Chapter 27
It was a bright and warm day at Moonstone Ranch. Same as every day he’d had the privilege of being here, Sam A realised.
He wiped the layer of sweat that had built up on his face with his sleeve. It was time to take a break from the construction of the classroom and meet the rest of the residents in the dome to collect all the drugs for disposal.
As he entered, he noticed a sombre mood among the crowd.
Sam couldn’t blame them for being upset about giving up their substances. A hippie without drugs seemed like a dog without a bone. But it was necessary. He’d gotten to know all of these people, and he didn’t want to see any of them rounded up and thrown in prison.
Marsha held the burlap sack as each of the communards reluctantly dropped in their personal stash. As she approached each person, she apologised to them. Sam followed up by thanking them, and personally promising they wouldn’t regret it.
Finally, they reached Danny, who cast a few dime bags into the sack, his facial expression mostly hidden behind his sunglasses and moustache. He leaned to Sam, whispering in his ear.
“Enjoying your little victory, spaceman?”
Sam gave him a warm smile. “It’s a victory for all of us here, Danny. I promise.”
“Hmph.” Danny folded his arms. “And who’s the loser?”
Sam tilted his head as he parsed Danny’s words, and realised he’d been neglecting the relationship between the two of them. Danny clearly resented his changes, he’d made that much clear. Well, he thought, he’d need to rectify that now.
He placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “I’m sorry if I’ve seemed like I’m running roughshod over the commune, Danny. I don’t want to diminish your position here. It’s just, I’m only here for a limited time, and I wanted to help in as many ways as I could before I went away again.”
Danny watched as Marsha moved away to continue her collection, and he subsequently placed a hand on Sam’s back, ushering him away from the crowd.
“Richie, pal, I don’t know why you’ve put on this act,” he said, his tone unusually light and easy. “I don’t know what Marsha saw the other night. I don’t know why you’ve decided to use all this unearned authority to do what you’re doing. I especially don’t know why you’re saying you’re leaving soon. You’re a complete mystery to me.” He stopped, turning to face Sam. “But listen up. Whatever your game, I just want you to know that… you win! Okay? Congratulations.”
“I’m not playing games, Danny… there’s no win condition between the two of us. Please try to understand me when I say it’s for all of us here, and it’s nothing to do with our personal disagreements.”
“No, no,” Danny continued. “No need to be modest. Enjoy yourself, buddy. Don’t let me get in the way of your good time. You bested me, and I’m man enough to admit defeat.” He patted Sam’s back, and smiled, though Sam still couldn’t see his eyes past the sunglasses.
“Well, uh…” Sam quirked a smile, “thanks, I guess? I still don’t see this as a competition, but I’m happy to see you’re taking it in stride. I think we could be friends, you know?”
Danny chuckled. “Sure. Best buddies. I’ll be seeing you round, space man.”
Sam returned to Marsha’s side, grinning. He couldn’t believe how well everything was going. He should have left his anger and bitterness behind long ago. Ever since he’d been here, it had been so easy to smooth over the bumps in the road with a little empathy and treating others with respect.
The only one who hadn’t responded to such things was Sam B, but he couldn’t expect much from the avatar of his own problematic aspects. He’d really been the only person he’d met this leap that he didn’t get along with. And that made some sense, because he couldn’t stand those parts of himself, that were capable of saying mean things; to think of his own comfort more than that of other people. To be so self-serving that he couldn’t see the opportunities that leaping presented, instead viewing it as some kind of punishment.
“Alright, Al,” Marsha’s voice cut through his reverie, “I got ’em all. Now what are we doing with it? Burning it?”
Sam laughed. “No, the last thing we need is noxious fumes. We need to take it out into the desert and bury it. Off the property.”
Marsha nodded. “Okay. Leave it to me.” She smiled warmly. “I’ll take one of the dune buggies out.”
“You sure, Marsha? I can help if you—”
“That’s sweet, Al, but I can do it. You have plenty of other things to take care of.” She kissed him on the cheek, and slung the sack over her shoulder. “I won’t be long.”
As she left the dome, Sam wondered what he’d done to deserve such cooperative people, and couldn’t help smiling to himself.
He stepped out into the warm air, taking cleansing breaths as he decided on what to do next. He thought a nice brisk shower might be the pick-me-up he needed to continue his work, and headed to Marsha’s tepee to get a change of clothes.
He didn’t think anything of the guy smoking a cigarette near the tepee.
As he pulled open the flap, he noticed that the bed had been made. This was unusual; Marsha was always the last to get up, and she never made the bed. And he sure hadn’t; he’d been busy with other things.
Confused, he let his eyes wander over the bed as he tried to figure out if maybe someone else had made the bed for them as some kind of favour. And he noticed a subtle lump just to the left of his pillow.
He peeled back the covers to find several baggies of various substances nestled in the bed.
What the—?
He gathered them up and headed out of the tepee, but stopped abruptly as he found himself surrounded by several men. The men Danny had been speaking to the previous evening.
“You found that a bit early,” one of the men said, grabbing him by one of his wrists. Another man seized his other wrist.
“What’s goin’ on here?” Sam asked, his brow furrowed. Why would they be doing this?
“Sorry Richie,” one of the men said. “But you’d better come with us.”
Sam frowned. “Why?” He looked down at the drugs, which another of the group were taking out of his hands. “Are these yours?”
“No, Richie. They’re yours. Little gift from Danny.”
“What?”
Sam was trying very hard not to put the pieces together in the way his brain was telling him they should be. After the conversation he’d just had with Danny, why would he plant drugs in his tepee? Especially if he didn’t believe there was going to be a drug raid.
Without the will to fight, he allowed the men to escort him to another tepee which stood alone, away from the hustle and bustle of the commune.
As they tied him up, for the first time this leap he began to feel a little scared.
* * *
It had been a few hours since Beeks had cut off his access to the Sams, and Al was feeling mighty edgy. He was sitting out in the desert air at ground level of the Project Quantum Leap complex, sucking on a cigar in an attempt to calm his nerves. He sure hoped Verbena would hurry up.
A squeal from the handlink in his pocket made him jump, and he pulled it out, checking on Ziggy’s notification.
What he saw made his face drain of all colour.
He jumped up, stamping out his cigar, and hurried back into the building. He hurried to the elevator, and punched in a request to Ziggy to notify Verbena of the news. She needed to get Richie to the front. Because Ziggy had just told him that somehow, Sam A had changed history, and now Richie was going to die—and it was only a matter of hours before it happened.
How the hell Sam A had managed that, he had no idea.
As he reached the Control Room, he yelled up to the orb in the ceiling, “Ziggy, gimme more details. How’s Sam A going to die?”
“According to news reports, he will be gunned down by police during a drug raid,” said Ziggy, without much emotion in her voice.
“But the bust isn’t even meant to happen until tomorrow!” He exchanged a frantic look with Gooshie, who was standing at the control panel.
“It appears that little detail has changed, Admiral. Perhaps Doctor Beckett will know why.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks a lot, Ziggy. Have you got a lock on Sam A yet?”
“Not yet, Admiral,” Ziggy replied. “I recommend you join Doctor Beeks in the Waiting Room for the time being.”
Al let his shoulders sag. “Big help, you are. How much longer has Sam got until lights out?”
“The raid occurs at 1600 hours. The current time at the relevant Doctor Beckett’s spatio-temporal coordinates is 14:34.”
Al ran a hand over his face. “Oh, jeez,” he said, before dashing to the Waiting Room.