The roller door of the warehouse slowly ascended, revealing Sam’s presence from the feet up. When it was finally high enough for the tall man to pass under it, Quinn leaned over, and met Sam’s eye as he stepped inside.
“Good morning,” he said, with a wide grin. Sam placed his hand on Quinn’s shoulder.
“Good to see you again,” he said, in a most sincere tone.
Quinn struggled to separate his recently altered memories of the Earth Prime version of Sam from what he could recall from his experience with this version. It wasn’t easy; the new timeline had provided him with a long history with the double, starting from age eleven. But he knew that none of that had happened for this Sam, nor Quinn himself the last time they had seen one another, not technically.
Boy, time travel is a headache. Hope that’s the last I need to do of it.
“Come on,” he said, leading Sam through the plain-looking warehouse. “We’re a little less fancy here than the Project, but there’s only the four of us.”
He glanced back. “Well, plus Sammy Jo, and the army guys monitoring the CCTV and audio.”
“What have you been doing here?” Sam asked, looking around at the wooden crates and forklifts.
“On this level? Nothin’; this is all front. The Committee had this set up for us after we explained what we needed to do.”
“You had to deal with them too, huh?” Sam looked like he’d just smelled something rotten.
Quinn laughed. “Yeah, they’re a bundle of sunshine, huh? Put us through the wringer. But Senator Grady seemed to have our backs. You know him?”
Sam squinted. “No… but, it’s been seven years since I last had the ‘pleasure’ of seeing them. And I think my actions in the past changed the makeup of the committee at least once. So they could be anybody at this point.” He shook his head.
It occurred to Quinn that the ripple effects of changing history could have been quite dramatic. He sure hoped whatever, or whoever, had been assigning Sam to change things was doing it responsibly.
Quinn gestured to a large steel shipping container against the far wall. “Anyway, for the fun part, we gotta go in there.”
He flashed a grin at Sam, who was eyeing the setup with guarded interest. “Remember Higgins?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”
Quinn felt like he was bursting with excitement to explain all of this to Sam, who’d last seen Higgins in his reverse-engineered state back in ’78.
“Just follow me,” he said, and waved a keycard over a door set into the shipping container, before pushing it open. Inside was a set of false crates, which opened up to reveal a staircase leading down.
He led Sam down, and used a fingerprint scanner to open the next door, at the base of the stairs. He held it open for Sam, who entered the corridor lit with fluorescent lights.
“There’s not a whole lot to this place,” Quinn explained. “We have two labs and the rest is basically just where we live. We’re on kind of a tight leash.”
He stopped at a door labelled simply with the number 6, and swiped his keycard. The red light on the reader flipped to green, and he pushed the door open, leading Sam into a casually laid out room, with three couches and a TV, among some other leisurely comforts.
On the couches sat Colin, Maggie, and Rembrandt, who each turned their heads towards the doorway.
“This is the common room,” Quinn said, and stood holding the door as Sam entered. He smiled warmly at everyone, as Maggie sprung from her seat and ran to him.
“Hey, Uncle Sam,” she said, giving him a tight hug. “I’m so glad they could bring you back.”
Sam leaned into the embrace. “Me too, Maggie.”
Still wrapped in the hug, he held a hand out to Rembrandt, who gave it a shake.
“Great to see you again, brother. So, you really came straight from ’78 to here?”
Sam nodded.
“I last saw you all just a couple of days ago from my perspective.” He gestured to Colin. “And I saw you on both sides of my leap, which was a little disorienting, since you’d changed so much.”
Colin looked sheepish. “Yeah, I guess that must’ve been a head trip. But it was the first chance I had to try out the Reality Lens for myself.”
He chuckled, scratching his head. “Guess all it did was confirm that there wasn’t an illusion at all, because it was the real you there.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Sam laughed.
Quinn sat on the arm of one of the couches. “So, I’m sure you’re itching to know why we came here, and why we’ve been working here for three years.”
“Correct.”
Quinn glanced towards Colin, who nodded back. “Come with us to the labs.”
* * *
There were two large rooms designated labs, which were well stocked with various electronic components and computers, but Sam was puzzled to see no particular work going on. Nothing was being built, nothing worked on.
After Quinn explained to him that he had just recently integrated Ziggy with a significantly advanced Higgins, he realised that their work in this place was more or less over with.
Quinn and Colin described what they had found when they had returned to Earth Prime; what his counterpart had built there. A project that could only possibly have come about after their visit in 1978. A combination of two technologies that wouldn’t have been developed for over fifteen more years if not for their interference.
