1986
The image of Ronald Wilson Reagan appears in the well-polished mirror in the lavatory.
The man looking at the mirror is not the 40th President of the United States of America.
Instead, he is Dr. Ben Song, a quantum physicist who used a device called a quantum leap accelerator to possess people in the past, people like President Reagan. He had many experiences, although he had not been able to return to his own time.
"We have to go now!": exclaims a woman with light brown hair. She is Addison Augustine, the observer from Project Quantum Leap, Unlike Ben, she is not really here, instead being projected by an Imaging Chamber in the future.
Ben runs out of the lavatory and through the presidential suite as the observer guides him. The leaper passes White House staff and Secret Service agents.
Addison goes through the door of one of the lavatories. There, she sees a woman with dark brown hair. The woman wears a black jacket over a white blouse, and wears a white skirt covering her legs down to just below her kees.
She is also slumped on the deck of the lavatory.
Addison runs through the lavatory door, and then touches a circular electronic device known as a handlink, which is remote terminal for Ziggy, the artificial intelligence that runs Project Quantum Leap. "Listen, you need to land at Rickenbacker Airport. That's the best chance. Its' a medical emergency."
Ben looks at the staffers and Secret Service agents who followed him.
"We need to land the plane!" exclaims the leaper. "Rickenbacker Airport!"
"Sir?" asks a staffer.
"Do it! It's a medical emergency!"
"Yes, sir!"
The leaper then looks at a Secret Service agent, all dressed in a black jacket, black trouser, and a white shirt, with a black necktie around the collar.
"Mr. President?" he asks.
"Break down this door!" commands Ben.
"Yes, sir," replies the Secret Service agent.
Meanwhile, Addison is projected into the cockpit of the Boeing VC-137C, which is a custom design based on the Boeing 707 passenger jet. It looks like a typical cockpit, with all sorts of instruments an d gauges and controls.
She feels excited, as she is being projected into the cockpit of Air Force One. She listens in.
"Air Force One to Rickenbacker," says the lead pilot. "We are declaring an emergency. I repeat, we are declaring an emergency. We request clearance."
"Copy that," replies the air traffic controller. "you are clear for Runway 0-5 Lima, emergency crews are standing by."
Even as the jet with the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA livery begins to descend towards the airport near Columbus, Ohio, instead of staying in flight to land at San Francisco International Airport in South San Francisco, California, red fire trucks and two red ambulances race out of Rickenbacker's fire station, their red emergency lights flashing.
Meanwhile, Secret Service agents manage to bust down the door of the lavatory, seeing the White House staffer slumped unconscious.
"How did you know, sir?" a Secret Service agents asks the leaper from the future who appears to be President Reagan.
"Classified," answers Ben.
Addison presses buttons on the handlink and projects herself out of the VC-137C. She miles. Below her is the ground, tens of thousands of feet below and approaches. There are farms, highways, towns, and the city of Columbus. The scenery is moving around, as if the observer is moving along with Air Force One.
"I love being a hologram," she says.
The flight crew concentrates as they line up for approach to Runway 05L, and the passenger jet continues its descent into the Columbus metropolitan area. In the meantime, Ben is sitting inside the presidential suite, next to Nancy Reagan, nee Davis. The female staffer is sitting in another leather seat, accompanied by a Secret Service agent who has experience in first aid from years of being a Navy corpsman.
The leaper looks out the window, seeing the farmscape below get slightly bigger.
Air Force One descends below ten thousand feet. The flight crew keep a close eye on the instruments.
A pilot moves a lever to bring down the flaps, and pulls down another lever to extend the main and nose landing gear.
Addison is outside, seeing the runway for Rickenbacker ahead. Already, there are fire trucks parked on the runway with their emergency lights flashing.
She sits on the Imaging Chamber floor, looking ahead.
The features of the ground get closer and closer. Addison notices individual cars and trucks driving along U.S. Highway 33.
Ben looks through the window, seeing the farmscape getting closer and closer.
The Air Force One pilots look ahead at the runway, with its light, and noticing the emergency lights from the ambulances and fire trucks.
And then the main landing gears touch down on the concrete surface of Runway 05L, and Ben feels vibrations. Seconds later, the nose landing gear touches down.
The Air Force pilot reverses throttle, and the counter-jet slows the VC-137C.
The speed drops to eighty knots, then forty knots.
Soon, the pilot applies the brake, and the presidential plane comes to a complete stop.
A moveable staircase is quickly moved towards the front starboard side door. Two of the Secret Service agents carry the unconscious woman from the presidential suite, along a hallway, and then through the starboard side door, walking down the steps without delay. Two uniformed paramedics await at the bottom of the staircase and place her on a gurney. The gurney is loaded into a red ambulance which then drives, off, blaring its siren.
"She lives," says Addison, standing at the door.
Several firefighters gather at the open door, all looking at Ben.
The leaper waves at them, and then a blue glow surrounds him as he leaps out of Ronald Reagan.
It's raising my adrenaline
You're banging on a heart of tin
Please don't make too much of it baby (baby)
You say the word forevermore
That's not what I'm looking for
All I can commit to is maybe
Ben Song finds himself in another place, another time, another person.
"Sounds like a complete asshole," says a man in his sixties, with a beer in his hand. "Bein' an asshole's not a way to go through life."
"Yeah," says another man sitting next to him, appearing to be in his fifties.
So let it be what it'll be
Don't make a fuss and get crazy over you and me
Crazy over you and me
Here's what I'll do
I'll play loose
Not like we have a date with destiny
"I used to be an asshole, a bigger asshole than the union president, if you could believe that,"says the older man. It took decades of my assholery biting me back in the ass before..."
A young man with cornrows, wearing a sweat jacket and trousers bursts in.
The most noticeable feature is that he has a nine-millimeter pistol in his hands.
"Don't move!" he yells.
It's just (aah) a little crush...