Maggie wiped the sweat from her brow as she completed her twenty-eighth lap of the Waiting Room. With nothing better to do, she’d figured she might as well get in some cardio. Even if the jumpsuit she was stuck wearing didn’t have any support - she’d been making do with one arm wrapped around her chest as she ran.
“Water, please.”
A drinking fountain slid out from the wall next to where the vending machine was, and she hurried to it to hydrate herself.
While she drank, her ears picked up the now familiar sound of the door sliding open. She turned to see Al entering, accompanied by another woman unfamiliar to Maggie.
“Back for more?” She asked him, straightening her back, and crossing her arms, then moving her gaze to the unknown woman. “Who’s she?”
“Maggie, this is Doctor Beeks, our staff psychiatrist.”
The doctor nodded towards her, and extended a hand. Maggie shook it, suspicious.
“What are you doing here? Think I need some counselling or something?”
She narrowed her eyes, but saw nothing untoward in this doctor, who was looking at her with seemingly genuine kindness.
“Not unless you want some,” she said, smiling faintly. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Beckett.”
“Maggie’s fine. So why are you here?” She looked at Al with a cynical raised eyebrow. “Need to press me for more info again?”
Al looked sheepish, and she knew she was right.
“We’re looking for some insight into the mental state and needs of…” The doctor trailed off.
“Your counterpart,” Al finished.
Maggie threw her hands in the air. “How should I know? I’ve lived a very different life to her. Something I’ve surely made abundantly clear by now.”
“Well, you’re the closest thing we’ve got to understanding her,” said Doctor Beeks.
Maggie thought carefully. While it was true that her doubles sometimes thought like her, she’d seen enough of them to know how large the discrepancy could be. Still, she figured, she’d just need to put herself in the shoes of a version of her that stayed with Billy and somehow managed to not enter into the military. What might have happened with her father that would have made him less of a tyrant?
Finally, she replied. “Sure, I’m willing to help… for the right price. What can you offer me?”
Al and the doctor looked at each other for a moment. Then, Al took a deep, shaky breath, and Maggie just knew he was going to come out with something good.
“I can show you your friends. Not for very long, because the power cost is astronomical, and frankly we don’t need that kind of electric bill. You’ll be able to see and hear them, but they won’t see or hear you. Sam will, if he’s there.”
Yes, finally, a deal worth making.
Maggie grinned. “Deal.”
She moved to the armchair, and sat cross-legged on it.
“Okay, fill me in on everything you know about the other me, and I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
It was after dark when Sam got back to Maggie’s house. Being this town’s Sheriff was certainly one of the duller gigs of his leaping career. Nothing but intervening in petty disagreements, speeding tickets, and stacks of paperwork - and nobody to talk to but a computer with no personality.
He was glad to be back to work with Quinn, who’d now jury-rigged the circuit boards of the device to a serial port in the computer and was busily scrolling through lines of hieroglyphs.
“Took me three hours to code up a driver to recognise this thing,” he said as Sam entered the kitchen.
Sam observed his work with admiration.
“You did great,” he said, patting the kid on the back.
Quinn stepped away from the display.
“Well, it’s your turn to shine now, because I have no idea what any of this says.”
Sam pulled up a stool, and let his eyes drift over the hieroglyphs.
“Okay, this is good. I’ll set up a simple Rosetta Stone lookup table based on what I understand of each symbol, then send it off to Ziggy who can use that to translate it all into a code that we should both be able to work with. She’ll probably take it upon herself to improve the code as well, knowing her.”
“I really appreciate this,” he said.
An hour later, Sam was absorbed in the code, writing notes on a notepad, when he felt eyes on him from behind. He paused, and turned around to see Quinn pointing some kind of machine at him. It was a hastily constructed contraption, but Sam could see it was some form of scanning device, not unlike an EMF meter or Geiger counter, he thought. In one hand, a meter, and in the other, connected by a wire, was some kind of wand that he was waving around. There was an electrical hum coming from it.
“What is that?” he asked, squinting.
“It’s a spacetime distortion detector I threw together today. I’m trying to get it tuned in to the reality warp around you. You keep doing what you’re doing. When it starts making a clicking noise it should be working. At least, I think so.”
