“So, Alia, what’s your story?”
John wasn’t about to get on a motorcycle – without a helmet – with a girl for whom he knew only the name. Which Sam did she know, and how? And, perhaps more importantly, what was that beeping device attached to her handlebars, anyway?
Alia laughed. “We really don’t have time to go into all that,” she said. “Maybe after we get where I’m going, I can fill you in.”
“You gotta give me somethin’,” he retorted. “I don’t know anything about you. Where are we even going?”
She sighed. “Okay, I’m tracing something.” She waved a hand towards the device.
“An energy burst, consistent with…” she hesitated. “What do you know about leaping? You must know something if you knew about swiss-cheesing.”
John crossed his arms, smug. “I know as much as anyone about my own work, thank you very much. Just, in my reality I wasn’t the one who did the field work. I ran everything else.”
“Okay, we’ll have to circle back to what you mean by ‘your reality,’” she said, her brow furrowed. “Anyway, this device detects the leap energy from Lothos, which is an advanced computer that used to control my leaps.”
She’s a leaper?
John took a troubled look down at the dusty ground. This had been a frustrating day to say the least. And now there was yet another leaper program?
“You’re on the trail of someone?”
Her face had grown pale, and her eyes had a far off look. “I guess you could say that,” she murmured. “The surge could have been a leap in, or a leap out. I can’t tell. When we reach the epicentre of the surge, we could find either an active leaper, or just someone whose life was already ruined.”
“Ruined?” John tilted his head.
“Not all leapers have good intentions.” Alia’s mouth straightened, her eyes rimmed with red.
Then, she shook away the grave look, and met his eye.
“You… uh, I mean the Sam I know, helped me escape from them. I don’t know how, but I woke up in 1999. Since then, I’ve been waiting for my chance to get a hit on the tracker.”
John stroked his chin, pacing.
If there’s a Q, maybe there’s a Q with a goatee with his own agenda? Oh great. Which all-powerful being doomed Sherri, anyway?
“I wish I knew what world this was,” he lamented aloud. He hoped if he vocalised his thoughts, he could make better sense of what was happening. “It’s definitely not mine, if there wasn’t an invasion and it’s 2002. But that bartender in there, he just kept saying something about friends showing up, and…”
He looked at Alia. “Two thousand two was the other me’s contemporary year. Maybe…”
He squinted. “The Sam you know, he’s obviously a leaper. Can you describe more about him?”
She had just been watching him pace and gesticulate with a curious look. But now her expression grew warm.
“Okay… well, he was always on a mission to help people. Even me. He had a hologram who was named Al – maybe the same as your friend? And his computer, I think it was called Ziggy.”
That certainly lines up. Maybe Q’s in my corner after all?
“I once met an older version of myself,” he said. “It may be the one you know; and if it is, then I think I owe that bartender my gratitude.”
He stopped, and made a beeline for the motorcycle.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
* * *
Four Months Earlier
(Relative to John)
The day’s slaving had come to a close, and Sherri’s ‘unit’ was sent back to their sardine can quarters. Sherri hadn’t seen John for a while, and was getting nervous.
As silence descended on the cell, and most of its occupants had either gone to sleep, or were doing whatever escapism they engaged in, Sherri sat with the sinking feeling in her stomach that had been with her all day.
“Psst,” a voice whispered, and Tim crept to her bunk. “D’you wanna talk?”
Sherri nodded, patting the space beside her. Tim sat down, smiling.
“How come you ain’t been talking ’til now, anyway?” he asked quietly. She responded with a vague shrug.
“Guess I had to be shaken out of my… uh, status quo… a bit first,” she said cautiously, running fingers through her unruly hair.
Tim looked at her with a quizzical expression, before turning his gaze towards the door.
“Did the zap you got do all that?”
Sherri chuckled. “Sure, that must have been it.”
She reached out, touching his arm with her fingertips. In an effort to stay in character, she let her fingers trace a path to his shoulder, which they settled on.
“Listen, if I… if I told you I had a way for us to get out of here, would you believe me?” She held her breath as a look of sheer incredulity passed over his face.
“Well no, I wouldn’t,” he said plainly. “Since you have no eyes, maybe you can’t see just how impossible the situation really is, darlin’. We’re in it deep.”
He snorted. “And even if we did get out of this treehouse, where’d we go from there? Ain’t nowhere to hide.”
As predicted.
