Chapter 36
Ben’s excitement grew as he reached the end of the corridor, finding a Control Room with a multicoloured console in its centre, being manned by a guy in a white lab coat. In the ceiling glowed a large blue sphere. He looked up at it in awe.
“What is that?” he said, mostly to himself, as he approached the orb.
“Um, hi?” the scruffy-haired man at the console said, looking at Ben questioningly. His gaze flicked back to the corridor as he noted Sammy Jo and Addison entering. “Oh, uh… I didn’t realise it was ‘bring your kid to work’ day. Nobody keeps me in the loop around here.” He shook his head, his bug eyes lowering to the console again.
“Sorry to disturb your work here, Gooshie,” Sammy Jo said. “This is my daughter Addison, and—”
“— And that’s my girl Janis,” Al finished as he arrived. “Jan, you shouldn’t run ahead like that. Security’s tight in here; you don’t want someone to pull a gun on you.”
“Uh, no, I don’t think I would,” Ben said, cringing. “I was just excited is all.” He gestured to the sphere. “What is this thing?”
“It houses my consciousness,” came a booming, aloof woman’s voice from somewhere above.
Oh… thought Ben as he realised what Addison had been describing the previous day.
“Then you must be Ziggy,” Ben said, grinning. “Are you running slow today?”
“What a presumptuous question. I’m running at full capacity; likely much better than you. I hear humans only use ten percent of their brains at any given time.”
“And I suppose you use a hundred percent of your CPU at all times?” countered Ben.
“Hmm, you make a valid point,” Ziggy said thoughtfully. “Admiral, I think I may… like this daughter of yours.”
Al glanced proudly at Sammy Jo. “My girl has a way with computers, huh?”
“That could have gone either way,” Sammy Jo said, chuckling. “Ziggy doesn’t like being outwitted.”
Beside her, Addison was looking back to the corridor, puzzled. “Hey, where’s Gramps?”
“Sam had to go make some phone calls,” Al explained with a wave of his hand. “Family stuff. He’ll be back with us a little later on.”
Ben recalled what the holographic Sam had told him earlier: that if his past self wanted to have time alone, to let him. He hadn’t mentioned anything about calling family, but he had said that Sam was ‘going through some things.’ Whatever that meant. Ben crossed his arms, wondering what the deal was there, and if it was any of his business.
Maybe not.
But then again…
Ben resolved to ask him about it when he had the chance.
“Well,” Al said, patting Ben on the back, “Since you’ve got on Ziggy’s good side, why don’t you stay here with Gooshie for a bit and he can show you how she works?” He met Gooshie’s eye. “You don’t have anything better to do, right Goosh?”
Gooshie shifted on his feet. “Well, I have, um, six performance reports to write up, and a lunch date with Tina in—” he checked his watch, “—uh, ten minutes… but other than that…”
“Alright, we’ll be back soon,” Al said, turning away and waving for Sammy Jo and Addison to follow. “Come on, I’ll show you the Waiting Room. It’s a little barren now, but…”
Addison gave Ben a look of disappointment as her mother led her to the next corridor.
Ben gave Gooshie an apologetic smile. “Uh, sorry. I don’t want you to miss your date.” He looked down curiously at the console. “If I touch this, will anything explode?”
Gooshie chuckled, and Ben caught a whiff of some truly pungent bad breath. “No, not unless your Dad gave your hand print administrator privileges.” He looked up to the orb. “He didn’t, did he, Ziggy?”
The glow of the orb scintillated playfully. “No, but Janis Calavicci is an accomplished hacker.”
“How do you know that?” Ben asked, startled. If Ziggy knew, did that mean the government knew?
“You cover your tracks well enough to put most people off your trail. I am not most people. Additionally, Doctor Beckett allowed me access to your computer last night.”
“Shh!” Ben said. “Please keep that a secret.” Ben sent Gooshie a pleading look.
The programmer held up his hands, eyes wide. “I didn’t hear anything. Honest.”
