FOUR
Sam, Chris, and Samantha had all moved to the dining facility for the complex, at Bill's suggestion. He knew they would have a lot to discuss and he felt they should be comfortable as they talked. And, he added, they could probably all use something to eat. Sam had to admit he was getting hungry. And he was anxious to hear everything that Samantha and Chris had to say. He had a million questions for them.
The dining facility was a large cafeteria-like room which didn't surprise Sam in the least. Most of the food preparation would be centralized in the project, just as it was in most large facilities. He did find it a bit odd that the tables all seemed to be bolted to the floor. He couldn't understand why they would need to secure them to the floor like that but he didn't say anything about it.
"After they closed down the Quantum Leap project, Grandpa Al did everything he could think of to try and get private funding for the project," said Chris. "Unfortunately the funding was incredible. No one was willing to put what would essentially be billions of dollars into a project that seemed to have no return on it. At least, not for the investors. He spent the rest of his life trying to get it started up again but he was never able to get the funding he needed.
"But he never gave up hope. Until the day he died he still believed that eventually someone would find a way to retrieve you. I have to admit I had my doubts about it. But once they were able to retrieve Doug and Tony, I thought that Grandpa Al's faith would one day be justified. We just had to figure out how to do it."
"Which, I'm told, Tony eventually did," responded Sam. "I'm sorry Al didn't live to see it. He did everything he could to see that I came home. I wish he could have been there when it happened."
"He never doubted it for a minute. He said that one day you'd be back. I'm glad I was here when it happened."
"So," said Sam, turning to Samantha, "what about your grandmother? I remember during one leap that Al told me she was part of the Quantum Leap project. I never did find out exactly what she did there. But I got the impression from Al that it was pretty important."
"Theoretical physics and quantum mechanics," replied Samantha. "She worked on the equations that were needed to retrieve you. And she designed some of the equipment that we still use in the complex today. Of course, she eventually discovered that you were her father. That's not exactly a secret they could keep around the project. But like Chris's great grandfather, she never gave up hope that we'd be able to retrieve you one day."
"That's good to hear," said Sam. "I had a good team there. And I couldn't have asked for better friends. I wonder what eventually became of them?"
"Well," said Chris, "Gushy and Tina eventually got married. They had three children and moved to Minnesota so Gushy could work at a big think tank there. I think secretly he always hoped to find some way to get the project going again. Tina was a stay-at-home mom. I understand they were very happy together."
"What about my wife? What about Donna?"
"After you were 'lost in time', so to speak," said Samantha, "she took over as the director of the project. No one knew as much as she did about it. I guess because she helped you design it. After they closed the project down she had to finally resign herself to the fact that you were never coming home. She got a job as a professor at Princeton and spent the rest of her life teaching many of the theories you had developed."
"She always did prefer teaching. Did she ever remarry?"
"No, she never did. She said that since you were still alive, technically she was still married to you. She also said you were the only man she had ever loved and she'd never find that again. But she had a good life. She and Al kept in touch over the years and I think it helped both of them deal with your being gone. They were very good friends."
"Well, at least she wasn't alone. I'm thankful for that. It's kind of strange. I know they've all been gone for decades but somehow it seems like I just lost them. I'm going to miss them all terribly."
"That's perfectly normal," said Bill, walking up to the table. "From your perspective, they've only been gone a few days. It may take some time to adjust to the fact that they're actually gone. But you will eventually."
"No doubt," said Sam sadly.
"So, how is the reminiscing going?"
"Fine," said Chris. "I think we've pretty much brought Sam up to date on his personal life. At least, what we know of it. We really haven't told him much about his professional life."
"My professional life?" Sam questioned. "I don't understand."
"Well, as I said," Bill said, "a great deal has happened since you first leapt. There's a lot for you to catch up on and we felt it would be easier if you were eased into it. We're assuming you'll want to resume your work on the Quantum Leap project but it will be necessary for you to learn of all the advancements we've made since your time."
"To be honest I never gave much thought to what I would do once I got back. I was just so focused on doing whatever I was supposed to do hoping that my next leap would be the one that brought me home. But I always expected I'd return to New Mexico where the project was located."
"Well, this may not be New Mexico but you are home after a fashion. You shouldn't be leaping through time again at least not any time soon. And we can certainly use someone with your experience and expertise on our current project."
"I'll have to give it some thought," replied Sam. "I guess I'm still adjusting to the fact that I won't have to worry about jumping from one time to another. And that all of my friends and family are dead."