“You did that in a few hours?!” Sam stared at him in disbelief. If it had taken him three hours just to set up the driver, he couldn’t have had much time left over to do this.
“Well, I’m pretty used to working to tight deadlines,” he said, downplaying this incredible feat.
“Jeez, and there I was filling out parking tickets, while you were doing all this,” he lamented.
“Life of a Sheriff isn’t very glamorous, huh?”
Sam laughed. “I’m sure it’s great… if you like to power trip over people just minding their business.”
“There’s something I’ve been a victim of on more than one occasion,” Quinn said, still playing with the dials on his device. “It’s amazing how many times I’ve been arrested without knowing I’d done anything wrong, or even for trying to help someone.”
The machine started clicking, and Quinn gave a victorious laugh.
“Bingo!”
He drew the wand closer to Sam, and the clicking noise became louder and more frequent. He drew it away, and it subsided. He smiled triumphantly.
Sam stood, and gave Quinn an approving pat on the arm. “Don’t suppose you’d consider staying here and workin’ at the Project?”
Quinn seemed to mull it over for a hot second, then shook his head. “I’m looking for my parents. Won’t do me any good to stop here.”
Sam nodded in understanding. He’d do the same.
“If you want, I can draw up schematics for this machine and you can send it to your supercomputer. Might come in handy for you some day.”
“I’d like that.”
Sam turned back to the computer to continue his translation work, but no sooner than he had, did he hear the Imaging Chamber door. Sighing, he turned back around to see Al.
“You talk to Maggie?” he asked his friend, and he felt Quinn’s attention shift to him.
“Oh, is that your hologram buddy?” asked Quinn.
“I never said he was a hologram…”
“Well, what else is he gonna be?” Quinn’s eyes danced. “A ghost? Fairy? You already said he was in the future, so I just figured maybe he was a holographic projection tuned into your brain waves or something.”
“Lucky guess,” Sam said with a grin.
He looked back at Al, who he was startled to see holding the hand of Maggie, decked out in the white Waiting Room jumpsuit. She was looking at Quinn with an emotional expression.
“Hey Quinn,” she said to him, but he couldn’t see, nor hear, it. She looked in Sam’s direction. “Hey there, Uncle.”
“You’re gonna have to relay the message,” said Al. Sam nodded.
“Quinn,” Sam said, grabbing the arm of the man, “Al’s got Maggie with him. She just said ‘hey.’”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “Where?”
Sam pointed to the corner of the room where the two stood, and Quinn looked towards that spot.
“Hey, Maggie. Hope they’re treating you okay in the future.”
“Well, it’s comfortable enough, as far as prisons go,” Maggie said
“She says it’s comfortable, but she views it as a prison,” relayed Sam.
“Where are the others?” She asked.
“I can answer that one,” said Al. “They’re off in a motel with the other Maggie. I’ll show you them tomorrow.”
“Okay, then. Quinn, I want you to know that if you have to slide without me, that’s okay. I’ll make do alone.”
“Maggie, I couldn’t let that happen,” Sam replied directly.
“What did she say?” Quinn asked.
“She’s telling you to go without her if I don’t leap out before your timer hits zero.”
Quinn shook his head. “Not a chance. I don’t know about the others, but I’m not going to just abandon you. I’ll build a new sliding machine if I have to. Don’t worry about it.”
Sam watched Maggie’s expression melt into relieved gratitude. He smiled; these two really cared for one another.
Al glanced at the handlink. “Okay, Ziggy’s telling me I have twenty seconds until I need to let go of your hand or we get an outage. Any final words?”
“Just… tell him I’m sorry for arguing with him so much about the densitrometry circuit.”
Al nodded, and let go of her hand, causing her to disappear from Sam’s sight.
“She says sorry for arguing with you about the densitrometry circuit,” he parroted, and smirked at the comment.
Quinn stood quiet for a moment, smiling. “She’s right, though. It needs some work.”
“Well then, guess you’re lucky you have me,” Sam said, before spinning back around on his stool to complete his work.