The vent grill popped off and landed on a stack of technical manuals. Hamtaro leaped down and cautiously scanned the room. He was in a storage room. There was so much stuff stored in it that Hamtaro was comfortable making as much noise as he cared to--no one the size of a human was going to make it to the rear of the room before the hamster could safely crawl back up into the duct.

Suddenly something entered his nostrils. It was a familiar smell, but he couldn't quite place it. Hamtaro heard squeaking, and looked around on the floor. Surely enough, he saw a mouse caught in a glue trap about two meters away from him. Hamtaro jumped down and made a vain effort to rescue the mouse.

"Who-who's there?"

Hamtaro stared at the mouse, who was missing both eyes and most of his fur.

"I am Hamtaro. I am from the future."

"Oh. I am Old Gluey."

"Pretty ironic name, considering..."

"Oh, no. That's how I got my name. Five years of living in this storage closet and I've been caught in forty-three glue traps."

"Wow," Hamtaro said in amazement. "You're very resilient."

Old Gluey rolled over on his back and bent his legs up towards his head. Hamtaro stared in curiosity as the patchy mouse dropped his legs forcefully, using the momentum to pull the glue strip off his back with a loud tearing sound. He stood up and rubbed his red, hairless back and grinned.

"Very. Now, which way is west?" He started wandering east and ran into the leg of an unused desk.

"The other way," Hamtaro replied.

Old Gluey turned around and began walking. His foot got caught on the trap and he fell forward, his face smacking into the glue.

"Do you want some help?" Hamtaro asked.

"Eh, could you?"


**********


Sam was vomiting profusely into the drain of the bathtub, the ice cold water spraying down onto his back from the showerhead ten miles above him. Al stepped through the holographic door and did a double take.

"What are you doing, Sam?"

The rodent wiped his mouth and held his stomach, looking up at Al.

"What does it look like I'm doing, Al?"

"How did you turn on the shower?"

"This is hardly the time for an argument in semantics. Just tell me what you've been able to find out about this."

"Well, actually nothing, Sam."

"What? What about the, the saving the little girl and all of that?"

"I made that up. Honestly, Sam, you're in the future. So we don't really have a lot to go on. Most of the database of information we use when you leap is news clippings and public documents. Since you're three years ahead of the Quantum Leap project, we can't really tell you anything at all."

"What the hell have you been doing all this time then?"

"Well, out of curiosity I went to the Quantum Leap facility of the future. Just to see what was going on."

"And?"

"And uh, it was locked."

"Locked, Al? What do you mean locked?"

"It was uh, locked. You know. The doors were all locked."

"Are you lying?"

"No."

Al opened the holographic door and left.


**********


Old Gluey had taken Hamtaro back to his home inside the storage room wall. It was full of candles and beads and all sorts of esoteric sights and smells. Hamtaro fell onto a bean bag chair, which was actually just a bean bag, and started rubbing his eyes. Old Gluey put on a robe and disappeared behind a beaded curtain. When he came back, he was pushing a giant pile of alfalfa into the middle of the room.

"Oh, good! I'm starved," said Hamtaro.

"But--"

Before Old Gluey could say anything, Hamtaro had lept out of the beanbag and began munching on the alfalfa.

"But what?" he asked, his cheek pouches stuffed with chewed stems.

"I've never seen anyone eat that much of it in my entire life."

"Really? Us hamsters eat a lot. Especially when it comes to alfalfa!" he began chuckling and cramming his face.

"Yes... alfalfa..."

Old Gluey disappeared behind the curtain again. After a few minutes Hamtaro fell back onto the bean bag, bloated and satiated. His head started getting heavy and tilting to the right. He felt like shuddering as if it were cold, but never quite reaching the vibration part.

"What's-what's happening? I feel ill."

Old Gluey's distorted face appeared several hundred times in front of Hamtaro.

"Ill, Hamtaro?"

"Like that time... when I ate that cold pill because Oxnard told me it was condensed ice cream."

"Ill, Hamtaro?"

"Like that time... when I ate..."

"Hamtaro?"

"Like that..."

"Taro?"

"Like..."

Hamtaro fell into a deep sleep.