Sam sat up, feeling the fresh stinging pain in his grazed hands, and watched his younger self scurry towards him from the street. He noted that both his eyes were in normal working order, and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey, I’m sorry I pushed you there. I thought that car was right about to…” Young Sam hesitated a moment, brow furrowing. “Huh. Have we met?”
Sam stared up at him, cautious. “I don’t, um, think so.”
Young Sam blinked a few times, and shook his head. He held out a hand to Sam. “Here, let me help you up.”
Sam allowed himself to be assisted to his feet, and Young Sam caught sight of the graze on his palm.
“Oh, sorry. Do you want me to clean this up for you?” he pulled open his satchel bag and started rummaging around. “I’m a med student; might have a few stray swabs in here. If I’m lucky I may even have gauze.”
Sam smiled, feeling a new affinity with this version of himself. “Y-yeah, alright.”
The scene was giving him déjà vu, not quite the same as before; now it felt like he was in a play, acting out a pre-written scene, speaking lines he had rehearsed – but at the same time, they were being written as he spoke them.
Across the street, a flash of colour waved to him from behind the corner of a shop. Sam squinted, realising an arm was waving a handlink, trying to get his attention.
Al?
“Ah, here we go,” said Young Sam, producing a small alcohol swab in a package, and ripping it open. Sam held out his hands, distractedly allowing him to wipe the dirt off. The alcohol stung, but it wasn’t a big deal.
“I’m Sam, by the way,” Young Sam said as he cleaned the wounds. “Sam Beckett.”
“…Yolanda,” replied Sam, eyes still on the waving handlink. “Listen, thanks for helping me there – or trying to, anyway – but I’ve gotta get moving.”
Young Sam nodded. “Sure, well, sorry again that I pushed you over. I genuinely did not expect that driver to pull off a move like that.”
Sam snorted. “It was pretty impressive,” he said.
If I do say so myself.
“Well, it was lovely to meet you. Good luck in your studies…” Sam waved as he carefully looked both ways before crossing to where Al was hiding.
“Al? What are you doing hiding like this?” he asked, laying eyes on his friend. Immediately, he felt a wave of relief to see the hologram, finally.
“You were standing there talking to your former self, Sam,” Al said, gesturing wildly. “The two of you have matching mesons and neurons – he’d have seen me! I wasn’t about to stroll on over there and start a little chitchat with the pair of you, now was I?”
“Okay, good point,” said Sam, scratching the back of his head, before taking a deep breath. “Listen… Al… you have no idea how happy I am to—”
“What the–?” Al interjected, bashing his handlink. It let out a whistle and a screech as he glared at the blinking lights in confusion. “Sam, Ziggy’s throwing up some really weird stuff here. I don’t know what she’s trying to tell me.”
He squinted at the display. “What the hell does ‘aversion of catastrophic paradox loop’ mean?”
Sam gave him a crooked smile. “I might be able to shed some light on that.”
* * *
One convoluted explanation later, Al was staring at Sam with arched brows.
“You sure you didn’t hit your head when Junior pushed you over?” he asked, jabbing his cigar at Sam.
Sam gestured to the handlink. “It lines up with what Ziggy’s saying, right? She knew something was up.”
“Well, yeah, but are you telling me you lived three or four days, erased the Project from existence, saved your father’s life, suffered brain damage, talked to your own ghost, and then leaped into someone who was about to crash into two other versions of you — all in the last forty-five minutes since I left you this morning?”
“…More or less.”
Al narrowed one of his eyes, as he punched at the handlink, cigar hanging from his mouth.
“Well, Ziggy says that’s plausible, so I’ll… take your word for it. But this is why you gotta avoid your younger self at all costs, Sam.”
Sam scoffed. “I wasn’t the one who sent me to this part of town, now was I? It was a complete coincidence.”
“Well, all’s well that ends well. Let’s go finish this so you can get outta here.”
Sam nodded. “Zachary Fernandez, cashier. Makes puppets, wants to work on Sesame Street.”
Al furrowed his brow at this. “Puppets? Ziggy didn’t give me anything about that.”
“Trust me,” Sam said, striding in the direction of the grocery store, “I already met him once.”