I have found a wonderful beta who has worked with me to improve my writing, so I decided to go through several old stpries and reedit them.
This reedit not been beta'd so any mistakes are my own.
Date: Jan, 13th 2009
Location: A diner just south of new Mexico about 20 minutes away from Stallion's Gate.
Doctor Samual Becket found himself standing at the entrance to a rundown roadside dinner. He walked toward the serving counter, took a seat on a stool, and picked up a menu. As he did a Waitress who looked to be around 60 walked over. "So what`ll it be hun'?" She asked him.
"Huh?" Sam replied looked up at her startled at the prompt service then realised she was waiting for him to order, "I take a coffee please." Nodding the waitress walked off.
Sam looked round the dinner to see if he was supposed to be meeting anyone. Seeing no-one else around he decided to look at the TV in the corner. It was showing a breaking news story with the headline, 'Explosion heard from mountains near Stallion's Gate,' Sam recognised the place name so continued watching, but the news program ended. He sighed as a cheesy soap opera came on. He looked away, 'how can anyone watch this drivel?' he thought, noticing the waitress was back and had just placed a large mug of black coffee on the counter in front of him, he thanked her.
"Would you like milk, sugar with your coffee hun'?" she asked him.
"Just milk please," he responded, prompting her to pour some from the jug she was holding and went to leave, "I don't suppose you have todays newspaper I can look at, please?"
"I believe the cook has it, I'll go check," the waitress responded before going into the kithen,
While waiting on her return, he remembered why he knew Stallions gate. "That's where the project is based," he said to himself. 'What happened? Al where are you?' He started to wonder if everything was all right there, knowing what ever happened would have been before the project was started.
The waitress returned a couple minutes later carrying a newspaper, which she placed infront of him. He thanked her and looked at the front page for the date, he checked again, 'Jan 13th 2009,' he couldn't believe the date. 'So not the past then. Is this the present, am I, home?' "I've been doing this for nearly 10 years now?" he voiced his final thought aloud.
"Time flies doesn't it? I was a teenage runaway when I first came here." the waitress responded, making conversation with the time traveller.
He realised she had overheard him so he nodded. "Sure does," she was about to further the conversation, when the dinner bell chimed, prompting her to leave for the kitchen.
"Hi Sam?" He heard a familiar voice. Turning round he saw Al Calavicci standing next to him. The observer was wearing an 70s style white disco jacket with a pastel blue shirt underneath with the top two buttons unfastened.
"Al, it's good to see you, why am I here?" Sam asked. He wanted to ask about Stallions Gate, but saw the Waitress was heading in their direction carrying a notepad and pen.
Al looked at his hand link, then slapped it while giving it an annoyed look. He looked back at Sam before placing it back into his pocket, "Ziggy, has no data," the observer reluctantly replied rolling his eyes in frustration. He took a seat on a stool next to Sam.
"So what`ll it be?" the waitress asked.
Sam went to say he was ok, but Al replied, "I'm good just here to meet my friend."
Sam looked at Al In shock, then looked at the waitress, "Forgive me here, but can you see my friend?" Sam enquired.
"Of course I can. I may be getting older, but my eyes are not that bad," she responded, annoyance at Sam evident in her face.
"Actually, I'll take a coffee white, extra sweet, please." Al ordered to get rid of her. She nodded and walked off to get the drink.
Sam reached his hand out to place it on Als shoulder. He was expecting it to pass through him, but instead his hand settled on his friends shoulder. He left his hand there and tried with his other hand, which resulted in the same result. Realising Al was actually there sitting in front of him and was not a hologram from the future he pulled his friend closer to him into an embrace. Tears started to fall from his eyes. When Sam released him, Al smiled brightly, "Sam, you're home, Stallion's Gate, is less than a 20 minute drive that way," Sam looked in the direction Al pointed, then quickly grabbed a napkin holder to look at his reflection in the smooth metallic finish. However, instead of his own face, a young handsome face belonging to a person in his mid-late 20s looked back at him. A face he had seen in the cheesy soap opera on the TV.
Sam was about to question Al about his leaping into the present when the hand link beeped, "Thank you Ziggy." Al said in irritation before relaying the details to Sam. "Your name is Celvin Smithe. You were born April 1st 1987." the waitress interrupted them by placing the coffee in front of Al, and stayed there, to see if they required anything else. Al tasted it, "Perfect thank you," he beamed a big smile towards her, making her smile back in gratitude.
"You boys require anything else?" They both replied that they were fine, "If you require anything further just call," She left them realising they wanted some privacy.
When she was gone, Al continued "You were born in Miami Florida where you are a small time TV heartthrob who starred in several daytime soap operas..." he stopped pointed at the TV as Celvin appeared on scene kissing some blonde woman, "...including the popular cheesy one thats on TV right now..."
