This chapter has the most disturbing images yet. Please, again I ask you not to read if the concepts presented in the previous chapter make you uncomfortable. I assure you, it gets more graphic in this chapter.
DISCLAIMER: The characters are the property of Bellasarius Productions, Vivendi and anyone else involved with Quantum Leap.
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STREET KID
Young Al was in the middle of a nightmare he never could have imagined. Unconscious and drugged, Dr. O'Brien stripped the boy and put tight iron shackles around his wrists and ankles. When Al began to awake, the doctor said, "You do what we say and you'll get out of this alive, Understand?"
Al planned on playing the game until he could find a way out. "Yes, sir."
"Still the polite young man. Well, drop the act." He grabbed Al's throat and squeezed hard. "You're going to do what you're told. No one gives a damn about you." O'Brien's hand relaxed just a bit and Al saw another child, a girl even younger than himself trembling in the corner. Like Al, she was scared, bruised and bleeding. With twisted sarcasm Joey's father continued, "So, big man, you get to fuck her. It's her first bleed. Quite an honor, don't you think?"
With every bit of determination he had, Al spit in O'Brien's face. The doctor backhanded him with a closed fist. Al's knees buckled, but the clenched hand around his throat kept him from falling. From across the room Dave called out, "Hey, we need him conscious."
"Shut up, Dave. He spit on me."
Dave answered. "Save it till we don't need him any more."
Paul had the girl at the other side of the room. "So bring the little moron over here. This piece of ass can't wait, can you?"
The girl was terrified, but she said only what they wanted to hear. "I can't wait," was stuttered out in a voice belonging to far too young a child. O'Brien dragged Al to Paul. There was a platform in the corner designed for torture and terror.
"See? She wants you." Al was thrown next to her. The shackle around his left ankle was locked into a chain imbedded in the platform. "Dave, get the camera ready. We have to work fast." He traced the nipple on the little girl's undeveloped chest. "Pretty little whore, isn't she?"
Al wasn't giving in to evil. "You shut up about her. Leave her alone."
A bare-chested Paul made his way to Al. "I am going to leave her alone. See, you get to rape her and rape her and rape her until we tell you to stop."
Al's sense of right and wrong was unimpeachable. "I won't touch her."
Paul moved over to the side of the room and picked up a short metal rod. He carried it back to the platform. "You want to bet?" Paul shoved the stick into Al's gut and it fired off an electrical shock. The pain from the cattle prod was beyond belief. The boy flew backward until the chain kept him from going further.
The little girl spoke to Al. "Just do what he says and they'll let us go."
"Now see? Pussy is smart." Paul turned around, "Dave, you ready?"
Dave was playing with a camera. "Yeah. O'Brien, turn on the lights." Hot film lights were lit almost blinding the two children. "Get your mask, Paul."
Paul pulled an executioner's mask over his face and picked up a buggy whip. "I'm ready."
The whip found its way to Al's back dozen times, drawing blood with each blow. The camera captured each slice across the boy's body. O'Brien yelled instructions to him. The tears Al wanted to shed would not leave his eyes. He stood his ground accepting the brutal buggy whip and the cattle prod until pain and terror forced the young boy to take the girl in his hands and do the unthinkable. Then he did the unthinkable again. Then he stopped thinking and just did it.
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Sam was pacing. Too much time had gone by. Finally he heard the sound he had been waiting for. "Where is he?"
"At the South Street Import Company. It's a waterfront warehouse about a mile from here. It's a bit hard to find. I'll have to go with you. You'll never find it alone."
"Give me the address. I got to call the police." St. John held up the handlink. Sam quickly memorized the location and ran out to the hallway to the phone. He picked it up and dialed 911.
St. John corrected him, "No, there was no 911 in 1948. Dial the operator and tell them you have a police and medical emergency."
He dialed the operator and waited again until someone answered. "I have a police and medical emergency. Please hurry." Joey's mother overheard her son on the phone and came to listen in. Sam didn't hear her standing at the end of the hall. "My name is Joseph O'Brien. My father kidnapped my friend Albert Calavicci and took him to the South Street Import Company Warehouse on . . ." His mother grabbed the phone from his hands and slammed the phone down.
She slapped him hard. "How dare you?"
Sam backed away. There was no time to be gentle with her. Al's life was on the line. "Dad's involved with child pornography. He's got Al and if we don't help, then Al will die. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. I have to call the police."
"Get to your room right now." Sam didn't move a muscle. "Now!" and she approached him again, her hand readied to hit.
"No." Sam pushed past her and ran out of the apartment.
