Project Quantum Leap – December 21, 2002
The facility was quiet. Quieter than it had been in many years, Al realised. A handful of essential staff remained, with the rest given Christmas and New Years off. Sam was off with Donna, packing for a trip to Hawaii to see his family. Al, Beth, and a couple of his daughters were set to join them. But, for now, Al wandered the empty corridors, wondering what was to come.
As he poked a head in to Ziggy’s mainframe, he spotted a crouched figure by the gizmo that Quinn had connected to Ziggy a few weeks back. But it wasn’t Quinn – the person was much shorter, and wore a grey suit.
“Wha–” Al stuttered, prompting the figure to turn. “Senator Grady? The heck?”
The senator looked startled for a moment, before he stood, composing himself and flashing Al a winning smile.
“Admiral, how lovely to see you,” he said.
Al narrowed his eyes at the man. He’d been stuck to the whole operation like glue of late, and it had been rubbing him the wrong way.
“I didn’t know you had clearance to be in here,” Al tested.
Grady held out a hand. “Now, now, I have full clearance for this facility. Doctor Beckett granted me a pass.”
That doesn’t sound like something Sam would do.
Al leaned over to inspect the machine the Senator had been hunched over. “This whole room’s full of mucho sensitive tech, Senator. Wouldn’t want it being put outta whack, you know?”
“Oh, I’d never dream of touching this equipment, Admiral,” Grady said. “I had just heard so much about this contraption from your slider friends, I wanted to see it for myself. Quite a marvel.”
“Yeah, it’s swell,” Al said, with rising suspicion. “Look, I think it’s better if you only come in here supervised, Senator. This room ain’t your ordinary server room.”
Grady bowed his head. “I understand. I apologise for any breach of protocol of which I might be guilty. Do escort me out, my good man.”
He left the room, still smiling, as Al carefully followed him to the elevator that led back to the surface.
“Merry Christmas, Admiral,” he said, waving as the door closed on him.
Al frowned, and spun around, returning to the mainframe.
“Ziggy, gimme a full report on Grady and what he’s been doing here lately,” he called up to Ziggy’s orb, as he took a close look at the crystal storage device.
He was not particularly versed in how this thing worked, but he could see that all the quartz receptacles were filled with a crystal. Still, that didn’t mean it hadn’t somehow been tampered with.
“Certainly, Al,” Ziggy said. “Printing a full report now. The Senator has not interfered with my systems, I’m pleased to report. However, I have observed a significant number of probing questions he has asked staff members.”
“Probing…?” Al tilted his head. “Like what?”
“I calculate a 66.2 per cent probability that his line of questioning was an attempt to learn details of my security features.”
Al balled his hands into fists. “That little weasel. Ziggy, revoke his access to the building.”
“I do love a good revocation,” Ziggy murmured. “The Senator’s access rights have now been purged.”
Al sighed with relief. “Good. Now, was it really Sam who gave him the all-access pass?”
“My records indicate that Senator Grady did not have mainframe access privileges.”
Al stared at the glowing orb, incredulous. “Then how the hell’d he get in here?”
Ziggy was quiet for a little too long.
“Ziggy?”
“It appears I have a gap in my records, Admiral.” Ziggy’s voice was almost shaky.
“You just said he didn’t interfere!”
“Yes, I’m afraid that was an error on my part; I was unaware of the change until I attempted to access the record. It seems I may have experienced some form of undetectable glitch that suspended my processes. Running diagnostics.”
Al glared at the orb, then pulled his handlink from his pocket, waving it around. “You contact me directly as soon as you have answers, Ziggy. And keep checking for any other… gaps.”
“I already am, Admiral.”
As Al hurried out of the room, bound for his office, Ziggy added: “I’m sorry.”
* * *
Sam stood, staring blankly into the closet. Musty clothes hung on the rail, stuff he obviously hadn’t touched in seven long years.
“Can you tell me if any of this stuff is out of style?” he said to Donna, who was behind him, loading things into their suitcase.
“I don’t think anyone will care if it is,” she said, giving him a lopsided smile.
He pursed his lips as he looked the button-ups, pants, and occasional t-shirt. “Guess I never was on the cutting edge of style, was I?”
It seemed ironic to Sam that he was used to the fashion style of every decade but his own.
He pulled out a few plain, inconspicuous shirts, and threw them on the bed. The only present-day fashion he’d seen for all those years was Al, and he was hardly the norm at the best of times. But, he figured, he couldn’t really go wrong with a smart, neutral toned shirt and some jeans or khakis, and a pair of leather lace-up shoes. Those stood the test of time. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in any leap with something along those lines. He was in the business of not looking out of place, after all.