This was not the info Sam wanted to know, so he interrupted Als monologue. "Al, I saw on the TV earlier this news headline, something about an explosion in the mountains near Stallion's Gate... What happened?" he enquired.
Al looked at Sam and shook his head, "So, you heard about that?" Al got up and stared to pace, a distant look forming on his face. "OK, Sam. This goes against the rules, but I believe that is why your here. There was a small power failure in the mainframe of Ziggys CPU, which caused a cooler to stop working, which ultimately led to the explosion. In events leading the it damaged several vital components so we are currently running at half capacity, that's why there was a delay in getting the details. When I left the components were being replaced," Al grabbed his coffee and took a sip before continuing, "However there's another problem, the interface is all screwy and the ego is gone, we restored most of the interface via a backup but we cannot get the ego to stay in place. it keeps being replaced with that of an elderly Asian man's. As for the interface itself, well everything seems to be alright at first, but then it goes all distorted again, we do not know what to do Sam. Personally I blame that new interface board we installed last week since it was made in Japan." Al sat back down and took another sip of his coffee. Sam sat there absorbing what Al had said, while sipping his own.
"Al, is it ok for me to come take a look for myself? Maybe I can fix it?" Sam finally asked.
"That's why I believe you are here now Sam." Al grabbed a mobile phone from his pocket and dialled a number, "Gushie, it's Al... I am with Sam I will be bringing him in, he needs clearance..." he waited for a couple minutes "... That's great, we'll be there in 20-30 minutes. See ya Gushie."
Al called the waitress over to pay her for the coffees. He handed her $10 telling her to "keep the change." She took the money and the cups and thanked Al as they left the dinner.
In the parking lot, they walked towards where two cars were located. Al pointed at a red Porsche convertible, "This is Celvins car Sam." Sam felt in his pockets and found the keys.
"Which way was it Al?" he questioned admiring the car, while thinking 'This car looks like it can get some speed going.' He then opened the driver's door and climbed in. A huge grin appeared on his face at the prospect of driving the car.
"Just follow me, we will have to take the main gate since you currently lack the required clearance for the private employees tunnel," Al got into his own car and drove towards the road, Sam followed as they sped off away from the dinner. Sam pushed the Porsche as fast as he could, but was struggling to keep up with Al.
When they reached the security check point the guard handed Sam a visitors ID and a parking pass. "Ok, Mr Smithe just follow the Admiral," Sam thanked the guard and followed Al to the private secure parking zone, parking next to Al.
As Sam walked over to Al he heard a voice, "Ah Calavicci-San, so good to see your safe return. You bring Beckett-Sensai?" Al looked at Sam
"Yes Ziggy, he's here with me now" Al replied.
"Hello ziggy, are full diagnostics under way?" Sam asked realising he could speak to Ziggy.
"Ah yes, diagnostics completed, print out in Okusan's hands." Sam smiled as he started to remember his wife, Donna. He smiled as he saw her standing there by the door that would take them from the car park into the main complex. As he walked over towards her a mobile started to ring, he realised it was Celvin's so he reached into his pocket.
"Hello?" he spoke, answering the call.
"Yo, Celvin, its Rex you still going to get to California within a week?" the person on the other end asked.
"Hi Rex, err, there's been an unexpected delay. I'll have to get back to you when I'm back on the road."
"What delay? You know we cannot afford any delays. Just remember, if you're not on the set in 7 days time, we're giving your role to Martin."
"I'll get there on time, I swear. I'll phone you tomorrow with an update," Sam replied hanging up the phone.
"Beckett-Sensei cannot make Celvin-san late. That role Celvin's big chance to appear in big Hollywood movie," Ziggy chimed in as Donna rushed over throwing her arms around Sam. As they embraced, they started to kiss.
"Good to have you back. Even if it's only for a short time," she said after breaking their pasionate embrace. She then took a step back and looked him up and down, "Nice eye candy body you leaped into, Celvin Smithe is one of my favourite soap stars," she said with a sly smile.
The trio walked into the main chamber Sam had his hand in Donna's. Sam found he recognised everybody except for a younger woman in her mid-30s, she was wearing a loose fitting pink jumper and black sweat pants, he smiled at her and shook her hand. Al introduced her as Sammy-Jo. Upon hearing her name he remembered her as a young girl, and realised she was his biological daughter.
After catching up with everyone, Sam started to work with Sammy-Jo looking through Ziggy's coding. After a couple hours, he had identified the problem and had written a patch to repair the problem. He sent Sammy-Jo the patch to check over, while he started updating the code for the imaging and acceleration chamber. When they were ready, he sent his daughter the new programs to check over then upload. He got up and stretched, looking to the door. At the door he saw Donna standing there holding two plates. He walked over to her and took them from her, "Just like the old days before you made that initial premature leap," she said making Sam smile.