St. John met him outside. "You have a bicycle in the garage. You'll need it."
Sam found a bicycle, but he wasn't sure it was Joey's. He didn't care. He took off following the directions St. John was continuously giving him. In ten minutes, they were outside the dark warehouse. "He's in there?"
"Yes, Sam, but I don't know what you can do. There are three grown men in there who will beat you just as they are beating him."
"O'Brien wouldn't hurt his own kid."
"To keep his secret? Of course, he would. You must find a policeman."
They were in the middle of nowhere. Sam looked around. "Where? It's up to me and Al to get out of this."
St. John guided Sam into the warehouse and toward the basement rooms. "Sam, you cannot do this alone,"
"I don't have a choice."
"Alpha says there's a 85 probability that you and Master Calavicci are both found dead. You can't do this, Sam. You have to let him die."
Sam stared at the observer in this reality. "Al wouldn't let me leave a 13 year old boy to get tortured and killed. Now, get me in there."
"Sam, please, don't do this."
"Point me in the right direction or I'll go it alone!"
St. John was considerably uncomfortable. "Yes, I'll get you in, but you should know they have a young girl in there too. She's, she's . . . I can't even say it."
They wound their way down the two floors. From behind a closed door, Sam could hear ugly sounds. By the time Sam was able to peek in from the hallway the two children were bloodied and in terrible pain. Paul held a cruel looking knife at the girl's chest. "Let's slice off a nipple." With every ounce of strength he had, Al hit his tormenter and tried to turn the knife onto Paul, but he only succeeded in getting the knife put to his own neck.
Sam burst into the room "No!" Paul was startled and the knife slipped into the boy. Al put his hands to his bleeding throat.
Sam was very glad now that Joey was a big boy. Using the boy's weight and his own knowledge of martial arts he could ward off the three grown men. His father was easy. A quick hard kick to the crotch had him doubled over. Dave was a little harder, but the fight ended up with a Beckett win. He turned to Al and saw the boy making a valiant attempt to hold Paul at bay, but Al was pumping out blood and incredibly small compared to the adult trying to kill him.
Al's only advantages were speed and agility and he used them. If his leg hadn't been tethered, he would have escaped, but he was chained to the platform with nowhere to go. He moved toward the little girl to become her protector. Paul had the knife in his hand ready to strike. Al growled through bleeding vocal chords, "You touch her and I'll kill you." The villain struck with the weapon. Al pushed the blade away with his arm. The slash was deep, completely to the bone and the agony on Al's face was all too real.
St. John stood to the side and though quite willing to help, being a hologram, he had no substance. All he could do was flash scenario after scenario through Alpha. Finally he called out to Sam, "Make a lot of noise, Sam. The police are responding to your phone call. They're in the building, but they won't find you unless you start yelling! Tell the children to yell!"
Sam was on his way to help Al. "Start screaming, little girl! The police are upstairs! Scream as loud as you can!" With a few quick blows from Sam, Paul dropped his knife. The little girl screamed louder than Sam thought possible. Al was now down on the platform, bleeding fiercely from the cut arm. Sam dropped to Al's side, "Hang on, Al. The cops are here." By now, the boy was near unconscious and bleeding to death. The screams of the little girl continued and within seconds two of New York's finest burst into the room They weren't prepared for what met them. This kind of complete evil appalled their senses and the three adults were taken into custody.
Sam took a quick look at the little girl. Her wounds were not life threatening. Al, on the other hand, was pumping out blood from an artery in his arm and the knife wound in his throat kept him from breathing adequately. The 13 year old never looked younger or more vulnerable than he did when Sam tied a tourniquet around the damaged arm. Al's eyes were full of more fear than Sam had ever seen in anyone. "I'm so sorry, Al. I'm so sorry. We're going to get you to a hospital and you'll be okay." He looked for St. John, but he was gone.
Off to the side of the room stood a man in a waist length red and black jacket. The look of total disbelief on his face needed no words. He put a hand to his head to try and push the pain away, but it was useless. Sam couldn't leave the young boy's side to attend to the older version of the same whose presence gave testimony to success in this inhuman leap.
Sam sat by young Al until the ambulance arrived and the boy was loaded up for the trip to the hospital. The police wanted Sam to go with them, but he pleaded, "Please, I need a few minutes alone. I'm going to go over there for a few minutes, okay."
After what they had seen, they could allow almost anything from the 16-year-old hero in front of them. "Go ahead, kid. You let us know when you feel up to going downtown."