“We can get you a nice Hawaiian shirt when we get there,” Donna suggested, peering down at the shirts. “Might look a little more vacation-y than these… safe… choices.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, inspecting a dusty coat. “It doesn’t get very cold in Hawaii, does it?”
Donna snorted. “Winter temperatures are known to occasionally reach a positively frigid sixty degrees. Most you’ll need is a windbreaker, I’d guess.”
“Good, good,” he muttered, as he lost the will to continue, and flopped onto the edge of the bed. Donna looked at him with concern.
“Sam, are you doing okay?” She took a seat beside him.
“It’s nothing,” he said, but he knew she knew that was a lie. She looked him in the eye.
“Come on, talk to me, would you? No sense bottling everything up.”
Sam rubbed his eyes. “I was just hoping to have a nice vacation with family, and then I’d worry about everything on my mind. Can’t we do that?”
Donna frowned. “Looks like you’re already worrying about it now. So all it’s gonna do is spoil the nice vacation with family because you’ll be in your own head the whole time. Just get it off your chest now, Sam.”
She was right, of course. She was always right. He pulled his legs up onto the bed, and leaned back on the pillow. He unceremoniously pushed off the shirts, which fell to the floor in a pile, before patting the bed next to him for Donna to join him. She did so as he stared up to the ceiling, taking a deep breath.
“So, uh… Sammy Jo,” he said, looking at Donna to gauge her reaction. Her face remained expressionless.
“Sammy Jo,” she echoed, through a sigh.
“I take it you know…”
She nodded. “Of course I do.”
“Yeah. I figured as much.”
He felt Donna’s hand grasp his. “But she doesn’t.”
“Figured that, too.”
“We all agreed you’d be the one to tell her, if you ever came home.” Donna squeezed his hand. “I realise it won’t be an easy thing to do.”
You can say that again.
“That’s not the only thing I’m struggling with right now,” Sam admitted. “Though, it’s top of the list.”
He turned to meet her eye. “You know I love you more than anything, right?”
Donna nodded, but her glistening eyes betrayed her apparent knowledge of where this was going.
“I suppose Al has already told you, then.”
“You’re gonna leap away again,” she choked out. “Yeah, I know…”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Donna said, wiping her eyes with her free hand. “I understand. You have a… calling. It’s something you need to do. Don’t let me stand in the way, Sam.”
“It’s not alright, though,” he said, biting his lip and looking upward again. “Did… did you know that we’re only together because of a leap?”
Donna nodded. “I did.”
“At the time I had no idea I’d be leaping for so long, so I didn’t think twice. But now I realise what a complete jackass I was to help heal your fear of abandonment, only to abandon you. Who in their right mind would do something like that?
“I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. So if you want to… you know… divorce… that’s okay. You can build a life with someone else, and–”
Donna took a hold of his cheeks and turned his head to face hers.
“Sam, I’ve had more time than you to deal with this reality. I have memories of you leaving that only exist because you left to begin with, which is not the easiest thing to wrap my mind around.
“Until recently, I thought of myself as just like Beth, waiting for a husband missing in action to return home. Then you had that conversation with Al, and I realised that standing in your way of leaping was going to be futile.”
She drew in a long, shaky breath, and let it out.
“I realise these may be the final days of us being together. And that’s okay. If you really want to ‘set me free’ by divorcing me, I’ll sign the papers. But I’ll never think of you as anything but my husband, even if you’re off in time romancing some woman. Even if you don’t remember me.”
It was Sam’s turn to be choked up. “I’ve put you through enough pain, haven’t I?”
Donna smiled through her tears. “Why don’t you make it up to me now?”
She kissed him, and moved in close. Sam was a little emotionally wrung out to make love, but he reciprocated as best he could.
Then Donna’s cell phone started ringing.
The lovers looked at one another for a moment, before Donna sighed, and looked at the caller ID.
“Al’s calling from his office,” she said, her expression turning serious. “Should I answer?”
Sam furrowed his brow, wondering why he might be calling from there. “Yeah, you’d better.”
Blip. “Hi Al, what’s up?”
Sam watched the colour drain from her face. “I see. I’ll put Sam on.” She shakily passed him the phone.
“Al, what’s goin’ on?”
“Hate to interrupt the vacation, pal, but we got a great big politician-shaped problem on our hands. I’m callin’ an emergency meeting.”
Oh boy.