Disclaimer: not mine.
Reviewers, and all other readers: You know what it's like when you have a favourite book and want skip straight on to the good bits? That's me right now, only for writing, because things will be hotting up really soon! Anyway, today's treat is a home-made home-grilled bbq burger with all the trimmings (apart from beetroot – shudder). It is may be bordering on winter over here, but I'm still on Aussie seasonal time – roll out the barbie!
P.S. To all those in the UK, happy bonfire night!! May your sparklers twinkle brightly and your fireworks bang loudly!! Shall we all dress up as Spiderman and try to blow up Parliament again? :)
P.P.S. Did anyone else see Jonathon Ross interviewing Sarah Michelle Gellar the other night?? Hilarious!
SMG: I don't think we're speaking the same language.
JR: Mine's called English.
SMG: Something like that.
September 26th 1998 – Project Quantum Leap
Gooshie's POV
Dr Fisichella squinted at the lines of code before him, entered another command and looked toward a second screen to view the outcome. Still unsatisfactory. He went back a few lines and erased some of the code, then waited. No change.
Sighing, he massaged his temples and looked around the Control Room. Aside from Ziggy, he was the only one here – and while Ziggy herself wasn't an actual human being he had held far more intelligent conversations with the hybrid computer than he had with Admiral Calavicci. In the programmer's mind, that made her the equal of most humans despite her circuitry – if not their superior. Colonel Jack O'Neill most definitely included. But even Ziggy was silent right now, analysing scenarios and subroutines far quicker than any member of the team ever could.
All of a sudden the main door slid open and the two aforementioned military officers entered the room. One was bad enough, but Al's 'new best friend' – as Tina put it – was almost insufferable at times. Gooshie couldn't understand how she managed to put up with Al, let alone Jack.
"So you've already tried looking in on him?" The Colonel was asking.
"Yeh," Al replied. "But he seemed to be in the middle of something. There was a group of them sat round a dinner table having steak – it looked great, but I can't smell anything in there which almost killed me as much as not being able to taste anything!"
Gooshie turned back to his computer, uninterested in such gossip unless it was operationally useful. At least Tina didn't have to listen to this irrelevant babbling, having gone home a couple of hours earlier. He – on the other hand – had to stay to manage the Imaging Chamber when Al visited Sam, which had already been attempted once and failed due to bad timing. More like Al's inability to see food without trying to eat it, he joked to himself.
"Were they in O'Malleys?" Jack sounded confused.
Al shook his head. "Nah, it was your place. Something must have changed their plans – but I recognised Dr Jackson and Captain Carter there. Wow, she really is a hot one isn't she? If I –"
The Admiral's voice cut out suddenly, and out of the corner of his eye Gooshie glimpsed the Colonel's glare of the century boring down on the other man. He swallowed a smug chuckle, certain that Al had crossed a certain line with this Leapee – the fact that it had come while he was engaging in some imaginary infidelity only added to Gooshie's enjoyment of Al's discomfort. He only wished he had the strength to do so himself.
"Erm... and there was this huge African-American guy with the weirdest tattoo on his head," Al prattled on, evidently recovering fairly quickly. "And his biceps must be the size of my head!"
"That'll be Teal'c," Jack commented, and Gooshie could almost hear the smile in his voice.
"The alien?!"
"None other."
"Jeez, now I really hope Sam doesn't get caught."
"So they still don't realise he's not me?" The Colonel was evidently disturbed by this lack of recognition on the part of his team. "I don't believe it!"
There came the sound of Al slapping Jack on the back. "That's our boy, a chameleon all the way – but then it has been his way of life for the last few years."
"Yeh... some life..."
There was silence for a few moments from all three men, the two military and the eavesdropper. Gooshie knew that everyone at Project Quantum Leap had envied Dr Beckett at one point or another, but most of them got over it quickly enough when they realised the cost. He 'got out' a lot more than the rest of them put together, but he never came home at the end of the night and was permanently working overtime. Ziggy's records showed that until he'd Leaped, he and Donna had never actually been married... it showed that there had been some personal rewards to the 'job' but it wasn't like he'd been able to enjoy the fruits of that relationship in several years. Now it sounded like Jack O'Neill had come to the same conclusion as others before him.
"So, whatcha up to Gooshie?" Al broke the silence, his cheery tone covering the sadness that his co-worker knew lurked beneath.
"Just trying to boost the signal some more, Al – I know he's on the surface now, but he won't be tomorrow morning. It just seemed sensible to try and work on our broadcasting before it became a vital necessity again." Gooshie paused, praying that Al wouldn't ask the impossible. "I will not be able to boost the signal far enough to reach this Alpha site however, even if we could locate it."
