At the kitchen table, the timer’s components were spread out, as Sam and Quinn studied them. Sam noted that it was nearing eleven at night. He supposed they would have to wrap it up for the night soon.
The hieroglyphs seemed, to Sam, to be an unusual reconfiguration of the original ancient Egyptian writings, which he assumed were owing to the fact that the language must have evolved somewhat on this world Quinn had described to him, where western culture had absorbed Egyptian, rather than primarily Greco-Roman, elements. He could still understand it to a point, but it was going to be tricky.
He’d learned about the origins of this timer: made to escape from some kind of tomb. They’d acquired it when they let their own timer elapse, thinking Quinn was dead.
Sam thought back to Colin’s comment about Quinn being lucky; it seemed true. How unlikely was it that they’d find such a thing? He wondered if God or Fate or Time or that guy in the diner named Al was taking care of them, too.
The sound of an impact in the doorway startled him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see Maggie carrying a dusty computer chassis into the room.
“Here. Had to dig it out of my boxes. Hope it’s good enough,” she said as she placed it on the kitchen bench. “I’ll go get the monitor.”
“Thanks Maggie,” Quinn said, and immediately set to plugging it into the wall. Sam found himself wishing for Ziggy at this point, because an old Windows 95 computer like this would take years to process something that would take her seconds.
The thought of calling Project Quantum Leap floated into his mind. If he could prove who he was, they’d be willing to help. But then, how was he expected to get to New Mexico when he had a job to do here? Still, Ziggy’s processing power would come in handy right about now. He could encrypt the data and send it electronically to them, so she could crunch some numbers.
But first, he had to load that data onto this old computer.
“This old bucket of bolts is going to slow us down,” he said grimly. Quinn looked at him with an amused smirk.
“I’ve worked with much worse. The computers on this Earth seem pretty advanced compared to where I came from. For one, you’ve got more than 64 megs of RAM.”
Sam shuddered at the thought of such little memory, and he recalled Quinn’s origins.
Oh, right, this guy built a machine that opened a path to other universes, using consumer grade electrical components, in his basement.
Sam wondered what he could do with the resources that Sam had used to build Project Quantum Leap. Not that he could remember what half of those resources were. Still, Sam himself was pretty used to working on the fly without much at his disposal, nowadays.
The idea of contacting his compound wouldn’t leave him, and simmered away in the back of his mind.
He looked down at the circuit boards and other components, stroking his chin. This all seemed much more familiar to him than he would have expected, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. But, he figured, it was better to recognise it than to have a complete memory lapse and not be able to help.
Maggie came in, struggling to carry the bulky 17-inch CRT monitor, and Sam rushed over to help her. He took it out of her arms, and was easily able to carry it the rest of the way, as Quinn watched with interest.
“Your arms go around it so much more easily than hers,” he remarked, still apparently trying to figure out how his eyes could see two of the same person having such a different experience of carrying the same object.
Sam leaned over to plug in the monitor to the wall, and moved to plug the VGA cable into the chassis.
“I need to get both your fingerprints,” Quinn continued, lost in his curiosity.
“Wouldn’t you rather get this timer fixed?” Sam said, with some amusement. Not that he wasn’t also interested in finding out more about his leaps, but some things did take priority over such investigations.
“Hey, we’ll need breaks. I can do both.”
Sam simply shrugged.
Maggie smiled at the two scientists, a smile Sam thought was more token than genuine, before making her exit from the room.
Quinn crossed his arms, looking from the computer to the disassembled timer.
“I think we’re going to need some more wires to get this thing set up right. I hope this town has a good electronics store.”
He looked around the kitchen at the appliances. “Or I can take apart some of these…”
“You should probably get Maggie’s permission before you start destroying her stuff.”
Sam had to admire his ingenuity, nonetheless.
Quinn flashed him a grin, but it quickly faded as Sam could tell there was something on Quinn’s mind.
“You said before that every time you, uh, ‘leap,’ there’s a reason behind it. You have to fix something that went wrong, or help someone, right?”
Sam nodded. He could see where this was going.
“So what are you here for? Is it to help us, or to help her?” Quinn gestured with his head towards where Maggie had last been seen.
Sam hesitated. It had never crossed his mind that he could be there to help them. But that was always a possibility.
He licked his lips before admitting: “All I know is that she’s going to disappear in a few days.”
Quinn took a moment to process this. “Well, with all four of us, we can have eyes on her all the time.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Sam agreed. “But we can’t just deter whoever’s going to take her, because they might try again when we’re gone. We’ll need to be covert so we can catch the guy red-handed.”
