The morning sun was just peeking into the kitchen window as Sam dialled the interstate number on Maggie’s wall phone.
It rang for half a second before connecting. Sam smiled as he heard Ziggy’s voice on the line.
“State your access authorisation, please,” she said.
“Uh, Department of Defence Umbra clearance number 004-002-02-016. But that may have been reset due to potential compromisation, a couple of days ago – if I remember correctly – in which case, the new number will be 038-002-33-283.”
He smiled. “It’s me, Ziggy. Sam.”
“Please wait…” Ziggy’s voice said.
A moment went by, and then, a new voice: “Hello? Who is this?”
“Gooshie? I haven’t heard your voice in so long.”
“You don’t sound like… the undisclosed individual whose number you cited.” Gooshie was straining not to divulge information.
“I know, I know. But it’s really me, buddy. I’m in a leap right now. Only, I’m a future version of myself calling you.”
“Uh… wow, okay. Where are you right now? Ziggy says this call is coming from California.”
“I’ve leaped into my niece, Maggie, in Madera County. That’s whose voice you’re hearing right now.” He didn’t bother explaining the unnecessary detail that it was a different Maggie.
“If I’m thinking of the correct date, I think the present me should have leaped out of that guy who saw the UFO a couple days ago – and that’s why the clearance number had to be reset, because I gave it up under the truth serum those spooks gave me. I don’t know whether the reset’s been done by this point in the timeline, though.”
“Oh boy,” Gooshie said. “It’s not a good idea for you to be contacting us, Doctor Beckett… as delightful as it is that you have.”
“I know, I know. I could change the future. But believe me, Gooshie, this is no ordinary leap. Listen, can you put Ziggy on for me? I have an important job for her.”
“Uh, well, here’s the thing, Sam…”
Sam’s palm shot to his forehead as he recalled what happened next in his timeline back in ’99.
“Oh, she’s all out of sorts because of Alia, isn’t she? Damn, bad timing.”
“Yeah, we’re in crisis mode right now,” confirmed Gooshie.
He punched the counter, but a realisation dawned on him as he rubbed his knuckles.
“Listen, sometime today or tomorrow I’m gonna SFTP some data over. Ziggy’ll be able to decode the encryption on it just fine. Just tell her it’s a side project. But here’s the fun part: she has a few years to do it. Just have Al pass on the data when you sync up with me in November 2002, okay?”
“Okay, Sam. I’ll tell her to expect it.”
“Thank you, Gooshie.”
Sam hesitated in ending the call. “Listen… tell everyone…”
“I know, Sam. I will.”
“See you round, pal.”
He was just hanging up the phone when Quinn wandered in, rubbing his eyes.
“Who were you talking to?”
“I was callin’ home. My hybrid supercomputer should be able to crunch a few numbers on a scale of magnitude faster than this old thing,” he said, knocking on the case of the PC.
“Supercomputer?” Quinn sounded intrigued.
“We call her Ziggy. She’s my pride and joy, when she’s not driving me crazy.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about a person.”
“I’m sure she’d be insulted by the comparison,” Sam replied, with a laugh.
Quinn crossed the room, looking at him with mischief. Sam had an inkling of what was going on in his head.
He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a tape measure.
“Oh god, what now?” Sam moaned, as Quinn swung the tape over him and started measuring his waist.
“Sorry man, it’s for science,” he said, as Sam shifted uncomfortably.
Quinn laughed as he read the measurement.
“Twenty-five inches. A little low for a 6 foot man, right?”
Sam felt his face burning as Quinn giggled.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. Like to see you pull off these jeans.”
“I wish I could see your real appearance,” Quinn mused. “I wonder if I could build some sort of reality lens so I could see through the spacetime distortion.”
“Another time, maybe,” said Sam, gesturing towards the timer pieces. “We have something more important to do.”
Quinn’s excitement waned, and he nodded solemnly. “Yeah, you’re right. Who knows if we’ll even make the window at this rate, but the sooner we finish, the more likely it is we will.”
He turned to Sam. “But aren’t you gonna be doing the Sheriff thing?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, I’ll have to. The others can take Maggie to a motel to keep watch on her, and I’ll help you with this when I can. While I’m out on patrol, you work on getting it rigged up to the computer, okay?”
Quinn gave a mock salute.
“Sure thing.”
* * *
Sam placed his palm on the car panel, and Higgins sprung to life.
“Higgins, open driver’s side door,” he said. The car chimed, as it had done yesterday, and the door popped open. He got in, and was starting the car when Al popped into the passenger seat, looking at him with a piercing stare. Sam regarded him nervously.
“You made a phone call to the facility on the third of May, 1999, sounding just like your niece.” he said, to which Sam gave him a ghost of a shrug.
“Do you realise how weird it is to have my own history changed in the middle of you altering it like that, Sam? I have two memories now, one of you never having called, and one of you calling.”
“Sorry, Al. The former one should fade after I leap out, right?”
“As of right now, Ziggy both does and doesn’t have the data you said you were gonna send her, which she says means you haven’t sent it yet, but you will sometime tonight, with a 98.2 per cent probability.”
He took a long, troubled puff on his cigar.
“Only Ziggy could hold those two opposing truths and not blow a circuit.”
“Guess we should’ve called her Schrödinger,” he said with a chuckle, but Al merely met his joke with an exasperated shake of his head.
“That was the name of Quinn Mallory’s cat,” he finally said.
Of course it was.
“Civilian jaywalking at eleven o’clock, Sheriff,” Higgins stated. Sam looked over to see some guy walking on the side of the road, causing no real issue.
“Okay Higgins. Ignore, please?”
“Handprint authorisation required to disregard observed crime in progress.”
Sam rolled his eyes, and provided the handprint, making incredulous eye contact with Al.
“Authorisation accepted. Incident report recorded in log.”
“Jeez, what a killjoy,” Al remarked.
“This is really what Maggie has to put up with every day?” Sam shook his head in disbelief. “No wonder she’s miserable.”
He looked at his friend. “I feel like I’m not just here to stop her from disappearing, you know? What if she needs a change in her life? You’ve seen the way she lives; she’s not eating right, she’s living out of moving boxes after two months, she takes no pride in her work. What does Ziggy think of that?”
“Sam, Ziggy’s barely calculating anything right now. She keeps saying she’s blinded to it ’cause of all this hokum with the parallel Earths and you being in the wrong Maggie.”
“Well, maybe talk to our guest in the Waiting Room again. How would she feel if she were in this situation?”
Al looked at him with a sigh. “Do I have to?”
“Al,” Sam pleaded.
“Alright already,” Al sulked.
“And get Verbena to help, alright?”
Al nodded, and pressed a button on the handlink, causing him to vanish from the car.
And so, he was alone again with Higgins.