"Understood, Goosh," Al nodded. He clapped his hands together. "Let's get this show on the road again then, shall we Ziggy?"
"I certainly hope so," the computer's voice said sarcastically. "It is past midnight, so the meal would surely be over by now."
"With all due respect Z, you don't know my team. Any chance to eat something other than MREs and commissary food, and they're off," Jack wisecracked. "Plague of locusts. Big plague that, uh, deserves good food. Mm..."
Al grinned, presumably seeing that there was someone else in the world who could trip over his tongue just as well as himself. "Message received loud and clear, Colonel. They all know that it's a school night though, right?"
"Oh yeh, there are no slackers on my team apart from me."
"Riiiiiight. Well on that note, let's go –"
"Hey Al," Jack interrupted.
"Yes?"
"Could I come into this Imaging Holodeck thing with you?"
An awkward silence fell over the room, punctuated only by the sound of Jack spinning on his feet and looking at the two men in confusion.
"What are you looking at? Did I grow another head or something?"
Gooshie felt compelled to speak up, just in case the Admiral was actually entertaining this frankly ridiculous notion.
"This would not be wise, Al, and you know it."
Colonel O'Neill fixed his gaze on the programmer and narrowed his eyes. "Don't you like me, Dr? Is that it? Or is this 'not wise' because I wouldn't tell you anything more about the SGC?"
"No, I –"
"It's because it's a bad idea, Jack," Al picked up the conversation. "Gooshie's right."
"Ok... why? Is it one of those entropical whajimmies that kills you when you're there twice in the same time?"
Al looked blank, and it took Gooshie a moment to realise what he meant. Why couldn't the man speak English?
"Entropic cascade failure?"
The Colonel nodded. "That's the one! See, I told you I need Carter for this scientific stuff. Is that it?"
"No," Gooshie stated bluntly, not sure whether to take the other man's dumb act at face value. "You wouldn't actually be there you see, and Sam wouldn't see you unless you touched Al – all to do with how the signal is broadcast directly between their brains." Seeing Jack blink, he realised that here was an opportunity to further confuse the military interloper. "It's a subatomic agitation of quarks tuned to the mesons of Sam's optic and otic neurons via Al's own neurons and mesons –"
"Yup, need Carter..." Jack muttered, rolling his eyes. "Ok then, what's real reason?"
"Well for starters you currently look a lot like Sam, and he hasn't seen his own reflection for nearly 5 years," Al explained sadly. "Plus he looks like you, which could have a strange effect on both of you. I know you listened in last time, but seeing would be something else entirely."
"Yeh, I can see how that could be weird..."
"And then there's the fact that even if you were there you'd just be annoying and not say anything that helps – while getting an even better view of our own secrets," Al finished, playing the security card that Jack himself had laid down as law earlier.
"Yeh, but you said I probably wouldn't remember this after I Leap back into myself. Haaaaah!" The Colonel pointed out smugly.
"There's always a risk that you might remember, with time and possibly hypnosis," Gooshie declared, really hoping that Al wouldn't give in.
"Ok, ok, I give up. I'll listen in like last time," Jack held up his hands in surrender, then made a shooshing motion. "Now git! Your boy has a job to do tomorrow, remember? He needs a good night's sleep."
Gooshie turned back to his controls and shook his head in frustration. Letting that man out of the Waiting Room had been a bad idea, but then it wasn't his call. The man was potentially violent and maybe even a moron, refusing to give even Al – who was technically his superior – the slightest modicum of respect! He prayed that Sam would Leap out of this annoying person sooner rather than later...
After programming in the transmission coordinates, and checking with Ziggy that all systems were powered up and ready, Gooshie pulled the handset from its slot in her CPU and handed it to Al.
"Tell Sam hi from me would you? And that I'm jealous of his trip tomorrow?"
"Yeh, sure bud," Al grinned and winked. "Maybe one day we'll tweak this old girl enough that you'll be able to say hi to him yourself, without the seasickness."
"May I remind you that I am younger than yourself, Admiral Calavicci? Date of birth –"
"Ok, ok! Just a figure of speech, Ziggy, just a figure of speech. Never pry into a woman's age, I should have remembered that..." Al apologised light-heartedly, still laughing at his own joke.
Gooshie narrowed his eyes. Ziggy did not deserve ridicule from anyone, let alone Al – who knew what she was capable of. He blamed Colonel O'Neill's bad influence for this lapse, and glared at him – then blinked back as the man glared man. Did he know what he'd been thinking?
Shaken without really knowing why, Gooshie scuttled back to his controls and double-checked everything. He cast a few dark looks in Jack's direction and generally worried about the fact that apart from two men in the lobby, all the guards had gone home for the night. In a short while he would be alone in the most sensitive area of Project Quantum Leap with this unknown. Procedures ensured that he couldn't escape (or at least shouldn't be able to... this man was ex-black ops after all...), but he could do something wild and dangerous like smash Ziggy's CPU with a fire extinguisher. This was not good!