"Well, not all of them," Samantha said coyly. "You still have me. And Chris is almost like family."
"Point taken. It's still a lot to take in all at one time."
"Well," Bill said, "the staff psychiatrist is available for you to speak with whenever you need to. He's told me that such a drastic change can be extremely stressful and sometimes just talking about it can make the adjustment much easier."
"I appreciate that," Sam said. "I just need some time to absorb all that's happened. And, as you said, decide what I'm going to do next. To be honest I have no idea what I plan to do. I suppose I'll need to learn about all these professional changes you alluded to."
As if his statement were some kind of signal, a red light mounted in the ceiling of the room began to flash. A klaxon began to sound and everyone looked around anxiously. A voice, which seemed vaguely reminiscent to Sam, though he couldn't quite place it, began to sound throughout the room.
"Warning. Warning. Event level 4 imminent. Event level 4 imminent. Standard protocols implemented."
Sam looked around not knowing what was going on. As he did he noticed that nearly everyone in the room began to grip the tables where they were sitting. He looked at the people gathered at his table. They, like everyone else in the room, were gripping the table.
"Hang on, Sam," Bill said. "This won't last long."
Not knowing exactly why, Sam grabbed the edges of the table he was sitting at. For several moments nothing happened. Sam was wondering exactly what was supposed to happen when the entire room began to shake violently. He could hear a low rumbling sound that appeared to be coming from a distance that was accompanied by a high pitch screeching sound that started low but grew in volume very rapidly.
The shaking and rumbling lasted less than a minute but it seemed to be much longer to Sam. He realized that if he wasn't holding onto the table he would probably have been thrown to the floor by the shaking. As quickly as they had begun, the shaking, rumbling, and screeching stopped. Sam released his grip on the table and found he had been gripping it so hard his knuckles had turned white and his hands were cramping.
"What was that?" Sam asked. "I didn't know that Arizona had any fault lines."
"Actually, there are four fault lines that run near what used to be Flagstaff," said Bill. "But we aren't near those. And that wasn't an earthquake."
"I don't understand," said Samantha. "We shouldn't have had another event for another three weeks. And a level 4. It's escalating more rapidly than we had predicted. I have to get to the lab. I've got to find out what happened."
"What's going on?" demanded Sam. "What kind of event are you talking about?"
"Sorry, Sam," said Bill, "it looks like you're going to have to get a crash course in the professional updates we were talking about. I was hoping we'd have more time to let you get acclimated to your new time. Come on. I'll try to fill you in while Samantha finds out what's going on."
The group got up from the table and headed out of the cafeteria. As they did they ran into Tony and Doug who were hurrying down the hall toward them.
"It appears our timetable is off a bit," said Doug. "Any idea what happened?"
"I'm on my way to find out now," said Samantha. "I could use your help."
Doug just nodded and the two headed off down the hallway together. Sam was totally confused. Everyone seemed to know what was going on except him. Tony turned to Bill.
"I don't suppose you've had a chance to bring Sam up to speed on what's going on."
"I was hoping we wouldn't have to so soon." He glanced at Sam. "I'm sure he's got a thousand questions right now. Tony, why don't you take Sam up to the observation room and explain what we're up against? I'm sure you can explain it much better than I can and you'll be able to answer any questions he'll have. Chris and I are going to check and see what kind of damage there might be and if there are any injuries."
"Come on, Sam. Let's go get you some answers."
The two took an elevator to the top floor of the complex. From what Sam remembered about the layout, the top floor would be the one that sat on the surface. The rest of the complex was underground. He could only assume that the complex still sat in a secluded, uninhabited part of Arizona. They exited the elevator and Sam followed Tony to a room at the end of the corridor. As they entered the room Sam noticed that the back wall was made entirely of glass, allowing anyone in the room to see outside. It was currently dark and there appeared to be no moon.
"I hadn't realized it was night," said Sam. "What time is it anyway?"
"It's 11:42," said Tony, looking at his watch. "A.M.", he added, after a short pause.
"A.M.?" questioned Sam. "Why is it so dark out? It looks like it's the middle of the night. And where are the stars? It's not overcast. The sky should be filled with stars."
"It always looks like that. Do you remember how we retrieved you?"
"Yeah. You bombarded me with antineutrinos to counteract the neutrinos that kept me bouncing around in time. Once you had bombarded me with enough, I returned here."
