Sam flexed her hands nervously. Susana had freed her from the handcuffs in order to eat. The vegetables had been decent. But the intestines hadn't exactly been her idea of a tasty or nutritious meal. She would occasionally glare at Kurt, who looked slightly uncomfortable.
Ardelia Mapp crept into the room and raised her finger to her mouth to shhh Sam.
"There we are, Sam," Kurt said. "She gets Susana in the cuffs, beats up on her a little, then you shoot her."
"Can she beat up on her some more?" asked Sam. "She stuck a needle in my heart and made me eat intestines. I'm a little annoyed with Susie right now."
Kurt shook his head. "Sorry," he said, "that part of history isn't changing. And don't let her hear you call her that. Trust me on that one."
"Hmmmph," was all Sam replied.
"Shush!" Ardelia hissed.
As Susana returned from the kitchen, Ardelia covered the distance between the two in seconds. Susana was quick to react, but Ardelia was between her and the table. Ardelia struck her with the muzzle of her automatic. Susana fell and landed on the floor. Ardelia was on her in a trice, striking her again with the muzzle of the pistol and cuffing her quickly.
"Hey," Sam said. "Nice job on the collar. Think you might be willing to untie me from the chair here?"
"Ooooh, just a minute," Ardelia said. "She owes me some payback. I have waited so long to do this."
Ardelia pulled Susana to her feet and slammed her face-first into the table. Sam winced.
"Is that strictly necessary?" she asked.
Ardelia ignored her. "So long," she said. "For Roland…for my career…for your father and what he did to Clarice."
"Um, 'Delia, I think you're getting a little carried away there," Sam said, looking around for a knife or something to cut herself free. None was handy. There always was in the movies.
But the gun was. Sam picked it up and pointed it at Ardelia.
"Okay," she said calmly, "I'm going to have to be a little firmer on this. No torture. And no gunplay."
Ardelia saw the gun and drew her own, pulling Susana up to shield her.
Static clicked around Kurt again. Another voice spoke up.
"Shoot her! Shoot her! Shoot her now, Sam!"
"Saavik, quit asking for more gore," Sam said.
There was a brief, wounded sound from offscreen, then the sounds of a short, brutal scuffle taking place back at the project. A few moments later Saavik spoke up.
"That wasn't me!" she said in a hurt tone. "That was Screaming Lamb!"
"Sorry," Sam sighed.
"I was wrongfully accused," Saavik said dolefully. "I'm innocent."
"We'll give you an extra 2-liter bottle of Coke to make up for it," Kurt offered.
That satisfied Saavik, who sat back with the rest to watch the fun back at the Project.
"Okay," Kurt said. "Well, good, you stopped Ardelia from torturing Susana to death. But you haven't leaped yet."
"The things I do," Sam said.
"Who the hell are you talking to?" Ardelia asked incredulously.
"Oh, Kurt, Saavik, Screaming Lamb, all the rest of the Lecterphiles," Sam said nonchalantly.
Ardelia glanced around her incredulously. "There's no one else here," she said. "Are you crazy?"
"Well," Sam said, "Kurt's here but you can't see him. And the peanut gallery keeps weighing in via audio every now and then."
"Heeey!" came a whole protest of female voices from the watching Lecterphiles.
Sam turned her head. "Well, I just had to eat intestines and got a needle rammed in my heart. I'm a little grumpy," she said. "C'mon, guys."
"You…you're crazy," Ardelia said.
"No, not really," Sam answered. "Just a Hannibal fanfic author leaping through fics in the fandom in a tongue-in-cheek parody of Quantum Leap."
Ardelia goggled. "What…the…hell?"
Suddenly, Susana swiveled in Ardelia's grasp. The handcuffs were in one hand, clacking swiftly onto Ardelia's wrist. She kicked Ardelia's feet out from under her and dived across the table to pluck the pistol from Sam's outstretched hands. Then she stood up on the table, pistol out and aimed at Ardelia, and fired.
"Ooooh, that had to hurt," Saavik's disembodied voice said gleefully.
"Very nice, Lisa," Susana said. "Amazing story you told her there. A quite inventive story. Fanfic? She must've thought you were delusional. And whatever is Quantum Leap? But thank you for keeping her occupied for me."
Sam blinked. Had all this happened so fast?
"You…how did you do that?" she asked.
"Well," Susana allowed, "despite what Ridley Scott may think, Lecters do know how to pick handcuff locks."
"Okay, Sam, you did it," Kurt said. "Susana gets away and Lisa survives. And they both come back for the sequel."
"Doesn't that mean I should--," Sam started.
Suddenly, there was a tingling sensation all over her body, and a bright blue light covered her form. The chair fell away to nothing behind her. For an instant or an eternity – there was no telling which – she was floating in a weightless blue sea of light.
Then she was back in the world, or a world. Another fic. She glanced at her surroundings in confusion. It wasn't the Project. Therefore it had to be another fic.
It was a comfortable, rustic little cabin. The living room, in which she stood, was overwhelmed by a large couch and an old oak desk set at right angles to it. On the desk was a green shaded and brass desk lamp and a black laptop computer. A long white phone cord stretched from the back of the laptop and trailed along the wall to the phone jack in the kitchen.
Sam looked down at herself and noticed something different. Around her neck and hanging down from her collar was a red silk tie. A white dress shirt, black slacks, and wing tips finished off her ensemble.
"I'm wearing a tie," she said to herself in the stillness, for there was no one there but her. "I'm wearing a tie. And wing tips. Eek! I'm a guy!"
Against the wall was a mirror, framed in the same oak as the table. Sam approached it and stared at her reflection with wide eyes. What stared back at her was the not-unattractive face of a man in his early sixties. His features were delicate, quite well formed. But there was a look of hardness in this man; a look that suggested he might kill you and serve your entrails to his dinner guests if you crossed him.
His eyes were maroon.
The rectangle of light opened and Kurt stepped out again. "There you are. I guess you've figured out who you are. They're going nuts back at the Project."
Sam Bridges stared at the reflection of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. "Oh boy," she whispered. Then she began to jump up and down excitedly.
"OH BOY, I'M THE GD!!!"
…
Author's note: Well there's the end to our first episode of 'Fanfic Leap'…stay tuned for the next one (I'll tack them all onto the same story, just makes things easier.) I will freely credit Sam with the description of the cabin – she wrote it, which should tell the discerning reader where the next episode takes place. (Well we also have to credit Sam with agreeing to star in this lunacy.)