“I know other things, too,” Ziggy said in a playful tone. “Doctor Beeks should have disabled my listening module outside her office. I’m really very good at eavesdropping through doors. But perhaps I’ve said too much.”
Who’s Doctor Beeks? wondered Ben.
Gooshie frowned. “You should turn it off yourself if you know you’re hearing a private therapy session,” he admonished.
Therapy session?
“Oh, but it’s far too juicy,” Ziggy said in a petulant voice. “I can’t help that Doctor Beckett built me with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, now can I?”
“Ziggy… I’m begging,” Gooshie said. “Please don’t spread any gossip. The rumour mill… it’s bad enough around here.”
“I wouldn’t be concerned about that, Gooshie,” Ziggy said. “My virtual lips are sealed until… oh, shall we say… 2023?”
Ben’s eyes snapped to the blue sphere. What did Ziggy know?
“Now, I believe you were going to show Miss Calavicci my controls?”
* * *
“Alright… let me see if I’ve got all of this straight.” Verbena massaged her temples as she revised her notes.
Sam leaned back on the therapist couch, letting out a breath as he watched his future self pacing the room, arms crossed.
“So, Future Sam—you went on a drug trip, and this apparently allowed you to absorb memories from an alternate timeline where you kept leaping for twenty years. And you corroborated these leaps with Ziggy to confirm their credibility.”
“I know, it sounds crazy,” the older Sam confessed. “But that’s what happened.”
Sam relayed this message to Verbena, who frowned as she looked to Sam.
“And this… this side effect of magic mushrooms, you were familiar with this?”
Sam nodded. “I saw it first hand, when Janis took mushrooms. It’s completely plausible.”
“It’s more than just plausible,” Older Sam insisted. “I have two sets of memories in my head, and… well, I can’t stop thinking about all these people who needed my help. I know their names, their faces, their loved ones. I can’t turn a blind eye.”
Sam parroted the words to Verbena once again, as he had been doing for the whole conversation, adding: “See, this is what’s making it so hard. How can I live with myself knowing I’m going to end up feeling this way?”
Verbena bit the end of her pen. “Well, maybe there’s one way to stop that.”
Both Sams glared at her. “What?”
She pointed her pen at Sam. “You just need to resolve never to take the mushrooms, and you’ll never have those memories haunting you.”
Sam looked up at his older self, then back to Verbena. “It couldn’t be that simple.”
“The cat’s already out of the bag, Verbena,” Older Sam said, shaking his head. “Even if I don’t take the mushrooms, I’ll still remember this conversation, and know there are people that I could have helped.”
Sam passed on the argument, making Verbena sigh.
“Oh, Sam. I don’t know what I can say that your invisible friend won’t be able to shoot down. This is unprecedented territory.” She put down her notepad, leaning forward. “All I can say to the both of you is that you are taking on too much responsibility. I know you have spent the last eight years saving everybody you can, and I understand that it must feel by now like saving people is your one mission in life. But a human life is not defined by how many people they can save. Now that you’re not leaping, you get to decide what’s important to you. What and who are worth saving.”
She reached out, grasping his hand. “I’m not going to stop you from leaping, if that’s what you ultimately decide. But just don’t convince yourself that it’s something you have no choice in.”
Sam had already known this was likely to have been Verbena’s assessment of the situation. But it was good to talk about it with somebody other than himself all the same.
“I appreciate the advice, Verbena,” Sam said, eyes watering. “Thanks for listening.” He sat up, eyeing the hologram in the room. “I have to call my family.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Future Sam said. “Sam, I am not here on some mission to destroy your life. I just needed you to understand the good you—we could still do, and I’m sorry that it’s so hard for you to know what to do. It’s not for me, but that’s because of my vantage point.” He dragged a hand down his chin. “Look, the Accelerator is only going to be online for another two days. Once it’s shut down… that’s it. So make your decision before that happens.” He hovered a finger over the handlink. “This’ll be the last time I talk to you—I don’t think there’s anything else I can do.”
With an electronic chirp, he winked out of existence, leaving Sam to deal with his churning stomach as he left Verbena’s office.