She leaned in, speaking in the lowest whisper she could, in case of surveillance. “I happen to know there’s a man a block or two from here who has a device that can get us away from the ’maggs for good. We just have to get to him.”
“And how would you know that?”
Sherri took a breath.
Time for the gambit.
“The ’maggs aren’t the only ones with… abilities.”
The ‘Psychic Gambit’ was the protocol reserved for times when Sherri would need to provide knowledge her host would never know, without giving away too much. She would claim to have powers such as premonition, remote viewing, mind-reading, or the ability to see and speak to John-shaped ghosts.
It only worked on those occasions where those she told believed in the existence of psychic powers. But in this case, the Kromaggs really did have certain mental powers, so it was hardly a stretch.
“I may not have eyes, but I have… other ways to see.”
Tim looked troubled. “I’d like to believe you, darlin’, but I’ve had my hopes up before, and it never did work out for anybody. Seen good friends die that way.”
Sherri closed her eyes and nodded. “I get it. If you change your mind, give me a shoulder tap, okay?”
He stood off the bed, and she looked up at him. “You look cute with stubble.”
He furrowed his brow as she gave him a knowing smirk.
As he climbed back to his bunk, a new sound came from the hall.
“My god, this place is a maze,” came John’s voice as he wandered, looking into each of the slave quarters. “Sherri, where are you?”
Sherri peered out of her bunk quietly, waving towards the door as he passed. He spotted her, and stopped at the electric field that separated the room from the corridor. He put a finger out to it, and both he and Sherri were startled to see the field respond to his touch. It didn’t shock him, but the diffuse pattern Sherri’s touch had caused in the field earlier was echoed in John’s touch. He looked at her with concern, before skirting around the field, and passing instead through the walls.
“Well, this is… all pretty damn terrible, huh?” he said, glancing around at all the despondent people in the bunks. Sherri nodded.
“Just checking in. You doin’ okay?”
She nodded again.
Given the circumstances…
“Okay. Good.” He looked at her with deep concern, and she realised it might not be for her.
‘What?’ she mouthed.
He rubbed his chin. “I don’t want to concern you with what just happened back home. You need to concentrate on the mission, right?”
Sherri glared. The look had its intended effect, as John flinched.
“Okay, if you must know… remember how I told you about that anomaly Higgins picked up before?”
Sherri raised her eyebrows, nodding once.
What about it?
John bit his lip. “Well it happened again earlier, and I had Will send Al to check it out, since he was free. But the thing is, he never came back, and his cell phone’s out of range, and Higgins can’t even find him.”
Sherri’s mouth dropped open.
He was right, he shouldn’t have told me.
She stared down at the floor, heart racing.
“Our best guess is that whatever that anomaly is, it somehow took him to wherever it went next. Or whenever.”
She brushed a tear from her eye, and bitterly wondered what she looked like to those around her, to be crying with sewn-up eyes.
“I’m sorry,” John said, crouching to meet her eye level. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
Sherri stood, and crossed to the back of the room, where toileting facilities – a grate in the floor and a faucet – were available behind a frosted partition. Once out of the eyeline of the others, she leaned against the wall and tried to bring herself out of her emotional state with breathing exercises.
“If it helps at all,” said John, following, “Higgins has got three escape scenarios lined up that have over fifty per cent odds.”
As Sherri breathed, she made a rotating motion with her hand, prompting further information.
“The first one is 76.1 per cent,” said John. “It involves your friend feigning a medical emergency, and you slip away after they deactivate the field.”
She pursed her lips.
Not only would that put Tim in danger once they see I’m gone, he wouldn’t even be able to escape.
“What else?” she whispered.
“Well, this one’s chances drop to 64.3 per cent. It involves beating up your guards during escort. You gotta liberate their particle weapons and make sure they don’t call for backup.”
“Third option?”
“Well, it’s only 52.8 per cent,” he said with a frown. “You can take your friend with you, but he’ll need to stick close and do everything you tell him.”
Sherri didn’t like any of these choices one bit.
“Thanks. I’ll sleep on it,” she murmured.
Her heart was heavy, as John flicked away to continue his vigil over Nexus Quinn, and she returned to her bunk. She knew she had to put thoughts of Al aside; he wasn’t any use thinking about while she was in this predicament. It was a distraction she just didn’t need.
And as for her choices: well, none of them were ideal. But, at least if she escaped on her own, she wouldn’t put anyone else in further danger. As much as she wished she could help all of these people, there was a lot more at stake.
As she drifted off to sleep, she realised that her decision was made.