One more press of a button and the door to the Imaging Chamber slid open. Al walked through the entrance with a brief wave, the door slid shut, and Gooshie absently gobbled a row of dark chocolate to calm his nerves before flicking a switch.
"Erm, you should be able to hear the conversation from here, Colonel O'Neill," he stammered as calmly as he could. "Or we could set you up to listen in the Waiting Room if you prefer."
"Here's fine."
Gooshie dared a quick glance at the stranger, unsure what to do now that he was alone with him for the first time. Sure he'd been wandering around for most of the day now, but somehow he seemed... safer... when Al was around.
"I'm not going to hurt you, you know," Jack commented blandly, as if were the more casual phrase one could ever utter. "I could if I wanted to, but I have bigger fish to fry."
"B-bigger fish?"
"Yeh!" A small shrug. "Snakehead aliens, remember? I want to get home, not spend the next few days in the brig, or whatever the Navy calls its holding cells on research bases."
"Ah, um –"
"Quiet, I can hear them talking now."
The programmer recoiled as if he'd been verbally slapped. The next time – next time?! – Al suggested that a Leapee be allowed out of the waiting Room without a guard, he was going to scream blue murder and freeze all the locks! Even Ziggy didn't seem to realise the threat... or maybe she was already protecting herself by some means...
He turned the volume up to drown up the increasingly panicky voices in his head, knowing that the usual comfortable banter between Al and Sam would help calm him down.
"Good meal?"
"Great meal! And the movie was good too, and thankfully Carter asked me what it was like to finally see Star Wars before I started raving about how the digital enhancements had improved the overall movie!"
"Ha! That would have been funny – plus I don't think you'd catch Jack using the phrase 'digital enhancements' in a hurry..."
Jack snorted. "The man's right..."
"Ok, so how're you feeling about the trip tomorrow now?""Fine, fine – still excited, but a little nervous too. Not as nervous as when I had to fly that X2 though. Hey! That was on National Geographic earlier too –"
"This guy flew the X2?"
Gooshie looked up from his screen, where he'd been monitoring input and output levels of energy required to broadcast to and receive audiovisual signals from the past. This Leap to a time so close to the present was proving valuable for that aspect of one of the researchers' field of study. Another good way of forgetting about Jack... until he spoke, of course.
"Huh? Erm, yes – that was his first Leap. Tom Stratton. First to break Mach 3 and survive... or at least that's what happened now. Sam really needed Al that time though, he'd never flown before."
"Really?" Jack sounded impressed as he tuned back into the conversation."– don't suspect you yet?"
"Really! I'm really on thin ice though – they're a close-knit bunch. I found a good trick though."
"Oh yeh?"
"I don't know this Jack guy from a bar of soap, but I have an idea of what he's like and I get the feeling that he's a lot like you!"
"So what's the trick?"
"Acting like you, of course! I had this whole bickering thing going on with Daniel earlier and it worked perfectly."
Gooshie chanced a look at Colonel O'Neill and caught a sad look on his face. Maybe he missed his friends too, especially if they were as close as Sam said. The other man twitched, then realised he was being watched.
"What're you looking at?"
"Nothing, nothing," the programmer assured him hurriedly. "You remember you can speak to Al via that button next to you, don't you?"
"'Course."
"Ok..."
Gooshie turned back to his work and prayed that Sam and Al would hurry up so he could get out of here and go home. Not something that he, as a workaholic, would normally wish for, but these were special circumstances."– can't give you any real information though, because Jack's unwilling to compromise security –"
"That's fine, I can deal with that – besides his team already did some compromising themselves."
"What do you mean?"
"Well we've all been reminiscing tonight – at least they were, I just kept pretty quiet and listened in. Lots of wondrous detail that never made it onto paper."
"So you've been out and watched a movie, been wheeled around all night like some aristocrat with two left feet, been waited on all night, and managed to brief yourself without even trying?"
"Yup."
"Sorry Jack."
The man in question shook his had and pressed the comms button. "I don't suppose I can blame them, but jeez..."
"Heh. He doesn't sound too happy. So, do you have a plan for your two-day trip into the wilderness?"
"Yes, I do. Or rather Teal'c and the invalid Colonel O'Neill do. We're going to head out there and dive straight into some practical exercises, which Teal'c is going to lead and I will supervise from some operations room. A bit like paintball – is that still around?"
"Yep."
"Ok, so it's a bit like paintball, but since they've already been through the Academy and are in the second week of SGC training, they'll be using rubber bullets and Teal'c – who will be one single opponent by the way – will be using his staff weapon."
