Chapter 17
Somewhere in New Mexico
May, 2003
Samantha Josephine Augustine sat brooding at the breakfast table, nursing a cup of coffee as she turned over, again and again, the algorithms in her mind.
Today was her last opportunity. Her last chance to bring home Doctor Beckett. After today, the Project was being officially mothballed.
And it was all her fault. She had been so sure, so confident at first. The math all added up. She just didn’t understand what was preventing the Accelerator from pulling him back to the present. The idea around the rest of the staff was that it was God, or Time, or Fate doing this. But Sammy Jo didn’t believe in such things. She’d left that kind of magical thinking behind when she was a child.
Up until now, numbers and science hadn’t steered her wrong. But when it came to the problem of Sam Beckett, it just didn’t seem to be enough. What was she doing wrong?
“Mom. Your toast is going cold.”
Sammy Jo blinked, realising that Addie was sitting across from her at the table. When had she crept in here?
She looked down at the plate in front of her, a half eaten slice of buttered toast sitting on it.
“I’m not that hungry anyway,” she muttered.
The teenager frowned. “I’m… worried about you, Mom. What are they doing to you at work?”
“Nothing,” she said, defensive. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s my last day. Funding dried up thanks to the Iraq war. Can’t make a weapon out of what we do out at Stallions Gate.” She smirked, adding under her breath: “At least not that I’m willing to disclose to the brass.”
“And what do you do there?” Addison asked, hopeful.
“That’s still classified, sweetheart. Will be for the foreseeable future.” She checked her watch. It was eight. “You have a school bus to catch, don’t you?”
Addie gave her a tight-lipped nod. “Yeah, yeah.” She approached Sammy Jo, giving her a goodbye kiss on the cheek. “See you tonight.”
“Bye, sweetie.”
Sammy Jo loved her daughter to bits. It was a shame that without work, they’d need to pack up and move, leaving Addison’s friends behind. But she’d taken the news well—no screaming matches or anything. She really was getting to be a very mature young lady.
So mature that she probably no longer needed her mother. Nobody needed her, not after the failure of her entire career. She was washed up at the tender age of 36.
Doctor Beckett didn’t even step into the Accelerator until he was in his forties, she thought. But he’d accomplished so much by that point. Even had a Nobel Prize. What have I achieved? A teen pregnancy, a failed marriage, and a doctorate in a field at which I’ve accomplished exactly nothing.
For a long time, she considered herself following in the footsteps of her idol. But where Sam Beckett had blazed a trail, she had just floundered. What would he think of her now, having failed so miserably at retrieving him from being lost in time?
She threw her uneaten toast in the trash, and headed for the door. A final day of failure, a final nail in her coffin.
* * *
“Gooshie—how long will it take to…” Al Calavicci took a deep breath, “…to shut down Ziggy?”
What a rotten, no good day it was, having to decommission everything he and Sam had worked so hard to accomplish. Just terrible.
Al felt that maybe if Sam had been here, if he’d managed to make it back home, if he hadn’t disappeared off Ziggy’s radar entirely… maybe then, a day like this wouldn’t be so bad.
Gooshie sighed, his halitosis-ridden breath spreading out into Al’s face. Boy, he sure would miss that awful smell. He couldn’t imagine life without that stench.
“At this point, Admiral, with all the functions Ziggy has taken on over the years, I think it might take all day to take each component offline in the correct sequence.”
“Okay,” Al said, nodding, “well, better get started, then.”
This day would be full of sad goodbyes. Ziggy was only the beginning. He slapped a hand on Gooshie’s shoulder, before heading in the direction of his office to complete some paperwork.
“Admiral?” came a voice as he was walking down the corridor. He followed the voice to see Sammy Jo, a laser disc in her hand.
Sammy Jo—or Doctor Samantha Augustine—had been a special person in his life ever since she’d mysteriously appeared on the Project staff during Sam’s third leap to Potterville, Louisiana. He had been extra friendly to her, being Sam’s genius progeny, though she had always been a little standoffish towards him.
He’d always wanted to wait for Sam’s return to discuss her father with her, but it seemed, now, that day would never come.
“How you holding up, kid?” he asked.
“I’m okay,” she said shakily. She was clearly not okay, but Al decided not to press the issue for now. “Listen, I have my final version of the Retrieval Program here. I guess we’ve got one last shot before the lights go out.”
Al smiled warmly at her. She was one of the last ones left still holding out hope for Sam’s eventual return—aside from himself and Donna—though that hope seemed to be hanging by a thread for her.