"Yeah, it feels like I never left." he replied before walking over to Sammy Jo, and handed her one of the plates; she took it thanking him and Donna. She set it on the desk, and finished checking over the updated programs and started the upload into Ziggy's CPU
After finishing eating, Sammy-Jo's screen flashed to say upload was complete. She watched as Sam switched status of the new code from pending to test. Then set the corrupted code to deletion. He smiled at Sammy before ordering, "Ziggy self test of new code audio results."
"You forgot to say please, Doctor Beckett," Ziggy replied in her old original voice.
He laughed in relief, then added, "Please Ziggy."
"Of course Doctor Becket, the test will take precisely 5.23 minutes to complete." Sammy-Jo whimpered and lifted her jumper up revealing her swollen mid section and placed her hand on it which made Sam's medical training kick in.
"Are you ok?" he enquired.
She pulled the jumper back down "I'm fine, just a slight pain. It has gone now."
"How far along are you?" he asked realising she was pregnant.
"Just over 8 months, due date is not for another couple weeks."
Sam nodded, as she changed the subject "You are even more amazing than I heard, you found that progressive coding error I made when I updated the backup program last week. I should not have changed your code, but the backup was taking far too long, this update reduces how long it takes by 40 minutes."
Sam just smiled at her, "It is good coding, I nearly missed that error. Your new code should indeed make things a lot smoother. I also tweaked the rest of the code to allow smoother incorporation," Just then Ziggy interrupted them.
"Self test complete. All systems projected to run at 124.21% of previous efficiency, all systems normal," Ziggy said. Sam smiled, feeling pleased with himself and of Sammy-Jo. He set the new code to live, overwriting the existing.
"Well looks like everything here is sorted out, and is running better than before." he said then looked towards Donna who had just walked back into the room. He embraced her before announcing, "I believe its time I stopped this leaping through time and come home, in my own body. I'm getting to old for this leaping into young people." He kissed her, then took her hand and escorted her into the main chamber. Sammy-Jo followed them, taking the seat offered to her by Tina.
Sam stood at the head of the table, placing a hand on Ziggys mainframe, he asked, "Ziggy, what are the odds of my returning to my own body here and Celvin to his own if we both simo-leaped into each other." Donna put a hand on his shoulder in hope.
"The chances of a successful retrieval of Doctor Samuel Beckett with those conditions are 89.64%" Ziggy responded after a moment's hesitation.
"Those are very good odds Sam," Al said, "Beth will be pleased, after all when I'm at home she often complains that she never gets to see enough of me." Beth walked over to Al and gave him a playful slap on the chest.
"It's not complaining. However, just would be nice if you were able to retire and spend more of your time at home with me instead of here observing his leaps," Beth replied. Sam looked over to Beth, remembering his leaping into her house and telling her the story of how Al was still alive; saving their marriage.
"Well if this works, you will see him a lot more. It's time I stopped this leaping I'm getting too old for this job."
Sam got changed into the white jumpsuit, while Celvin was escorted from the waiting room and to the accelerator chamber. Sam and Celvin looked at each other, before stepping into the acceleration chamber and vanishing.
Moments later, they both reappeared in the waiting room. Sam looked into a mirror offered to him by Al and the reflection, for the second time in a decade, showed his own albeit older face. He cheered to himself thinking, 'I'm home.' He looked over to the other person in the room, who was looking disoriented.
"Where am I, what am I wearing here?" Celvin asked. Sam and Al tried to explain as best they could without giving away much top-secret information, while Tina examined him.
After being cleared for release, Al took Celvin to the parking area so he could move on and continue with his life.
In the main chamber Donna was holding Sam's hand, saying it was good to have him back, when Sammy-Jo grabbed her mid-section and let out a whimper. Sam walked over to see if she was ok, when a wet patch appeared on the chair she was on and her whimpering turned into a panicked scream. She grabbed his hand and screamed at him, "I think I'm in labour...!" Sam's medical training kicked in, and he took control of the situation.
A couple hours later, she had given birth to a healthy baby boy. Sam smiled while cradling the baby in his arms, he whispered to Donna, "I'm a grandfather." He handed the baby to Sanmmy-Jo who took the baby, then looked at Sam.
"What do you mean, Grandfather?" she muttered cradling the child. Sam realised she had heard him and that she did not know he was her father. He told her he would explain after she had recovered. She nodded and fell asleep from exhaustion with the baby resting in her arms.
The next day, Sam explained to her about his leaping to help her mother, how he was initially her grandfather, then her mother's fiancée and then finally her mothers Lawyer.