"Staff weapon? Never heard of –"
"It's like a tazer, only a lot worse. Imagine most science fiction movies with laser-type guns. A Jaffa weapon."
"Holy cr-"
"Yeh, that'll show 'em who's boss," Jack cheered, causing Gooshie to concentrate even harder on the graph before him. Firing dangerous weapons on recruits? How could Sam agree to that?
"Yup. But once per person only – we have to make sure they all know to get off the field if they've been shot, because apparent two shots is a nightmare to recover from, and three disintegrates."
"Ah. So this is the big plan to get them out of the computer game mindset. Intense physical pain? I can't see you enjoying that, Sam..."
"True, and I don't like it – but after seeing and hearing some of the things... let's just say a dose of reality will probably do these kids wonders."
"Ok, so you'll be playing it safe and keeping off the leg?"
"Yessir – I realised that if the Leap does end before my ankle's healed I'll still be Leaping during the next one. That could get awkward."
"You're right – ouch. Enjoy being looked after while you still can then."
"I will – though I'll also be poked and prodded by that Dr Fraiser again tomorrow morning."
"Hah! Yeh, I've heard Jack mention her. I think he called her a 'Napoleonic powermonger'."
Jack chuckled. "Damn straight..."
"That's funny, and accurate. She's a nice lady though, and a good doctor too. Say – is there anything going on between Colonel O'Neill and Captain Carter?"
"Um – I don't know. Er... Jack?"
"Oh, for crying out loud – why does everyone always think – ah, the button," Jack stopped his rant almost as soon as it had started, evidently remembering that without an open channel he would have an audience of precisely one. "No, there is nothing going on between me and Carter. Ok?"
"Uh-huh, ok – no, nothing going on. Why?"
"Oh, nothing really. She just gave me a foot massage earlier and –""Carter gave him a foot massage?" Jack exploded, frantically looking round at Gooshie. "She never gives me one, never!"
Gooshie, startled, couldn't think of a thing to say – was he expecting some kind of equally indignant support? Though he did notice that the Colonel's voice was a little strained, and maybe even... jealous?
"Um... er..."
"Never mind, I've never sprained my ankle before either – yeh, that must be it."
Apparently satisfied with his own explanation, Colonel O'Neill settled back into his usual position and carried on listening. Gooshie resolved to do the same, but was distracted by a new sound. Fingers? Tapping on the tabletop? Should he mention it?
"Erm..."
"Yes?" Jack snapped. Ok, so he wasn't in a good mood anymore.
"Nothing."
"Hmph."
"Ok, so you're sure you're all right?"
"Yeh, go on – let me get some sleep."
"You don't want any tips from an old-timer about shooting enemy targets, strategy, that sort of thing? Going into space?"
"I'm not going into space, Al – I'll be molecularised through it."
"Heh," Jack commented to the air, miraculously stopping his irritating finger tapping. "Carter obviously hasn't given him the full explanation yet then. Or maybe she has and he actually understands it. Hmm."
"Mm... yeh, and Gooshie's jealous – Lord only knows why."
"Hehe, well say hi to him for me and I'll tell you all about it when I get back ok?"
"If you say so. Would you like me to drop by in the morning?"
"No, I should be fine. Thanks for the offer though."
"Uh-huh. Not even for directions back to the base."
"Low blow, Al, low blow. I'll be fine."
"Hmph. Well it sounds like you're all set without me then doesn't it – are you sure you need me at all?"
"Hey, don't get like that! I didn't mean it that way – it's just that it's late, and I'm tired, and I have to be up early in the morning because I have an appointment with a doctor who likes big needles, plus a huge and wondrous thing called a Stargate."
"Yeh, well it's clear that you don't care much other than that Stargate right now, not even details. I know, I know, you're doing fine. Just don't forget what you're here to do. Keep Jack alive at all costs."
"All costs?"
"You know what I mean."
"Yeh, I do."
"Ok, we'll have a scanner running 24-7 for your neurons – waiting for when you reappear in that weird underground transmission inhibitor. I'll come see you as soon as I can."
"Sounds great – and don't worry too much, Mom."
"Very funny."
The door to the Imaging Chamber slid open, and suddenly Gooshie could hear Al's voice without the tinniness of the comms channel.
"See ya."
"Sweet dreams."
Al punched a button on the handset and the door closed, leaving behind it an empty, disengaged Imaging Chamber. He sat down heavily and held his head in his hands.
"Jeez, I hope that kid's not going to do something stupid out there."
Gooshie sighed and glanced at Colonel O'Neill. Their eyes met, and he suddenly realised that for once all three of them were actually in agreement.