Chapter 15
Meanwhile…
“Can I get you anything, Missus Augustine? Tea? Water? A paper bag to breathe into? You look a little anxious.”
Sammy Jo looked up to see the security woman who’d introduced herself as Jenn. “No, I’m alright.”
“If you say so. Magic will be here in a minute, so just sit tight.”
Sammy Jo lingered awkwardly against the wall of the Control Room as Jenn walked off.
She didn’t know why she’d let Sam drag her here. She had never wanted anything to do with the new Project Quantum Leap; she had convinced herself that there was no way to get a leaper back home, and she wasn’t going to be a part of sending another to their doom.
That day back in 2003, when the original Project finally shut down, had been the worst day of her life. It was the day she finally accepted that Sam was never getting home. When the hope inside her died and she retired from the world of physics entirely.
It was also the day she’d discovered who Sam truly was to her, which really rubbed salt in the wound.
But now here she was, in an overstimulating room filled with harsh, exposed LED lights, surrounded by people all working at state-of-the-art computers. She noticed that one of the monitors showed Ben’s vital signs. It was much more detailed than the data they’d had on Sam when he’d still been connected to Ziggy.
All this advanced tech and they still can’t get a leaper home, she thought bitterly. Perhaps Sam had been right; maybe a leaper had to really want it before a retrieval would be successful.
The thought made her uncomfortable. Sam was a married man, and still he had chosen to remain away from his own wife. And Ben left his fiancée to leap. Whatever reason he’d had to begin with, he was still out there a year later. And seeing his doting fiancée every day, never forgetting her like Sam had forgotten Donna. So if Sam had been right… well, didn’t that mean Ben didn’t love her daughter as much as he’d claimed? Did he even deserve her?
Of all the technology set out before her, it was the monitor being worked at by the stylish, androgynous individual with rounded glasses that interested her the most.
She stepped closer to it, becoming aware of what she recognised as lines of retrieval data.
“I remember running models of this,” she murmured as she joined the worker at their desk. “I think you’ll find it won’t gain an accurate target with your KM value set at 3449.33. I know that’s what Doctor Beckett used in the original retrieval program, but it didn’t account for his quantum drift. It got harder and harder to pinpoint him the longer he was out there, you know.”
They turned to her, mouth open. “Whoa whoa whoa. Hang on a sec. I thought you were Addison’s Mom?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Look, I don’t want to sound rude, but… how the absolute cuss does Addison’s Mom know quantum physics?”
“Uh, I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” Sammy Jo said, raising an eyebrow. She extended a hand. “My name is Samantha.”
“Ian…” they shook her hand. “But seriously, you’ve gotta tell me how you know about retrieval.”
“Addison didn’t talk about me at all, did she?” she smirked. “How do you think she got involved in all this to begin with? I’m afraid it was nepotism.”
“Who are you?”
“She’s someone I would have liked working here from the beginning,” Magic said, approaching the two. “Frankly I’m surprised you came here, Samantha.” He held out a palm to her.
“I guess seeing my father in the guise of my daughter gave me a bout of temporary insanity,” she said coldly, not accepting his handshake.
“Sorry, what?” Ian exclaimed.
Magic winced. “Keep it down, both of you. Not everyone is privy to this information.” He waved them towards his office. “Let’s speak privately.”
Although she didn’t want to, Sammy Jo followed him into his office, where Jenn was standing by the door, leaning against the wall.
Magic sat at his desk, clasping his hands. “So, you figured it all out, did you, Samantha? I asked Sam not to say too much, but I guess you found out anyway.”
Sammy Jo crossed her arms. “It wasn’t difficult. The reaction he had when I mentioned Addison’s grandfather was the real tell.”
“You’re sharp. I’ll give you that. You really are your father’s daughter, you know.”
“Just so I’m following all this correctly,” Ian said, “are you guys saying that Addison is Sam’s…”
“Granddaughter—yes,” Magic confirmed.