"Thank you." Sam caught the Observer's eye and he met Sam in a dark corner. "Good God, Al. I never thought I'd see you again."
"Again? What are you talking about?"
Sam wasn't sure what to say. This Al had only recently been born. "I don't know. Oh, Al, why didn't you ever tell me about this?" He finally noticed how bloodied he was from young Al's wounds and that the older visage of the same was getting more tense.
"It's not a particularly shining moment in my life."
The gravelly sound in the Admiral's voice now made a lot more sense. Even cigar smoking couldn't create the unique quality of that voice. "He cut a vocal fold, didn't he?"
"Yeah, he nicked it. Never did get over that completely. That's why I growl some. What I can't figure is why you're here. This is the way it all happened in the original history."
He didn't know what to say, but there was no getting around it. When in doubt, go with the truth. "No, Al. In the original history, you died." The Admiral looked confused. Sam continued, "You died and someone else was the Observer. I'm sorry I didn't find out what was going on early enough to keep you from being hurt, but at least now, you survive."
He input a scenario to Ziggy. "The girl lived."
"Who was she, Al?"
"I never found out."
"What about the trial?"
"There was no trial. They plea-bargained down to misdemeanors and were out of jail in a few months." Sam's mouth hung open. "Sam, I had no one. I can only assume the girl didn't either. No one cared, Sam. This is what can happen when no one cares."
"What about Joey?"
"I don't even need Ziggy to tell you about him. His father ran out on the family which was a blessing as far I'm concerned. Joey ended up in the seminary and became a priest." With a sadness Al reserved only for a trusted few he said, "He helped a lot of people. Worked with street kids. He was a good one, too. He died last year. Some pusher wasn't happy about Joey cleaning up the old neighborhood, so he had Joe killed."
"You stayed in touch with him, then."
"He, I mean you, saved my life. Sure I stayed in touch. You owe a guy like that." Things began to make some sense to the Admiral. "No wonder he never talked about this. He wasn't here."
"Yes, he was. On some level, I know the all the people I leap into. If Joey had the information I had, he would have done the same thing."
"He used to tell me that I was going to fly to the moon and I thought he was nuts. Right after his father ran off, he told me he thought there would be a ticker tape parade for me in Manhattan someday and he was right. In fact, he was in the car with me after the shuttle mission that went berserk." The Observer turned away.
Sam knew his friend well enough to know what was wrong. "Al, I can't begin to understand what going through this means to you. It has to be one of the most horrible things a person can survive, but you did it. I'm sorry about what happened here. I can't change that, but I'm not sorry I found out. It helps me know you better and admire you even more."
"Sam, all I did is survive and that's enough. Save admiration for something victorious. There was no victory here. I'm sorry you had to see this. It's not a part of my life I share with people."
"'People?' I'm not just 'people,' am I?"
Turning back to Sam, Al immediately said, "Of course not. I thought I had all this buried so deep it could never hurt me again and now look. It's over 50 years later and my stomach is tied up into knots so tight I feel like ralphing. I don't want to talk about this any more. It must be time for you to leap."
Trying to determine if he felt the tingle of leaping, Sam had to shake his head. "No. I'm not done here yet. I'm not ready to leap. What else needs doing? Ask Ziggy."
A few seconds of playing with the handlink and Al was muttering, "This is ridiculous. You haven't leaped because I'm supposed to go see myself at the hospital. Ziggy says I got to face what happened here. This is stupid."
"It makes sense, Al. If you haven't dealt with what happened, then maybe you need come to grips with it."
"But I can't do anything for him. I'm a hologram. He won't even be able to see me."
"Have Ziggy center you on you. I've got to go with the police before they think I'm nuts over here talking to myself." Al didn't move. "I probably won't leap until you're done. Go on."
He punched in a few symbols and mumbled, "Ziggy, center me on the kid." A few seconds later, Al materialized in a hospital room. Frenzied doctors and nurses were inserting IVs and trying to remove the shackles still surrounding young Al's wrists. One of the nurses took the iron in her hand and said, "I don't know how to get this off him. These are locked on. God, what kind of sickos had this boy? We'll have to get the cops in here to open these."
Though no one knew he was there, Al stood off to the side, out of the way. He could see his young self now awake, trying to suppress the total agony his battered body was feeling. The Admiral knew the boy was being tough, but he also knew that it would be better for the boy if he let go of the facade and let people care for him. He was able to meet the boy's eyes and something connected. Young Al knew his adult self was there. The boy whispered, "You're me."
The doctors looked at each other. One declared, "He's hallucinating. Get that blood typed now. He's dying."
