allie. Kind of funny, don't you think? Al doesn't want her to know, yet." She found a smile, something she didn't think she still had. "Sam, he told me your folks never let you know how smart you were and that worked out really well for you."

The compliment warmed Sam. "That's nice of him to say."

"Al is so good, but the one thing he always doubted was his ability to parent and I think that's what he does best." Thinking about Al and her youngest child made her continue on. "Allie is so much his kid, it's scary. She has his intelligence and his imagination, incredible imagination. Sometimes, when I hear her tell her ideas to Al, I can't figure out what her thought processes must be like, but he always understands her. This is killing to her. If anything more happens to her father, I don't know if she could handle it."

Pragmatist Donna brought everyone back on track. "I know this is important for you to talk about, but we need to make plans to bring him home."

"If they're going to give him electroshock, then we aren't bringing him home, yet. He'll be transferred to a psych hospital for treatment." As Beth said the words, she shook with a chill.

Sam still didn't like the idea. "I know I don't remember much from my leaps, but I know what electroshock is like. Don't do that to his brain. You have no idea how much it hurts."

Donna took his hand. "Sweetheart, what happened to you happened over 40 years ago. It's a lot different now. If he needs the electroshock to bring him back, then we owe it to him to allow Dr. Ballard to try."

"It's too radical a treatment. Please, don't do it. Let's get him home. We need to give him a chance to come back on his own."

Trying to keep up with Sam's changing attitudes was frustrating Donna. "You're the one who just said we have to do something soon."

He stared into her eyes with a coldness she never saw before. "You can't give him electroshock. It will kill him."

"How can you know that?"

"Because I know." Stammering was all he could do. "I just know." The recollection was forming more solidly. "If he hadn't been there for me, I would have died."

Donna had to get through to him. "That's right, Sam and how did he make sure you made it? Do you remember that part?" He wanted to forget it, but he understood what she was saying. "I can tell you remember, Sam. He forced you to take an electroshock treatment and it saved your life."

"This is not the same thing, Donna. I had to do that because of the first treatment. If I hadn't had that one, the second wouldn't have been necessary."

Debate stopped when a nurse entered. "Excuse me, Mrs. Calavicci, but there's a phone call for you. It's your daughter Gia. She said it's important." Beth followed her out.

Alone with Al, Donna had to talk to Sam. "Listen, I can't begin to know how you feel about the Havenwell incident, but Al needs help. Sam, this is insanity at its worst and ugliest. Al has managed to survive so far, but he's only human. He's lived through so much hell. You should have been here when you were able to convince Beth to wait for Al back in 1970. They had a hard time. Al remembered the life he had without her, but Beth didn't. None of us did. Only Al has lived all the timelines. He needed some heavy-duty time with Verbena, but he wouldn't do it because he thought he might jeopardize you and the Project." For the first time in days, he was really listening to her. "You have to realize that his end of this deal was pretty awful. He remembers everything and because of that, he's lived his life hundreds of times. I'm completely amazed that he's done this well so far."

"And now he's crazy." Saying the words made him shudder.

"Not crazy, Sam. He has a mental illness, no different than pneumonia or cancer."

A moment of thought made Sam say, "It is a cancer, isn't it."

Donna had no answer to his question and even if she did, she didn't want to answer him. They sat diligently keeping watch over their friend.

Beth came back in, distraught and anxious. "Gia called. She said Allie is saying some very strange things. Things about Ziggy putting her in the Imaging Chamber and centering her on Al. Sam, I think I need your help on this. Would you come back to the Project with me?" They left Donna to watch over the ailing Admiral and drove back to Stallion's Gate as fast as they could.