Chapter 1
Checking behind theirself, Ian cautiously approached the door and knocked four times sharply.
A touch screen above the handle lit up, providing a series of letters and numbers.
Ian tapped at the screen until it turned green, upon which time a slip of paper was passed under the door. Ian grabbed it, shielding their hand as they wrote their response to the code phrase, and slipped it back under the door.
The layers of security had become second nature after these many months. There were three of them working on this project, which meant three potential receptacles for leapers, and the ever-present possibility of unseen holograms spying on them. So they’d devised a series of alternating code phrase questions and answers, that could never be recorded officially, and could not be spoken aloud—only written under a hand to shield it from invisible eyes. The slips of paper would then be crosscut shredded and, finally, burned.
A moment later, the door opened, and Janis nodded her greeting to Ian with a smile.
“Glad you could make it. How’s Ben doing?”
“Still not home,” Ian said, sighing as they entered, closing and dead-bolting the door behind them. “Ziggy’s giving him weird data and he might need to sleep with someone he’s not into, so things are a little dicey. Addison seemed incredibly uncomfortable about it.” They shrugged. “So what’s going on here? Your message seemed urgent.”
Janis grinned. “He’s contacted us.”
Ian’s jaw dropped. “He has?!”
It had been six months since the creepy ghost leap where Sam had shown up, and the three of them had been standing by, waiting for Sam to finally leap to their present so they could use him to develop their detection system, which would theoretically allow them to scan a person and tell if they have been replaced with a leaper. It would definitely reduce the paranoia that had stricken Ian since first hearing about all this ‘evil leaper’ business.
Finally, that day had come.
Janis nodded, taking Ian by the wrist and leading them further into the apartment. The white-haired Donna was waiting for them, standing at a computer terminal. She smiled warmly at Ian.
“He hasn’t gotten in touch with me in over a year,” she said, her voice full of emotion. “But he’s finally made it to 2023.”
“Where is he? Who is he?” Ian’s mind was buzzing with excitement and anticipation.
Donna passed another surreptitious slip of burn-after-reading paper to Ian. When they read it and saw who it was, they looked up with raised brows and an incredulous glance.
“Seriously?”
* * *
About 30 minutes earlier…
As Sam Beckett felt himself being pulled to yet another leap; another life to put right, he prepared himself for the landing.
First, the tingling electricity, then the blue light filling his senses, and finally, the touchdown. As his awareness ebbed into the now, he took a deep breath, preparing for the new situation—would he find himself in imminent danger, or a humiliating situation? It always seemed to be one of the two.
And when his eyes focused, he was standing just inside a quiet restroom, arms folded, with nobody else in sight.
Well, that’s a rarity, he thought, enjoying his peaceful moment.
Since he was in a bathroom, he decided to take the opportunity to check his reflection and see who he was this time. He stepped up to the mirrors, and stopped when he realised he did not cast any reflection.
Wondering if there was some optical illusion, he moved closer, reaching out for the mirror. He tried to tap at it, and realised his hand passed right through the glass.
What?! He shook his head—this couldn’t be. Had he died on the last leap and now he was a ghost?
But that leap had been in the sixties, and this bathroom looked pretty modern, judging from the sleek basins and moody lighting. If he had to guess, he would have thought late nineties.
As he tried to work out what was happening, the door burst open, letting in remnants of music, along with a very frazzled-looking…
“…Ben?” Sam croaked, recognising the fellow leaper as he shut the door and leaned back on it.
“Hey,” he said, wincing. “Look—Addison. I don’t care what Ziggy says, I don’t want to go home with that woman. She makes me very uncomfortable. I don’t think Ziggy quite understands the concept of enthusiastic consent, because…”
Wait. Am I… Addison?
“Oh boy,” whispered Sam as he became aware of the disc-shaped handlink in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out, and realised he didn’t know how to work the thing—it was markedly different than the handlinks he’d designed in the original project. “Uh, well…” he said, buying time, “Maybe I should go check to see if Ziggy’s—you know, working right.”
Ben looked at him with a curious expression. “Yeah. Maybe Ian needs to run some diagnostics, because this is all kinds of wrong.” He gestured for the door. “Becky is getting real handsy, and I can’t be in here for long without raising suspicion. Be quick, would you?”
Sam nodded, trying his best to work a handlink he barely even remembered. He swiped at it a few times before it mercifully gave him a holographic menu projected from the centre, and it took him another moment to figure out how to flick through the options.
Chuckling nervously, he looked up at Ben as he found the ‘exit’ option. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
And he pushed the button. The hologram around him sizzled away, leaving him standing in an empty Imaging Chamber.
Wow, he thought, marvelling at the upgraded technology surrounding him. So this is the new version of Project Quantum Leap. I can’t believe I’m here.
It was simultaneously awe-inspiring and anxiety-inducing, because he realised that if he was here, there was going to be a job to do.
