Sam sat on the bed in his dorm room, his head buried in the various notes his professor had written on the subject of DOS. There was conspicuously no comprehensive manual for Apple DOS 3.1, to everyone’s chagrin. However, his attention was definitely not on the documentation. Instead, he was trying very hard to ignore the old guy in strange clothes that was sitting in an invisible chair across the room.
But, they both knew his efforts were in vain.
It was bad enough that this ‘Al’ guy was here, but his roommate Jay was also present, strumming aimlessly on his electric guitar, which was in desperate need of tuning. The discordant notes were making him want to throw the instrument out the window.
“I can’t believe you’re putting up with this,” the incorporeal man commented. “My ears are gonna bleed if this guy keeps it up.”
Well then, why don’t you leave?
“You want me to tune that?” he finally said to the 21-year-old.
Jay’s hazel eyes looked him over. “I didn’t know you played. When did you get time to learn guitar with all your hundreds of degrees?”
Sam blinked in surprise. He’d been here for a few months now; had he really not brought out his guitar in all that time? Well, he’d been pretty busy.
“One of my doctorates was in music,” he said with a smirk. “I played piano at Carnegie Hall when I was nineteen, and I’ve been playing guitar since I was a kid. Pass it over, would you.”
He held out his hand. Jay passed the guitar to him, and he began tuning it by ear.
“Jeez, leave it to you to even be a nerd in music,” Jay teased. “Know any tunes written after the 19th century?”
The man Jay couldn’t see cackled. “Give him a good one Sam, wipe the smile off his face.”
If you’re not a product of my own mind, then why do you seem to know everything about me?
Sam finished up his tuning, and gave the guitar a few strums in various chords, before launching into the opening riff of Purple Haze.
After a moment of filling the room with the wailing Hendrix song, he abruptly stopped playing and handed the guitar back to a bewildered Jay.
“Does that answer your question?” he gave a cocky smirk as he listened to his invisible cheerleader applaud.
“You’re just full of surprises,” Jay said, marvelling. “I thought all you were good for was burying your head in a book.”
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty swamped,” he said, giving a pointed look at the apparition across the room. “Don’t have time for much messing around right now.”
The man… ‘Al’ (Sam was loathe to use the name he’d supplied, as if giving him a name made him more legitimate; more real), held up his hands defensively.
“Hey kid, I’m trying to make myself scarce, but I wanna be here when you get that phone call.”
There isn’t going to be a phone call.
He returned to his reading, and his mind started absently conceptualising ways to improve the efficiency of a personal computer’s central processing unit.
But these thoughts were interrupted when the dorm room’s phone started ringing.
He exchanged a glance with Al, who gave him a smug look, and put down the documents. But it was Jay who reached the phone first.
“Hello, you’ve reached Jay’s love nest,” he said, putting on his most studly voice. Sam gave him a sour look. Sure, most phone calls they got were girls looking for him, but sometimes Sam’s family called.
“Nah man, I think you’ve got the wrong number. Ain’t no Al here.”
Sam flung himself off his bed and snatched the phone away.
“Hello?” he said, eyes wide.
“Uh… is this Al?”
The voice was awfully familiar.
“No, but, he told me to leave you his name.” Sam met Al’s eye, alarmed. So maybe this guy wasn’t as imaginary as he’d thought. Al just puffed on a cigar, which thankfully didn’t seem to be dispersing any corporeal smoke into the room.
“Oh… ohh… I see. This number you left. It’s Caltech, isn’t it? What’s your name?”
The man spoke carefully, seeming to know more than he let on.
“Sam Beckett…” Sam replied, recalling that the guy he’d left the message for was supposed to have the same name.
“I was afraid that was the case,” said the man. “Is… is Al with you right now?”
“I’m not sure I’d put it that way,” Sam replied, watching Al walk up to him and place his ear inside the phone handset.
“Oh. Yeah. He’s not technically with you. You’ve probably seen him phase through walls and the like, huh?”
“Sam, can you hear me?” Al called out.
“Al? Oh, thank god, I can hear you! What in the world happened? How’d you end up in my old dorm?”
