John was absorbed in reading over Nexus Quinn’s notes when his handlink vibrated and lit up with the message: ‘Incoming comms from W. Arturo.’ He answered the call distractedly.
“Hey there, Will. Something up?” he said into the handlink.
“No– uh, I mean yes, but it’s not urgent,” the mid-thirties programmer said. “Higgins was just picking up a strange anomaly… I don’t know if it’s related to anything we’re doing, but it just passed through our spacetime coordinates briefly. We got a track on it for about three minutes before the connection was severed.”
John stroked his chin. “Anomaly? You got anything more… descriptive?”
“Not really, it’s just an energy trace that didn’t fit our local signatures. But you’ll never guess where we tracked it to before losing it.”
John waited a moment, before deciding Will was waiting on a reply. “Do continue,” he said, amused.
“December second, 1978.”
“You’re kidding me…” The call had only been mildly interesting, before now. “Well, definitely update me if we detect it again.”
December 1978, when his whole life changed course. Perhaps it was a nexus point in time, or maybe it was pure chance, but it sure didn’t seem like an accident that this anomaly had bounced through there.
“We will, Doc. We have the geolocation of where it appeared, so I’ll set up a sensor there that should alert us if it passes through again.”
“Good man,” John said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
He disconnected the call, and realised that Quinn was finishing up the work he was doing. John committed as much of what he saw to memory as he could before the papers were put away and the computer was shut down, before following him out of the basement.
It was around six at night, and Wade was cleaning up a messy Cory sitting at the kitchen table, in front of a half-eaten plate of vegetables. Cory’s eyes rested on John, and he gave a small wave.
“Magic Sam!” the boy said, pointing. John scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
“Yep… that’s me. Magic… Magic Sam.”
Even though he knew the two adults in front of him couldn’t see him, he felt exposed, as they both looked in the direction of Cory’s finger.
“Magic Sam?” Quinn asked, looking at Wade, questioning. She shrugged.
“I have no idea, he’s been babbling about ‘Magic Sam’ for a couple of hours,” she said, wiping down the table. “Since he watched his Barney tape. Maybe it’s something on there.”
Quinn chuckled. “Sounds like a euphemism,” he said, eyeing her.
Wade moved close to him. “I’d like to see your Magic Sam.”
John felt his cheeks burn as he watched them get much closer than a married man and his child’s nanny ever should. Alarmed, he moved to Cory and placed a hand over the boy’s eyes.
“You don’t need to see this,” he said with a nervous laugh. “And for that matter, neither do I.”
As he watched Quinn press Wade against the kitchen bench, mid-smooch, he felt his embarrassment harden into anger.
“You two need to cool it. There’s a child right here, for Pete’s sake!” He looked down at Cory. “Is this what they get up to every time Mommy’s at work?”
In response, Cory held up his arms, gesturing his desire to be picked up. John gave him a sad look.
“Sorry Cory, Magic Sam’s too… uh, magical to pick you up,” he said, passing his arms through the bewildered boy. “Why don’t you give me a big scream, huh? Three, two, one–”
Sam yelled out at the top of his lungs, and Cory joined in. As soon as he noticed the two stop their makeout session, he cut his shout, and Cory’s faded out shortly thereafter.
“What was that about, kiddo?” Quinn asked, looking at his son with some incredulity.
“Nice work,” John said to Cory, leaning down to his level. “Whenever Daddy and Wade start doing that in front of you, you scream just like that until they stop, okay?”
Cory nodded, with a giggle.
“Well, we did get a little carried away there,” Wade said, sheepishly wiping her mouth with her hand.
Quinn gave her a wicked grin. “I guess we did.”
He turned to his son. “Say, is it bed time yet, little man?”
“He had a decent sized nap this afternoon, so he’ll be awake for a while,” Wade said, with a wistful sigh. She picked him up.
Quinn groaned. “What a pain.”
John looked at Cory, eyebrows raised. “Your Daddy’s a real piece of work, you know that?”
His gaze shifted towards Wade, as she placed the child on the living room floor. “You don’t have much in the way of positive role models ’round here, do you?”
He sighed, and sat himself on the floor.
“Well, I’ll keep you company for a while. How’s that sound?”
He held out a hand, which Cory attempted to grab, only for his hand to slip through the hologram. He found this extremely funny, and fell to the floor with giggles.
John wondered if any version of Sam Beckett across the multiverse got to have a normal family life like the one Nexus Quinn was squandering, or if they were all doomed to be isolated weirdos with no love life to speak of, like him, or lost in the sands of time, like his double from Sherri’s dimension.
Well, he figured, there were infinite possibilities. It must have happened somewhere.
* * *
Arturo’s eyes scanned the four sliders, lingering on Quinn for a moment longer than the others. He then reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a familiar wand attachment. Quinn’s eyes lit up.
The spacetime distortion detector…
The Professor held out the wand, and started scanning the group.
“Kromagg cloaking has a remarkably similar signature to the leaper aura, so I adapted this old thing to detect their trickery,” he explained.
The detector gave no response until he brought it near Quinn’s fused form, when it started hammering with clicks. Arturo’s eyes popped open, and he took several steps back.
Quinn fought through a streak of pain in his head, as he stepped towards the Professor, who he knew, but was sure had died at some point.
“Professor… I…” was all he could vocalise out of the swirling, disjointed thoughts in his mind.
Arturo looked at him from under a creased brow. “Who is this gentleman?” His voice was laced with mistrust, and Quinn felt his heart ache at the lack of recognition.
“It’s me, Quinn,” he managed to say, as he let the desperation he felt in his gut bring out the words of the Quinn who knew this guy. “I was merged into a superposition of two parallel versions of myself. I think it’s the same process as what happened to Maggie, only it was an intentional act this time around.”
As pain shot through his head like a lightning strike, Maggie finished his thought.
“I hope you still have the machine, Professor. ’Cause I think Quinn’s progression is going faster than mine.”
Quinn felt the Professor’s eyes burning into him. He forced his own eyes open, and they made contact. Arturo looked troubled, but as he glared into Quinn’s eyes, his expression softened.
“We’ll need to make some adjustments, but I have the bones of the machine,” he said, as his defensive posture eased.
He stepped aside, allowing the group to see the large control room beyond.
“Welcome to Project Long Jump,” he said. “We were once quite a bustling little operation, but I’m afraid I’m the only one here now.”
He headed through the room, as everyone followed, and continued to explain.
“Doctor Beckett and I created this place with a greater purpose in mind: to prevent the Kromagg invasion.”
He paused, letting his shoulders drop. “As you can plainly see, we… were not successful.”
“Professor…” Quinn said as his head vibrated, “didn’t you… um, die?”
Arturo’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m afraid that must have been my ill-fated double.”
He looked towards Rembrandt. “I’m sure you must remember, Mister Brown. Two versions of me grappling, and only one made it into the wormhole.”
Quinn felt his heart skip a beat. They had the wrong one?
Rembrandt’s jaw dropped. “My god. We had no clue…”
“It proved of some benefit to me,” Arturo continued. “While I regret having put my double in harm’s way, it did allow me the time and resources to return back here, using the information I had committed to memory.”
“The notebook!” Colin cried, eyes lighting up. “Do you still have that?”
Arturo nodded. “It’s been hidden away here since we built this facility.”
Colin met Quinn’s eye. “That may give us some answers,” he said.
“Well, come along,” Arturo said, beckoning to the group from a doorway. “There’s much to discuss, but I suppose the matter of Mister Mallory should come first.”