Quantum leaping through time, I never know what to expect. Ever since a meeting with a mysterious bartender, I had leaped as myself these past few leaps, but now, I am someone else again.
Someone I recognize in history books.
The mirror is framed with fine wood. Dr. Sam Beckett looks into it. He does not see his own face, the brown hair and triangular nose with which he had been reacquainted the past few leaps.
Instead, he sees a man in a suit and tie. The man is in his sixties and bald.
And he looks very familiar, for Sam recognizes the reflection as none other than Dwight David Eisenhower, thirty-fourth President of the United States!
I leaped into the Oval Office yesterday. I had to look around to make sure I was really in the Oval Office, and not some TV or movie set. Since then, I've been mostly playing along. Al has not found out what I am here to do, whether I have to sign a bill Ike originally vetoed, or veto a bill Ike originally signed. And I had to be careful not to accidentally start a global nuclear war.
Sam hears a door open. A young aide, wearing black dress pants over his legs and a black coat over a white collared shirt, and a black necktie around his neck, appears.
"Mr. President," says the aide, "we're ready to go, sir."
"Got it," replies the time traveler.
Suddenly, a white, glowing rectangle appears. Out steps a man in United States Navy dress whites, complete with the cover and the medals pinned to the chest.
He is Al Calavicci, an observer from the future, appearing to Sam in the form of a hologram.
"Sam!" yells the observer. "I know why you leaped into the President! This way!"
The leaper steps out into a hallway in the White House. Al presses buttons on this rectangular device with large buttons of various colors. He appears at the far end of the hallway and waves.
Sam runs after the hologram. Some presidential staffers and Secret Service agents run after the man who looks like President Eisenhower.
"Over here!" yells Al.
Sam runs through the hallway, barely notices the white plaster walls and the plush carpet. He emerges out of the door and onto the lawn behind the White House.
Al points, and the quantum physicist looks. He sees a ladder, and a man.
"Hurry!" yells the observer.
Sam runs to the base of the ladder. He glances upwards, and sees the ladder tipping backward. He pushes against the ladder to stabilize it. Two of the Secret Service agents run towards Sam, and likewise do their best to hold the ladder.
The man on the ladder climbs down. Sam can see that he is dressed in overalls. As he and the others hold the ladder, the man- apparently a White House groundskeeper- slowly climbs down until reaching the grass of the White House lawn.
"Mr. President," says the groundskeeper. "Uh, good morning, sir."
"Good morning," says Sam.
"You did it, Sam," Al, pressing the buttons on the device that he and the time traveler call a handlink. "He lives, he gets married and has a family of his own, and in my time he is more or less comfortably retired."
Unseen by the others, Sam is surrounded by a blue glow. Electricity sparkles, and there is a blue flash of light, which then coalesces around Sam again, who finds himself sitting down.
The blue glow fades.
He notices that he is holding something. He sees it is a piece of paper, and there is a brown stain on it.
I leaped right on a toilet!
He drops the toilet paper into the toilet. Standing up, he feels around until he touches what is unmistakably a flush handle. He presses and hears the familiar sound of a toilet flushing. He looks and sees the toilet bowl empty of anything other than the water filling the bowl.
He glances around. The bathroom is very basic and spartan, with a toilet and a sink and a shower. Two towels hang from a towel rack. It is a far cry from the bathrooms in the White House.
The quantum leaper washes his hands at the sink, soaping them with this orange liquid soap. He glances at the mirror.
I'm not me. And I'm definitely not Ike, or at least the Ike.
Instead of the historically familiar visage of President Eisenhower, Sam sees the reflection of an ordinary-looking man, with short-cropped brown hair and a short brown beard on his chain, looking to be in his thirties.
He leaves the bathroom, going into a simple bedroom with a bed and some dressers and a simple wooden bureau. Going through another door, he reaches a living room with couches, a coffee table, a small sixteen-inch television on a television stand. There is a small kitchenette in an alcove. The stove is electric, and Sam sees what he recognizes as a Kenmore microwave oven, placing the current time period no earlier than the 1980's.
He goes through a door and steps outside. He notices some small houses, and automobiles that look like they are from the 1980's. In the distance the time traveler can see treetops.
A blond-haired woman wearing a blouse and shorts appears.
"Good morning, Chuck," she says.
"Uh, good morning," replies Sam, still taking in his new surroundings.
From the White House to a trailer park.