Al groaned. “Ziggy flubbed the lock-on process because she only had a sixty second wormhole window to find you, or some baloney, and I got homed in on your double instead of you. He’s about as unhappy about it as I am, Sam.”
Sam looked at Al with a befuddled squint.
“Oh, I know that look,” Al said. “Yes, you’re currently on the phone to the older version of you. Surprise! Your time travel theory worked.”
“What?” Sam felt weak at the knees, and sat down on his bed. “I knew I was on to something, but I… are you serious?”
“Must be a lot to take in,” the older Sam said. “Sorry to dump all this on you when you’re already overwhelmed with your studies. In a few months, DOS 3.2 will have a real manual, by the way.”
“How did you…” Sam swallowed as he tried to process this information.
If he’s me, he must remember…
“Oh boy…”
“Get used to saying that,” said his older version, with a chuckle.
“I have night shift at the hospital in an hour…” Sam said weakly.
Al shouted into the phone: “Sam, I can’t get Ziggy to centre on you unless the younger you takes a vacay in Frisco.”
Sam looked up at him. “Wait, what?”
“That’s the favour I told you I needed.” Al gave him a forced smile. “How’d you like to go on a road trip with me? Take some time off from your workload and find yourself… in a more literal sense than the expression usually implies.”
Sam spent a moment in silence as he tried to figure out ways this could not be happening. Right now, a dream was the most likely candidate. One very strange, long dream.
“Al,” came the older Sam’s voice, “is he freaking out?”
“Of course I am,” Sam replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. Behind Al, Jay was looking at him with a worried expression. Sam held the handset against his chest.
“Would you mind giving me some privacy?”
Jay stood. “Sure… I don’t know who you’re talking to, but you look like you’re having an existential crisis over there. Good luck?”
He grabbed his wallet and headed out of the room. Sam breathed out, and returned the phone to his ear.
“Say, was that Jay Lindell?” the Sam on the other end of the phone mused. “I think he’s gonna drop out next semester. You might be able to convince him not to, though. Try hiding his guitar so he doesn’t waste his time thinking he’s gonna be a rockstar. Believe me, he’s better off in IT.”
“Okay, just slow down,” Sam pleaded. “What’s all this about San Francisco…?”
“Al’s presence is linked to my mesons and neurons, and by extension, yours,” the Sam on the phone explained. “He keeps me in communication with the future by appearing as a hologram. But something got a little cross-wired along the way and he ended up tethered to you instead of me.”
Al continued the explanation: “I can only go a few miles from my central point, which is you. So I need you to go to San Francisco, so I can talk to the right version of you.”
“And you expect me to what, up and leave all my obligations?”
“Don’t you want to find out more about your future?” the Sam on the phone tempted. “I’m working on something pretty major right now. Bet you’d love to hear all about it.”
Sam fell back onto the pile of papers spread out on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, curling the phone cord between his fingers.
“Let’s assume I went. Wouldn’t messing with my studies change the future? I have something like eight papers to turn in before Christmas break, and a practical engineering project.”
“Piece of cake. Should have all the resources you need here, and you can pick my brain if you need help.”
Sam pursed his lips.
“Can… can you call me back tomorrow? I need to make sure I’m not dreaming all of this.”
“Sure thing,” the older Sam said. “Same time tomorrow? Make sure to have an answer for me. I really need Al’s assistance to help get back to my, uh… just let me know, okay?”
“Okay…”
Sam hung up the phone, and stared at Al for a moment, who tapped his cigar, letting ash fall, which disappeared before it hit the floor.
“You’re still stuck with me for a while, but I’ll leave you be for tonight,” he said with a wink, and tapped on the weird flashing thing in his palm. “See ya round, kid.”
A Star Trek style door slid open behind him, suspended in the middle of the room, and filled with white light – which had been what initially caught Sam’s eye when Al had first appeared in the lecture hall – and he stepped through the doorway, giving a quick wave before the door shut, and he was gone, along with any trace of the mystery door.
Sam looked at the clock, and realised, as his head began to swim, that he’d better head to the hospital.