Chapter 56
Los Angeles, 2021
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzzzzzt.
“Hey, come on!” Al cried out as he pressed his call button over and over. “Give a dying man some attention already!”
Al hated being confined to this uncomfortable hospice bed—if only he had the strength to get out of it. Now he knew why they called it a death bed.
Finally, the door of his dinky little room opened. One of the doctors entered; the smallest one—Doctor Handler, if he remembered correctly—with the bald head, who always seemed to look at him like he was a baby needing a diaper change. But he was an adult who needed a diaper change, dammit.
“What can I do for you, Mister Calavicci?” He picked up Al’s chart and flipped through it without much care.
“That’s Admiral to you, Doctor.”
“Admiral, right. My mistake. What do you need?”
“Look, I know it’s the cigars that got me into this mess, but can’t a guy have a few quality Cubans to make his last days worth living?”
Doctor Handler looked up from the chart with a frown. “First of all, we do not provide… cigars. You would need your wife to bring them to you. Second, there’s strictly no smoking in the building. If you really must, you’ll need to have someone put you in a wheelchair and take you into the designated smoking area in the courtyard. But I highly recommend not smoking, Mister Calavicci.”
Al scowled. “Admiral.”
“Right, right…”
“Can I at least get a window open? I’m suffocating in here.”
With a put-upon sigh, Doctor Handler strode to the window, and cracked it open. Then, he lingered there a moment, looking out onto the courtyard two floors below.
“Checking out all the hot and horny GILFs in your area, are you?” Al let out a wheezing laugh.
Doctor Handler turned around with a quizzical expression. “GILFs?”
“Yeah—Grandmas I’d Like to—”
“Al! Oh, I’m glad I made it.” The doctor rushed to Al’s bedside with a drastically changed demeanour. “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?”
Could it be?
“Uh, Sam…? That you in there?”
Sam nodded, taking Al’s hand. “Hey buddy. Long time no see.” He looked down at the ID badge attached to his lab coat. “‘George Handler’… this guy your doctor?”
“One of ’em,” Al said with a snarl. “Treats me like an annoyance. I mean, sorry I’m dying, jeez. Least he could do is talk to me like a big boy. Lifetime of hard-earned experience and now I’m just a lump in a bed to these nozzles.” He softened his expression. “So, what version of Sam am I talking to? You an old fart like me yet?”
Sam laughed. “You know I can’t look in a mirror and be able to tell that. But it’s been a while. Last time I talked to you was… 2013, I think—when I was helping that homeless girl with the one-eyed dog.”
“For me it was two years back,” Al reminisced. “The mass shooting down in Florida.”
“Oh yeah.” Sam took a seat on the chair by Al’s bed. “Boy, I’ll never forget that one. Did the little boy survive?”
“He did,” Al said. “By the skin of his teeth, poor kid.”
“I’m glad.” Sam looked down, his smile fading. “How are you, Al?”
“Well, I’m not exactly doing the hustle over here. But things are lookin’ up now.” He gave Sam as bright a smile as he could muster. “Are you here just for me?”
“I guess you could call this a pit stop,” Sam said. “I’m finally going home, but I knew I had one last thing to do.”
Al’s smile dropped. “A pit stop? So you won’t be here long, then?”
Sam squeezed his hand. “I’ll be here as long as you need me, Al.”
“Oh, good. In that case, you think you could get me a cigar?”
* * *
As Ben’s essence hurtled through the gaps between time and space, his only thought was of Addison.
I need to get back home to her, he told himself. It won’t be the end of leaping, but the beginning. And we’ll do it above board this time. I’m coming, Addison.
The blue all around him propelled him forwards, and as he flew, he felt another presence, the same as the last time he’d leapt, one that he could feel holding on to him somehow.
And suddenly, he found himself tumbling out onto the familiar floor of the Accelerator Chamber.
I made it… I’m home!
He unsteadily climbed to his feet, but nearly fell back to the ground when he heard a voice beside him.
“Hope you don’t mind I hitched a ride with you there.”
Ben straightened as he found himself face-to-face with Sam. The fellow leaper was much older than he’d last seen him, but a similar age to the first time they’d met. Like Ben, he was clad in a Fermi suit.
“It’s good to see you again, Ben.”
“Why are you… how did…” Ben gestured to the Accelerator.
The last he knew, Sam was back home with his family. So what was he doing coming out of the Accelerator like he’d been leaping?
“Sam, I brought you home… didn’t I? In 2003. You were home.”
“You did, and I thank you for that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It let me give everyone closure.” Sam placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go see what’s waiting for us out there, shall we? I’m as curious as you are.”
As they approached the door, it opened, and Addison appeared, staring with wide eyes at the two of them.
“Oh… oh my God!” she said, pointing weakly at the two returned leapers, her mouth unable to form words.
She pulled both of them into a group hug.
“I… I can’t believe both of you made it back…” she pulled away, turning towards the door. “Come on, everyone’s waiting.”