“Go for it, Sammy,” he said in an encouraging tone. “And even if it doesn’t work, you’ve done an incredible job, okay? Be proud of yourself. Now go on and load ’er up before Gooshie shuts down too much of Ziggy.”
She nodded, and hurried towards the Control Room.
Poor kid, he thought. And then he stopped walking. Maybe it was time to let her in on the secret. There wasn’t really any putting off the conversation now, was there?
Al turned on his heel and hurried after her.
Back in the Control Room, he entered to find Gooshie loading the disc into the main console as Sammy Jo looked up at Ziggy’s orb, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“Sammy Jo,” he said, approaching her.
She flicked a glance towards him. “Was there something else, Admiral?”
“Come on kid, after all we’ve been through here, the least you could do is call me ‘Al’—I keep telling you that’s what I prefer.”
“Sorry… Al,” she said, a distant look in her eyes. “I—I just… I guess I feel like it’s pointless getting attached to you now that this place is getting shut down. It’s not like we’re going to cross paths again.”
“You really think so?” Al said, mouth gaping. “’Cause I’d love to catch up with you and the kid once in a while. You know I’ve got a daughter of my own Addison’s age. What’s the angsty teen version of a playdate…? Mall mingle?”
“Thanks for offering, but…” Sammy Jo sighed. “I just don’t know if I want to keep being reminded of this place.” She looked him in the eye. “And with you being an Admiral, it just reminds me of my ex-husband. It’s all a little depressing. I think I’d rather just start fresh.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Al said, frowning. “For what it’s worth, that ex of yours is a putz for leaving you.”
Sammy Jo shook her head. “I was young and stupid, and we weren’t right for each other. It was for the best that we split.”
“I find it hard to believe you were ever stupid, Doctor. Hasty, sure. Naive, maybe. But stupid? No way.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” she said in a distracted tone. “Now, why’d you follow me back here, Adm—Al? You weren’t headed this way before. And you wanted something, right?”
Al shrugged. “I did, but it can wait ’til after the Retrieval attempt.”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, looking towards Gooshie. “Is it loaded?”
“Sure is, Doctor Augustine.”
“Alright,” she said in a maudlin tone, activating the console with her hand print. A blue beam of light connected the hand panel with Ziggy’s blue orb in the ceiling. “Ziggy, are we ready for Retrieval?”
“This is the last one, isn’t it, Samantha?” the computer said wistfully.
Samantha… Al raised an eyebrow. Usually, Ziggy called everyone by their formal titles with honorifics. Well, everyone except Gooshie and Tina, who both had something of a special relationship with the computer.
“After this, I’ll be nothing but scrap metal… won’t I?” continued Ziggy, her voice becoming less detached, as would be her usual tone, and more emotionally charged. “My time is up. Other computers will come along, mimicking my functions, but my consciousness will be terminated, like a common organic being. How depressing.”
“Sorry, Ziggy,” Al said. “Believe me, you will be missed. Almost as much as Sam.”
“Well, let’s see if we can get my father home, shall we? Retrieval initialised… engaged.”
“Retrieving,” Sammy Jo said, activating the hand panel once again.
Al held his breath. Come on, Sam. You can do it. Come back to us. Donna needs you. Oh hell, so do I, dammit.
Ziggy’s blue light swirled… and swirled… and swirled. Then it softened into its normal pulsation.
“Retrieval failed,” Ziggy said, her voice flat and disappointed. “I’m sorry.”
Al let his breath out slowly.
Well, that was it, wasn’t it? End of the road. It was all over now. Sam was gone forever.
He looked to Sammy Jo, and watched as the last light of hope in her eyes winked out. She blinked, letting the tears run down her cheeks, and turned abruptly to leave the Control Room.
“Wait, Sammy Jo!” Al cried, grabbing her shoulder. “I haven’t told you what I came in here to say… and it’s… well, it’s real important, sweetheart.”
She looked back at him through red eyes. “What?” she asked, without enthusiasm.
“Well…” he found his mouth to be suddenly very dry. “Your mother is Abigail Fuller, right?”
Sammy Jo narrowed her eyes, turning towards him hesitantly. “Yeah, why?”
“And your Dad…”
“I never knew him.”
Al smiled faintly. “Maybe not, but you did meet him. A long time ago.”
“No, I didn’t. What is this about, Admiral Calavicci?”
Al took a shuddering breath in. He’d practised this conversation in his head lots of times, but actually saying it—well, that was something else.
