Quinn stretched as he peered around at the now way over-populated hotel suite. Bodies reclined on the beds, and couches. The only one who was missing was Colin. But he was a big boy, and it wasn’t that late.
Maggie sat up in her bed, but she had an eye mask over her face, in an attempt to keep out the overhead light that seemed to cause her some pain.
His Dad was watching Saturday Night Live, along with Rembrandt and the two Sams.
“This show’s going to keep going for at least another fifteen years,” Sam told his younger double. Quinn looked at the TV to see Walter Matthau in a bee costume, and immediately lost interest.
“It’s extremely hit or miss,” he said with a wry smile, and the young Sam – who they’d decided would be referred to as ‘John,’ his middle name, to avoid confusion – looked back at him with a smile and a raised eyebrow, that suggested he agreed.
He and Sam then looked to an empty part of the room, reminding Quinn that there was yet another person here that he couldn’t see.
“Oh, apparently it’s still going in 2002,” Sam said. “And, still just as hit or miss, Al says.”
Rembrandt sighed. “Not on this world it ain’t.”
John stared at him for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘this world?’”
“What, they haven’t told you what’s going on yet?” Rembrandt glanced at Sam and Quinn with surprise.
“We wanted to ease him into it,” Quinn explained. “He did just get here like two hours ago, and he’s already had to process a few things.”
“Well, ease away,” said John.
“Okay, so, while you were inventing time travel,” Quinn began, rubbing the back of his neck, “I was inventing interdimensional travel.”
John tilted his head with surprise. “You’re kidding?”
Sam continued: “And I’m actually not so much the future you as a parallel you. But… also from the future.”
“Wait, wait,” John said, “Al mentioned something to do with a ‘wormhole’ when I was on the phone to you. Are you telling me that was the–”
Quinn and Sam joined him, in unison, as he said: “Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky Bridge.”
“Yeah,” Quinn confirmed. “There’s a lot to explain, and you’re welcome to join us in the lab tomorrow.”
John’s eyes shone with excitement. “Suddenly, writing a paper about the technology behind dial-up bulletin board systems seems insignificant.”
“Yeah, the computer tech of this time period is a serious time sink,” Quinn said, shaking his head. “Everything is so clunky and slow.”
“Um, fellas?” came a quiet voice that Quinn hadn’t heard all evening. He turned towards Maggie, who had her hand raised. Along with the eye mask, she looked pretty weird to Quinn, causing him to stifle a laugh.
“Why don’t you just use Higgins?”
Quinn felt his breath catch, and he met Sam’s eye, who looked just as stunned. Why did it take someone at death’s door to remind them of the obvious?
“Why didn’t we think of that?” Sam said, slapping himself in the forehead. “Higgins is far more sophisticated than anything from 1978.”
“What’s a Higgins?” John asked.
Quinn thought for a moment. “You know Knight Rider? No, wait, that’s from the eighties…”
“Uh… how about HAL 9000,” supplied Sam with an amused snort. “But without the bloodlust.”
“What did we do with the car?” Quinn asked. He merely recalled Rembrandt driving it to the hotel on the day of their arrival, and dropping them off to bring Maggie in.
“It’s in a quiet street with a tarp strapped to it,” Rembrandt said. “Covered it as best I could.”
Quinn nodded. “Alright, I’ll definitely be cannibalising it tomorrow.”
He turned towards the bathroom, thinking about brushing his teeth, but turned the other way as the door of the suite opened, to reveal a pale-looking Colin.
“You alright, bro?”
Colin looked at him with the expression he’d last seen when his brother had thought he’d seen a ghost.
“Um. I don’t know. Maybe.” His gaze moved to Sam, who was rising from the couch with some concern. “Do… do you know some bartender called Al?”
Quinn watched Sam’s expression instantly flick from mild concern to frantic astonishment. Sam crossed to Colin, and pushed him back out the door.
“Give us a minute,” he muttered, and they were gone.
* * *
Sam closed the door and began to pace the hall as Colin watched him silently, his eyes wide. First thing, Sam figured, was making sure they were on the same page.
“Can you describe him? Where was he? What did he tell you?” he asked.
“Middle aged, portly, has a moustache,” Colin said. “Unnervingly easy to talk to. I found him in a bar, but…”
“And he mentioned me?” Sam’s head was swimming.
“He said to tell you ‘hi.’”
Colin was still looking very out of sorts. What advice had the guy given him to cause this reaction?
“What bar?”
“It was called ‘Al’s Place.’ But it was so strange, nobody was in there, and when I left, it was like it had been closed all along. I thought I’d imagined the whole thing, but…”
He pulled a red paper umbrella from his pocket, and turned it over in his hand. “It couldn’t have been just my imagination, right?”
“No, he’s… he’s real, alright,” Sam said, leaning against the wall, and dragging a hand over his mouth.
“Who is he? I got the feeling he knew more than he let on. Is he a time traveller too?”
“I don’t know what he is, exactly,” Sam said, coming short of pinning the label of ‘God’ onto the man. “But whatever he told you, it was important. I only ever met him the one time, and he helped me make an important decision. If he spoke to you, it was probably to help you decide something big, too.”
Colin’s anxiety seemed to melt into a pensive look into space.
“My father left me with a decision, if you remember,” he said, after taking a few drawn out breaths.
Sam nodded. “Your younger self in the orphanage.”
“But I’ve been unable to get past the unpredictable effects any change will have on my life, and that of everyone else.”
“And that’s what he was talking about with you?”
“He didn’t say much of substance. But, he did say that I’d be the same in here,” Colin said, pointing to the left side of his chest. He sighed.
“I’m a lot more worried about up here, though.” He tapped his temple. “What are we, but the sum of our thoughts and experiences? Would I cease to be, as you see me? Would any of this have happened to me?”
Sam patted him on the arm. “It’s a big deal, I know.”
He leaned in, as the memories of the decision he’d made at the version of Al’s Place in 1953 crystallised in his mind, as if Al the Bartender had reached into his brain and unlocked them in the last twenty minutes. “But, you know, sometimes…”
He looked down the hall, wistful. “Sometimes, deep down, far beyond the rational part of your mind, you just know the right thing to do. You feel it. And maybe you have to sacrifice something to do it, but you never regret it.”
He straightened, breaking the tension with a shrug. “I know, I know. Not very sciencey. But I think that was maybe the point of that visit you got.”
Colin gave him a slow nod, as he absorbed Sam’s words.
“Thanks,” he murmured. “I’ll take all of this under advisement.”