“Okay—mind officially blown.” Ian turned to Jenn. “You knew this?”
“It’s my job to have the facts about everyone with clearance to know about Quantum Leap,” she said, nodding. “But it’s also my job not to reveal those facts unless given the okay… even when they’re as juicy as this. It’s a burden.”
“I didn’t even know he had a daughter,” Ian said breathlessly.
“That’s no surprise. My lineage is a well kept National Security secret,” Sammy Jo said, “because my… origins… are a little controversial, wouldn’t you say, Magic?”
Magic nodded. “You could say so.” He looked to Ian. “Sam fathered her… during a leap.”
“Oh… snap…” Ian said, eyes wide. “How does that even… work? I didn’t know he could use, like, his own swimmers when he’s someone else. Then again, he did almost have a baby that time… yowza. The guy is on levels of gender creativity I could only dream of. I’m jealous.”
“Can we please stop discussing my father’s apparent multi-sexual biology?” Sammy Jo snapped, cringing. “All you need to know is that it happened, and here I am. The leap baby with her mother’s mental illness and her father’s photographic memory.”
“Heavy,” Ian mumbled under their breath, looking away.
Magic leaned forward. “Now… we let you in here because Sam asked us to, but—”
“Look, Magic, before you ask,” Sammy Jo interrupted, “I don’t know why he insisted on bringing me back here. I suspect it was because he wants to get to know me, and he thought he’d never see me again if he left me there.” She blew a strand of hair from her face, trying to ignore the rising heat in her cheeks. “And he probably would have been right about that.”
Standing up, Magic placed his palms on the desk. “Well, I know we haven’t had the rosiest of relationships, Samantha, but I want to thank you for at least giving us a chance.”
He tried again to extend a hand to her. This time, she looked him in the eye with a terse expression, grasping his hand and shaking.
“Don’t think I’ve forgiven you for respecting Beth’s wishes but not mine.”
“For what it’s worth, we really were going to perfect the technology before ever sending anyone into the Accelerator.”
Sammy Jo shook her head, exasperated. “Then you’d never have been able to do it, Magic. That’s what I tried to tell you six years ago. Schrödinger’s Cat. You can’t know the outcome until you measure it. No true test could be done that wouldn’t have sacrificed somebody to the Accelerator. You got lucky that it was Doctor Song rather than my daughter, or I’d never have stepped foot in here—Sam or not.”
Ian placed a hand on Sammy Jo’s shoulder from behind. “What if you’re here for a reason, Samantha?”
Sammy Jo spun around. “Pardon me?”
The way she looked at Ian must have spooked them, because they shrank from her. “Uh… well… Sam brought you here. He’s busy in the Imaging Chamber. What if you’re here to fix the Accelerator and get Ben back home? You said it yourself; if Ben’s a test subject, then you now have a way to test. Maybe you’re the one who’s gonna perfect it.”
“You have a lot of hope in you, Ian.” Sammy Jo let out a soft sigh. “I once had that kind of hope. You let that hope in too much and it hurts all the more when it’s crushed.” She brushed Ian’s hand off her shoulder. “But Sam told me in his own words not an hour ago: retrieval is destined to fail unless the leaper is ready. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, since it’s never been successful, but what I do know is that every method I tried for four years failed.”
As she spoke, she watched Ian slowly descend into depression.
Was she really going to trample this bright-eyed person’s hope? Well, better to give them a realistic assessment of the situation, she thought.
“Look, Ian…” she said finally, “I learned a lot in those four years—and my retrieval program was as close to perfect as I think it could ever get. So, I can provide you with all the corrected algorithms needed to have your best chance at retrieval, but… I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. I just… don’t think the problem of a leaper can be solved with pure science. There’s… a little more to it. Something outside the bounds of even quantum mechanics.”
“A spiritual component…” Ian murmured. “I get it. Believe me, I get it.” They flashed her a wide smile. “Let’s get started, then.”