"That's right. Well, what we didn't know at the time was that the antineutrinos had a side effect. As I'm sure you know, neutrinos and antineutrinos have almost no mass which means they can reach nearly the speed of light. And it's also known that they can move backward through time. What we discovered was that the farther back in time they travel, the less mass they possess. At some point they lose all their mass completely and actually achieve the speed of light. That, in essence, is what allowed you to travel through time."
"That would make sense," replied Sam thoughtfully. "As they travel back in time they would necessarily have to expend energy because of entropy. Since they have very little mass to begin with it would stand to reason that they'd lose mass as they expended this energy."
"Exactly. The Earth is bombarded every day by billions of neutrinos from the sun. They normally pass harmlessly through matter with no discernable effect. Even in your day it was not easy to even measure them. Not impossible, but still quite difficult. So, just as with Project: Tic Toc, Project: Quantum Leap was dealing in a lot of theoretical data that hadn't actually been proven."
"Like black holes. While we knew we were able to theorize about them and how they worked, no one had ever shown any empirical evidence that they existed. The math showed us that they must exist so it was just accepted that they did."
"That's where the side effect that I mentioned comes into play. As I said, as they travel farther back in time, they effectively lose all their mass. What we didn't know was that at the same time, they were increasing in volume. Because they're subatomic particles, their volume was negligible. Even an increase in their volume several hundred times shouldn't have produced any discernable effects."
"I assume they did. Otherwise you wouldn't be mentioning it."
"That's right. As the antineutrinos we used to neutralize the neutrinos in your system traveled back in time, their volume increased exponentially. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been a problem. But then a curious thing happened. The antineutrinos began to bond together."
"That's not possible. Neutrinos and antineutrinos don't carry an electrical charge. There's nothing to bind them together."
"Normally I'd agree with you. But as you also know, they can be affected by gravity. At the subatomic level this gravity is relatively weak which doesn't affect them to any great degree. But with their increased volume, the gravity of the Earth had a substantially different effect on them. We believe that it's the Earth's gravitational field that actually binds them together and holds them in a cohesive state that isn't possible on the subatomic level."
"I suppose theoretically it's possible, but we're still talking about subatomic particles. And without an electrical charge they shouldn't have an effect on anything."
"Maybe if we were talking about a single particle or even several dozen or even several hundred. But consider this. Billions upon billions upon billions of antineutrinos, each increased in volume say a hundred million times, and all bonding together because of the gravitational field of the earth."
"Like the cells of the human body," said Sam, the realization coalescing in his mind. "Individually they are less than insignificant. But put enough of them together, and you get a living human being."
"Precisely. And by all accounts, our estimates are very conservative. More than likely their increased volume is considerably larger than we've estimated making the problem even more pronounced."
"I still don't understand what the problem is. All you would have is essentially one very large antineutrino. They still don't have an electrical charge which means they shouldn't be able to affect anything."
"We initially told you that we weren't sure how many antineutrinos were needed to counteract the neutrinos in your body."
"That's right. You said you had to bombard my quantum trail several times before you got the dosage right."
"Yeah. Except that with each bombardment, the antineutrinos all bonded with the super colony of antineutrinos in the past. Eventually the colony was so large that it severed your quantum trail which is actually what brought you back."
"Kind of like stretching a rubber band. The super colony negated whatever it was that was keeping my quantum trail, my 'rubber band' if you will, stretched. Once that was severed I would snap back to the present."
"That's what we theorized. It's also why you won't be bouncing around in time anymore. The rubber band isn't stretched any longer. Unfortunately when we severed the connection that was keeping the band stretched we did something that we don't understand even now. Somehow, this giant colony of antineutrinos we bombarded your quantum trail with has set up a sort of barrier to the time stream."
"Wait a minute. Theoretically a barrier in the time stream would prevent it from moving forward. Once it reached that barrier it would simply stop moving and remain suspended at whatever point it was at."
"Now you see the problem," said Tony, looking out at the field of blackness beyond the windows. "The quantum temporal generator we used to bombard your quantum trail with has created a sort of bubble around us. Everything inside the bubble is essentially trapped in a moment of time. As long as the generator keeps running the bubble remains intact. If it should stop, even for a nanosecond, the bubble would burst and we'd join everything outside the bubble."
Sam just stared at the blackness outside. He knew exactly what Tony was talking about. If the time stream couldn't move forward, then time didn't exist beyond the barrier that prevented it from moving. And if time didn't exist then for all intents and purposes, nothing existed beyond the barrier. What Tony had described was complete and total oblivion of the universe and everything in it.