Chapter Four
For almost an hour, Lieutenant Deanna Calavicci glanced back and forth between the mindless run of commercials and prime-time programs on the flat-screen television set and the seemingly inert communication bracelet on the dresser next to it.
By no means did she believe that the high-tech com bracelet, which she'd shed upon entering the room, ceased to work simply because she'd taken it off. On more than one occasion, she'd harbored suspicions that Ziggy—the hybrid supercomputer that ran Project Quantum Leap—delighted in fooling her operators and would let the electronic devices linked to her hard drive appear to be dormant, without flashing lights or sounds to indicate that a connection still existed. Deanna knew better than that.
Ziggy listened. Ziggy always listened. She had no "off" button.
The Hotel del Coronado did not disappoint in all its antique majesty. Although Deanna found herself physically taxed by the trip from Albuquerque to San Diego—by taxi, by plane, and finally by shuttle bus—she couldn't help but wander the expansive grounds for a while. She checked in and walked down to the beach, just to touch the ocean and to take in the incredible view of the building from a distance, then wandered around the Victorian-style beauty, from the ballroom to the wood-paneled lobby with its enormous crystal chandelier, then made a reservation for dinner in the Crown Room before retreating to her hotel room.
Because there, in the Crown Room, she learned the reason that Ziggy had sent her to that location.
When another loud, banal television commercial flashed across the wide, colorful screen of motion at the end of the bed, Deanna reached for the remote on the bedside table and turned the television off, dropped the remote next to her on the queen bed, then closed her eyes and sighed.
"So what do I do?" she asked aloud.
She opened her eyes again and watched as the com bracelet sparked to life. Its electric blue light flashed twice, but no verbal response came out.
"He doesn't know us," Deanna continued. "We changed his future. He has no memories whatsoever of the Projects—not Quantum Leap, and not Engram."
"You don't know that for certain," the computer chimed in, the words infused with human-like intonations. "It is possible that on some level, he maintains a link to our operations. After all, he did exhibit a familiarity with you, even though in this version of his existence, you two have never met. Nevertheless, there was a connection there."
Deanna couldn't deny that. Her idea had been to simply book herself a seat for dinner in the Crown Room, and to have a good meal by herself. Somehow, though, it came as no surprise that the man who walked up behind her (likewise alone and looking to make a reservation for one), would be someone very familiar to her. A brief conversation, a slight arrangement, and the evening became a dinner-for-two situation.
She sat up and pulled one of the thick bed pillows, which she'd used to prop herself up to watch TV with, onto her lap. Her fingers dug into the cotton pillowcase as she squeezed it against her chest, then she loosened her grip.
"Do we bring him back in?" she pondered. "Just because he's connected to you… to us, somewhere in space and time… would it do us any good, if he doesn't know anything?"
"I'm afraid that I can't answer that."
Deanna smirked. "Ziggy, if anyone can answer that, it's you."
Ziggy did not respond to the remark, nor did the scientist expect her to. Deanna made no secret of her suspicions that Ziggy exceeded her programming, to the point where she possessed an almost-omniscient ability, but Ziggy seemed to delight in refusing to admit such a level of superiority.
Deanna put one hand in the air and waved it around, then let it drop.
"I mean, it wasn't just chance that I came here, was it?"
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Ziggy replied in a cryptic tone.
"Like hell," came the sharp retort. "Not in our world."
Deanna waved her hand again, this time in dismissal, then gave the pillow another squeeze.
"Here's what I picture. We have some conversations on the topic, I tell him about what we're doing out there in the desert and how he's a part of it, and then one of two things will happen. One is that he walks away—he laughs at me, calls me a liar, discounts everything I tell him, and ghosts me. The other is that he believes it all, comes back to Stallion's Gate with me, and he spends the rest of his life wrapped up in the Project. Just like me and just like the Admiral."
"And that bothers you?" Ziggy prodded.
"Yea, it does." Deanna tossed the pillow behind her. "I chose this life. As an officer in the United States Navy, and as a scientist, I accept that this is my duty to be an Observer. That is, until we get both Sam and Sammi Jo back from wherever they Leaped to. But I don't know if I can… I don't know, 'recruit' someone for this. Even if he already recruited himself at another time in history, that's not who he is now."