His double’s life had certainly taken a different route to what it might have to begin with, and his niece; well, he was just glad she had finally found her purpose. And it was as noble as a purpose could get: attempting to prevent a terrible future.
But, as Quinn had explained, something had gone wrong in 1998. She failed to prevent her Earth’s destruction, and that’s why Quinn and his friends had brought Higgins here: to finish the job.
And Sam now understood that, sooner or later, the person who’d be leaping off to help would be him.
And he was okay with that.
As the three of them entered the corridor, Sam paused as he noted two people entering the facility: one, an older looking gentleman in a suit and tie, neatly styled grey hair and the physique of someone who spent most of his days seated. The other was a woman. He guessed her age to be somewhere in her thirties, with brown hair, and her face was familiar to him.
As he gawked at her, she looked back with what Sam took to be an expression of wonder.
“Ah, here she is,” said Colin.
“Sammy Jo?” Sam said, as a smile tickled at his lips.
“H-hi, Doctor Beckett,” she replied, and held a hand out to him. “I’m humbled that you know my name.”
Sam took her hand with both of his, and realised that he had no memories of her other than his brief time with her as a child, when she saw him as an old lawyer. And it seemed that she might not be aware that she was his biological daughter.
“Well, I’ve heard… good things about you,” he said, with a warm smile and lingering eye contact.
The man beside her cleared his throat, and Sammy Jo stiffened.
“Oh, right,” she said with a flustered breath, before gesturing to the man. “I’d like to introduce you to Senator Terrence Grady. He heard that you’d returned, and insisted on meeting you.”
The senator gave Sam a cheerful nod. “Doctor Beckett, I almost can’t believe my eyes.” His heavily accented voice reminded Sam of Foghorn Leghorn.
He offered his hand, which Sam accepted, and gave a forceful handshake.
“Have we met?” Sam asked through narrow eyes. He didn’t recognise the man one bit.
“We have now,” said Grady with a wink. “I was added to the Committee back in ’99, and when I heard about your work you coulda knocked me down with a feather.”
“Senator Grady has been our biggest advocate since then,” Sammy Jo explained. “He’s saved us from a few budget crunches.”
Sam’s discomfort gave way to gratitude. “Well, thank you, sir.”
Grady gave a polite nod. “Now, while I’m here, I wouldn’t mind speaking to the – what do you call yourselves? Sliders?”
“Us?” Quinn asked, surprised.
“Yes. I’d like to get a feel for how your work is going, if you need anything. I can always pull some strings to make your life easier.”
The senator strolled to the bewildered Quinn, placing a chummy arm around him. “Please, do show me around, my boy. I want to know everything that goes on here.”
Sam watched Quinn lead him back toward the labs. Colin gave a quick awkward glance before heading up the hall to join them, and Sam was left alone with Sammy Jo.
He looked at her, with facial features that combined Abigail’s with his own. It was strange, and slightly disturbing, as he thought back to his time in Potterville. What had possessed him to do such a thing, anyway? Because that was indeed how it had felt when he’d… conceived her. Like being possessed. Which held a certain irony.
All that was to say, he was unprepared for this reunion with his unlikely offspring, and he was lost for words.
“Uh… so…” he mumbled.
“So…” Sammy Jo repeated, which devolved into a nervous giggle. “I’m sorry. I’m not much of a conversationalist.”
Sam gave a weak snort. “Yeah… evidently, neither am I.”
Jeez, this is a pathetic display. Ask her something about herself.
“Uh, how did you come to work for the Project?”
Okay, that works.
“I was hired by Doctor Elesee back in ’97,” she said, her face lighting up. “Just after I published a paper on residual temporal anomalies that I subsequently learned were caused by your leaps. I had to retract the paper for national security purposes, which was a shame.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sam said. Had he inadvertently sabotaged her career?
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “Really. Being privy to the most amazing secret ever is way cooler than some academic credentials.”
Apparently you’re not in on all of the secrets.
Sam’s heart weighed heavy. He didn’t know whether it was a good idea to come clean. There was a lot to talk over with Al, Donna, and perhaps Ziggy, too.
“I’d like to hear more about your paper,” he said. “Wanna grab a coffee or somethin’?”
Sammy Jo nodded. “Sure,” she said, with a bubbling excitement that Sam found endearing.
As she turned to open room 6, Sam’s smile faded as he tried to decide what to do about all this.
I’m going to be saying goodbye to her before long. Doesn’t she deserve the truth? But then, I’ll be abandoning her all over again, won’t I?