The scene turned into slow motion as Al approached the hurt child. "Yeah, kid. I'm you. Disappointed, huh."
"I didn't think I'd live to be old."
The Admiral laughed, "You got a smart mouth kid." The boy before him was a separate person. He could barely recognize the child he had once been. "Your body is going to heal, but I got to tell you, kid, you're making life difficult for yourself, for me by not trusting people. I know how it's going to be for you if you don't give yourself a chance to get close to anyone. It's a damn lonely life and you got a quick mouth. No one will catch onto how lonely you are."
His young version was on the defensive. "I don't need anyone."
"Well, you're wrong. Believe it or not, you're really wrong. This is the most wrong you'll ever be. All the stealing and lying and cheating you've ever done doesn't begin to measure up to how wrong you are right now. You need someone who cares."
"Trudy's in the institution."
"Then go get her. When you're better, you make sure you find a way to get her out of there. You need her to love and to love you." Al threw his head back. "God, why didn't I ever think of this before?" He leaned over looking directly into the injured child's eyes. "Listen to me, kid. You need to have Trudy with you. She's the one person who has always loved you and always will."
"It hurts so bad." Only the Admiral knew that the boy's words had nothing to do with the injuries to his body. It was his soul that ached.
"Trust me. The hurt will only get worse if you don't try. At least you got to try to get Trudy. It's important to you and will be forever."
"I'll try."
"Promise me, kid. Remember, if you promise me, you're making a promise to yourself and those are the most important ones you'll ever make."
"I promise." The boy's eyes closed and he fell unconscious which for his broken body was a blessing.
Al pulled out the handlink and asked for input on his young self s future. What the screen showed him almost knocked him off his feet. "Oh, God." He wanted to share the news with the boy, but unconsciousness overwhelmed the teen and contact was lost. "Ziggy, are you sure about this?" The handlink squealed. "Center me on Sam." He zapped out of the ER and was back at the police station.
Sam was sitting in a bare room wearing a clean tee-shirt and pants. A police sergeant was with him. "Well, son, you did something tonight that was very brave. I know it was hard, but you did the right thing."
The pep talk was nice and Joey probably needed it, but he wasn't Joey and right now he wanted to talk to Al who had just blipped in. "Sergeant, I'd like to be alone while I wait for my mother, okay?" The sergeant smiled, nodded and left. "Al, how did it go?"
"I know why you leaped in here, Sam. It wasn't to save me."
"The little girl?"
"No, but she's okay, too. She gets placed in a good foster home."
"Al, something I did has to be the reason this happened to you. What did I do?"
"In your last leap, remember that car you kept from getting run off the road?" Sam nodded. "Yeah, well, it was O'Brien's car. Since the old man didn't die in the accident, he got to keep up with his hobby."
Sam suddenly became angry at himself. "Damn. It's my fault. Saving him did this to you."
"And it saved three innocent people's lives. Listen, you can't leap yet. I'll be back in a minute. Promise me, you won't leap." He disappeared from the room leaving Sam alone.
"Al?" The leaper had no idea what was happening. He let out an exasperated sigh. "You're making me crazy." He smiled and silently said, "But at least you're alive to do it. I wonder whatever happened to that English guy."
The Imaging Chamber door opened again and Al returned to Sam's side. "I got to talk to me in the hospital. Somehow, the kid saw and heard me. Maybe like Maggie did just before she died." A realization hit him, "Shit, I must have been almost dead. Anyway, I told him. I told me he had to find someone to trust. He said Trudy was the only one and I told him, Sam, I told him to do what I wished I always had done. There was a nurse at the hospital who took me in. A wonderful woman. I was able to convince her that Trudy needed to be with me and we got her out of Willowbrook, Sam." He gestured to the wall, "Come here, honey." Al put his hand out and someone grabbed onto him. Even though she had Down syndrome there was no mistaking her beautiful Calavicci brown eyes and curly dark hair. "Sam, I'd like you to meet Trudy."
The younger sister Al lost so many years before was alive, well and wearing a PQL food service uniform. Al whispered to her, "He's over there," and he pointed. She smiled and waved at Sam. Sam waved back, "Hi, Trudy. You look beautiful."
Al smiled at his sister, "He said you look beautiful." Trudy put an embarrassed, but pleased hand up to her face. "She is beautiful, isn't she, Sam? So very, very beautiful."
Sam was flying in the clouds. This hell of a leap had the best possible outcome. Grinning from ear to ear, the glow in his heart was overtaken by the glow of blue leap light.