He glanced out the door to make sure Maggie wasn’t in earshot.
“I might need to take her place for a few days.”
Quinn nodded. “Know much about being a Sheriff?”
“A little. I’ve been one before,” he said, and then it hit him that it didn’t turn out well for Abigail’s father. “Of course… he did die in a fire right after I leaped out.”
Quinn looked at him with wide eyes. “Alright then…” he said, nervous. “Well, please don’t do that again.”
* * *
Sam was half asleep in Maggie’s guest bedroom when he heard a loud banging on the front door. He leapt out of bed, adrenaline flowing.
“Maggie!” cried a man’s voice, muffled behind the door.
Sam hurried into the living room, where the door was. On the couch and floor, Quinn and Rembrandt were scrambling to their feet. Colin had already turned on the lamp by the couch, and was striding towards the door with a stony expression.
The voice behind the door continued: “Maggie, why won’t you talk to me!”
More pounding on the door.
Colin peered through the peephole, and looked back to the others.
“Is this Billy?” he asked.
Sam nodded, recognising the voice. “I think so. And he sounds drunk.”
Maggie appeared in the hall, finally roused from the commotion.
“Don’t let him in,” was all she said. Sam moved to her and took her arm.
“You should hide,” he told her. “I’ll handle it.”
She looked into his eyes for a moment, defiant, but then conceded, and moved into her bedroom, closing the door.
Sam crossed to the door, which was taking quite the beating.
“Billy, go home!” He called through the door. “Or I’ll be forced to arrest you for being drunk and disorderly.”
He looked back at the others, shrugging.
“Maggie, please! I just wanna talk! You owe me that!”
“I owe you nothing. Get out of here!”
A moment of silence passed, and then a huge thud came on the door. Sam thought it may have been a kick.
“Billy, if you leave right this second, I won’t charge you with attempted break-and-enter. But if you keep going, I will have no choice.”
“Screw you, Maggie! You can’t hide behind that badge forever!”
Through the peephole, Sam watched Billy stumble away, though not before kicking over Maggie’s mailbox.
“Destruction of property,” Sam mumbled.
Well, that sure raises the odds of him being the culprit.
Sam turned, and met Quinn’s eye. They shared a moment of grave understanding.
He crossed to the hall, and went into Maggie’s room, where he found her on the bed, hugging her knees.
He sat on the end of the bed.
“Does this happen often?”
Maggie sighed. “Only after he goes drinking with his buddies. I think they must egg him on.”
Sam sighed. He was still reluctant to tell her about her fate, but he could still try his plan.
“Maybe you should go stay at a motel for a few days. I’ll step in and pose as you.”
“What good would that do?” she asked, her brow furrowed.
“I just have a bad feeling about Billy. Maybe I can figure out some way to get him to leave you alone. I think that’s why I’m here.”
He took her hand.
“Those three guys out there,” he nodded toward the living room, “they really care about their Maggie. I think you could stay with Rembrandt and Colin. They can protect you. Meanwhile, I’ll play Sheriff and work with Quinn on the timer in my downtime.”
“I’m not a child any more, Uncle Sam,” she said, irritation lacing her words, “I’m a grown woman with police training. I don’t need to be protected.”
Sam cringed. He thought she might resist in this way.
“I know. I’m not going to deny you’re clearly a capable person.”
He shifted his position so that he was cross-legged on the end of the bed, facing her.
“Do you know where your name comes from? Why your Dad called you Maggie?”
Maggie thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“Yeah, he never told me either, but I know,” he said with a sad smile.
“When your Dad was fighting in Nam, he met a photojournalist called Maggie Dawson. Out on a mission, she was killed, while your Dad was saved.”
He drew a sharp breath as the memories came back to him.
“I know about it because I was there. Her death was… well, it was because of me.”
“But you never went to Vietnam,” Maggie said, struggling to understand.
He put a hand on her knee.
“I was there alright, though nobody knew it was me. And I saved my brother’s – your Dad’s – life. At the cost of hers.”
She looked at him, pale as a sheet.
“You’re here today because she died. And I could never forgive myself if I had a chance to save you and failed.”
Maggie took this information in quietly.
Finally, she made eye contact with him, and spoke plainly.
“What do you know about the future, Sam? About me?”
Sam sighed. He should have known she’d figure it out, just as Quinn had.
“You’re going to go missing.”
Maggie barely had a reaction.
“I see,” was all she said in reply.