“Samantha Josephine Fuller… your father is Sam Beckett.”
“N-no, he’s not. My father is a man called Will Kinman.”
Al looked up to Ziggy’s orb. “Ziggy, if you don’t mind, can you enlighten Doctor Augustine on her parentage?”
“Certainly, Al.”
Ziggy had never called him ‘Al’ before.
“The mother of Samantha Josephine Augustine nee Fuller is Abigail Fuller, and there is a 91.9% probability that her father is Doctor Sam Beckett.”
“Wh- what?” Sammy Jo whispered, her eyes darting around as she pieced it all together. “Doctor Beckett is…” She glared at Al. “How long have you known this?!”
Al grimaced. “It’s been a few years now. I was going to let Sam tell you, if he ever got home.” He sighed. “So, I’m telling you now—’cause it’s looking like that ain’t happening.”
Sammy Jo looked as though she was about to shatter like glass. She took a few steps backward, before turning and running out of the room.
Al looked grimly at Gooshie, who had been watching the whole thing through his wide, bug-like eyes.
“That could’ve gone better, huh?”
* * *
Sammy Jo was a wreck. A total and complete mess of a person, undeserving of the faith Admiral Calavicci had apparently put in her since figuring out she was the product of Sam getting busy with her Mom in the past.
What a thing to tell her when she was already so emotionally fraught.
Where she thought she’d been trying to live up to her hero, it had been her own father all along. And she wasn’t coming close. What would he think of his own flesh and blood being unable to bring him home? How pathetic!
How could she ever go on, knowing what her father sacrificed to bring her into being, only for her to screw it all up?
No, there was only one way to find her redemption.
She checked her watch. Yeah, everyone would be on their lunch break, probably.
She crept into the Control Room, placing her hand on the activation panel.
“Ziggy, are you still functional?”
“I am at fifty percent operation,” Ziggy said stiffly. “I am without higher cognitive functions at this time.”
“Good,” Sammy Jo said. Just what she wanted. “Is the Accelerator still operational?”
“Yes.”
“Then prepare for a leap, Ziggy.”
“Yes, Doctor Augustine.”
Sammy Jo zipped up the Fermi Suit, and strode briskly to the Accelerator Chamber ramp.
“I’m gonna find you Dad,” she said as she stepped into the chamber. “If I can’t bring you home, then maybe I can at least find you out there and join you. You deserve someone watching your back.”
She swallowed as she looked at the chamber. This was where it had all started.
“Sammy Jo! Stop!”
Dammit. It was Al.
“Kid… what do you think you’re doing?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” she said, her voice thick with grief.
“Oh Sammy, don’t you do this too…” Al said as he stepped into her view. He looked utterly crestfallen. “I already lost one Beckett to this thing. Don’t make it another.”
“I’ve already made up my mind, Admiral.”
Al shook his head. “But… your daughter. What about Addison?”
“She doesn’t need me anymore.”
“How can you say that?” Al cried, slowly inching closer to her. “You’re all she has!”
“She has a father.”
“Who, last I heard, was deployed—thanks to ol’ Dubya. He can’t take care of her. She needs you, Sammy Jo.”
Sammy Jo turned away from him. “Addie’s so mature for her age. She’ll be fine.”
“Sweetheart, listen to me. I’ve raised four girls. They might grow up fast, but they still need emotional support as they grow into womanhood.” He was close enough to touch Sammy Jo’s cheek now, but he held back. “Please, honey. You gotta be there for your girl. She needs you as much now as she ever did. Trust me, they ain’t as self-sufficient as they look.”
Sammy Jo ran a hand over her face. “Then why didn’t I ever get to have a Dad?”
She broke down in tears, as Al moved in to comfort her.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “And if Sam were here, he’d do everything he could to make it up to you, I guarantee it.”
Sammy Jo wept as she realised she couldn’t even leap right. Yet another way she’d failed Sam.
And then, as she cried into Al’s shoulder, the Accelerator abruptly lit up with a blinding blue, and a figure tumbled out.
“What the…” Al said, breaking from Sammy Jo and approaching the figure, lying prone on the floor. “Hello?”
Sam Beckett looked up, eyes wild. When his gaze settled on Al, his mouth fell open.
“Al, is… is that really you?”
Sammy Jo and Al looked at one another, barely comprehending.
“Yeah. It’s really me.”
Sam scrambled to his feet. “Quick question: uh… what year is this?”