With a quick glance at one another, Ben and Sam followed her out and to the main control floor, where Magic, Ian, Jenn, Janis, and Sammy Jo all stood in a line together, each caught off guard by the fact that both Ben and Sam had emerged.
“Holy cow, it’s a two-for-one special,” Ian said, covering their mouth with manicured fingers.
“Buy Ben, get Sam free,” Jenn added, smiling ear to ear. “Welcome back, you guys…”
Janis and Sammy Jo were tightly holding hands as they looked upon the two.
“I think your retrieval was a roaring success,” Janis said to her.
Sammy Jo wiped away sudden tears. “I finally did it.”
“I guess both of us were ready,” Ben said, grinning at Sam. He reached out to Addison, taking her by the hand. “What about you, Addison? Did your memories… did they—”
“We can talk about me later,” Addison said. “You guys are late for your date with the staff doctor. Health check first, then you can worry about me. Deal?”
Slightly miffed that he hadn’t even had the chance to kiss her yet, Ben nodded. “Okay, deal.”
“Step this way, folks,” Magic said, putting an arm around Ben’s shoulders and leading him, as Sam followed closely. As they walked, Magic leaned over to Ben’s ear, and murmured: “We all knew you’d make it back sooner or later. I’m just glad it was today.”
As they reached the Infirmary, Magic stepped back, holding the door open, stopping Sam for a moment to pat him on the shoulder. “It’s really good to see you home.”
“Thanks, Magic,” Sam said. “I hope I didn’t impose.”
Magic furrowed his brow. “Impose? I don’t know why you’d think that.” He gestured to the room. “Doctor Mahanti’s on his way, so just sit tight.”
Inside the room, the two of them sat anxiously side by side on the examination bed.
“So what happened, Sam?” asked Ben. “You leapt again? Why?”
Sam sighed. “It’s… a long story, Ben. Let me put it this way: I had a lot of IOUs to sort out.” He brightened. “But you know what’s interesting? I think… I think I might be remembering some things that happened in the other timeline.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“I think… Ian gave me psychedelic mushrooms on a pizza.”
Perplexed, Ben squinted at him. “Well that definitely sounds like Ian, but it doesn’t sound like you.”
Sam chuckled. “You’d be surprised.”
Before Ben had time to ask follow-up questions, the door opened to reveal the doctor that Ben recalled from before he’d leapt, Doctor Mahanti. Not that he’d ever had to come to the Infirmary before. Addison had been here for health checks while she was expected to be leaping, but Ben had had no such mandate.
“How are we doing, gentlemen?” he asked with a smile.
“You tell us,” Ben said. “I guess there hasn’t been a lot of precedent for returned leaper checkups in the last twenty years.”
“This is true,” the doctor said. “Well, let me just get started with your basic vital signs.”
He pulled up his stethoscope and got to work.
* * *
“Well, you both seem to be in remarkably good health for your respective ages,” Doctor Mahanti said, collecting his computer tablet and heading for the door. “You are both free to go. But do keep me updated if you experience any unexpected health effects.”
With that, he disappeared out the door, leaving Sam to mull over what he’d seen during the checkup—because it had been markedly different to what the doctor had claimed.
Ben stood, stretching. “Well, I’m gonna go find Addison. We have some catching up to do.”
Sam gave a distracted nod. “Yeah, okay.”
“Something wrong?”
“No, it’s just…” Sam scratched his chin. “All the readings I got—resting heart rate, blood pressure, reflexes—were… really good for my age. Like, I wouldn’t have expected that, considering how I’ve slowed down over the years.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Ben tilted his head.
“Yeah, but…” Sam crossed his arms. “Maybe it’s nothing.”
Ben shrugged, and headed out of the room. Sam lingered within for a moment, wondering why Ben’s results were markedly worse than his own.
“Whoa!”
Sam’s head snapped up as he heard Addison’s distinctive voice crying out. He stood, and peered out of the door, down the hall to Addison, who was prying Ben’s lips off her mouth.
“What are you doing?” she said, her eyes wide as saucers.
“Uh—” Ben took a confused step back. “Are we not—?”
“Look Gramps, I don’t know how they say hello out in the cornfields, but that’s a little intimate, wouldn’t you say?”
“Wh-what did you just call me?”
Oh boy.
Heart racing, Sam searched the immediate area for a reflective surface. Finding a small mirror on the inside of the Infirmary, he peered into it and grimaced.
Oh no. Oh no no no.
He knew something had been off about the medical tests. But this? Oh, this wasn’t good. He pulled the mirror from the wall, and sprinted down the corridor to Ben.
“Ben…” he held the mirror up, showing Ben that his reflection was still, regrettably, not his own.
Ben stared into the mirror, where Sam’s equally astonished face looked back—just as Sam’s mirror image had been Ben’s. “Oh, you have gotta be kidding me.”