And, being ever-careful not to reveal himself if it was unwise to do so, he knew that all he could do—as always when he had leaped into a time post-2002—was to call Donna and try to figure it out with her.
As he left the Imaging Chamber, he looked out at the bustling control floor, where computers blinked LEDs and people worked at huge transparent monitors.
“Hey, why’d you leave Ben on his own with Becky?” came a deep, playful voice belonging to a person Sam couldn’t tell the gender of at a glance.
He wasn’t a dinosaur, however, and was aware that gender variation had become more accepted in the last—how many years? He wondered what the date was here. Was it 2023, like the last time he’d seen Ben, Addison, Magic, and Janis? If so, that would certainly have been the furthest forward he’d ever leaped.
“Well…” Sam struggled to answer the question. He’d been thrown quite a curveball here. “I need to check that Ziggy really thinks Ben should sleep with—uh, Becky. He seems pretty adamant that he not go through with it, and I don’t blame him.”
He wondered about Addison’s feelings on the situation. It sounded terribly awkward for her too. She and Ben were still together, weren’t they? Or perhaps this was earlier in the timeline than when he’d met Ben.
The androgynous person before him pushed their round glasses up on their nose, frowning. “Well, Ziggy was pretty clear on the matter—he and Becky have to get together so when the guy he leapt into has a heart attack next year, there’ll be someone around to get him to hospital. That’s a ninety-four percenter; nothing else comes close. It does suck, though. If it were anyone else I’d say just walk away, but this seems like a necessary step to completing the leap.”
Sam bit his lip. That was incredibly unfair to Ben. It was times like this he was almost glad not to have Ziggy out there assigning him goals that went against his gut feelings on the matter.
“Ziggy’s been wrong before. Lots of times,” Sam said knowingly, garnering a conceding shrug from the gender-bending coworker.
“You and Ben have talked about all this, though, haven’t you?” they continued. “Sex stuff, I mean. Hard for a leaper to stay monogamous. You’d have had to deal with this yourself if it weren’t Ben out there.”
“I’m… sure it’s come up,” Sam hedged. “And yeah. It happens.” Sam was just glad it only seemed to be happening for him lately when he decided it was natural. Ben’s predicament seemed anything but. “I just wish Ben had a choice in the matter.”
But helping Ben avoid sex didn’t feel like the reason he would have leaped here, he thought.
“Well, I can double check Ziggy’s probability circuits, but I gotta tell you—I think Ben might have to bite the bullet on this if he wants to leap.”
Sam nodded as the coworker wandered away towards a maze of computer servers, and he searched his pockets, hoping to find a phone.
To his relief, there was one in his back pocket, and he whipped it out, using his usual channels to set up his secure text line to Donna.
Hi D,
Arrived just now at new PQL HQ?!
I’M ADDISON-??? Have to play Observer!Should I tell them? Worried about L though. If I’m here, so could they be.
-S
xoxo
A moment later, a response came.
Finally! Stand by, I will be in touch very soon. Just play along until then. This job is right up your alley, huh?
-D
Sam frowned at this. That was not the response he had been expecting, certainly.
Across the room, the androgynous coworker, who Sam would love to have known the name for, similarly looked down at their phone a moment, before frowning and making a beeline to Sam.
“Sorry, I got… a thing… uh, an emergency,” they said awkwardly. “Yeah. Look, my best advice is have Ben go with his gut. It’s beaten Ziggy’s best estimates before, and I’m sure it can do it again. It’s a good gut.” With that, they turned on their heel, waving as they headed for the elevator. “I’ll see you a little later, okay?”
And Sam was left to deal with his predicament alone once more.
Well, I guess that advice about following the gut is good advice for me too, he decided, and headed back towards the Imaging Chamber, inspecting the handlink once again in an attempt to become less inept at using it.
* * *
“So you pull me out of work just to tell me Sam’s leapt into Addison?” Ian said, exasperated. “Who, might I remind you, I was just with? No wonder she seemed so… out of sorts.”
“Well we’re still operating under extreme secrecy,” Janis said. “We couldn’t tell you over the phone.”
“On top of that,” Donna added, “you’re going to need the adapted handlink.” She passed the colourful device to Ian. “Let’s hope he’s not here because something disastrous is going to happen to the Project.”
“You mean again?” Ian said wryly, pocketing the device.
“Listen, Ian,” Donna said, taking them by the hands, “Since you’re the one who works there, you’re going to have to be our eyes and ears. When you deem it safe to, tell Sam I’m waiting here for him. He once swore he’d come back to me, and I intend for him to keep that promise.”
Ian looked at the misty eyes of Sam’s wife, who’d been waiting a lifetime for the man she loved, and squeezed her hands.
“I’ll tell him.” They paused, realising that Sam was currently acting as Ben’s hologram. “Oh, god, I’m gonna have to show him how to use the handlink properly! I’ve gotta move!”
Ian gave a quick nod to Janis before sprinting out of the apartment.