"He has spent the past fifty years in the profession of acting," Ziggy pointed out. "That is hardly the appropriate background to prepare for the demands placed on an Observer."
"But right now," Deanna persisted, "everything is falling on the Admiral's shoulders. He's taking care of two Leapers at once—if that's even possible. And if both Sam and Sammi Jo get in a bind at the same time, the Admiral is in no shape for that."
Deanna puffed out a breath and stood up, then began to pace. It made it easier to refer to her father as "the Admiral," to maintain a certain emotional distance between herself and her father in the workplace. It also made it easier to think of him as an Admiral when it came to his medical conditions. Admiral Albert Calavicci had suffered two strokes over the past year, a small one that had been reversed with prompt medical intervention, and a more significant one that resulted in a minor but permanent weakness in one leg. The situation had caused his family a certain amount of distress, particularly since he refused to cut back on his work schedule as much as his wife Beth and his children would've liked.
"The problem is," she continued, as she pushed aside the resentful thoughts tied to her forced military leave, "even in the best-case scenario where he agrees to come to New Mexico, we're still talking about two men who are… you know, in their golden years. If there's any recruiting going on, it should be with someone younger. By the way, I am open to suggestions on this idea," she concluded with a sideways glance at the bracelet.
"It is not my place to offer them."
"Yea. Right."
She scratched her fingers against the scar on the side of her neck. She steadfastly refused to look at that area in the mirror anymore, but it still bothered her that she could still feel the distorted skin there. The glass from the broken passenger window had cut deeply into her neck, but thanks to a highly skilled team of surgeons and diligent aftercare, she'd not only survived but came out the other side of rehabilitation with an almost-complete recovery.
"Lieutenant Calavicci," Ziggy replied with a hint of a smile in her voice, "it's almost five o'clock. Don't forget about your date."
Deanna put her back against the hotel room door and crossed her arms. "It's not a date."
"It has all the hallmarks of a date," Ziggy contradicted in a playful tone. "To him, you are not just an attractive young woman who suggested that they share a meal together. I was listening in. I heard the banter, and the tones of your voices, and you're just as smitten as he is."
She glanced down at the scar on the top of her hand. At another time and in another dimension of reality where Project Engram existed, a man named Edward St. John the Fifth had extracted her nerve cells to connect them to a hybrid supercomputer that he called Alpha. She'd spent years working with the distracted, emotionally distant scientist that Edward St. John had been at that time, and only in their last visit at the hospital, as he lay dying, did he hint that he'd harbored any sort of attraction for her.
This Edward, who insisted right away that she call him "Eddie," bore the exact same physical features as "her" Edward, but this man didn't hesitate to make his feelings known. His face had lit up the moment that they made eye contact, and in the space of a few minutes, he'd convinced her that they should enjoy the evening together. Deanna tried to dismiss the thoughts that came crowding into her mind when she thought of his intense, dark brown eyes, and found herself staring at the ceiling, lost in thought.
"Lieutenant?"
"Ziggy, what if I don't mention it? Any of it?" Deanna walked over and picked up the com bracelet, then slipped it onto her wrist. "What if I just have dinner with him—no Project talk, no explanations about different dimensions and a tangled-up history, just… go to dinner?"
"And if questions come up?"
"They're bound to." Her eyebrows went up. "The problem is, you know as well as I do that there's more than one secret between us already." She gave her head a slow shake. "It's an unfair balance, with me walking in there, knowing all of this."
"Lieutenant," Ziggy reassured her, "at this point, this is merely dinner with a handsome, older gentleman who fancies you. You deserve a pleasant evening out for a change."
Deanna smiled to herself. She had to admit that after four years of intense work at Project Quantum Leap, it would be nice to be freed from what she would jokingly call "a DNA-deep responsibility," and to have one night of normalcy, far away from everything that had happened in New Mexico.
"Wear the black A-line dress," Ziggy suggested. "It gives you a fabulous figure."