June 3, 2017
Dr. Ben Song finds himself in another place, another time, another person.
He sees a man and woman kissing. Both of them wear cloths covering the hair on top of their heads.
The kiss lasts for maybe a quarter of a minute before it stops.
They then turns around, with their backs to him.
The leaper notices other people in the room, all finely dressed.
He realizes this is a wedding.
"Say hello to..the bride and groom," he says, smiling He sees people taking out what are clearly Android phones and iPhones, narrowing the time range when he can be in. Usually his time range is from the mid0-1908's to the late 2010's, but Ian Wright had once mentioned that in a temporally-excited state, he might be able to leap as far back as the Bronze Age!
Cellular telephones do make one aspect of quantum leaping easier.
A man speaks to him in some language.
"It was an honor," says Ben, in that same language. He then places his hand over his mouth.
"We thank you for marrying out little girl," says the woman, who has a cloth on her head.
"You're welcome," answers the leaper.
He looks confused. He wonders how he is able to understand and speak this language, unless he is accessing some skills and memories from his leapee.
"You look lost," says another man.
Ben looks and sees a man in a white robe. He has short black hair, a short black beard, and olive-complected skin. "Yeah," he replies.
"We only got back from Turkiye this week," he says.
Ben walks out, greeted by air that is around seventy-five degrees. The wedding guests have gathered outside, taking more pictures, both with smart phones and dedicated cameras. A white Lincoln limousine is parked outside.
"Weddings are always nice," says Addison Augustine.
Ben looks and sees a woman with light brown hair, wearing a knee-length skirt and a short-sleeve white b louse. She is the observer for Project Quantum Leap, a time travel project where the leaper leaps into people in the past. She is projected via brain wave transmission sent by an Ianging Chamber, and only the leaper can see and/or hear her.
Remembering this, Ben places his leapee's Apple iPhone by his hear. "Hi there," he says, looking like he is talking to someone in this time by cell phone. "I find myself talking in this language."
"Arabic," replies the observer. "Your accessing your host's language skills, which makes things a bit easier. Anyway, you're Hassan al Naari, a Muslim preacher in Vancouver, British Columbia. He's the head imam, if you can call it, in this mosque where this wedding took place. Today's date is June 3, 2017."
"Maybe we should go to the pastor's office where we can talk."
Addison looks around, enjoying the scene. She notices a crowd of people around one of the guests.
"Thank you, thank you," he says. "I am not master of ceremonies here. That honor belongs to Hassan al Naari, a man I consider a mentor. If you have questions about me, you can visit my mosque. But let's have our attention to our loving couple, and this man of God who married them!"
Ben smiles.
The white Lincoln limousine pulls away from the curb and drives off. Many of the wedding guests either go to their cars or use their smart phones to summon ridesharing services like Uber or Lyft.
A girl, with a cloth covering her head, walks up to Ben.
"Thank you for the service," she says in Arabic.
"You know the couple?" asks Ben.
"Bride is my older cousin."
"That's right," says the man who had spoken to ben earlier. "Laila here's an excellent volunteer for us and for God."
"Ian's having Ziggy dub English over their speech," says the observer. "It sounds a little funny, though."
"You know," the man continues. "I do wish Azra was here. She was the best. She awaits you in Paradise, but I have feeling God has more to require from you on this Earth."
"I need to go to my office," says the leaper.
And so he does. He looks again the the main prayer room where the ceremony took place; it is all but deserted now. A door in the back leads to a hallway, and he sees a plate by thew door, with the name HASSAN AL NAARI written in both Arabic and English. The leaper walks inside, sitting behind a wooden desk. A MacBook is connected to a dock, connected to a keyboard, mouse, and Silicon Graphic monitor.
With no one from this time inside the office, Ben and Addison can talk freely.
"Hassan al Naari was born in the Kingdom of Jordan in 1953, making you 64 years old," she says. "In 1966, he and his family immigrated to Canada, settling in the Vancouver area. Hassan was deeply faithful, and he chose a life of serving in an Islamic ministry. He later met Azra, whose family immigrated from the Bosnia-Hergezovina region of the former Yugoslavia in the '60's. The two of them married in 1980 and went on a hajj during their honeymoon, they had a family, including a grandchild, and stayed married until her death in 2015 of an aneurysm."
Ben takes a framed photograph, showing a woman, looking to be in her mid-fifties, with a cloth covering her hair. "This must be her," he says. "Too bad I couldn't leap earlier to prevent her from leaving so soon. But if I;'m an imam, maybe there's a ...parishioner I'm supposed to help?"
Addison holds a circular electronic device called a handlink, which acts as a remote terminal for Ziggy, the supercomputer that runs Project Quantum Leap. "I can show you," she says.
The observer projects a hologram on the Silicon Graphics screen. A picture of a man appears, with short black hair and a short black beard.
"He was at the wedding," says Ben. "Just maybe twenty minutes ago."
"His name is Yitzhak Haddad," says Addison.
"Let me look that up." Opening Google Chrome, Ben types into the search field.
the first web site listed is for the Bridge to Heaven mosque. The second listing is a YouTube channel.
Clicking the link for Bridge to Heaven, a bio of Haddad appears. Ben and Addison reads through it.
"Let's see," says the leaper. "Born in 1978 in Vancouver, he volunteered for Islamic charities starting in his teens. Wjhile a student of dsivinity at the University of Calgary, he spread the Word of God on bulletin board services and Usenet newsgroups. He started a blog in 2002, and did charity work as well as going on pilgrimages. He returned to Vancouver and founded Bridge to Heaven in 2014. He leads prayer services as well as operating his YouTube channel. He also wrote several books, and occasionally appears on television." Ben clicks more pictures. "Here he is at the 9/11 memorial, and here's a picture of him with Joel Osteen."
"That's his story up until now," says the observer. "But it has a sad ending."
Addison projects another hologram onto the computer monitor. It is an image of the front page of the Vancouver Sun, dated June 6, 2017. Ben reads the headline.
"Bridge to Heaven Imam, Muslim Webvangelist, Found Murdered," he reads.
The picture is clearly that of Yitzhak Haddad.
